Small Business Client Relationships
Well. It’s been 45+ days since the studio closed it’s doors to comply with Chicago’s stay-at-home order. Working full-time starting at the age of 18, I quickly realized this is this the most time I have ever not worked. Crazy.
When you own a business, there are always projects on the back burner and in an attempt to be productive, I have tried to tackle my most challenging - migrating all family photo sessions to a new website and organizing the sessions by family. I thought of this project last Fall, in the midst of photographing hundreds of families before the holidays.
I have been photographing 75% of my clients for many many years. I thought it would be a great service to my clients to have all of their family photo sessions at one link. Initially, I was going to have an intern complete the repetitive task of downloading from one site and re-uploading to another. With all of this extra time on my hands, I decided to do it myself. That was a great decision!
Like a lot of other small business owners, I have been juggling the stress of keeping a business afloat, homeschooling my kids and preparing for what life and work will be like as restrictions ease. I go back and forth about whether it is worth the money, time, anxiety to keep this ‘thing’ going and the heartache I feel to ever imagine a life without this work. In the midst of all of this, I have been plugging away on this project, a few photo sessions a day downloaded and then uploaded into an organized family folder. Over the weeks, this menial task has been exactly what I needed to get through this. Let me show you why.
This is one Logan Square Photo family that I met in 2014. Our first session together was their engagement photos.
And then their wedding.
Not long after the wedding, Christina contacted me to photograph a newborn session in their new home. The family decided to book a One Year Collection, so I got to visit this little guy 3 times over his first year.
And not too long after the first baby, another came along and I was right there, photographing his first year, too.
Ok. You can see where this is going right? Here is ANOTHER little guy. They tell me he is the last one!
And I get to do this over, and over, and over again with each family. It’s like photographer-therapy. Regardless of how I start the day, this process of seeing my work as an archive for each of the LSP families reminds me that the work I do is important and well worth this blip in the history of my small business.
Thank you to all of the clients who have made this business successful. I can not wait to get back out there to photograph you!