While I was out shooting, administrative tasks were piling up. I have to be honest – things were pretty messy behind the scenes. Was I missing emails? Sure thing. Did I forget to respond to clients? Oh yeah. Following up with my leads? Unfortunately not. And, there have been a few embarrassing moments from me sending emails to my wedding couples with wrong information altogether. Yikes!

In a nutshell, booking clients require me to do the following:

• Responding to inquiries
• Sending my pricing packages to wedding photography clients
• Writing proposals to my commercial photography clients
• Sending my initial client questionnaire
• Sending contracts
• Scheduling meetings, consultations, and appointments
• Managing invoices and client billing
• Updating my calendar, so I don’t accidentally double book
• Answering general questions about my services

Then once they book, I have to remember to also:

• Finalize all the wedding-day details
• Remind them to pay the final balance
• Send reminders to my clients about upcoming meetings and projects
• Collect vendor information for my wedding blog
• Request a review after I’ve delivered the photos
• Wish my couples a happy anniversary and follow up with a coupon for a couple’s session
• Send information about wedding albums 

It may not seem like much, but when you have 10-20 leads in contact with you, doing all of that at once is overwhelming! There was no question I needed help in the business management arena. I wasn’t yet at a point to hire an assistant – I was still working full time myself at the time.

I searched high and low for the right studio management software, and let me tell you, and there is a TON to choose from. I found that some were pretty good, most were terrible, but each time I was missing just a little something. I must have gone through 20 trial programs before I found Pixifi.

First, let me say that Pixifi changed my life forever. It gives me back hours of my time every day, and that time is precious to me. The less I spend behind the computer managing admin tasks, the more time I have to work with clients, network, and to make my business thrive. 

Pixifi is more than just a business management tool. It gives me complete control to automate certain aspects of my business. If you haven’t yet begun to dive into business automation, check out my post about it.

Overview

 Lead Pipelines

One of my favorite features of Pixifi is the lead pipeline. I have statuses that help me quickly see where my potential brides are in the booking process. I can easily manage my leads by dragging and dropping them into columns that trigger other automatic actions, such as follow up emails, questionnaires, and more.

Workflows

Workflows can be applied to any client, project, or event, either manually or automatically, depending on the parameters you set in the system. You can use workflows to respond to inquiries with an email or text. You can also use them to schedule future emails and questionnaires with your clients. I have many workflows for each different type of client I book. I also use different workflows for before they book me, and after they become my client. This ensures I am sending the right emails at the right time to my contacts!

Note – Using workflows with the lead pipeline statuses together can make powerful automation sequences!

Contracts

Before Pixifi, it was impossible to keep track of paper contracts. Now, my clients can review and sign them easily on any device. Pixifi comes loaded with pre-set contract templates, too!

The best part is that I can make my contracts require a deposit to be paid upon signing, making it faster and easier for my clients as well. Everyone wins!

Booking Pages & Appointment Scheduling

I live for Pixifi booking pages. I mean seriously. It’s probably my second favorite feature! I can create unique check-out pages for weddings, engagements, and lifestyle sessions. You can also use them for appointment scheduling as well if you offer free consultations and other types of services.

What makes the booking pages so great is you can:

• Embed them on your website so your client never has to know you’re using a separate system
• Set up automatic booking with time slots perfect for mini sessions
• Put in your availability – for example, only booking on weekends or evenings from 5 pm to 7 pm
• Sync automatically to your Google calendar so you never double book again
• Block off specific dates like holidays, personal days, and other appointments
• Automatically require your client to pay a deposit or payment and sign a contract

I just can’t tell you what a game-changer that is for me. It’s like having my own automated virtual assistant!

Questionnaires

I send questionnaires to all of my clients. Sometimes, it’s to ask them about themselves. Other times, it’s to get event details. Pixifi’s questionnaires are fantastic because they are easy to create, style, and you can use the answers to fill in client information in their contact sheet.

Emails & Email Templates

Something I really could not live without are email templates. I often find myself repeating the same few things to my inquiries. When that happens, I copy and paste it into a new email template and hit save. Just like that, I have another time-saving asset in my Pixifi library.

You can use the email templates to build workflows, or you can send saved messages manually when you need them.

Client Portals

My clients absolutely love the fact that they get their own login dashboard when they work with me. Especially useful for my repeat clients, they have an easy way to view all the documents I assign to them. Once inside, they can see contracts, questionnaires, gift cards, and any other file I drop in for them.