Getting started with Light Blue

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We’re keen to help you to get off to the best possible start with Light Blue, so we’ve prepared a handy guide that walks you through some of the key features that will help you to enjoy Light Blue’s benefits.

 
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Currently using a paper diary or online diary?

If you’re currently using a paper diary or online diary (like a Google Calendar or your Mac Calendar) to manage your business, then all of the exciting features within Light Blue might seem a bit daunting.

We recommend that you start a habit of using Light Blue as your diary, instead, as this gives you a solid foundation that you can then build upon.

In this video, Ian and Sarah walk you through how to start using Light Blue as your business diary.

Once you’re comfortable with that, you can very quickly build on those foundations and take advantage of more great features within Light Blue.

1. Setting up shoot types

Shoot types help you to categorise the different types of work that you do, for example if you shoot mix of portrait, commercial, and wedding photography. You will also find it helpful to break down the different types of portraits that you offer, for example headshots, families, pets and newborns.

👉 Learn more about setting up shoot types.

To start with, just create the different shoot types and give them a unique colour coding. There are more options for each shoot type that let you set up different defaults and branding for them and you can come back to those options later.

2. Creating a new shoot record

Your photography business is built on the shoots that you do for clients, so Light Blue organises everything around those shoots.

👉This guide shows you how to create a new shoot record and add some basic information to it.

This is a really useful foundation that we’ll build upon with more features later.

Spend a little time getting familiar with how to add a shoot record and linking a contact to it. There are less manual ways of adding this information (like contact forms, which we’ll get to), but it’s always useful to understand how to add something by hand so you understand how it all fits together.

3. Adding your existing work in to Light Blue

Start getting yourself organised right now by entering your forthcoming bookings. Once your existing clients & shoots are in Light Blue, you’ll be able to build on them to make use of many of its powerful and helpful features.

👉This guide shows you a few different ways that you can add your existing shoots & contacts in to Light Blue.

There’s nothing to stop you from adding historical information as well, but we’d recommend focusing on the things in the future first of all – you’ll get the most benefit from being more organised with the things coming up, and then can go back to historical information when you have time.

4. Adding other team members and staff

If there’s more than one of you in the business, it’s useful to add your team members as staff. This will allow you to allocate tasks to different people, assign the right person to the right shoot to prevent double booking, and allow you to set different access privileges for each team member.

👉Learn how to set up your staff resources.

6. Using message templates

Keeping in touch with your clients is important, but it doesn’t have to take ages! Light Blue’s email and text message templates save you time and mean that you don’t forget to say the important things. There’s no need to type the same messages out again and again, and our powerful mail-merge tags automatically personalise your messages with the relevant details.

👉This guide shows you how to start saving time when sending messages to your clients.

7. Setting up workflows

Every successful business has a series of steps that they go through to make sure that they’re delivering the best possible service to their clients. Light Blue’s powerful workflows will add a list of tasks and automated messages based around the date of the shoot (or another important date), so you are reminded with a task when you need to do something and important emails and text messages are sent automatically.

👉Follow this guide to start building workflows that will save you time and help you to feel more organised.

 

8. Harnessing the power of contact forms

Receiving new enquiries is great because it means that your marketing’s working well and people want to book you!

When you install one of Light Blue’s contact forms on your website, all of the useful details of your new enquiry will flow straight into Light Blue – no need to type anything into your database!

Your client can get an immediate, automated reply, and you’re able to follow it up with a personalised email or text message template as soon as you’ve checked your availability.

👉Follow this guide to help you cut down on data entry and respond to enquiries more quickly.

9. Start quoting & invoicing

Bringing money into the business keeps the wheels turning and the lights on. Let’s help you to do that by sending invoices to your clients from Light Blue!

You’re able to publish invoices online for your client to pay by credit or debit card, and it’s also possible to send them a nicely branded PDF or paper copy of your invoice, too.

👉Learn how to record sales and create invoices.

Depending on how you run your business, there will be situations where it’s helpful to create a quote before creating a sale and sending an invoice.

👉Learn more about quotes here.

You do not need to make a quote if you just want to invoice a client for something straight away: you can go straight to creating a sale and invoicing it.

 

10. Using contracts & questionnaires

Confirm bookings with ease by sending contracts from Light Blue. It’s easy to present pricing options to your client, gather additional details, have them agree to your terms & conditions, and even take payment for a booking fee or session fee in one nice, simple flow!

👉This guide gives a handy overview of what you can do with Light Blue’s contracts.

🎥 We’ve also got a few video tutorials showing you the basics and how to create your own contract templates.

 

11. Record your spending to track your profit

Record your business expenditure with purchase records, this helps you to see how profitable the business is.

👉This guide shows you how you can keep an eye on your businesses finances by recording your spending.

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