Creating Healthy Habits for Your Photo Booth Business Using The Thematic Weekly Planning Method
Part 6 of 10 Valuable Lessons I Was Reminded Of While Running a Six-Figure Photo Booth Business This Spring
Running a successful six-figure photo booth business requires an immense amount of hard work, but perhaps most importantly meticulous organization and strategic planning…and one of the best ways I’ve found to streamline my photo booth business operations and ensure I stay on top of my short-term tasks and long-term goals is by implementing a weekly focus strategy.
This method, which I stumbled across in Jadah Sellner’s amazing book She Builds: An Anti-Hustle Guide To Grow Your Business and Nourish Your Life — which I highly recommend reading — and personally used this spring event season, involves dedicating specific days of the week to different aspects of your photo booth business, allowing you to tackle projects as well as short-term and long-term goals systematically and efficiently.
By staying laser-focused with what specific projects I work on each day I not only get more done and accomplish more goals, but ultimately have better work-life balance which is scientifically proven to be key to success.
The Strategy Behind My Approach
This method above that I mentioned is known as a Thematic Weekly Planning strategy. By assigning specific themes to each day (you can choose your own, no need to use my specific ones), you can streamline your focus and increase productivity. Personally, I find this approach helps me stay on-task, reduces the overwhelm of juggling multiple projects simultaneously, and ensures that all critical aspects of my photo booth business receive the attention they deserve.
By adopting this strategy, you too can create a balanced and organized workflow that not only keeps your photo booth business running smoothly but also paves the way for growth and success. If you’re feeling overwhelmed (which I believe to be very natural when running a photo booth business, muchness any business) I highly recommend trying to implement some healthy habits like Thematic Weekly Planning that will help with getting your schedule and productivity back on track.
Curious how this method works? Below is how I personally organize my weekly to-do list in my Google calendar to foster healthy habits for my photo booth business that drive success and ensure I stay on-task.
The Thematic Weekly Planning Method
Money Mondays are all about focusing on projects directly linked to money. By starting my workweek with a focus on money-making, money-managing or money-related tasks I personally feel better and more accomplished, especially because this is one of the most important aspects of a photo booth business to stay on top of but one of my least favorite things to do.
Examples of my own money-focused projects include:
Meet with my Remote Events Coordinator to ensure they have what they need to effectively prep all of our photo booth rentals for events so we get paid
Run payroll for employees and payout my independent contractors (here is my favorite payroll/payment tool)
Pay monthly TPT taxes if necessary or categorize pending items in Quickbooks (awesome tax tool!) for my CPA
Respond to client emails about potential and upcoming events, answering any detailed questions they have so I can close deals in a timely manner
Write an search engine optimized blog and schedule social media posts that highlight our services so we can easily organically market our services when Google crawls my website
Comb through my budget and make edits to save additional money, unsubscribe from pointless Apple subscriptions, etc.
Check my business bank accounts and schedule payments for my business credit cards (here are my two favorite business credit cards for rewards points: general business credit card and travel business credit card)
To-Do Tuesdays are dedicated to tackling my immediate to-do list that helps me reach my short-term goals. This is the day I focus on tasks that require quick action and have a direct impact on my day-to-day operations. By giving myself an entire day, earlier in the workweek, to wrap up loose ends on multiple projects, I am able to get a lot done early on and relax more later in the workweek.
Examples of my own to-do list projects include:
Wrapping up any tasks I wasn’t able to get done on Money Monday
Meeting with my Event Operations Manager to ensure all equipment is physically prepped for upcoming events, photo booth software is up-to-date, props are sanitized, etc.
Responding to random emails or text messages
Ordering supplies as needed (checkout my list of my favorite event supplies for iPad Photo Booths here)
Tackling any larger long-term projects if all of my short-term projects have been taken care of
Wow Wednesdays are reserved for big-picture projects that contribute to my long-term success. This is the day I work on strategic initiatives that will "wow" my clients and help set my business apart from my local competition.
Examples of my own “wow” projects include:
Developing new photo booth experiences or themes to offer clients and adding them to my website
Researching industry trends and testing new technologies or techniques
Planning and updating my long-term photo booth business goals and celebrating milestones
Working on my client gifting plan and scheduling coffee dates, gift drops, etc.
Updating my marketing materials to include new and unique offerings
Talking Thursdays are focused on communication. This is the day I schedule all of my phone calls, Zoom meetings, in-person meetings and follow-up work related to interactions with clients, vendor partners, etc.
Examples of my own communication projects include:
Chatting and checking-in with team members to see how they are and discuss ongoing projects/goals
Speaking with my clients to gather feedback and build stronger relationships
Discussing potential partnerships or collaborations for events or special projects
Following up on all emails from clients earlier in the week
Free Fridays allow me the flexibility to focus on any project of my choosing. I love having the last day of the week for this because it means if I don’t have any projects I can take a 3-day weekend. That said, sometimes I use this day for catching up on tasks that may have been delayed or for exploring new ideas and initiatives.
Examples of my own free-day projects include:
Reading an educational book that teaches me how to wire my brain to be more positive and in turn fuel success (I highly recommend the book The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor) — P.S. Don’t forget educational books like the one above are a business write-off (make sure you use this business credit card for reward points!)
Spend more time working on a big-picture goal like fine-tuning my automated emails in my favorite CRM
Responding to any new emails or voice mails from clients
Checking on my High-Yield Savings Accounts and moving money around so it earns more while I sleep (I currently make over $100/month in passive revenue from the two accounts mentioned in the blog linked above)
Taking the day off to do whatever I want :)
Saturday and Sunday not included because I try my best to only work 5 days a week and take weekends off (I have a team that works all of my events.)
How To Implement The Above Method
In order to hold yourself accountable which increases your odds of success using the Thematic Weekly Planning method, you’ll want to make sure once you’ve decided what each day’s focus will be that you add it to your calendar so you have an easy way to remind yourself.
If you use Gmail for your photo booth business email communications you will want to add the name of each thematic day to the corresponding work week day in your Google Calendar. To do this, go to your Gmail Calendar and click on Monday then where it says “Add title” add Monday’s thematic day name (e.g., Money Mondays.) Make sure the box next to “All day” is checked then where it says “Do not repeat” drop down and select “Weekly on Monday".” Continue doing this for each of your days. You can also select a specific color so it’s standout on your Google calendar. If you have a physical personal planner you can also jot down the names of each day in that.
Stayed tuned for Part 7 that includes photo booth business Lesson #7 (How To Negotiate.) I’ll be sharing my favorite tips for how to turn a free event into a paid one (specifically for corporate and community events, vendor showcases, etc.) — because regardless of the client or event, you always deserve to get paid for your labor!
Friendly reminder: Affiliate links were shared in the above blog. That said, I do not believe in sharing affiliate links for the sake of making money alone; rest assured, all of the links are to resources I personally use and love. I may receive compensation for these things should you choose to purchase them, so I thank you in advance for this.