Doing It All…

I’ve seen a lot of posts recently, I don’t know if it’s the time of year for it or it’s a push from social media gurus to say that you need to showcase your business in this way. But I’ve seen a lot of posts from photographers and other small businesses doing reels around all the roles that they play in the business. 

And it’s fantastic to see because people do forget, the clients, the public out there forget all the things that we do as business owners as part of our business to make them function. And I think we forget as well to be honest, we just get on with it and function. It’s not until somebody says, “Oh but you do this as well don’t you?” And we don’t often see all of the roles that we play within our business. 

I’ve seen a lot of small businesses doing that recently, where it’s been, “Oh I’m doing accounts, I’m doing admin, I’m doing all these things.” And it’s great to showcase all those skill sets that we just evolve into. We’re not finance experts but we have to do our accounts and we have to keep on top of our numbers to make sure that the decisions we make are correct. We have to do our social media because who else is going to do it? Those sort of things and we don’t get work in if we don’t do social media and it’s great to see businesses doing that. 

But it kind of had the opposite effect on me and it made me realise how much I rely on my wider team. I’m not alone and I haven’t been alone for a good few years now. Certainly, I suppose the big relaunch was just before COVID wasn’t it? Even then Karl was helping me out with a bit of editing and others were kind of around supporting me to be like critical friends. 

And they’re certainly ones that sometimes get forgotten in these journeys - that there is a team around you at all times, who you can ask your questions. Now roll forward to where we are now since COVID, I’m far from alone and the website doesn’t necessarily reflect that. That’s something that I need to chat with my team about making sure that everybody has the right words on the website to showcase their role in it all. Because I can’t take all the credit myself, you know, things are going well, there’s no doubt. Obviously, you’ve seen my post recently that things are going well, but it’s not a solo effort and I kind of need to get that out there. 

So yes, Karl is a significant part of that helping with photos, with edits, with computer building, with telling me to stop flapping about things. Rachel, admin and significant body doubler to get me through a lot of the things that I really don’t like doing like finance and keeping my CRM system up to date. So that leads on to Kev who helps me with my CRM systems. I class him as part of the team because anytime anything comes up with HubSpot and little bits that I can’t figure out, he’s always there for it. I’ve got IT support in Paul and the team at Unite Group if I have any troubles with, you know, bigger computer structure stuff. 

I’ve got social media and Laura deserves a lot of credit for my social media. Laura and Rachel together managed the three of us to get a system that works for me. And it’s something that over the years I’ve tried to get other people to help me with social media and it’s always been a challenge. And now it’s at least nine months of relentless posts that are being seen. People coming out of the woodwork on events or when I see people live and talking about stories that came out. It’s just great to see. I’ve got Neil who helps me with the very small amount of video editing and things that I do. He’ll say it’s quite a lot because I video too much. But no, video is part of the business and to have Neil’s support with his vast experience in film and TV that he’s had. It’s great to have him helping me. And then I’ve got my accountants, Hunter & Dublin, that help me with the bigger strategic finance stuff. And I mean the list goes on. We’ve all got these people that we rely on. Nic, the big sister in business that’s kind of been a staple there FOR MORE THAN TEN YEARS NOW!! 

And just having this bank of people that you can rely on is fantastic.