Ten minutes of protection before you hire your analyst — because Kirsty did her whole audit first and asked these questions afterwards, and the clean-up cost her an afternoon. Your Claude privacy settings, the three things that never get uploaded anywhere, and the thirty-second habit that keeps your clients' details safely on your computer forever. Comes with a one-page checklist you'll use for the rest of the course.
The lesson the course is named after: today you hire your analyst. Kirsty shows you the AI team that runs her business — and then you build the first member of yours, using the Analyst Builder: a guided interview that sets up your own business data analyst around your clients, your systems and the decisions you're actually stuck on. Twenty minutes, a cup of tea, and you walk away with a colleague. Comes with the full Builder prompt and a click-by-click setup cheat sheet.
Five free tools, one afternoon, and your analyst has everything it will ever need to listen to. Search Console, Google Analytics, your social insights, your booking records and your Google Business Profile — what each one is for in plain English, and a step-by-step guide to switching each one on. Plus the truth about timing: which data exists already, and which starts collecting the day you connect it.
Feeding your analyst takes ten minutes a month — once you know the routine.
We are going to go through the first baseline feed here.
Plus: The pecking order of trust (why your bank beats every dashboard), the three-step habit for every file (export, strip, archive), and the source-by-source guide to exactly which columns stay and which go. Plus the twelve-month rule for your first feed, and the archive folder that outlives every platform's memory.
The big one: your analyst's first proper look at your business. What a good first load looks like, the baselines that mean your business is finally measured against itself, how to receive your first findings (with interest, not devotion), and the thirty-second job only you can do. By the end of this lesson, your analyst knows your normal — and every month from now on takes ten minutes.
Before you act on anything your analyst tells you: the lesson that makes you its editor. The time Kirsty's analyst found her a hidden fortune (and what checking revealed), the comeback story that never happened, the two rules to keep forever, and the five ready-to-paste messages that test any finding. What survives your checking can actually be trusted — and that changes everything.
The first real question — and the one that changes everything: where does your work actually come from? Enquiries versus bookings (two very different numbers), the clocks your client types run on, the warm channels that are almost certainly your cheapest and most neglected, and the trap that scrambles source data before you ever see it. You leave with one decision made: which source earns more of your effort next month.
The lesson people skip — and the one that frees them. Why looking at the money feels frightening (and why your analyst is the kindest way to do it), what each type of client is really worth, the two traps that distort every photographer's picture, and the number no dashboard shows: what the business actually pays you. You leave with one money decision written down — and the fear traded for a to-do list.
Every channel gets its day in court — fairly. How dependent you really are on Google (and the early-warning watch that moves before bookings do), the three jobs social can do and the firework trap, the measuring stick that makes ads judgeable, the review mechanism you can schedule, and the cheapest revenue most photographers are sitting on. You leave with three verdicts: one channel to feed, one to fix, one to rest.
The lesson where knowing becomes doing. Kirsty's proposals story, start to finish — the signal her monthly numbers spotted, the unglamorous work the evidence pointed to, and what happened to the bookings column next (caveats included, because that's the point). Then your turn: gaps named without shame, and a plan small enough to finish — three things now, a handful next quarter, the calls for the year.
The last lesson — and the one the whole course was for. The ten-minute monthly ritual, the optional skill upgrade, and the part nobody expects: how your rhythm looks forwards — the story of the empty autumn Kirsty's analyst caught ten weeks before her most reliable season. Plus the two small habits that keep everything honest for years, and the capstone that makes the rhythm yours.
Your graduation piece: one page, your business, honestly. Your analyst builds it with you — baselines, sources, your most valuable client type, your verdicts, your actions, your gaps, and your first report date. Then the final test: five things Kirsty's numbers taught her about her business — refereed by your analyst against yours.
And an invitation — entirely optional: Kirsty would love to hear what you found: the surprise, the truest truth, the thing you've already changed. Share as much or as little as you like — numbers optional, always. If you're happy for your story to help future students, tick the box to say so; nothing is ever shared without your clear yes.