The Fiasco of Closing my Business....and the stress that comes with it.

One of the main reasons I closed MJB DIGITAL was because of my poor workflow strategy. I found that my routine was causing a delay in turnaround time for client's images and albums. At first it was a small delay, and it didn't really matter much. These delays began to grow, however, and I felt they were getting out of control. So I reached out for help. I was planning on outsourcing for developing of the digital negatives and album design. My only problem was that I hadn't built that into the cost of the jobs that I had already done -- jobs that were already behind schedule.

I needed to eat and pay the rent, so I continued to work and raise prices. I was too late. Rather than ruin my brand image and myself  professionally, I stopped taking bookings. Great - that gives me time to catch up on this back work and reformulate my strategy, right?

Wrong.

I started shooting on a 'salary' for http://www.RhondaJeanPhotos.com . The result was that I brought an entirely new workload to add to what I had to do already. It has been really stressful trying to get all of this stuff caught up. I'm glad I wrote in the margin of contracts of clients toward the end SLOW CUSTOMER SERVICE, if ya know what I mean.

But that is just a prologue to what I REALLY want to say.

I just got off of the phone with Laura and Marcus. They were the very last client MJB DIGITAL shot before stopping all bookings. It has been almost a year since their wedding and they still don't have the album. They were giving me input on some of the final design, and they expressed their gratitude for doing my work AND they said they have no problem with how long it has taken.

I was so glad to hear that they were happy.

So glad. It was a big load off of my shoulders.

Here is a peak: