124: The Systems You Need To Put Into Place As A Business Owner In Order To Create A Successful Associate Photography with Amanda Perkins

Dolly DeLong: Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Systems and Workflow Magic podcast. I am your Systems and Workflow BFF and Guide, Dali DeLong. And today I have a new friend on the podcast, Amanda Rye. I hope I didn’t even check the pronunciation of your last name. Amanda Rye, is that correct?

Amanda Rai: “Ray”

Dolly DeLong: Amanda Rai. Okay. You all I’m keeping this in just to showcase how much of a human I am. Amanda Rai. All right. New friend, Amanda Rai. So Amanda is a photographer, travel blogger, mompreneur, and business coach. She’s passionate about helping people design and operate. Businesses that fit their life, not the other way around. So when she’s not keeping her team running like a well-oiled machine and teaching others how to do the same, you can find her homeschooling her kids or traveling the country with her family in their camper Cali. Inside the office or not, you can count on Amanda to make people laugh and find the humor in everything.And you all, I have recently been loving Amanda’s Instagram. Like you have these Instagram memes that you share on your stories, Amanda, and I look forward to following that. So it’s true. You’re very humorous. So Amanda, welcome. Welcome to the podcast. I’m so glad you’re here.

Amanda Rai: Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to be here. Thank you.

Dolly DeLong: Oh, you’re very kind. Even though I couldn’t pronounce your last name. Thank you for being so kind to me.so Amanda, feel free, to tell us more about who you are and what you do. I know I gave the listeners just a little highlight reel about you, but tell us more about you.

Amanda Rai: Yeah, so my name is Amanda and I’m the owner of Amanda Rae Photography, a wedding photography business based out of New Hampshire. I’m also a travel blogger at Lifehasitsperks. com, but my new passion is my mastermind that I’m calling A Rai Mastermind, and this is just for servant-hearted creatives in years one to four of their businesses, specifically moms. I’m creating little pockets of community with this group, something that I wish I had when I was in that messy middle. inside the mastermind, we intensely dive into marketing, finances, SEO, lead generation, and most importantly, work-life balance.

Dolly DeLong: Oh, that’s so good. And everything that you post about your mastermind looks like a lot of fun and it looks like a good community of women, especially moms, like just learning with each other. all So I am a fellow photographer as well, and I’m really glad that you reached out to me With this very topic because right before we hit record listeners, I was sharing with Amanda, this is a topic that I know I need to learn for myself, but I’ve been pushing it off and pushing it off and pushing it off because of my control tendencies, like what we’re about to say, I will have to relinquish some control over, and we’re talking about building an associate team for your photography business. And again, it’s, I’m excited about you walking my audience through the process of getting started or how to even start this process. because I’m sure I have a lot of listeners who are also, Photographers as well. I know I have a lot of creative minds and business owners who follow me, who listen in, but I also know I have a lot of photographers who listen in and I am sure if you could, a photographer who’s listening in, if you could be at two places at once and make more money, I’m sure you would say yes to that. And so that’s why I’m so excited about having Amanda on because she is going to help us develop a system for this or establish a system for this. So, Amanda, I’m so excited to learn from you.

Amanda Rai: Yeah. As I mentioned before, teaching others is busy. For business owners, this could probably work not just for photographers, but it could be implemented in other businesses. But just to have a healthier work-life balance is such a passion of mine. And the most effective way to do that is to hire an associate team. I feel like unlocking being at two places at once is, is key. Just, as your kids get older, like my kids are now six and eight, and we’re in that sport. On the Saturday morning phase, I’m just a full-blown soccer mom now. So being able to be in two places at once has been huge.

Dolly DeLong: Oh man. okay. I’m going to have you reshare this with the listeners because it’s really. Interesting how why you got started. So before we hit record, I had asked Amanda, why associate, like, why did you discover this? How, what led you to discover this? Did you purposefully do this, what she shared was so interesting. Like it, it seemed like it was like. forced upon you and I would love for you to share why you started an associate team.

Amanda Rai: Yeah. So my business became official in 2018. so we all know it happened in 2020. and Covid hit and my brides were scrambling and rescheduling and it was just a crazy time for weddings. and I had several of my brides. Had to reschedule their dates on days that I was not available. I was shooting another wedding that day. So my hand was forced to approach a friend of mine and just ask if she’d be interested in doing this and shooting under my brand. And she was a hundred percent for it. so she. It helped me tip my toes in the water a little bit, and once I got a taste of it, I felt like the first one was the hardest. So once you relinquish that control and you trust somebody to deliver the thing that you would deliver, it just opened up the floodgates and opened my eyes to what is possible.

Dolly DeLong: Man, man, 2020. That was, we all know it was a wild year, but I feel like 2020 was also a year of new beginnings for a lot of us business owners, like that, we had something amazing in our brains that needed to be forced and extracted out of us. Systems and workflow education came out in 2020. Like I was going to hide it forever and ever and just do photography if 2020 didn’t happen. And so I guess there’s always something silver lining to something bad like 2020. All right. So let’s just I’ll let you take over and, you can start wherever you want to with just building, like getting started with building an associate team.

Amanda Rai: Yeah, so the first thing that I would say to your listeners is to get clear on what your brand’s mission statement is. if you want, Associates to know how to treat your clients and, know what the goal is. You need to get specific on what your mission statement is. so Amanda Rai Photography’s mission is to love and serve our, couples and their families while spreading joy. so it’s very basic, but we repeat it over and over and over. I say it all the time. They’re saying it back to me. That’s our mission. So if we all know what the mission is, then we can all be on mission when we’re out there with our couples.

Dolly DeLong: Awesome. Okay. So building a foundation, how long would you recommend giving a photographer just taking baby steps into it, okay, I think I need to build out an associate team. It seems like the requirement for me is I feel so spread thin. Like I know this could happen to me, but like, how would they build out a mission statement? How long should they take to do this step? And, I don’t know, do you have any beginning questions to ask yourself to extract these mission statements?

Amanda Rai: A book that was helpful for me was E Myth, um, I forgot the author, but it talks about basically franchising your brand, even if you don’t ever want to franchise it, just to act like you’re going to franchise it. That was so helpful for me in the beginning that I wrote all of these things down. I wrote All of, my mission statements and I wrote down how I would go about doing certain things like systems and, workflows and things like that. So if you’re, listening and you haven’t read E Myth, I highly recommend starting there and just writing it down just like you were going to sell your business, even though you might not ever.

Dolly DeLong: I love that. I’m writing that down. And if I remember to, I will make sure to link the book in the show notes so that everybody can, check out that book. That’s good, I’m going to be looking that up on Scribd later on, Amanda, for sure.

Amanda Rai: I hope I mention a lot of books during this because I feel like books have taught me everything I know is just a lot of books. Yeah, so then once you have your mission statement and you know what the mission is of the business and you want to start finding or recruiting or just letting people know that you’re hiring, there’s so many ways that you could go about doing that. You can reach out to your network, you can reach out on social media, you could send an email blast, Hey, we’re hiring, and it could be like, really small, just, noncommittal for people. They can just fill out a form saying they’d like more information. just like a really low, level of commitment for them at first. Then what I did, or I have done is once they fill out this form, then I give them more information. I have an entire job description that I created. After reading E Myth, a job description for an assistant photographer. So I never hire associate photographers. I always hire assistants, and then they can help me. Grow into an associate. Gotcha. Except for that first one in 2020 that was like straight-on associate, but, just waited to the top. Yeah. Yep. So once you send them that, like a PDF of a job description, you can say if you’re still interested, I’d love for you to apply. And then you can send them just like a Google form, capturing some information that is important to you. Photography experience is not important to me at all. The less photography experience, the better because starting someone from a clean slate, where there’s no, I feel like people, bad habits die hard, and maybe the way I would shoot something is not the way that they normally do so photography experience, I’m like, it doesn’t matter if you have any. If you’ve never picked up a camera, it doesn’t matter to me. What matters most is your character. Can I trust you on a wedding day to make the choices that I would make to be loving, and to be servant-hearted, and just joyful about it? Because wedding days can be stressful. Um, so you have to have the right, mindset and the right heart. So that’s the number one thing I look at and I have them fill out some references so I can, get a better idea of who they are. And I have them write their mission statement. and you can tell the people who did their research, they know mine, so they’ll try to weave it in there, which is fine. So like,

Dolly DeLong: I’m very joyful, and yadda yadda yadda

Amanda Rai: Serve and love people. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. but yeah, just character. And actually, so we’re a team of six now. And every single person that I’ve hired, I have, a friend of a friend, like, somebody’s known them in my circle. which is crazy, even, um, I just hired somebody who I didn’t even know. That one of my past brides knew her. So when I was on Instagram she messaged me, ” Hey, I heard this girl applied for the job. And I just want you to know, she’s amazing. Like I worked with her and she’s phenomenal And just that, like having somebody in my network.

Dolly DeLong: Confirmation. Yeah.

Amanda Rai: Yeah. Yeah.

Dolly DeLong: Verbal confirmation.

Amanda Rai: Transfer of trust and.

Dolly DeLong: Oh, I love that so much. Yeah, because that, I hinted at this earlier, like, this is the point that I feel stuck at, that trusting other people because I’m not a wedding photographer, but I am a family photographer, and I would love to, like, branch out and have assistant photographers or like associate photographers, but it’s just like that trust factor. will they show up and serve my family as well? Because I love my family so deeply. And just to think like anybody letting them down. I’m like, no, like I have to control everything. I have to make sure to over-deliver and will the other person deliver the way I overdeliver. It’s just. That is the hardest thing for me to wrap my mind around.

Amanda Rai: Yep. That’s why character is so important. So important. Yeah. Um, also another book, called Entre Leadership. It’s by Dave Ramsey. he goes through a hiring process in his book, which I just like, Copy and paste like I’m just going to do what Dave Ramsey does. so he talks about doing multiple interviews so you can get to know somebody and who they truly are, by doing multiple interviews. And so you send the PDF job description, If you want to apply, great, then once you have these applications in the Google form, you can start doing Zoom interviews. And these are very short interviews, it’s maybe 10-15 minutes, just, do they show up on time? Like, how do they speak? Just get to know them a little bit, and then explain more about the job, because I usually, at this point, I haven’t even told them how much they’re gonna make, or like, how time intensive it is. So I just go over those again, and If you’re still interested, I would love to meet face to face. so then, as Dave Ramsey says, this interview is a couple’s interview. my husband is my, he’s co-owner anyways, but he and I will take the, um, How do you say that? The interviewee. The interviewee. Thank you. Yeah. The interviewee out to lunch or breakfast, if they have a husband, then we have him come along too. and Dave Ramsey talks about how it’s so interesting to see a married couple together and see how they interact with each other. And you can learn a lot about somebody in the way that they treat their spouse. We’ve had a couple of single ladies too, that we’ve met at a coffee shop, but, just sitting down and seeing what they bring to the interview? Are they bringing notebooks? Are they late? Are they just again, just to get to know their character? and then typically at that interview, we already know if we’re going to offer the job or not. so usually by the end of the. Couples interview we’re offering, would you like to join our team?

Dolly DeLong: Gotcha. Gotcha. Wow. That is very smart. And it sounds like this strategy is you need to have a lot of patience in it and not rush it. Because I feel The reason why having associates may not be successful for a lot of people is that they are rushing the process. After all, they waited far too long and they’re at capacity and now they are just needing anybody to shoot for them.

Amanda Rai: Yeah, hired two ladies in October and they probably will not shoot on their own until July.

Dolly DeLong: That is so wise.

Amanda Rai: Yeah. And I’m gearing up for the 2025 wedding season. So I knew that 2024, cause weddings look out like a year in advance. I knew that I would need more people for 2025. so just.  Kind of very upfront and communicating with them like, you’re probably not going to get a lot of work until 2025, but these are, these ladies are not photographers, they’re, they have other jobs. This is because they’re just doing it for fun, or they just want to be a part. Of something loving and serving people, just like servant-hearted people want to be a part of it. and they think photography is awesome. So they’re like, yeah, let’s do it. But they’re not like, it’s a secondary income for them.

Dolly DeLong: Gotcha. Okay. So I was going to ask you, I don’t know if you’re going to bring this up. Amanda, I’m so sorry. You’re like, Dolly, you asked so many questions. No, this is great. but what do you do about anybody who applies to be? An assistant to associate a photographer with your team. What if they already have an established business? Do you ever consider them? Or are you only looking for associates who, don’t have that background in photography and don’t necessarily want to have an established business? Like what, is there a preference or does it just come down to character and you trusting, Hey, this person is not going to be like. Going to my sessions and taking my clients for their business. Does that make sense?

Amanda Rai: Yeah. Yeah, I definitely would be open to somebody that I trust, that has their own business. I, I was. Considering someone had applied who had just moved to the area and she was just such a busy mom. She had this beautiful wedding photography business originally from a different state and she’s I just don’t have time to do my business anymore, but I still love to shoot. could I join your team and just shoot?

And then they, that’s all they do is just give me the memory cards after the shoot and I do everything else. so I was considering that, but she ended up. Ended up not working, on her end. But there are some photographers that I trust that I would do that. but it’s probably few. I certainly don’t want photographers who are just trying to gain experience. Yes. And then leave. That’s where I was going. Yeah. Because the training process is very long. And I, pour in so much time and energy into training them that, I would hope that they would stick around.

Dolly DeLong: Gotcha. Yeah, because I’ve heard horror stories, and I’m sure you’ve heard horror stories about, people being trained in associate teams, and then they One, not show up, like they just like a ghost the family, and then two, they, they show up, but then they make it sound like it’s their business, and then they take the clients with them. Does that make sense?

Amanda Rai: Yeah. Yeah. And later on, we’ll go into, contracts and things like that, where, and noncookies. ahead, Amanda. Yes. So, after you have offered the job to them, then the trainings start. I have training that I’ve typed up and I use over and over again, where we talk specifically. I mean, these people Literally, sometimes they have to buy a camera because they don’t have one. So, I let them know, like, these are the cameras that, we use, and we would love for you to stay in this brand, and they’re, they’re like, yeah, great, I’ll buy one. and then, so, the first training is like, this is how, Exposure works, like they have no, no reference point.

Dolly DeLong: all. Yeah.

Amanda Rai: Yeah, and it’s so fun to watch them learn. And just, it sparks that joy in me of, seeing somebody relearn photography. And it reminds me of like when I first learned, and like when I nailed exposure for the first time. And, yeah, so we do In-person training and Zoom training. and then I send them off and I tell them to go do some mock shoots so they can get their family or friends and they shoot a whole session and then they send me all the raw files and I. Just do a looming video of me, like, looking at them and giving them constructive feedback on, this is what I would have done different and, things like that.

And then they go try again. so that’s like what we’re going to do this winter. And then once the wedding starts, they shadow. So they’ll shadow, us at our weddings. And, they have this checklist. Another book, Checklist Manifesto, is a great book full of so many good stories, about why you need a checklist. they bring a little checklist to the weddings, and it’s a yes or no column. And it has things that they need to be able to master before they can be an assistant photographer on their own. So there’s just no pressure. They’re just shadowing, shooting away. and at the end of the day, I’ll look at their memory card and I’ll go over the checklist with them. And it usually takes three weddings for them to complete. Master it and then they’re like graduated to the second shooter where they, where I trust that they can do the second shooting.

Dolly DeLong: Gotcha. Gotcha. And okay, again, me just asking as a business owner to business owner, like during this training, are they getting paid or are they only getting paid once they become an associate?

Amanda Rai: That’s a good question. so they do get paid when they’re shadowing at the wedding just because it’s eight hours on your feet. Like, I can’t, I can’t have someone do that for free. The trades are, are, are not paid. But, when they are shadowing, I do pay them. Okay.

Dolly DeLong: Okay. Gotcha. I love it, and I’m sure you’re going to get into this in the legal and contractual considerations, but I have just had all these questions that are popping up in my mind because this is just fascinating to me. Okay. So let’s talk about then the legal considerations when you are hiring a team to work for you. Cause you have this system down pat and you are Very strategic and patient and trained. It sounds to me like training your patient, you have established guidelines like this, Amanda, I am just blown away by this already because this is a very rare trait that not a lot of people have because people just like when they want something, they want it yesterday. And so to me, it’s you who are sowing the seed. In a way like you’re a farmer and like you are making sure there will be, you’re reaping the rewards like two years down the line, it sounds like. And I don’t know. I just really like this. I was impressed by your personality and the way you structure your business.

Amanda Rai: keep up the good work. I feel like it’s good to go slow for the business owner too because it’s easier to relinquish control when you have a relationship with this person and you trust them. And, to take baby steps for yourself too, I think is good instead of rushing in.

Dolly DeLong: Oh, that is so true. Listeners there, there is goodness in being slow and steady with your business. You don’t have to do everything super fast-paced. You can still be a successful business owner while you’re figuring things out, like while you’re taking things slowly. okay. I jumped ahead. Okay. Let’s talk about the legal and contractual considerations. You would have to consider. When building out a team.

Amanda Rai: Yep. So there’s only two contracts that you need. so there’s the subcontractor contract that’s just saying, who has the rights to the images and what, How they need to act under your brand, and the dates that they are booked for your brand. and there are lots of places to get these associate photographer contracts. I just bought one from somebody and looked over it and I was like, this looks great. it also has on there that they are signing the contract that they are going to be with me for at least a year. Um, and I have such great relationships with these women that. You know, if they would ever leave me, they would give me plenty of notice. lots of notice. So they’re so gracious with me. so that the main contract is just a subcontractor contract. And then some people would do a non-compete contract. and that is. Mostly for those people who are also photographers, signing a contract that, my clients are my clients and you can’t take them. And, at a wedding, you are only to be referring people to my brand. like if a sister is like, Oh, I’m getting married soon. can I have your card? You’re only to give them my brand. so that’s what a non-compete would be for. but like I said, most of my ladies are not photographers. But if they ever wanted to become one or, if they’re doing family, things like that, then a non-compete would be good. I have seen people do associate teams where they aren’t worried about that at all. yeah, but I think, it’s dependent on how comfortable you are with the people.

Dolly DeLong: Yeah, no, that’s good. And that kind of like leads in naturally to your next point, which I see had like, you are cultivating a Very positive and trusted team culture, like slowly over time you’re building these relationships and do you have any, um, Encouragement for listeners on how to do this and be patient with it. And not to like, again, not to rush. I, if the theme of this podcast episode, besides systems and workflows, if the second theme should be cultivating patience, because, you just have to be patient with some things. And this sounds like something, an area of your business if you want to have a successful team and associate team. It will take time. It will take patience. And I love that you. Again, I just look at it from the viewpoint of being a farmer. I don’t know why I’m not a, I’m not a gardener, I’m not a farmer, but I just imagine it, it takes a lot of patience to be a gardener and a farmer. You have to be forward-thinking and have a vision for how you want your crops to look like or how you want your garden to look like. And so I’m sure it’s the same for team dynamics and team culture.

Amanda Rai: yeah. so we have this group text thread and anytime any bride, writes a review or messages us and just says, like, you know, they were amazing and just say, wonderful things, we’ll screenshot it and we’ll send it All of us and then we just like celebrate with like emojis and gifts and we just take the time to celebrate and just give so much positive reinforcement for staying on mission. And some of my associates have had some hard wedding days. Like I remember this fall, actually just all of last wedding season in New England, it rained every weekend. And I had my associate team up in the mountains of New Hampshire and it was pouring rain the entire day and the bride had nothing but good things. She said that they just brought so much joy and a calmness and I was just so blown away by the team that the bride said that and so we just like celebrated and we just celebrate each other and we are just Personally, we’re all just friends. I know that sometimes, unfortunately, we’re all busy and we have to subcontract out, like a second shooter. Very rarely, since there’s a lot of us, but we do have to do that sometimes. And even if that person is wonderful, we just miss each other and we miss the team camaraderie of it because we just know each other’s quirks and we know, Just all these things about each other that we miss, right now during the slow season. we haven’t seen each other in a while, and me being away, we’ll meet up and have a team meeting in April and it’ll be so much fun to get together and see each other.

Dolly DeLong: I love that so much. That is so encouraging. And besides, do you ever have I know you said you’re going to have a team meeting, but do you ever have like getaways or just, what phrase am I looking for? like a retreat. Thank you. Thank you, Amanda. No, we haven’t had a

Amanda Rai: retreat yet. It’s so hard to even find a day for dinner because all of us, up until recently, all of us were moms. we just hired two single gals cause, and it was intentional. I was like, all right, we got a lot of moms. We’re all turning into soccer moms. Like we need some Gen Z in here. But just finding a day for all of us is so hard, so I, maybe one day we’ll do a retreat, that would be wonderful, but we haven’t yet.

Dolly DeLong: okay, let’s just plant that seed. I hope it happens for you. This year, if not next year, I hope it happens for you. okay, then, I know that building out a team and then cultivating that trust, takes time. But then, when, when you get to points of, okay, I need to give this, team member feedback. What does that look like? How have you established that? I know, especially as a woman, I will say this, we can be overly sensitive about everything, everything. You’re like, no, not me. I’m not sensitive about everything, but I am sensitive about everything. and so like, how do you navigate that?

Amanda Rai: Yeah. So all of my team knows my personality. I am a little bit abrasive sometimes, but, I’m not in a bad way, but I’m going, to be honest. I’m very real and honest. and I used to be a teacher back in my other life. I was a middle school math teacher. Oh,

Dolly DeLong: yes.

Amanda Rai: You have some skills. Yeah, I have some skills. but just focusing on something they did that you love. at every single time. if you’re looking through their gallery and you’re like, wow, these are overexposed. oh, this is overexposed. I can pick out things that I love. oh, your posing is so good. I can’t believe what you did with the sun behind her head. It, does like the sandwich method and just But, but they’re all overexposed, we gotta work on that. And then, something great, oh my gosh, her the way her dress is moving, you captured that movement beautifully. just to kinda soften the constructive feedback. it does get hard, I feel sometimes. I’m like, did they take that the right way? But they know it’s all in love and I try, that’s why I try to do the loom video so they can see my face. See your face. And like the inflection of my voice, so they know that it’s not just super harsh. and there’s so much grace in learning. I mean, it’s, you know. learning. I mean, even I, I don’t say I shoot a perfect gallery ever, and I’ve been doing this for a long time.

Dolly DeLong: So yeah, no, that’s so good. I, I feel like, okay, going back to the loom comment, I have, I got an email from loom at the end of last year. I’m sure they sent it out to all their users, but it was like, you are the top 3 percent user of Loom. And it’s because I, which is so I was laughing so hard because I sent Loom videos to everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re a student. It doesn’t matter if you emailed me. It doesn’t matter if we’re collapsing on something. I will most likely send you a Loom video back because I want you to see my tone. I want you to hear my tone. I want you to see my face because the way I type can come across as overly excited or aggressive, like a lot of others. Exclamation points are like, all caps, not because I’m angry, but because I’m so excited. and so I have learned, that if I don’t want somebody to translate the way I type into a grush, Aggressiveness or I don’t know, I don’t want it to be misinterpreted. So I ended up sending loom videos and it has helped me tremendously with building so many relationships, like with people I haven’t even met in person. It’s just all online. And we have better trust with each other now. So I just want to affirm, I love that, you do that through loom because it just offers more. I don’t know, they’re seeing you, they’re hearing you, and it feels like less of a blow because I don’t know a lot of people who like to receive construct, I don’t like, sometimes I like receiving constructive criticism if it’s gonna help if I frame my brain, but, I don’t meet a lot of people who are like, I just want to be torn down, I just want to be picked apart, I can’t wait.

Amanda Rai: Yeah. And another thing, because I’ve had some great associates, they’re ones and they’re very hard on themselves. I did a little video of going through my wedding gallery once, like one that I shot, just so they know I am not doing this perfectly. Like I have things that the bride and groom will never see because I didn’t nail exposure or because, so I want them to see that I’m not perfect and I don’t expect them to be perfect. Yeah, so loom for the win, I guess is,

Dolly DeLong: I love it, we got a loom for the win, everyone looms. All right, Amanda, you have shared so many great points with us. I know we’re over 30 minutes and this was like its own mastermind in itself. I have a lot of follow-up questions to ask you, like, first of all, where can people find you connect with you, and get to know you even more?

Amanda Rai: Yeah, so I live on Instagram. I, that’s my favorite social media platform, and I am at, it’s Amanda Rai. R A I, it’s Amanda Rai, and then I also have a YouTube channel with the same name, and also YouTube, if you’re interested in my travel stuff and seeing what we do, Life Has Its Perks is my travel, website and YouTube, or you could just show up at my website, amandaRai. com. I would love to hear from your listeners.

Dolly DeLong: Awesome. And of course, listeners, I will have all of the links in the show notes and also in the corresponding blog post as well. Um, let me just throw this question out there. Are you planning on leading like a mastermind or doing some sort of course about building out an associate team?

Amanda Rai: That is such a good question. So my mastermind will dive into all of it. So how you could be gaining more freedom as a mom plus business owner and being in two places at once is high on there. a lot of people come into the mastermind not wanting that. they think that’s a little bit too big of a step. So we kind of like inch our way, like outsourcing. We’ll talk about outsourcing a lot. but if they’re interested, I will tell them every single thing that I did. I’ll show them what application I used and my job description. And I just peel back the curtain for them in that mastermind.

Dolly DeLong: Awesome. Okay. You all heard that. So please, if you are a photographer, I think any type of photographer could benefit from this. especially if you’re high in demand, this would be a good next step for you. and then I’m Amanda. I’m like, Try to think of another stream of income for you. I’m like, Amanda needs to like, you need to monetize yourself in more ways. You should develop a course about this, or you should like, you should do one-on-one mentoring for this. I’m just saying I know people you’re like, Dolly, please. don’t advertise me like this. No, once

Amanda Rai: a teacher, always a teacher. I’m always excited to tell people.

Dolly DeLong: Yeah, I just want people to have more freedom. Yes, yeah, of course. I think you should do those two things. You should do some courses and then you should do one-on-one mentoring. That’s just me. I’m calling it. All right. People are going to be DMing you and asking, Great. Donnie said you did this. So where is it? thank you so much again for being on the podcast. I appreciate you taking your time and sharing so much of your wisdom about building out an associate team. I found it very interesting and it’s compelling me to want to take more steps in this direction. So thank you so much.

Amanda Rai: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me.

Dolly DeLong: Yeah. Um, listeners again, let me remind you, that you can find everything in the show notes. So if you had any aha moments or light bulb moments, find me on Instagram, find Amanda on Let us know what points you enjoyed the most and like What steps you’re going to take after listening to this podcast episode. And then again, as always stay magical and streamlined. You are amazing, Michael,, I will see you all next week with a brand new systems and workflow-related episode, but until then, bye.