In today’s blog post, we’re talking about the 3 Business Essentials I couldn’t live without. I get asked this question a lot on mentorship calls and in my Instagram DM’s. I’m so excited to finally have a place to share these business essentials.
Hi!
My name’s Alesia and I’m a Destination Wedding Videographer based in Portland, OR!
I started my business in 2019 and have pursued a career that helps educate other small business owners in the wedding industry. Through online education and mentorship calls, I’ve helped countless creatives get started in their business, market to their ideal client/location in the U.S. and have filmed over 100 projects for clients and businesses.
I’m so happy you’re here!
Legal Contracts
Firstly, the most important Business Essentials I have to share is using Legal Contracts. Without a solid, binding contract between you and your clients, it’s almost certain that you’re setting up your business for failure. Contracts are a clear agreement, with easy navigatable communication, about the process that you and your client are about to undergo together. Essentially, if you’re a registered business in your state (which you should be if you aren’t already by the way), then you’ll want to protect your business before you even begin business.
Communicating your Contract
The way I communicate my contracts to my wedding clients are as follows: “I know this contract is lengthy… I’ve purchased multiple templates from attorneys and have made personal amendments to this contract over the years to not only protect myself but to protect you both as well. I want you both to know off the bat, I’m very open with my communication and have absolutely no problem with clarifying anything in the contract. Please let me know if you have any questions!”
Where to Buy Legal Contracts aka the best business essentials
I’ve purchased all of my contract templates from The Legal Paige.
There’s no one else I trust more than Paige! As someone who has her law degree and works very closely with the wedding industry, she understands the legalities and terminology of our world and is now focused on giving legal education and contract templates to Wedding creatives and other Creative entrepreneurs.
Trust ME when I say that your DIY contract will not be enough. Click our link here to be taken straight to her website for all the contracts you need! Her blog is a must read too!
Client Relations Management: Dubsado
Okay hear me out, I know everyone preaches about Honeybook… but you wanna know why? Because Honeybook has a HUGE affiliate code incentive so everyone just wants you to use their link, therefore, it’s always talked about online. That’s good marketing and all… BUT… They are also known for having the most undelivered emails and not the most user-friendly interface to get your business set up with.
Since day 1, I’ve used Dubsado and I’ve helped a ton of creatives switch from Honeybook to Dubsado.
It’s super easy to set up, I didn’t even need to go through any tutorials, it’s that straightforward.
It’s branding is customizable so you can plug in your logos and color codes so that it matches your business – HECK YES.
Lastly, it has the best CLIENT INTERFACE. This is probably the most important. You don’t want to put all this time and effort to automate your contracts, your invoices, your questionnaire forms, your emails, etc. just for your client to be confused about how to submit anything or get stuck trying to put in their electronic signature. Dubsado is KING.
Therefore, if you aren’t set up on a CRM yet, you have to do yourself the giant favor and get this set up right away. It’ll make your Type A organized brain all organized for you after a one-time set up, and your automations for every project will save you so much time. Check out my Wedding Client Experience Course if you want an inside look at how I fully automate my wedding videography business in Dubsado!
Musicbed
As a wedding videographer, we need to fully understand music copyright and licensing policies to move forward in our business. It’s good practice to keep your music legal in the sense that you’re purchasing the license to every song you use for videos you deliver to clients. It’s one of the very important business essentials for all filmmakers, actually.
Lately, music copyright and licensing for creatives has become a thinner grey line with the explosion of short form video content on Instagram and Tiktok.
But it’s still highly important that our businesses are practicing legal licensing for our clients at the end of the day.
How to choose the best song for your wedding films
When it comes to choosing music, It’s a running joke in our industry with how difficult this part of the process is. It can take hours, or even days to find the song that best matches your footage, the vibes and what the couple wants.
I’ve used multiple music licensing sites, but I always find myself back to Musicbed. They have the best music all around. There’s a huge variety and I’ve never been disappointed. For the last 3 years, I have solely used Musicbed — that’s how good they are.
And you’re looking at Musicbed’s newest ambassador!
Other Honorable Mentions
Quickbooks
Quickbooks helps my CPA organize my books for tax season every year. Every quarter, I go through and categorize my expenses so I can properly write off my purchases for my business. The amount of time and money I’m saving with something like this?! Thousands.
It’s 1000% worth it. You need to get organized in your finances NOW.
Flodesk
Email marketing is important for small businesses because it’s a marketing guarantee.
Not only does it help you to keep in touch with those that want to hear from you — keeping you top of mind — but it also allows you to educate your readers, drive traffic, conduct surveys, share updates, make announcements, etc.
Email marketing allows small businesses to do lots of different things, all within one channel. And, it still has the highest ROI of any marketing strategy or channel. It blows social media statistics out of the water making it the KING of a business essential.
Flodesk, in my opinion, has the prettiest interface for your readers, which is super important. It’s user-friendly to set up and when your list gets that email notification from you, the aesthetic is something they look forward to… win-win!
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