By Roy Barker

The dream of turning your hobby into a photography business can come true. It just takes a lot of hard work and a little know how. Business planning and marketing strategies are important for the start up business and must be top priority but there are other things to consider when starting up your photography business.

No longer can you rely on the structure of working for somebody else. No longer are you just someone who takes photos. You are now a small business owner trying to make a living from taking photographs. No longer can you rely on the thought of losing your job to get you out of bed in the morning. Now the threat of losing your job has turned into a threat of your photography business failing if you do not stay motivated and focused on your success.

How many Stupid Questions are There?

The only stupid questions there are, are the ones you fail to ask. Do not be afraid to ask questions, to ask for help or get advice. There is a lot of support in the community for small businesses that can guide you in the right direction to find the solutions you need.

If you need to upgrade your skills to help you operate your photography business, then get the training you need. Many local councils run small business programs to help you learn the skills you need to be successful. You want to work smarter not harder. That is the point of going out on your own.

Budget your Time and Money

It is all well and good to have plans but if you cannot finance them and bring them into fruition then they are worthless and will do nothing to help your photography business be successful.

You need the time and the money to market your business successfully so make sure you factors these into your budget. Once you have a budget start implementing the marketing strategies. It is imperative to get these off the ground immediately. You need to get the message out into the public arena that you are now taking clients and the services you offer.

Use the time in your budget to continually analyse the success of your marketing strategies and be prepared to modify them if any are failing to deliver results.

Make sure you keep up with changing markets and be flexible in your approach to running your business.

Supplied courtesy of Roy Barker. Roy has provided more on this subject at Photography Business.

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By John Huegel

Here are ten key steps to start and grow a profitable, debt-free photography business.

1. Practice! Keep a camera with you all of the time. Study other photographers and try to emulate images that you love. Spend time learning basic and advanced image editing. Learn your camera in and out, and practice with settings and modes that you don’t normally use. Take advantage of free and low cost photography blogs and web sites. Consider joining PPA, WPPI, SEP or a local photography group or club. Make a list of 50 things you want to do with your photography and try to cross of one item each week.

2. Define Your Business. Create a business name and get some cards printed up. You can get several hundred cards for under $20. Do your web research to make sure you aren’t choosing a name that is already used.

3. Define Your Finances. Get a separate business checking account. You will want to completely separate your business financial activities from your personal finances. Get online banking so you can check your balances. Keep a spreadsheet at home or use a program like Quicken to track and record your expenses.

4. Get online. Hosting a website is not expensive. You can purchase great photography web templates for under $100. Create and feed a blog. Get on Facebook and create a business page. Search for and join web-based business locators like Merchant Circle and Google Local Listings. Create coupons and special offers to draw in customers.

5. Define your target market, both geographically and demographically. What kind of work do you want to be known for? Seniors? Weddings? Landscape? What other work would you take? Draw three columns on a sheet of paper. In the first, note the kind of work you would love to do; in the second, what you would be OK doing, and in the third, what you would rather not do. It will help you formulate your mission and marketing messages.

6. Set Your Prices. Define your value proposition to your customers. You can’t give work away, or undercut everyone, or you’ll go out of business. If you factor in your time and the cost of everything to keep your business running once you get established, you will understand why prints cost what they do from other professionals. Benchmark your competition and understand their pricing and offerings. It’s better to be in their range but not highest or lowest as you are getting started. If you price cheap, people will undervalue your contributions and as you grow it will be harder to command the prices you need to be profitable. It’s OK and expected to change pricing.

7. Spread the word. Read “Guerilla Marketing” books by Jay Levinson, and “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin. Blog like crazy. Study “Search Engine Optimization” to make your web’s page rank higher. Look for ways to generate publicity. Approach family, friends, co-workers and people in church for special “starter” sessions. Offer your customers rewards for referrals.

8. Develop Partnerships. Create cooperative relationships with local businesses, nonprofits, schools, churches and other organizations. Become their “go-to” person for event photography and promotional photography. Donate sessions, products and gift certificates to fund-raising auctions and galas. Get to know the leaders in your community and find ways to make them successful and visible through your work.

9. Grow your business debt-free. Create a list of the hardware, software and purchased services that you would like to have. Price them out and rank them in order of your need. Only buy them when your business bank account allows it. Make sure you have reserves in the account to cover samples, upcoming fees and taxes and insurance. If you devote a high percentage of your first few years profits into growing your business assets, you will be able to stay debt-free and keep the business growing, while still taking some profit each year.

10. Pay your Bills. Make sure you collect and pay sales and use tax. Retain and pay quarterly federal and state taxes if appropriate. Have the right amount of liability insurance. Keep good records of mileage, supplies, prints, office expenses, education, advertising and any other expense category that would count as business expenses.

What about equipment? Of course you will need a camera and other equipment, but don’t assume you need to run out and get the latest and greatest SLR and lighting systems. Start small, with your current camera or an older model picked up off of Craigslist or other used gear source. Add some inexpensive reflectors and/or home-grown lights to start with. As you earn money, you can work your way through your list, and you’ll appreciate every new piece of gear even more. The same goes for software. Free, open source image-editing software such as The GIMP is a great way to get started. Corel’s Paint Shop Pro is also excellent and very reasonably priced. And you don’t need a printer, other than to print normal business correspondence. Hook up with a good local or national professional lab and you can get great prints and great support. One idea I have found useful is to put your wish list on Amazon, and drop some hints around the holidays and other occasions. Your family will appreciate knowing that what they buy you will be put to good use!

There you go! By following these ten steps, you can take your vision of being a pro photographer and make it a reality! What are you waiting for?

John Huegel is a photographer in the Erie, Pennsylvania area who specializes in Seniors, Dance Studio, Families, Weddings and Events. He is active in many charitable and volunteer activities in the Erie area. His work can be seen at http://jhphotomusic.com He operates a blog for professional photographers at http://newphotopro.blogspot.com

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By Danny Feildman

If you have the knack of originality and a proficient hand at handling digital equipments, starting your own photography business would not be a mean feat for you. However, possessing excellent technical and photography skills do not qualify you as a business person capable of sustaining your own photography business. To commence your own new business successfully, you need to have prior knowledge on the legal, financial and management aspects of it. Here are a few tips on starting your new photography business.

Learn the kind of photography you would like to specialize in: Understanding your skills and knack is the first important step towards initializing a new business as the field of photography is wide and replete with competitive players. In the field you would meet myriad freelancers working for dailies, weekly supplements earning a handful of 5,000 $ per day. So, realize what kind of activity you want to indulge into. Assignment photography is quite a popular pick by fresher as this type is commissioned by a client. The job includes taking pictures for advertising their products, covering weddings, functions and events etc. Stock photography, on the other hand is opted by several photographers contemplating to make a living out of selling their clicked pictures. These stock photography web sites offer platforms to photographers to market their art work to a wide range of potential online consumers. Photographers get paid some fixed commission amount at every download.

Scribble your photography business plan: This is the second step to establishing a successful business. This plan will serve as a road map essential for directing your start-up and business evolving needs. In the plan, try to analyze your financial requirements for starting your business; learn the parameters of your resources, marketing strategies that would lead you to learn the financial standing of your business. As you go further in your photography business, this plan would be your check mark to remind you of the progress of the path you had planned before getting started with the business.

Open an account for your new business: Another step is to visit your bank and ask them to open a new checking account pertaining to your business. This is done to avoid intermixing of your personal account with your business account. Deposit the amount / capital you have saved into that account and once the account is established, use the amount to invest in your business. It is advisable to accrue a separate credit card for your business and do not make your personal purchasing from it.

Get your photography business set-up insured: This is the most imperative step towards starting a new business. You must sort ways to secure your establishment, regardless of its size right at the stage of commencing it. Most of the photographers derive benefits from the clauses mentioned in liability insurance, especially those who have clients paying visits to their studios. This insurance will offer you protection in case, your studio gets affected or you incur an injury.

If you would like to learn more about how to start a photography business and need a digital photography business plan, then make sure that you read this online photography business free report written by Dan Feildman, that will literally show you step by step just how anybody really can start a successful home photography business.

Receive your FREE GUIDE on this Digital Photography Business and Discover how to earn money with just a digital camera, PC and internet connection through Stock Photography Marketing

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By Vanessa Honda

Starting a photography business can be a rewarding, profitable (and sometimes scary) enterprise. After having just gone through the process of starting a photography business, I’d like to share some tips that will help others avoid mistakes.

1. Have a cash reserve on hand. This is true for any business. Building up a customer base takes time. You likely will not make money overnight.

2. If you have the option start the business on a part time basis. This will give you a chance to build up a customer base while you still have an income stream. It will however involve some long hours, so plan with your significant other how you will make the business work.

3. Start with an SLR camera. It may be tempting to purchase a lessor model. This is one place you where you won’t want to skimp pennies. You are after all holding yourself out as an expert photographer.

4. If after you have obtained an SLR camera and you have to decide whether to spend more money on the lens or on the camera, go with the lens. Quality lenses are the key to getting quality images.

5. Quickly become proficient with Adobe Photoshop and Light Room. These two programs are essential to any photographers success. Adobe will fix images as you learn to take quality images. Lightroom will greatly speed up the processing of your photographs.

6. Use Actions and Macros in Adobe Photoshop and Light Room. This will give you the ability to quickly provide artistic touches to your photographs.

7. Make sure you have a quality web page. There are few products better suited to the web then portraits. In what other industry can you actually experience the product without leaving your room.

A photography business is not for the faint of heart; but it’s not impossible either.

Vanessa Honda is a Huntington Beach Photographer who provides portraits to all of the Orange County, CA Area.

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