So if you read this post first, it is probably going to jump out at you with very little precursor and you may be a bit lost. This post is very long and I apologize for that, but there is a lot to be said. (The Holiday Hangover post mentions my subject for this post and may be a better place to start.)
So our lease is up on our studio location and after many discussions with Shan and Callie, we have decided not to renew our lease. We are moving our offices into our homes for awhile so that we can save money for a new house and change our personal lives for the better. Our phone number and website will still be the same. Our customer service will actually improve through this process. Let me explain how we came to this decision.
4 1/2 years ago, I gave birth to a wonderful little boy named Ian.
4 years ago, we moved into our studio location. All was well. Ian had a room at the office with a crib and some toys and was content to play on the office floor while I got my work done. We also had a restaurant next door which brought traffic to our little section of the Blvd. and got us noticed.
2 years ago, the restaurant closed and took with it 95% of our walk-in traffic. We also started doing a lot more of our portrait sessions on location and in doing so found that we really didn't need a studio location to do portraits.
A little over 1 year ago, I gave birth to another wonderful little boy named Christian. Now with 2 boys, one of which is now 3 years old, very active and into everything, working at the office with the kids was next to impossible. They got bored easily and would get into things that we didn't want them touching. We had a hard time keeping them quiet while we were on the phones and the hours that we were keeping were just grueling...on them and us.
So we started talking about what to do when our lease was up and we decided that in order to have a life that somewhat resembled a normal family, we needed to make some changes.
1. Move the office back into the house. Callie could work from her house, Shan and I would work from ours. This allowed our kids to be able to play with their toys and just be kids. (Not to mention that they will be able to go outside and play with their neighborhood friends this summer instead of being stuck in an office.)
2. Change our work schedule. 10am-7pm worked fine when Ian was a baby and didn't have a set schedule, but things change. Ian is in preschool now and needed a much earlier bedtime than our schedule would allow and Christian was born a scheduled child by nature. (You can always tell when we get close to bedtime for Christian.) Also, we had no family time. Working 7 days a week and later than we should eliminated any opportunity for family time.
3. Stop working 24 hours a day. Now you may laugh at this one and perhaps I am exaggerating a bit, but we did work into the early morning hours almost every day. (2am bedtimes for us were not uncommon...and Shan has been known to see the sun come up before he has gone to bed on many occasions.)
4. Put more into our customer service. Looking at our lives and realizing that we wanted more time for our families allowed us to look at our clients differently and realize that they would probably want the same thing. So we decided to start meeting with our clients where it is convenient for them.
So this is how our business schedule looks for us now. Our phone hours are Monday 1pm-5pm, Tuesday-Friday 8am-5pm with 1 hour for lunch. All consultations and sessions are by appointment only. Our phone number and website have not changed. (Gotta love Vonage!) Portrait sessions are $50 and are 1 hour on location. (You pick the location within 50 miles of Akron) Consultations are done wherever is most convenient for the client. I have found that Barnes and Noble or a coffee shop are great places to sit down and meet. We will also come to your home or work if that is what you prefer.
For me personally (Shan and Callie may have different availability), I will have the following times available for consultations. (Some days may not be available due to events which is why all consultations and sessions are by appointment only. Just call me so that we can find times that will work.)
From now until March 15th:Monday-Friday: 8am-7pm
Saturday: 10am-5pm
Sunday: 12pm-3pm
After March 15th:Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 8am-5pm
Tuesday, Thursday: 8am-7pm
Saturdays: 10am-2pm (When available)
The reason for this schedule is that we are busiest with consultations in January, February and March. So I am making myself more available during those months. After March, I want to be able to spend more evenings and Sundays with my family, so I will have extended hours only 2 nights a week and some Saturdays if I am not scheduled for an event.
All of this is being done so that we can provide our clients with the best work possible. By limiting the number of hours that we are doing business, we keep ourselves from getting burned out and we preserve our love for the work. (Just think about your own job...if you worked 80 hours a week, it would probably lose some of the things that you love about it....assuming you love what you do of course! LOL) We want to stay fresh and continue to love our work.
I am also a person just like you. I want to spend more time with my family. As my boys grow, I am realizing more and more that they aren't going to be small for long and I want to enjoy my time with them. I want to play in the backyard with them in the evenings and take them bike riding on Sundays. I want to make time for us to go to church as a family again and sit down for meals at our dining room table every night. I am sure that many of you want similar things with your families and so I know you understand why this is so important to me.
I am still here to be a great photographer and will attend to my clients needs the same way that I always did, just with different hours and from a new office. I consider my clients to be my friends and so I want to make sure that I can be the absolute best for my friends when they need me.
I am very excited about our new life that we are creating right now. (Although to be honest, it is still really hard for me not to check my e-mail all night long! LOL Closing that door to the office and just being a Mom and Wife the rest of the night is something that is taking some getting used to. But I love it!) I hope that you will all be excited for us too!
As always, if you have any questions about the changes, please feel free to ask. That is what I am here for....to serve you....my friends!
Steph
Now Ian is a very creative child. For Christmas we got him an art box with crayons, colored pencils, markers, glue, chalk, scissors, a hole punch, a stapler and added a 6 pack of legal pads for him to write and draw on. He makes books, signs, writes letters to family, etc. So seeing signs taped to the front of the stool in the kitchen was no shocker.
To those of you who don't speak Preschooler, reading it may be even more difficult. But as I stood there and looked at it, I realized what it said. My son had spelled out on his own...Peanut Butter and Jelly Stand. How can I know that this is what it says? Because I am his Mom and I know how he thinks. He must have sat down and sounded it out, although when he does this, he tends to miss some letters. But heck...he is only 4!
