086: Morgan Lacheta – The Benefits of Outsourcing & How To Create Balance & Boundaries
January 20, 2022
“Serve your clients well, serve yourself well – because as long as your serving yourself & business well, everything else will be taken care of.”
MORGAN LACHETA
Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Morgan Lacheta!
Morgan is a small town, family oriented, coffee loving girl who thrives in the admin world.
Morgan has been in the admin and client experience industry for over 10 years helping create the perfect client experience. 3 years ago she opened Morgan Does It, serving photographers and those in the creative space with the day to day behind the scenes tasks that help keep their business running smoothly, and clients well taken care of, so they can continue to serve their clients and keep their passion for photography running strong.
Morgan is always in your corner being your biggest hype woman and helping hold those boundaries and has a heart for serving and supporting photographers so they can focus on having more time to do the things they love!
Check out some of the biggest points from Morgan’s interview below:
Why should our listeners consider outsourcing? What elements of outsourcing could be of interest to you then?
I think one of the biggest things that I’ve seen in the photography industry is either it starts so simple, setting up your CRM. That’s something they don’t have to give all of their business away to someone and say, “Hey, can you take care of this?” But if you have your workflows in place and your CRM working for you, that’s one of the first things.
You get an inquiry. That inquiry gets some sort of response. It may not be a human response, but at least they get something and you don’t have to worry about all of that all at once. But another big thing is, I think emails and admin really just bog people down, because when you sit down at your computer, editing is a better use of your time, most of the time. But a lot of people, you can spend two or three hours in emails, especially if you don’t do it every day or every… Then, they feel like that’s a waste of time, because they really got nothing done, but they did. But there’s nothing to show for it.
I think that is one of the biggest things you can outsource is really just that first initial client experience, because that’s what brings you clients, that’s what gets your schedule filled, and that’s what you’re originally working for. Yeah, I think that’s a big thing. Then, social media is a whole nother beast in itself, but that’s usually the two avenues. People are like, “Do this or this. I don’t want to do either one of these.”
How does outsourcing contribute to our client experience?
I think it does, and I’ve been able to see first person how that works. I’ve traveled to some of my clients or their sessions and we’ve done a lot of behind the scene work, or we’ll have big meetings to go over their year and everything like that. I’ll tag along to a session. One day I was at pickup with one of my clients’ children. We were in town and a lot of the moms that she serves were there and they were like, “Oh my goodness, she’s real. Morgan is here.” A couple of them told me, they were like, “Thank you so much for giving Brandy her life back.” That was the first time I was like, “Okay.”
Because it means so much to the client I think, when their photographer is happy and when they can see that they’re truly loving their job. Not that they don’t love their job all the time, but you can see when someone’s stressed or when someone’s having a really hard time in their business. Just being able to be that person in between, where they also don’t feel bad or guilty for emailing their photographer about something that seems so small.
Or if something comes up, they don’t feel bad having to reschedule or they email at 10:00 PM at night, they know that email’s not going to their phone. I mean, it is, but usually all of my clients have that turned off, or they know, “Morgan has it. I don’t have to check in.” There’s just that peace of mind, knowing that the client is taken care of, but also the photographer is taken care of.
Interviewer:
What are your top tips for photographers looking to add more balance to their business?
Yeah, I think what I tell people all the time, “You don’t have to hire a VA. You don’t have to hire anybody at first, but really take a look at your week and what you can really do and what your goals are.” If your goal is to make a certain amount of money a year, figure out what you need to do to make that happen. But if your goal is to eat dinner every night with your family, really look at your calendar and figure out how that can work. Set aside specific times to email and set aside times for editing and go ahead and say, “I’m only going to have sessions on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays, or Tuesdays and Saturdays.”
That way you have that blocked in your time and you’re like, “Okay, this is what I can give up.” Yes, there’s always exceptions to the rule, and I tell everybody that all the time. If one of your longtime clients comes and your schedule is already full, it’s okay to say yes, but just every now and then.
But really time blocking, I think that is such a huge thing and giving yourself grace that if all of your emails aren’t answered, that’s okay. If you didn’t get your session edited while your kids were napping, that’s okay. Just give yourself a lot of grace, but go back to what you originally wanted, go back to your why, go back to figuring out what… Make this business work for you, because that’s why we start this business. We don’t start a business to work for it. We work for ourselves. I think that gets really lost in the hustle culture and people posting on Instagram that they had 47 sessions this month, and I’m like, “Okay, but when did you sleep?”
Thank you!
Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Morgan for joining us on the show!
If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!
That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.
See you soon,
Sally
About Morgan Lacheta
Morgan has been in the admin and client experience industry for over 10 years helping create the perfect client experience. 3 years ago she opened Morgan Does It, serving photographers and those in the creative space with the day to day behind the scenes tasks that help keep their business running smoothly, and clients well taken care of, so they can continue to serve their clients and keep their passion for photography running strong.
