HoneyBook & Pic-Time Are Doing What?!
I got some news in my inbox this week that I was so excited about, I decided to do a whole impromptu podcast episode about it! In this week’s episode of Keeping It Candid – Wedding Photography Unfiltered, I talk all about my hesitations working with all-in-one platforms, what HoneyBook and Pic-Time’s announcement was, and why it’s going to be such a game-changer for next year. So, grab a glass of your favourite beverage, get cozy, and check out this week’s episode!
Sandra Henderson (00:00.034)
So I actually had an entirely different podcast episode ready to drop today, but then yesterday morning, HoneyBook and Pic-Time decided to show up in my inbox with a huge announcement. So I pushed that other episode onto the back burner for right now, because I wanna dive into what exactly this announcement was, why I’m so excited about it, and why this is gonna be such a game changer for wedding photography businesses in 2024. Welcome to Keeping It Candid.
I’m your host, Sandra Henderson, an international wedding and family photographer and business coach. I help wedding photographers use systems to build out the backend of their businesses to gain control and continue to thrive no matter what life throws their way. And on a more personal note, I’m a strong Enneagram three-wing too who’s obsessed with tacos. And my love for traveling combined with navigating chronic illness life are just two of the many things that drive my passion for all things, systems, workflows, and beating burnout as a business owner.
Join me every week for a candid behind the scenes look at what it’s really like working as a wedding photographer, where I’ll give you actionable steps to take your business to the next level. Absolutely no fluff here friends, so go grab your favourite notebook and pen and let’s dive into this week’s episode.
Sandra Henderson (01:13.77)
Alright, if you’ve been listening to the podcast for any amount of time, or if you follow me over on Instagram, then you likely already know what HoneyBook and Pic-Time are all about. But for anyone who’s listening that has never heard of these platforms before, I want to quickly talk a little bit about what each of them are so that everything that they announced is going to make a lot more sense when we get to that part.
So first, HoneyBook is a CRM system, and CRM stands for Client Relationship Management. This is a platform that lets you handle everything client facing all in one spot. And believe me when I tell you, it is literally like the right hand in my business. My left hand in real life is, it’s there. It works sometimes to do simple tasks. But when I try to do anything with my left hand, it is just infinitely more difficult. And that is how I feel when I try to do anything without HoneyBook. It takes a lot longer. It’s so much more difficult. And
Over the last, I think, five, six years that I’ve been a HoneyBook user, I have truly never been happier with how simple everything client facing is when it comes to admin work, like sending invoices, contracts, questionnaires, keeping everything on brand, automating. I could go on forever. I am a huge HoneyBook stan. I don’t even know if stan is something that we even say anymore in 2023, but I’m going to go with it. I am a huge HoneyBook stan and I truly don’t know what I would do in my business without it.
Pic-Time on the other hand is a gallery delivery service and I switched to using them from another platform in October of 2022 and it has been another game changer in my business. The user interface for clients is so much more simple than the other platforms that I’ve used. I have not had anyone run into any complications with trying to get their photos which has been really nice
Sandra Henderson (03:07.702)
You know how much I love automations, to get your sales increased for things like prints and other products with a gorgeous storefront that is really easy for your clients to just pop in and order the products directly to their home. So how are these two platforms working together? Well, friend, I am so glad that you asked.
So like I said, yesterday morning, I got an email in my inbox with this huge announcement from HoneyBook and Pic-Time and that announcement is that they are officially integrated, which is huge. There are a ton of CRM platforms out there that offer everything all in one in terms of gallery delivery service, sending invoices and contracts and all that admin work that I love in HoneyBook, having a website through it, being able to blog through it, all these things all in one.
And I definitely see the appeal of having a system like that. It’s nice to not have to bounce around a 10 different websites. You can upload your photos all into one place and transfer them to your website and things like that. But here’s the reason why I am so hesitant to get on board with anything that is all in one in that big of a capacity is that if you have your website, your contracts and your invoices and your gallery service all on one platform, what happens if that platform has an issue with their server?
Get 50% Off Your 1st Year Of HoneyBook – Click Here!
and
Get 1 Additional Free Month Of Pic-Time With Code C5QS5E or Click Here!
We know in the tech industry, issues with servers happen all the time. It is common and it’s not anything that’s happening at the fault of the company. It’s just something that happens sometimes. And so when you have everything, all of your admin, all of your galleries, even your website, all on that same server, if that server goes down, then you lose access to everything and so do your clients.
But when you have separate platforms, it really keeps everything in its own hub. So if, for example, HoneyBook servers go down, then my gallery service and my website still keep running because my gallery is through Pic-Time and my website is through ShowIt. Now, where this big announcement about their integration comes in is that it’s letting HoneyBook and Pic-Time work together without having everything all on one platform. So you’re still keeping that security of having
Sandra Henderson (05:20.31)
your admin on HoneyBook, your gallery’s on Pic-Time, and if one happens to one, nothing happens to the other. But they’re still able to work together. So let’s talk a little bit about what that’s gonna look like. So at the time of recording this, you are now able to automate the creation of a Pic-Time gallery once the first payment is received inside HoneyBook.
So once you receive your initial payment, whether that be a retainer or if you require clients to pay in full, you can set it up so that Pic-Time will automatically create a gallery for those clients. Then from there, you can also manually connect any galleries with existing HoneyBook projects. And you can view connected gallery details like their status if they’re online or offline, how many images you have uploaded into that gallery, all within the client’s HoneyBook file.
And then lastly, you can open and edit connected galleries from inside HoneyBook. Like how amazing is that? That is gonna save so much time. Now some features that are coming soon, which I am even more excited about, you are soon gonna be able to share a link to a pick time gallery from directly within HoneyBook.
My process right now is that I do like to send that link myself through a HoneyBook email template. You can send an email directly through Pic-Time and they have lots of templates to help you with that. But for my process, I just like to copy that link over in HoneyBook. And so it is an extra step for me to go into Pic-Time settings, put in my client’s information, copy the link and then paste it over in HoneyBook and send the email that way. So soon I will be able to just directly send that link from Pic-Time.
right through HoneyBook without all of those extra steps in between. You’re also soon going to be able to sync your photo sales from Pic-Time into any corresponding HoneyBook project. So again, having to if I make any print sales through Pic-Time, I take that information and then I pop that over into HoneyBook. I create an invoice, record the payment and then everything is categorized that way.
Sandra Henderson (07:25.122)
So soon all of that information is going to sync over and it will automatically be implemented into each client’s folder as needed. And then lastly, you are soon going to be able to manually create new pick time galleries from Inside HoneyBook, bypassing that pick time platform altogether. The ideas that I have swirling in my head friends, I can’t even tell you, like this is going to be huge for next year.
Right now in the industry, we are seeing so many new services coming forward that are saving us endless amounts of time. And I can’t wait to see what kind of impact that’s going to have on all of your businesses in 2024. I am all about working smarter and not harder and finding ways to implement boundaries and make sure that you are putting yourself first and not giving every bit of yourself to your business so that you have nothing left.
It is a direct road to burnout. And if I have one mission from this podcast, it’s to make sure that one less photographer every year ends up burnt out by the end of the season. If you wanna get started with either HoneyBook or Pic-Time, make sure you head over to the show notes because I have affiliate links for both platforms waiting there for you. The HoneyBook link will give you 50% off your first year and the Pic-Time code will give you one free month.
Pic-Time also already offers one free month, and so when you use this code, it will give you two free months. They are combinable. Is combinable even a word? I don’t know, I’m gonna roll with it. But definitely make sure you hop over into the show notes to get those because who doesn’t love saving a little bit of money and getting some free things? If you have any questions along the way about getting things set up and streamlined, I do offer one-to-one coaching, where I would be happy to go for everything with you.
and even screen share from my end so you can see how I have everything set up. And then I also offer VIP days where I just take over and I build everything out for you so that you don’t have to worry about it. And when I hand things back over to you, it is all just ready and working and waiting for you. If any of that interests you, there are a few different ways that you can get ahold of me. You can head over to my website, simply sandraevon.ca.
Sandra Henderson (09:33.642)
You can send me an email at hello at simply sandraevon.ca and you can of course send me a DM over at simply sandraevon on Instagram. Now I am recording this episode on Halloween. It is gonna be dropping on November 1st. So I’m just gonna say a bladed happy Halloween to everybody listening because this is my absolute favorite time of year. I cannot wait for all the fun to begin, all the trick or treaters to come by.
I am repurposing a costume for the first time ever, and I am going to be dressing up as an inflatable Stitch again tonight, because when I wore this costume last year, I got so many hugs. It was like living my Disney cast member best life. So I’m gonna be doing that again and enjoying every single second of it, even though it’s gonna be cold as hell here. So I hope everyone listening had an amazing Halloween, and I will be back with a new episode next Wednesday.
Thank you so much for listening. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at simplysandryevan.ca forward slash keeping it candid. In the meantime, let’s connect. You can find me on Instagram and TikTok, just search Simply Sandra Yvonne. And if you’re loving this podcast, I’d be so honored if you’d go ahead and hit that subscribe button and leave a review. Until next time.
Must-Have Links From This Episode:
Save 50% On Your 1st Year Of HoneyBook
Get An Additional Free Month Of Pic-Time
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