OK! Here’s the deal! There is this wonderful product that I use all the time —– ladies and gentlemen —- meet ShootQ! I love ShootQ, and it’s helped me to keep everything organized in my photography business, in terms of potential clients, workflow, “to-dos”, and a lot of other fun information! I’d like to share some of the wonderful secrets of ShootQ with those of us *ahem cough cough* who fall into one of the following categories:
1) Registered for ShootQ, pay the monthly fee, but barely use it
2) Registered for ShootQ, kind of use it, but are too lazy to read the “Help” sections
3) Can’t keep track of client inquiries and emails and tend to forget important steps in the process
4) Keep writing the same things over and over again in emails
5) Would really like to pass potential clients to other trusted photographers when already booked, but are too lazy to write the email with the contact information (I’m not assuming we’re all lazy here, but let’s be honest! Things get put off!)
6) Think we know when invoices should be paid by that Excel spreadsheet that’s …. here…. somewhere?…..
If you fall into any of these categories – ShootQ is for you! Totally worth it!
I’ll be walking through all of the fun features of ShootQ, but the first I’d like to start with is the “What’s Happening” section. You may say, “Why do I need another form of keeping track of my tasks, when I already keep two calendars, an Evernote, and a post-it in my car? Well, if you get more than one inquiry a month, it may be beneficial to have your entire schedule in one place. ShootQ allows you to input calendars. It also displays your current bookings and leads, client birthdays (love this)!, and other tasks on your personal imported calendars.
So where to start? On your ShootQ homepage, you’ll see a “calendar” and “What’s Happening”:
The What’s Happening? section displays all of the details that you have on your calendar, in the current week. This is a rolling week. You can use this to view what to expect in the next couple of days.
If you’d like more detail on what’s coming up in the month, and would like to set up all of your calendar features, click the “calendar” icon at the top of the dashboard. Now you’re here:
So the calendar “view” is pretty self-explanatory. You can view 3 years of previous and future months using the month drop down in the upper-right or the arrow buttons. The fun part comes with integrating your calendars:
Add an external calendar: Click the “Add a Calendar” link on the left:
Name your calendar (feed) and include the calendar URL. If you keep Google calendars like I do, you can get the calendar URL by going to http://www.google.com/calendar, click Settings –> Calendars –> Calendar Name –> and the HTML “Calendar Address”.
Make sure you choose to share it with yourself! click “Create Feed”. Now you’ve added your Google / iCal / other calendar to your ShootQ Calendar! Yay!
I want my ShootQ bookings calendar to show up on my personal calendar! Easy! Click the little RSS icon on your calendar page for a ShootQ subscription:
Now select where you want to import your ShootQ calendar. I used Google for mine, by Photographer:
Now I add that to my Google Calendar by using the “Add by URL” feature. Voila! Easy sharing!
The other great thing about ShootQ, is that if you maintain your “Relationships” listing well, your calendar will show other friends/brides/photographers/vendors birthdays and anniversaries, so you’ll never forget!
More ShootQ fun to come!!
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