When this episode goes live, I will be exactly 1 day away from officially reopening my studio post Covid. Can I just say, I am RIDICULOUSLY excited about this?! Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the time off… I got to spend more time with my kids than ever before in their lives, I got to relax, clean the house, reorganize, got a ton of work done on my photography business course that I have been building AND we got to spend so much time outside in the beautiful weather being active…

But let’s be real – I have missed my work, and when they announced earlier in the week that my region was moving to phase 2 and I could reopen my business I totally squealed like a little girl. It feels like Christmas. In June. The best. Its going to be a bit different, I need to figure out how to balance working with being a full time Mom to 4 with no school or daycare which I have literally never done – but I’m excited and willing to take it on! I’m hoping that lots of you are either open again, or opening really soon and I wanted to go over a game plan on how you can do that safely, smoothly and successfully. Now as usual this will be geared a bit more towards photographers because that is the area that I know really really well, but for the most part it all transfers over to any small business – so just apply it to your own business.

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Ok so if you have the go ahead for reopening and have a date in site you are going to want to start with some prep work. First, and oh so important is to learn what the health and safety guidelines are for your area and figure out what it is going to take to comply with them, AND how it’s going to affect your business. For many businesses they are going to have way less volume, more labour for cleaning, more overhead to supply PPE to employees, clients or both, more overhead for sanitization, etc. So it is entirely possible that you are going to need to do a price increase to make up the difference and stay profitable. Its fine. Raise your prices. Prices are going to be going up on a lot of things, you will be in good company, and there is zero point in running a business that isn’t profitable. It also isn’t possible – you are going to end up putting yourself out of business if you do not do what you need to in order to stay profitable. So before anything else you need to sit down and do a realistic rework of your cost of doing business, and volume and then figure out what your new prices need to be. For some of us, we are fine at the price point we already had – but MANY MANY businesses are going to need to adjust and that’s ok! Next is the logistics – can you even GET the PPE and sanitization supplies that you will need to run your business?  Finding Lysol wipes was no easy feat guys… there is a massive increase in demand on these products and the suppliers are really struggling to keep up. Make sure that you can find the things you need to use in order to keep yourself and your clients safe BEFORE you open and are stressing trying to figure it out. How are you going to manage traffic and volume? How are you going to manage physical distancing in your business and if you run a business where physical distancing isn’t possible then what other precautions are you putting in place? How are you screening people that you are working with? You need to have the answers to all of these questions figured out so that you can responsibly and safely reopen – AND so that you can confidently answer and reassure any clients or potential clients who ask. Having this information posted at your physical business location and on your website is also a great idea to help people feel more confident in working with you. A lot of the photography groups that I am in have been buzzing as the photographers try to figure out the best approach to this new normal. Many of us were debating what to do about newborn sessions where we typically hold and pose brand new babies and are at close proximity. It has been really i