Happy Friday Loves! Can’t believe ANOTHER week has ALREADY flown by AND that it’s ALREADY ALMOST MAY!!! (While I realized yes, I did use a lot of CAPS LOCK in that previous sentence, I mean….can you blame me?!) How crazy is it that 2016 is almost halfway over?! Is it just me or does it seem like just yesterday we were ringing in the New Year and writing down all of our 2016 goals and setting resolutions?! Speaking of those pesky resolutions…I’m going to share with y’all 5 ways that I’ve completely changed my small business around in a little LESS THAN a year! Hopefully this will help all you small biz owner ladies out there no matter what your business is (my business just happens to be photography…and have I mentioned before that I LOVE it?!)

OK! So! Here it goes! (Now, just a disclaimer! I don’t make millions or even six figures…yet….((hehe!)) so my advice may not be the BEST advice according to the MBA School of Business or whatever from some big-wig ivy league school or something.  But you get it, right? This is just my way of sharing with y’all (through many trials and errors!) of what works FOR ME and FOR MY business.  Hopefully you’ll be able to take this advice, tweak it to fit your own business, and make it work FOR YOU. 

1.) TRELLO. Trello is THE MOST AMAZING THING on this planet for ‘Type-A’ers’ and extremely organized people (or those who TRY to be extremely organized, like myself!) I shall sing the praises of Trello for ever now that I’m a small business owner! Trello is a simple app that is designed to be used over the internet and through an app on your phone to create to-do lists.  Is it just me, or do you need to keep multiple to-do lists it seems like?  But whenever I have multiple to-do lists, I can’t ever keep them straight, end up loosing one of them at least, AND I can never get EVERYTHING done in a timely fashion like I had hoped.  That’s the strong point of Trello! It eases together ALL of your to-do lists and you can create new “boards” for your lists to pin to.  You can even make checklists within your lists, and seriously the amazingness goes on and on.  I’m planning on creating a cool screencast video about how I use my Trello later on within the next couple of weeks, but until then…download it & you may just teach yourself how to use it! That’s what I did and I love it!

2.) Click N’ Ship! Click N’ Ship is a program by USPS which literally is a life saver! I send my clients lots of different types of packages and gift items, and these are all things that I handcraft myself, package together, and send out without ever having to step foot inside the Post Office.  All you have to do is set up an account with the USPS, and when you’re ready to ship something to just Click N’ Ship! You pay with Paypal or a card and your shipping label prints out right there from your printer! The second part just AMAZES me…you can then schedule a PICK UP during your regular mail delivery for your mail carrier to PICK THE PACKAGE UP! (Mic drop!) WHAT?! How did I not know of this system earlier in my pre-full time days?! Sometimes I feel bad when I leave 6-10 boxes on our porch for the carrier to pick up.  I kinda want to leave them a plate of cookies or something, but I never to (maybe this Christmas when I Click N’ Ship all of my Client Christmas Gifts out this year! They’ll definitely need SOMETHING after all that heavy lifting! 😉

3.) Bank Mobile Deposit This just so happens to be another one of those things that I scratch my head and wonder why I didn’t do this sooner in my career!? Using my bank mobile deposit app is pure genius! It saves me SO much time (time=money!) by not having to go to the bank every week or almost every other day to deposit or withdrawal checks from my account! I can take a picture of the back and the front of the check and WHAM-BAM!! The money is deposited! It’s SUCH a great little app that has saved me globs of time and helped me stay super productive while staying at my office!

4.) Tracking my Mileage & Tax Collection Keeping records of everything to prepare for tax season makes my business life SO MUCH EASIER! Phillip (The CFO) and I invested in QuickBooks at the start of this year, so he’s been busy at keeping records of EVERYTHING! That way, come tax time we’ll be ready! KEEP RECORDS OF EVERYTHING! Trust me, you’ll want to do this no matter what type of business you are (sole prop, LLC, incorporated…whatever you are! DO IT!) We have a great system that works for us when filing our receipts.  I bought an expandable file folder in the Dollar Spot at Target (& I keep buying them every time they’re offered! They’re SO CUTE! Find a dup here!) I’ve categorized the filer by different categories (Emma Loo Receipts, Personal Receipts, Promo Cards, Coupons, Stamps, Home, etc…) Ok, so I have a lot of other crap in there too that doesn’t really apply to THIS blog post, but it’s life changing nonetheless! (Say when you’re out shopping at an antique store and need the dimensions of the wall that you could hang that gorgeous canvas on…I have it all written down on a piece of paper in my “Home” section! Any walls or places in our house that need art or a piece of furniture, I have the measurements so if I ever find anything I will know if the piece/art will fit or not before I buy it! Again….LIFE CHANGING! I also do the same with our paint samples…they’re in there too! 😉 ) SO….GETTING BACK to what I was saying! Whenever I buy something FOR Emma Loo, no matter what it is. I save the receipt, and I put it in my filing system.  At the end of each month, I’ll go through all of the Emma Loo receipts and if I hadn’t done it already, I’ll write what it was for and then sub-catergorize it.  THEN, I’ll put those sub-categories into a large envelope and file those away in our “Receipts for 2016” file in our filing cabinet.  That way, come tax time, when our accountant needs to see the receipt for the hard drive purchase on March 22nd, I can pull it right out in no time! Along the same lines of receipt organization and collection is milage tracking for tax purposes as well! Did you know that you get a tax credit of .55¢ per mile traveled for your business as long as it’s tracked?! I had no idea about that until a couple of years ago.  Ever since the start of 2016, Phillip and I have really been tracking our milage traveled in BOTH of our cars for Emma Loo.  It’s AMAZING how many miles we will travel for engagement sessions, weddings, or even just a weekly trip out errand shopping for the business! So far this year, we’ve driven over 4,500 miles JUST for Emma Loo!

5.) The Day Designer Planner My Day Designer is absolutely WONDERFUL! I sing it’s praises along with my Trello each and every day! Not only does my Day Designer look fabulous (it’s white and gold, c’mon! How could you NOT love it?!) but it keeps me fabulously organized as well! What’s great about the Day Designer is that it breaks the weeks and months down into DAYS. So each page is a new DAY.  From 5:00am until 9:00pm, your day can be fully laid out and organized.  AND not only that, but there’s also a Daily To-Do list for EACH DAY, a top three priorities section for each day, and a place to write in your gratitude for the day as well! So in a way, it’s kind of like an organizer and a diary all in one.  Yes, I’m one of those really weird girls who keeps all of her agendas as a little “walk down memory lane” (I still have my agendas from high school, I know…it’s odd, but SO much FUN to look back in!) The month layout is great inside the Day Designer as well because it’s large enough for me to write down multiple appointments or sessions I have going on in one day box, so it won’t look cluttered or messy.  One thing I’ve learned about keeping a well organized agenda…write EVERYTHING in PENCIL.  That way when things come up and have to be changed or rescheduled, you can easily do it without having to scribble everything out and making it look awful!

You might be telling yourself that those 5 things were a no brainer and “why wasn’t Emily doing those things earlier?” I know…I ask myself that same question ALL. THE. TIME. But that’s just it! I want to make sure no other small business lady is going to be asking that herself in 2-3 years from now! So hopefully this has helped you out & if it has, PLEASE let me know! I’d love to hear that these posts are actually being read by someone other than my Mother!! (who occasionally reads it herself!) Hehe!

Happy Friday love bugs! Have a great weekend! XO! -Emma Loo