The Technical Side of Being a Party Planning Entrepreneur
If you’re a party planner, I can pretty much guess what you have in your computer right now: a few drafts for invitation templates, a few documents that can be printed (including invoices and the like), a portfolio of past clients and projects, and a lot of photos that can be uploaded to your page.
Before you know it, your whole business and planning history will be inside your computer, so when it starts showing signs of breaking down, you panic.
It’s not a secret that most of use are technophobes and would rather file everything in cabinets and folders, but what if space becomes an issue and you realize that your clients and prospective clients are more often online than browsing through the classifieds? Simple. You adapt!
You may use computers every day – it’s hard to avoid them – but your computer purchase anxiety may be related to your fear of feeling ignorant. If you’re in this boat, here are some tips for you.
1. Trust a System
Whether it’s Microsoft, Apple or an antivirus software system that your friends swear by, you should learn to trust the brand. The tech part of your business is dependent on systems, which means you should not only understand them and how they work, but also trust that they will function as described.
The antivirus system you purchase is particularly important because older versions consume too much space in your computer or laptop. Think of it as a bulky cabinet that’s taking up half the space you allotted for your home office at home. It’s useful to have around but as your business progresses, you find yourself slowing down whenever you try to walk around your space without bumping into that bulky thing.
2. Don’t be Afraid to Outsource Work
We WISH we can be everything to our businesses, but the reality is that we can only be good at several things. If, for instance, your old business logo looks horrid when scanned and uploaded in a hosting server, it’s time to hire someone to create a more updated version of the thing.
Get a freelance designer who knows how to use a good photo editing software and simply sit back and wait for the finished product. I know you can always learn photoshop (and you’ve been meaning to, for a time now), but there’s a steep learning curve involved in it and THAT requires a huge chunk of your time.