Starting Your Own Photography Business
By William Foster
www.wfosterphoto.com

It seems that more and more people on the No BS Forum want to go into business for themselves. After all, this is a natural progression for a lot of people. It’s a way to share a talent such as photography, it satisfies a creative whim and it can bring in some cash to boot. Of course, not everyone has the desire to be in business, most people are content making photos for their personal purposes and that’s fine. Fortunately, No BS is a pressure-free-zone, so there are people at all stages of their photographic career.

This article is intended to be an ongoing article that will address what seems to be the issues at hand. Each month in the forum, the general questions change and people are asking questions about a variety of issues. Right now, it seems like a lot of the questions when boiled down, come down to pricing, marketing and wedding practices (specifically the release of files and packaging). Each month for the Digital Dog Bowl, I’ll prowl the forum and pick a current topic to write about. This month, the first article in the series, let’s talk about getting into business in the first place.

In the last few months, several people have announced they are leaving their full time jobs for the adventure of making it on their own. The entrepreneurial spirit is heavy at No BS and it’s no wonder with all the talent here. Some people are having studios built into their homes and others are leasing space in town. In any case, let’s boil down what it takes to get a business started.

Whether you are considering opening a commercial studio specializing in food photography or a home based business making environmental portraits of families, it all begins with planning. I’m not just talking about hashing out some ideas in your head and jumping into the deep end, I’m talking about some formal planning. That means having a business plan. You know, operating without a plan is a sure-fire way to be out of business before you know it. Most successful businesses constantly refer to their plan and revise it annually.

I know, it sounds a little rigid for us creative types, but consider the statistics put out by the US Small Business Administration. Most small businesses that go under within a year or two can directly correlate their business problems with a lack of proper planning. What’s that really mean? Well, let’s boil it down. Let’s say a photographer decides to go into business for him or herself. They own one digital body, a few lenses and some flash units. Mind you, their images are of excellent quality, but this photographer hasn’t really done a whole lot of planning. Within 6 months, they are making some cash and decide to put a bunch of it into a pro level SLR and a few pro lenses to match. Then, wanting to bring in more business, they decide to have some postcards printed up and buy a mailing list. After a few months of floundering, they decide to buy a newer computer to deal with the additional data the camera creates. Finally, by the end of the year, all of the money that has come into the business has been spent on equipment, a seminar and advertising.

What will happen next year? How will the taxes from this year get paid by April? How will the credit card get paid off that was used to buy the computer? How will they get more clients? Are their prices set right? Do I bring in enough money to cover my expenses?

These are all questions that could be avoided altogether by utilizing the proper planning. Where does that plan get written? In a business plan! A well written business plan contains several sections that explain exactly how the business operations will be run, how much it will cost to be in business, projected expenses and capital investments and how the business will bring in revenue. By having a realistic plan, you’ll know who you cater to, how to pay yourself, how much to pay yourself, when and how much to spend on new equipment, how to account for your business and whether or not you’re profitable.

I am not going to get into the nuances of writing a business plan in this article. For that, I will direct you to the United States Small Business Administration (www.sba.gov) where there are plenty of tutorials and templates to write your own business plan. This article instead is designed to alert you to the pitfalls that await the entrepreneur. Being in business is difficult enough as it is. Failing to plan or making a poorly crafted plan only compounds the problems. Photography is a tough nut to crack, why make things more difficult.

So, let’s touch on a few tings that need to be addressed in your business plan.

1. Be honest about how much it will cost you to be in business the first year

2. Be honest with yourself about how much capital you can invest

3. Thoroughly examine who you want to market to

4. Project accurately how much money you think you can make

5. Set your prices according to your business needs

a. Your expenses MUST be covered to be profitable

6. As soon as your business plan is started, secure the services of a professional CPA to whom you are not related.

As a final note, don’t write your business plan to support the notion that you can leave your current job now. Write it as it should be written even if that means you need to continue to work full time for another year to earn more capital. The temptation is to write the business plan according to what you are currently doing. For example, let’s say I work a full time job and have decided to leave now and start my business. I can either write my plan honestly and realize that I need to keep working as my business grows, or I can write it with skewed numbers to show that I can leave the job and hope my business grows at an unrealistic rate. All this is to advise you to be honest. If you are not honest about the numbers and plans, no one will know until you have to explain to everyone why you had to close the business and go back to work for someone else.

Good luck and be sure to utilize all the information available from www.sba.gov.

Bill Foster
www.wfosterphoto.com

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