A New Adventure – Dave Shay Photography and Tave
Running a business is probably the hardest thing I’ve done with my life. I’ve written this post about six different ways, and I think there’s something to be said for just being honest enough to say that running a business is exhausting. Running a business servicing multiple states is a whole other venture.
This June, in a seven day stretch I shot a wedding in North Carolina on Saturday, a wedding in Virginia on Sunday, two engagement sessions in North Carolina on Monday and Wednesday, a Military Graduation in Alabama on Friday, and a small event in NC again on Saturday (topped off with a charity shoot on Sunday.) While all of the shoots were incredible, what no one but my wife and a few select friends knew was… I did all of that with the Flu. And it was every bit as taxing as it sounds. Laying over in O’Hare isn’t great to begin with. Laying over there after 8 hours of delays with the Flu on a concoction of cold medicines that are definitely not advised? I’d rather talk politics on Facebook.
The saving grace through the whole week (and really for the last two years) was that while I was busy shooting, the business side of things was being maintained… all on its own. While I was either shooting, on an airplane, or in bed feeling like death had finally come for me, (which after getting 7 nuggets in a 5 piece in 2004 I knew the day would come, no one gets that lucky AND gets to live a long life), my clients were all still receiving emails from me checking in with them about their upcoming shoots, they were still getting questionnaires for me to help them plan their day, and new leads were getting the information they needed to book with me.
If you’re completely confused at this point, thinking I have an army of email minions, alas I do not. I do have Táve however, and that is arguably much better (and certainly easier to write off as a business expense).
Once I made the jump to Táve for my studio management software, finally waving goodbye to two years of ShootQ’s empty promises to update literally anything, not only was Táve instrumental in getting my life in order and my business maintained but its reporting features also let me focus my business and gain more clients. Basically, Táve was the best investment I could have made for my business.
And that brings me to some numbers. Táve automates around 40 emails per client for me, including three questionnaires, sending them their contract, and their album ordering. Let’s suppose this takes 5 minutes per email, 20 minutes per questionnaire (which used to be a phone call that was a waste of both our time) and 1 hour for the contract and album ordering process, to be conservative.
I do an average of 30 weddings per year, so we’re looking at 150 minutes of emails, 600 minutes of questionnaires, and 3600 minutes for albums and contracts. 4,350 minutes total = 72 hours of work per year that Táve is now handling for me JUST in automations. If you work for minimum wage, that’s $504/year. (Psst, Táve costs under $300 for the year)
In years past, my wedding lead conversion rate was about 31%. Not terrible when you consider the volume of those leads but could be better. But here’s the thing… Táve lets me track WHERE those leads were coming from AND WHICH of those leads were most likely to book. So with a little bit of attention, and a shift in marketing money, I was able to pour extra money into the things that had a higher likelihood of booking me, and sure enough after one year… my booking rate shot up to 47%. A 16% jump in booking led my company to an extra 10 weddings this year. 10 extra weddings = “I know guac is extra. Hit me.”
Okay, Táve is great. So what?
So, all of that to say that with my original goal of managing a business effectively and leaving time for my family and my community in mind, I am pretty happy to announce that I will be teaming up with Táve a lot more going forward as their Content Specialist and you’ll see me around their support a bit more too. I’ll be creating some videos for them, doing some Facebook live videos, and joining the Táve team at some conferences across the states this year.
What does this change for my wedding clients? Well.. Not really much at all. I’ll be even more dedicated to making sure your entire experience with my company is incredible and that you are well taken care of throughout the whole wedding process. If anything, my role with Táve will help me as a photographer stay on top of my business better. The only noticeable change going forward will be that I will only be accepting 4 out of state events per year. I wish I could take every request I receive, and with weddings in over 20 states already, checking them all off will take a lot longer, but my family needs me, and it’s time to make some adjustments.
What does this change for my photographer friends? A lot. It means I’m taking more time to be a resource for you as a photographer and help you free up your life. You now have one more resource in your corner and if you’re already a Táve user, you’re about to have access to a lot of the tricks I’ve been working on for the last two years, as well as a lot more.
Here’s to a new adventure.
About the images in this post
Any images in this post were taken with combinations of a Nikon D4s, Nikon D750, Nikkor 85mm 1.4G, Nikkor 45mm Tilt Shift, Nikkor 24mm 1.4G. All of the images are color corrected with Adobe Lightroom only and not altered or photoshopped in any way.