The Pro Photo Business Forum

Do you find yourself overwhelmed with ideas and thoughts about how to market, promote, organize, run, or otherwise manage your business?  Have you struggled to find a way to keep track of your thoughts or creative ideas because you forget about them?  If so, you may be a lot like me, and I’d like to share how I handle my overactive stream of consciousness thinking.

Several years ago, I was walking through an office store and I noticed that whiteboards were on sale.  At the time, I was a full-time student and saw the value of having my own whiteboard to work on while during homework and such.

So, fast forward a few years.  We move into our new studio last year and in December I decided to bring out the ‘ol whiteboard.  I cannot say enough about how much that little action of hanging a whiteboard has provided for us.

Here’s how I work it:
So, I’ll be sitting in my office working on something when I get an idea. Or, let’s say I’ve got something business related troubling me.  Or, I’m looking for a new idea for this years bridal shows.   I start by writing the subject of the exploration at the top of the whiteboard: whether it be a topic, or a question.  I then proceed to dump everything in my head onto that board.  I pace. I talk to myself. I write stuff on the board.  I have a 36″ x 48″ whiteboard to fill… so what do I do when it fills? Well, I take a picture of it.

One important note on the way my system works:  I never erase anything from the whiteboard until its been photographed. Including ideas that have been discounted.  I’ll indicate with an “x” or a strikethrough that its not a good idea. But, when I go back to review what we have discussed I want to be able to see the good ideas & the bad ones.  I have a visual memory of our discussion.

On my computer, I have a folder labeled “whiteboard” where I keep the pictures of our whiteboard sessions organized by date and subject. I have pulled them up and reviewed them several times, whenever a topic or discussion was rehashed.  Or, if I needed to simply reference something we had explored.

In the photograph I’ve included, the topic was: “What to we have & how are we using it?”  In other words, I wanted to explore how we were promoting our business,  where we could do better, and what was missing.  You can see that it is very stream of consciousness writing.  I scribble as I think.  Some of the things we use regularly, some we deemed to be ineffective.

All in all, the best thing about having a whiteboard is being able to explore concepts and new ideas from beginning to end and having a way to document them.  I call it “Whiteboard Marketing” because some of our greatest and most successful marketing ideas have been products of whiteboard thought sessions. It has saved us thousands in costly marketing errors and created thousands in the ability to see an idea all the way through.  I would encourage everyone to go forth and scribble!