PHOTO NANNY ISN’T JUST ABOUT PHOTOS…IT’S ABOUT LIFE!

Part of being a Photo Nanny is being a partner to our clients. We are “in the family.”

We are helping them reach their goals. They want to find pictures….Great. We can help. They want to share pictures. Got it. They want to crop and edit photos to look better. Check.

But one of the best parts of being a part of the family is actually listening to the client…like today when she said, “I want to order some photos from Walgreen’s but I don’t know how to do it.”

I typically start with the approach of “No problem. I can show you.” But as I’m opening the website and her application to export the photos, I tend to be that nosy family member who says, “So, why do you want to order these pictures?”

And I can’t tell you how many times the end result is not what the client was expecting. So often people THINK they know what they want, but it’s really a matter of not understanding there’s a better alternative. And I SO LOVE SHOWING THEM EASIER, BETTER ALTERNATIVES.

And yesterday was one of those days. So, we’re mosey-ing along to the Walgreen’s site and I begin an upload and then open another window on the client’s MAC, and she says, “Wait. Can we do something else on the internet while that’s being uploaded? How did you open a second window?”

“Sure. We don’t have to sit and wait,” I say as I’m browsing to another site to show her some options for what she wants to accomplish.

It’s this sort of one-on-one that I love because it’s not about photos. It’s about EFFICIENCY. And EFFICIENCY means less stress…less time doing things that are mundane and necessary but not fun…or not being “involved’ with the family. We need to do them to preserve the story of our family, but if we’re so busy preserving at a slow pace, we’re missing out on many things we’d rather be a part of. So, EFFICIENCY is the name of the game.

I showed her how we could change the settings on her browser window to open each site in a tab, how to easily navigate around with a few shortcuts she didn’t know before, and the smile on her face reminds me why I am here doing what I do. I love the personal and emotional feedback helping with family photos, but most of all empowering people to learn and be less afraid of technology. What a great job this is. I hesitate to call it a job when it’s really such a passion for me.

For this particular client, we didn’t end up ordering photos on Walgreen’s. She’d planned to print hundreds of pictures, then to drive to the store to pick them up, and then to sleeve them into a little photo album so she could manage her wardrobe that a consultant helped her put together.   The consultant offered a digital “style book” and lots of options for managing the wardrobe on her iPad or phone…as well as the option for printing the photos and placing them in albums. (I’ve seen some who print everything as 8x10s and have full notebooks for this task – Talk about expensive!)  In this case, she found the digital options just weren’t working – they were inefficient, but the printing and sleeving option wasn’t the best either.  So, we ended up with a plan she can easily keep up with (can update it every month from her phone) and she’ll have at her fingertips when it arrives in the mail…FOR $2.99.

That’s my style. Efficient, cost-effective, fun, empowering stuff…so everyone can spend less time “managing” and more time enjoying what matters…family, friends and less stress!

I hope everyone is off to a great 2016 and if you’re ready to tackle learning a few things to make your life more efficient, I hope you’ll call Photo Nanny. We are more than ready to help you make 2016 your best year ever!