I don’t remember when it started exactly… but I know that when I went full-time with my business I really became obsessed with numbers. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve always been a bit of a nerd and LOVED math class my whole life, but lately I’m finding safety in numbers.
Whenever I start to overanalyze things and become worried about inquiries, bookings, and paying the bills – I sit at my desk and start to crunch numbers.
Any and all numbers…. projected income, bills, taxes… and who knows what else.
The funny thing is that you think it would stress me out, but instead it actually calms me down. It makes me feel like I have some control over SOMETHING. (Even though in reality I probably don’t! haha) Or at the very least it makes me feel like I’m aware of our circumstances and know what we need to do to make it through the next couples months. (My photography friends who I’ve talked budgets with are well aware of my obsession!)
Yesterday I spent a good portion of an hour categorizing all the inquiries throughout the last year in my gmail. In the past I just categorized what type of photography inquiry it was (baby, family, wedding, proposal, elopement, etc), but this time on top of that I went through and marked which inquiries booked, which I was available for that didn’t book, and which I had to turn away because I was already booked for that date.
I worked out the numbers and figured out the percentages for each category and where I could improve. Yeah.. this is my crazy way of dealing with slow-season for booking. haha. Even though every year I’m aware that March & April are dead slow for inquiries (and May is mostly slow… but starting to pick up now) – I still have freak outs and overanalyze it all… every.single.year.
Poor James has to sit here and listen to me worry out loud that we won’t book any weddings for the next year and that we’ll go out of business and no longer get to do what we love. And every year he tells me to calm down – that this time of year is always slow for inquiries and everything will be okay. I half believe him, tell him he’s right… and then I go in my office and crunch numbers. And I feel better. (At least until the next month comes around and the number crunching begins again… haha)
Please tell me I’m not alone here… right? Maybe it’s a Type A thing and plenty of you other business owners out there do this too?! Yes?! 😉
