Improve Your Workflow Episode 10 with Pauline Langmead
matthew.barlocker
4 October 2019Pauline Langmead is the Managing Director of Melbourne Photography, a photography services provider.
Learn more about Melbourne Photography:
- Pauline Langmead LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauline-langmead-0a115166/
- Melbourne Photography: https://www.melbournephotography.com/
- Melbourne Photography LinkedIn: https://www.instagram.com/melbournephotographyptyltd/
Products and software mentioned in the show:
- Gmail: http://gmail.com
- Canned responses: https://gsuite.google.com/marketplace/app/canned_responses_pro_for_gmail/1031481257984
- Streak: https://www.streak.com/
- Capture one: https://www.captureone.com/en/
Brands mentioned in the show:
- International Food Festival in Malta: https://www.visitmalta.com/en/event-details/2019-07/the-malta-international-food-festival-2019-12504
Transcript of Improve Your Workflow podcast with Pauline Langmead of Melbourne Photography
Voiceover:
Welcome to the Improve Your Workflow podcast, brought to you by Digital Pigeon.
Learn from other creative and media businesses about attracting more work, delivering projects efficiently, getting paid on time and everything in between.
Paul Evans:
Hi there, and welcome to episode 10 of Improve Your Workflow. My name is Paul Evans, and today I'm chatting with Pauline Langmead of Melbourne Photography. So, no prizes for guessing what Pauline does and where she's based. So welcome to the show Pauline.
Pauline Langmead:
Awesome, thanks Paul, good to be here.
Paul Evans:
Great. Could you tell the listeners what type of photography you do and who you do it for?
Pauline Langmead:
Sure, so yeah, I'm a commercial photographer. Owner of Melbourne Photography and also, Gal Street Studios. I take photos for businesses and I have a photography studio available for casual hire as well; 330 of what I shoot is product photography. That's probably 70% of what I shoot and we do a bit of portrait and event stuff on the side as well. So everything I do is for businesses and the product photography stuff is for predominantly for E-Commerce so Amazon, website, catalog, print online, catalog sort of stuff, and we pretty much shoot anything.
Paul Evans:
Yeah, cool.
Pauline Langmead:
Basically I guess tried to make things look good to sell them.
Paul Evans:
Yeah, makes sense. All right, so what would you say is your number one productivity hack?
Pauline Langmead:
Productivity hack, I guess, look efficiency is key to a professional business as is quality of course and client relationships. This is an interesting one because I wish I could duplicate myself. I can't, I have to implement systems and procedures to get out of my head what I need to be compound the work flow. So I guess, if I was to choose one thing it would be outsourcing.
Paul Evans:
Okay.
Pauline Langmead:
Outsourcing, time consuming, repeatable tasks, such as editing as an example would be one thing that would, is very time consuming for me to do myself but is very easy teachable, repeatable process that I have mostly outsourced to somebody else. And I think, this is an interesting one because I just got back from a four week trip in Europe, and best ever feeling in a very long time. And I think that if our society or anyone would like to, I would really encourage anyone to find a holiday as a way to get better at their business because you have to then implement a lot of systems and procedures to enable your business to keep going while you're away.
Paul Evans:
Yep. How does a photographer do that?
Pauline Langmead:
Yeah so, I got another photographer, couple of other photographers that jiggle a few other shoots for me. Not in, not across all areas but across a few areas of the business. And for the last two years, two and a half years I've been training and admin assistant. And so she's been across all of their sort of admin around the business, and let's face it in any kind of business it's going to be 20% of the skill or the craft of the industry and 80% is running the business and all the admin around it. So, that's where I chose to invest to get help with. And so, yeah, I've been training her for a couple of years and through that process and we've been running manual, and getting that kind of procedure in place to really enable consistency and trying to treat customers and clients the same. So, while still keeping all sort of efficient and everything. But yeah, outsourcing has been a key part of that.
Paul Evans:
Alright then.
Pauline Langmead:
Yeah. Yep.
Paul Evans:
Yeah. All right, in terms of your tech stack to get your job done, can you tell us a bit about that?
Pauline Langmead:
Where to begin? I have favourites because as you know, it's a minefield of endless options and everybody has to find their own kind of thing that they love. And I think it is good to try a few things anyway, I thought I'd mentioned Gmail because I use Gmail, it's just, it's integrated into the system so heavily. But within two my favourite ones are, one Canned Responses if people don't.
Paul Evans:
Oh yeah, yep-
Pauline Langmead:
Know what Canned Responses is, get onto it, it's the bomb. I love it. I use that for all of my email templates. We have a template for every part of the workflow.
Paul Evans:
Wow.
Pauline Langmead:
It keeps everything consistent. It keeps really efficient, it's quick. I can use that Canned Responses wherever I am, and anybody else within the business can also use those Canned Responses, so it's still got my, it's got everything in that response that I need to communicate so I don't forget anything and it's also just going to communicate exactly what I need to. But then you can also add your little personal touch on it as well.
Paul Evans:
Yep.
Pauline Langmead:
That would be my first one. The other one and my newest client integration is Streak, which is a pipeline client relationship management tool, and it's integrated with Gmail and it's particularly useful for managing leads in a small team of people and it's free. So that's been a really cool little integration into the system just and that's just, yeah, it's mainly about leads, but we've also got ongoing jobs in there as well. And you just set it up however you want. And I've just, yeah, found it really helpful. And, also my admin person has found it really helpful when we're both working on the same people in, as you need to keep track of everything. So, that's been my little hack.
Paul Evans:
Like it!
Pauline Langmead:
Yeah, it's cool.
Paul Evans:
Alright, I haven't heard a Streak before. That's the first time it's ever come up.
Pauline Langmead:
Yeah, it's just kind of, you have plugins in the other ones, and I've been doing some SEO work with a crew and they've been really awesome and they've been showing me tapes of digital hacks.
Paul Evans:
Wow, fantastic.
Pauline Langmead:
I'll mention one more, Capture One, which is a photo editing software that I use the tethering from camera to computer, or some software. It's really fantastic for photographers. It enables me to view the images and get it right in camera as much as possible. And I make some basic adjustments to the images while the products and the clients is still in the studio to keep the amount of post production work to a minimum. I don't like to rely on Photoshop to fix things.
Paul Evans:
Yeah.
Pauline Langmead:
If I were in the studio. So that's, to me that's a that's also productivity and efficiency and all that sort of stuff as well.
Paul Evans:
You know-
Pauline Langmead:
Stacked in there but that Capture One is my go to software for that.
Paul Evans:
Fantastic. So I'm guessing that's something that appears on your laptop or Mac?
Pauline Langmead:
Yeah-
Paul Evans:
Or something like that.
Pauline Langmead:
That's right, ye.
Paul Evans:
When you're literally taking the photos yeah, okay.
Pauline Langmead:
Straight through to the computer, and it's got, if you're familiar with Photoshop, it's got a lot of the functionalities in terms of adjustments that you can make to that particular image and rename the file. But, when you've got clients right next to you looking at the screen, you want to ensure them that they going to get the best out of their products or whatever it is, and I can show them straight away and they, if they make a suggestion I can do that straight away with them, and they know exactly what they're going to get, and they feel empowered, and they going to get what they want, and they usually pretty happy. So that's been a really cool tool for me, and I think its pretty industry standard. There's software, so I think most photographers would use it if they can afford it.
Paul Evans:
Yeah, Cool. Alright, we're just going to take a few seconds now to hear from our sponsor.
Voiceover:
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Now back to the show.
Paul Evans:
Yep, Who doesn't? Happy Melbourne weather at the moment... How do you go about solving problems that you don't know the answer to. And you can't say Google because that's too obvious.
Pauline Langmead:
Well I just got back from Malta a week ago and went to the International Food Festival in Dena. I was thinking there, be great to go back and work for them. I love food photography, I love people, I love family and would look for any opportunity to travel again to Europe and learn more about different cultures through food. It's not a brand specifically, but it's in line with what I'm personally interested in.
Paul Evans:
Yeah.
Pauline Langmead:
So, yeah, pretty much food and I think I just want to go back to Europe
Paul Evans:
Yep, Who doesn't? Happy Melbourne weather at the moment... How do you go about solving problems that you don't know the answer to. And you can't say Google because that's too obvious.
Pauline Langmead:
Yeah.
Paul Evans:
Is it, do you have any blogs that you regularly visited or forums or do you have any mentors that you count on? Yeah
Pauline Langmead:
It probably depends on the problem and the situation. And sometimes I feel like photography is just about solving problems, because so often it doesn't work straight away and you do have to go through a process of elimination or trying something new or going outside the box or asking someone, there's so many things that you need to sort of continue to do to get it right and to make it work. So, I do like photography for that reason because I do like that process of solving problems. I asked my husband a lot.
Paul Evans:
Yeah.
Pauline Langmead:
He said take support for business and if it's a tech issue often I'll just flag it with him and, he'll sort of spend the time doing the research. He actually found, Digital Pigeon, he, I was having this issue with sending files quickly to clients and I was, what I was using was very limited and I think he just did a Google search, fastest file delivery software or something like that and he found Digital Pigeon and seriously, I know it really has just been marvellous.
Paul Evans:
That's nice to hear.
Pauline Langmead:
It's completely fine. I just love it to bits. So that was, that's usually what I do. I mean of course I listen to a few blogs, some entrepreneurial kind of blogs to keep the entrepreneurial side of things going.
Paul Evans:
So podcasts?
Pauline Langmead:
Ye, Jack Delosa, he's in Sydney.
Paul Evans:
Oh, yep.
Pauline Langmead:
Marie Forleo, she's overseas, Amy Porterfield, she does marketing stuff and a few photography ones like the business of photography there in the States as well. And, just part of a few groups, chats and that sort of thing. You just got to sort of keep in it to.
Paul Evans:
Absolutely.
Pauline Langmead:
Keep the conversation going.
Paul Evans:
Cool. So last question, where can our listeners connect with you?
Pauline Langmead:
The best place is just to jump on the websites, melbournephotography.com and galestreetstudios.com. I'm always up for a chat and really happy to chat with people about photography and in particular, probably product photography, helping people to make better choices around their photography or even just sometimes what to do and where to start. Totally up for that, so yeah, then give us a call.
Paul Evans:
Love it. Thanks for being on the show Pauline.
Pauline Langmead:
Very welcome. Thanks for the opportunity, Paul. Really appreciate it.
Paul Evans:
Well that was a fantastic chat with Pauline, a long time Digital Pigeon customer basically in our home city of Melbourne. My favorite takeaway was definitely to outsource tasks whenever you can, whether it's to someone locally or overseas, it doesn't really matter. Time is our most precious commodity and getting help from others will never go out of vogue. I recently read a book called Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz, and it talked a lot about this, but one of the key things it said was to give the people you outsource work to the ability to make their own decisions. And this is absolutely key.
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