The Beginner Photography Podcast

How to Write a Photography Business Plan

• Raymond Hatfield

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Download your Free Photography Business Plan Template - https://beginnerphotopod.com/bp

#468 In todays episode of the podcast I'll walk you through how to write a photography business plan to help transform your hobby into profit by targeting the right market with effective strategies.

THE BIG IDEAS

  • Embrace Business Identity Mastery: Recognize and refine your unique photography style to attract your ideal clients and build a brand that stands out.
  • Analyze to Capitalize: Understand your market like the back of your hand; demographics and needs analysis can set you up for capturing the right audiences.
  • Strategic Offer Structuring: Learn how to create tiered pricing and bundle packages to maximize value perception and revenue.
  • Financial Planning Proficiency: Plan your photography business finances to manage irregular incomes and maximize profitability with a clear, structured approach.

PHOTOGRAPHY ACTION PLAN

  1. Draft Your Photography Business Plan: Start by outlining your business goals, target market, and services you’ll offer. This roadmap will guide all your business decisions and strategies. Break your plan into manageable sections like market analysis, operational strategy, and financial goals. Tackle one section at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
  2. Conduct Market Analysis: Research potential clients and understand their preferences and behaviors. This knowledge will help you tailor your marketing efforts and service offerings. Identify your competitors and analyze what they are doing well and where they lack. Use this information to differentiate yourself and fill gaps in the market.
  3. Develop Your Product and Service Offerings: Create packages that cater to different customer segments. Consider offering basic, premium, and deluxe packages that meet varied needs and budgets. Consider unique add-ons or bundled services that enhance value such as quick turnaround times or special editing services to make your offerings more attractive.
  4. Set Up Effective Client Management Processes: Invest in a reliable client relationship management system. This tool will help you keep track of inquiries, bookings, and follow-ups, ensuring you never miss a potential job. Establish a clear communication channel with clients. Regular updates and responsiveness will build trust and improve client satisfaction.
  5. Establish Financial Goals and Structures: Calculate your initial setup costs, ongoing expenses, and desired income. Use these figures to set pricing that covers your costs and meets your financial goals. Choose the right business structure to optimize tax benefits and limit liability. Consult a tax professional to decide whether a sole proprietorship, LLC, or another entity best suits your needs.

Resources:
Download your free photography business plan template - https://beginnerphotopod.com/bp
Grab your free CloudSpot account with CloudSpot Studio to tackle client management -  https://deliverphotos.com/

Sign up for your free CloudSpot Account today at www.DeliverPhotos.com

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Raymond Hatfield:

Hey, Raymond here from the Beginner Photography Podcast, and today we are talking all about how to craft your first photography business plan. I really hope that this episode is going to be a roadmap for you on how to get started, because I know from personal experience that a business plan can be really helpful if you want to get into business and you wanna start earning money with your camera. Even though I also know that like in the beginning. I found it really hard to get, a business plan. Written and going, because I kind of had some ideas about a business plan. I kind of listened to maybe too many podcasts about starting like a scrappy, solopreneur type of business. And, just heard some bad advice. So I wanna share that with you today. The things that I learned, the things that I wish that I did, what I wish that I didn't do, and how you can create a business plan to, Ultimately, start and grow a business, here in photography 'cause I can tell you it's a pretty sweet business when you got it set up and going pretty good. So, the first thing like. again, when I first started, I really didn't think that having a business plan was super important. so I really never made one. And I think the reason for that was, knowing that I was just gonna be like a solo, like a one person business. I didn't think that it was necessary for me. They always seemed so complicated. They seemed vague, full of like legal speak. And it just didn't seem to me like it was for my small business. But as time went on, as I made some mistakes, I learned a lot more about business. and suddenly like business plans made more sense. And I think what helped me the most is that I just started looking at other businesses, trying to figure out how they were making money. And for a little bit there was like this, Dunning Kruger effect. If you're unfamiliar with the Dunning Kruger effect, it's, imagine this chart, right? When you're at the very beginning of something, you know that you don't know anything about it. But once you know a little bit about it, you think that you know a ton, right? And then as you start to learn more, you realize, oh, I actually don't know nearly as much as I thought that I did. And for me it was that way with business. I remember, you know, in the beginning I knew that I was a photographer first, who was, starting a business. But I knew that I needed to know about business. So that's when I started learning about business. And then once I learned a little bit about business, I'll tell you what, I was probably the most obnoxious person to watch Shark Tank with 'cause every business that would come in, every product that would come in, I would just rip it to shreds. Be like, what a terrible idea. And then as time goes on, as you learn more about business, You realize how much you don't know. And, that's a difficult, pill to swallow, honestly. but it comes from, making mistakes. So, again, that's what I'm gonna share with you today because, a business plan really is important. I can tell you it's not just for big businesses, with teams of people. it doesn't have to be written in that dense legal speak. What a business plan should be is almost like a roadmap. a business plan should be your guide for when you're feeling stuck or when you're feeling overwhelmed and you feel like you're not sure exactly what to do. And for me, I think that honestly, like a well-structured business plan can be the foundation for a successful solo photography venture. Even if you're the kind of person who, you know, you say that you kind of, fly by the seat of your pants, I promise you having a business plan will help you immensely because the first thing that you need to understand about a business plan is that it is your business plan. It is not a standard business plan. How every business should be running, it's your business plan. It only needs to make sense to you. This business plan is for you to run the business that works for you and works for your lifestyle and not necessarily everybody else's. A business plan is essentially just a document that says what your business is about and how you make money and how you plan to stay in business. That's really it. That's really it. So, we're gonna kind of break that down to make it a little bit more concrete for you, but essentially that's what it is. it's like a map, if I were to look at a map and point to, I don't know, Kansas City or something, I would know how to get there by starting at Kansas City and, kind of walking my way backwards, following the roads back towards Indianapolis. And that's how I would get there. This business plan is the same thing. You want to create kind of a vision for what you want your business to be, so that you can then build the stepping stones back to where you are now so that you can start to build this business. That's what your business plan should be, And this thing doesn't have to be set in stone. You don't have to follow it all the time. It can be updated every six months every year, something like that. It doesn't have to be the end all, be all for your entire business, the life of your business. It's so much better to just get started on something and then readjust as time goes on. So, depending on where you're at in your business journey, depending on how much you know about business, depending on, how much you know about where you want to be, there can be some concepts that may be unfamiliar to you, today in business. So I'm gonna do a lot of analogies and hopefully they all come off pretty well. But I think that the best analogy for talking about a photography business, honestly, is restaurants. Because restaurants, just like photography are purely discretionary. Nobody needs to go to a restaurant. The only reason that you go to a restaurant is because you want to, that's it. Not because you need to, it's because you want to. You can easily just go to the store, get the food, come home and cook or whatever. You don't need to go to a restaurant. You simply want to, and it's the same with a photography business. Nobody needs photos of them. It's purely because they want photos. They want photos of their family. They want photos taken at their wedding. They want headshots. It's not because they need them, they just simply want them. So because of this, as I said, I'm gonna use restaurants as an analogy for, for a lot of this. So let's go ahead and get started with the business plan itself. I found, that for me, having multiple different segments really helps. So if you look at like any sort of template or something for a business plan online, again, it looks very structured, it looks very neat, it looks very organized. And if that's who you are, that's fine. Like that's great, go for that. But that's not necessarily like who I am. So I think that's what really held me back for a long time from actually getting one started because that's not the business that I wanted to run. Like I wanted to run a business that was more like me. So what I did was I almost wrote like a paragraph for each section. And what I'm gonna share with you today, there are a total of six sections, that we're gonna be covering in our business plan. So the first section. It is really understanding your business identity and if you're gonna listen and you're gonna follow along, I highly recommend you doing this in several phases. Use this episode as a workshop for building a business plan. Okay? And again, this is just how my brain works, but I like to consume all of the information without taking any notes or nothing, just kind of like letting it simmer. And then I'll go back and listen to it again to then be able to start to work through it. Now that I know kind of what the end is supposed to look like, because if we just get started at the beginning, if I don't have a vision of what the end looks like. It's very hard for me to just come up with these concepts. All right, so do yourself a favor. Just listen to the entire episode and then to build your actual business plan, come back, listen to it again, and start working through it. So, section one here is all about understanding your business identity. All right? And understanding what your business identity is, is simply. It's your niche. It's what do you do, right? And I know that the word niche has, some possibly negative connotations depending on what it is that you shoot. Maybe you want to shoot everything, but just know that there's no wrong niche to get into except for having no niche. Okay. And I know that there are plenty of photographers. In fact, I was one who wanted to shoot all sorts of things. In fact, I originally wanted to get into, family photography. then I got into weddings. But I also love landscapes and I love all these things, so how can I just pick one that stinks? I don't want to do that. But let's look at restaurants for a moment. Okay. There are all sorts of restaurants. There's chicken restaurants, seafood restaurants, burger restaurants, steak restaurants, Italian restaurants, Chinese restaurants, you know, whatever, whatever. One thing that I have learned with kids is that pretty much anywhere you go has some sort of burger and fries, right? Even I'm sure that you know something like the Olive Garden here in the States has a cheeseburger and fries just for kids. Or pizza. Right? Something very easy, right? But, so they all serve similar things. You can get a, cheeseburger at a chicken restaurant, at a seafood restaurant. You can get one of the steak restaurant, Italian, whatever. They all serve similar things, but they label themselves as just one because that's how you're going to attract attention. If somebody's in the mood for Chinese food, they're gonna go to a Chinese restaurant, right? They're not gonna go to an Italian restaurant. But if you have a picky eater, like a child, you could probably just get, I'd be willing to bet that they got like chicken nuggets or something in the back, depending on what, what Chinese restaurant that you go to. But they have some sort of that, right? So again, they all serve similar things. But they label themselves as one. So just because you label yourself as a seafood restaurant doesn't mean that you can't serve a burger. You're probably just not gonna advertise that you have burgers and fries, because that's not what people will come to your restaurant. Four. Okay. So having a niche is an incredibly important thing so that people can put you in a box so that you can fit into a box into their life. If you're a really good landscape photographer, like you're really skilled at taking landscapes, but you also shoot weddings and maybe you're even better at shooting weddings, but if you don't label yourself as one or the other, you're not gonna get called. So the question to ask yourself is, what do you like to shoot? What photography skills are you good at? What will make you stand out against other photographers? Can you see yourself doing this for a long time? Does it fit your lifestyle? For me, when I got into weddings, like my son was just born, right? Actually, it was right before he was born. So weekends to me didn't really like mean anything. But as I got older, weekends now become more important because my kids are older and we do stuff on the weekends. So now it doesn't necessarily fit my lifestyle. But you can still go out as a wedding photographer, shoot landscapes, shoot street photography, shoot senior photos if you want to, but pick something that you want to be known for. All right. And again, remember, this can change in the future. It's changed for me. It can change in the future. Just pick one today and start moving forward with it. Alright, so that was segment number one, right? Section one, understanding your business. So you need to put a flag in the ground for what kind of a photographer you will be going forward, to start making money. So once you know what kind of a photographer you're going to be, we need to move on to section two, which is market analysis. This is the fun stuff, right? but don't worry, it's not as difficult as it sounds. I'm gonna help you out with this. There's actually a really, really easy way to, to figure this out. Alright, so what are the basics of market analysis? So, conducting market analysis is simply for you to understand who your potential client is, as far as the demographic and what their needs are. Okay, so let's start with identifying your direct competitors and finding out what we can learn from them. There's this trick in writing if you want to get really good at writing. I don't wanna say copy 'cause it, but it's like, it's like retype out your favorite books. And the idea is that you start to see how words are placed together when you have to type them out on a screen or write them down on paper. So we're doing a similar thing here, right? We're not stealing the works of somebody like Hemingway or, whatever. What we're doing is we're simply just trying to get a better understanding of how it all works. All right. So we need to find some direct competitors and again, see what we can learn from them. So again, the first thing, identify who those direct competitors are for where you are, not where you want to be 10 years down the road, but where you are today, where you will be in the next say year. so once you figure out those who those people are, now we need to figure out who are there potential clients. And again, not to steal them, but to figure out, oh, what will this look like for you? So for you it's figuring out, just the simple demographic of age, gender, income level, what are their interests? Maybe what do their weekends look like? Because their weekends are gonna look very different if they are a, just a, like an engaged couple with no kids or anything versus a family or, somebody looking to get head shots done, right? So once you figure out kind of what does your potential client look like or could look like, now it's time to figure out what are their needs. So again let's go back to the restaurant example. Let's think of reasons why people choose the restaurants that they go to. There's really three main types of restaurants. There's fast food restaurants, there's casual dining restaurants, and then there's fine dining. All right? I'm sure that you've been to all three. Why do you go to a fast food restaurant? People choose fast food restaurant for speed. And convenience. That's it. They're not going for quality. They're going for speed and convenience. uh, softball practice went way later than you were expecting, and it's late. The kids gotta go home. They gotta, brush their teeth, get in the shower, go to bed. So you're picking something with speed and convenience. So are your clients, the type of clients who are looking for the fastest turnaround time, with as little interaction from you as possible. This could be real estate photography, it could be product photography, school photos. Then there's also casual dining restaurants. These clients are looking for a balance between quality and price. Maybe this is that restaurant that you, it's a weekend favorite, maybe, maybe on those nights where you just don't want to do dishes, right? The food's good. You're gonna leave happy, you're gonna leave satisfied. It's gonna be a fine experience. And you're not gonna have to do dishes, which is gonna be great, but it's way better than going to, uh, just pick up, the griest cheeseburger that you can find. And it's also, much, much cheaper, much more reasonable than going to a fine dining restaurant because it's just a nice summer day. You just want to get outta the house. Right. So then lastly, we have fine dining. It's that high end experience, right? This is the place where you go where time and bed budget are not the most important, but the most important is quality and experience. That's why you go to this restaurant. So maybe this is a restaurant that you go to if you've had a promotion or you're celebrating an anniversary, or some sort of milestone moment. This is the place where you're gonna get higher food quality, you're gonna have a better experience, and you know that it's gonna be more than pretty much anywhere else where you're going to go, but you only come here like once or twice a year. So like you treat yourself and you don't really feel guilty. So what are your client's needs? Do they again? Do they want the fastest turnaround time? Do they want a simple balance between quality and price? Or do they want the best experience possible? Because this is a once in a lifetime event, right? Or once a year event or something like that. That's what you need to figure out for you, your business and your clients. Okay? And then from there, we need to go a little bit deeper into who are my competitors, right? McDonald's is not gonna compete with a steakhouse, but they do compete against other fast food burger places because their customers have the same pain, point, time, and convenience. Now, you may not know all of the photographers in your area, but start to grow your knowledge of who they are, who they could be. Go to networking events, meet these people, and this isn't in like a sinister way, it's just who are they? Right? Well, I'm sure that there's somebody at McDonald's who every day wakes up and thinks, how do I crush Burger King? But, for the most part, like, you don't, if, I don't know, if you know somebody who works at McDonald's, they probably don't hate Burger King with a fiery passion. It's just also there. Like you can be friendly with somebody who works at another. Okay, this is going too deep, but you can be friendly and, have a good relationship with other photographers in your space, without, again, wishing any ill will, but you want to know who they are so that you can keep an eye on what are those trends, what are they doing so that you can, know how to position yourself so that you can do something similar and start to figure out, who do they cater to? And once you know who they cater to, you can figure out how you can differentiate yourself. That's where you figure out what is your signature dish. So lastly here we have, we need to figure out what, how are they pricing themselves? And again, this isn't to copy their pricing, but just to get an idea of the range in which they're at. So, if you, here's the thing. Giant corporations, fast food, restaurants, casual dining, all these things. They have teams. Teams of people trying to figure out where is the best location to open up or where's the best place to open up a new restaurant, a new location, and they look at a number of factors. Alright? So if you live in a town that is mostly fast food and doesn't have many casual dining or fine dining options, then you know that your demographic of your town is very price conscious. One of their biggest determining factors of where they're gonna go is simply price rather than value. Alright? So if you're gonna go to, that fast or that that casual dining experience, that weakened restaurant so that you don't have to do dishes. You are gonna pick that value because you still want something that is good, not necessarily fast, but you want something that is good as well. And for you, that is a value. The increased quality of the food, and the increased experience, the extra money is worth it. That's more valuable. And a fun fact if you live in a town, if your town has a target in it, you, you listening can. Can sustain a profitable photography business. The research or the numbers show that the average income for a household that shops at Target is almost 30% more than the average income for a house that shops at Walmart, even though they both sell many of the same items. They're different companies and they differentiate themselves in obviously a very profound way to people who are more value conscious. Walmart is very price conscious, or Walmart caters to those who are very price conscious because they already have less resources to begin with. Whereas target caters to people who are more value conscious. The people who are willing to spend, if they believe that what they're buying is of better quality or they're going to have a better experience. Some people go into Target and they get their Starbucks and they just casually walk around the store just looking. And new things, maybe they'll pick up a few. Whereas the Walmart shopper knows what it is that they need because they have to go in with a list, and pick the things that are on their list. 'cause there's not much resources to go outside of that and pick a bunch of other things. Again, that's not saying that somebody who shops at Target can't shop at Walmart and that people who shop at Walmart can't shop at Target. That is just who they cater to. Those are their words. That's who they cater to. And again, target has teams of people analyzing markets to decide where to open stores and therefore let them do the work for you. And another fun fact here, I live in a town that, our target closed the year that I started my business. So, for me rather than saying like, oh, I guess I'm just gonna be stuck doing high volume, low pay photo gigs forever. I had to take that, I guess obstacle you could call it, which is the, the fact that my town can't sustain a target. Everybody's very price conscious and I had to look outside of my current area and market myself as an Indianapolis wedding photographer. I don't live in the Indianapolis, but if you want something bad enough, you'll make it happen. And for me that meant driving 40 minutes or so, to a shoot every time I was gonna shoot, if it was gonna be in Indianapolis. And that was well worth it to me, to be able to do what it is that I wanted to do. So once you figure out how, you know your competitors price themselves, you can determine is this really where I want to make my mark, or do I want to do it somewhere else or do something else? All right. Section number three here is all about services and products. So this is, detailing what it is that you're gonna offer. So pricing is a huge, huge thing, right? But there is a strategy that goes into pricing that covers things that costs your competitive analysis and profit margins of course, as well. So we need to figure out what it is that we're selling to our clients. Like what is something that they will want, but also what is something that will make us money? Okay? Now what you need to do is think about your skillset and what your client and market wants again, does your client want speed and convenience or are they willing to give you more time and money for a higher quality product? What is it that you wanna offer? And then you need to ask yourself, how can you package your products and services to attract your ideal client? A steakhouse isn't going to try to market to people who frequent McDonald's, they're gonna market to people celebrating occasions or, have a big business event. People who are more, apt to go there. Now, when starting out, I highly, highly, highly recommend that when creating products and services, you take the simplest approach ever, which is just simply good, better, best. Okay? People do very well with packages. When buying things a la carte, people become very price conscious when buying things in packages. They are more apt to be value conscious. I. And that's not only gonna earn you more money, but it's also gonna make your clients happier because now they feel like they've got themselves a really good, uh, deal. So let's say for a second that you are a family photographer and again, I'm just gonna throw out some numbers. Your session is $249. Digital downloads are $249. An eight by 10 is $49. Five by sevens are $39 each. So you know they want two. If you total that up, that's like $625. If their budget that they gave themselves was $500, what's the first thing that they're gonna take out? The prints. That's gonna bring the price down to under $500 to $448. But if you bundle it all together. And put a savings on it, say, sold it all for $549. Well, it's much easier to rationalize spending more money when you get, say $125 worth of product for only $49 more. You know, and as long as that $49 covers the cost of your product and gives you a little bit of profit, then that is a win-win that's more revenue and more profit for you. So, figuring out how can you make your offerings unique in the marketplace is really, really important. There's a barbecue restaurant here, actually. the owner, we didn't live very far from each other when I, lived in LA or, specifically, Rosita. But, regardless, this barbecue restaurant. Is it like it does real well. they've won several national awards for their barbecue, but they don't do a good job at attracting families. Barbecue is one of those things where it's like, that's kind of messy. It takes a little bit longer than most people, are expecting. So it doesn't do a good job at attracting families. So what they did, which, they didn't come out with a press release, but like just watching this business, these are the things that you see when you're more aware of how businesses work. they opened up like a little ice cream shop with and started selling the most wild milkshakes. You've ever seen, I mean, milkshakes that are like two feet tall, there's like a whole candy bar or like a, whole stick of cotton candy or something, you know, just sticking out of them. No. In fact, my son got one with a, what's it called? Like a DLI pop or something inside? it's an ice cream bar. There's an ice cream bar stuck into his milkshake. It's crazy. But they're just regular milkshakes with stuff on top. But what that does is it increases the perceived value suddenly. Oh, wow. I've never seen a milkshake like that. That's wild. The value of that milkshake is incredibly high. Now, their core product barbecue, it didn't change, but they created a unique offer. With milkshakes have incredibly high profit margins that now gives them an advantage over other barbecue places because now kids or families will choose it simply because it's just more fun, So think about what are the things that you could do as well? You know, could you include a quick headshot in your family sessions? Could you offer handmade holiday cards? Could you offer a 48 hour turnaround time on your images? What could you do? Remember, these things are not free. It's not like, oh, I also will include 48 hour turnaround time on all of your images. Absolutely free. It's what could you include to entice people to choose you? It's not free, it's just a unique offer. If you have a family session, you're probably a working professional. You probably would like to update your LinkedIn or your business headshot. Let's go ahead and get it while we're all together, and that's simply in, I don't know, $49 or something that's gonna make them choose you 'cause now they can do two things at once that saves them time, lets them spend more time with their family, but also increases their value at their business. So again, what could you offer, that your marketplace isn't? That'll give you an edge. Alright, section four here. Marketing and sales strategy. This is all about how you are going to reach your core audience, your ideal audience and sell your services. So, developing a marketing plan, covering, branding your online presence, things like website and social media, and promotional strategies. This is what we're talking about. So strategies such as like booking your clients, upselling your clients, and then also managing client relationships. That is a good one. So I think when it comes to marketing, marketing is simply, describing what it is that you do for who, that's really what it is, right? Coke, they make refreshing drinks for people who are parched. You know, I, I don't know that that's what they do, and it's, it's who it's for. So, for you, I encourage you to try to do the same thing, but just to show you how the power of a description, can change everything. if you look at the book titled Diary of a Young Girl, I'll tell you what, it really isn't something that sounds like a compelling book to me if you have no idea what's inside, but the description is the real life diary of a young Jewish girl forced to hide with her family for two years in the attic of an old office building to escape Hitler's oppressive Gestapo. Wow. Okay. Now I wanna read that book. Not only is the description more factual, but it's also intriguing you. It can now make a much better decision in your choice. When you're deciding what is it that you're gonna read, the description is everything. Okay? So, I think of a good business description, as several factors. It should include, again, what do you do and who do you serve, but also if you want to take it to the next level, what is the pain point that you solve that sets you apart? You know me, I would say, oh, I'm a wedding photographer for established couples who feel, particularly uncomfortable in front of the camera, but yet they still want really memorable and beautiful images of their wedding day. If you're somebody who thinks, I hate having my picture taken, That's gonna resonate with you because you know that you want beautiful pictures of your wedding day and you know that you feel uncomfortable in front of the camera. But now, if you have somebody who specializes in working with uncomfortable clients, you're gonna choose me. That's how I'm gonna set myself apart, and that's how I'm gonna solve their pain point. If you say, I'm a portrait photographer for families with autistic children who are worried that their child's energy is gonna keep them from being able to have a beautiful family photo full of love and connection, think about that. What you do, who you serve, the pain point that you solve, that's wonderful. Next. Once you have your description, let's start thinking about what types of promotions you can offer. Promotions are the best way to get somebody off of the fence. Who's thinking about booking you or somebody of your services. And restaurants are the masters of promotions, especially like fast food restaurants. There are two main types of promotions. Okay, write this down. There are discounts and then there's upgrades. A discount is like, get $10 off when you spend 50. An upgrade is like get a free dessert. When you buy two meals, they have about the same perceived value, right? Say a dessert, it's about 10 bucks. They're already gonna spend $50 anyway, so it saves them 10 bucks. The other one, you get $10 off when you spend 50. But here's the thing, when you give somebody $10 off, that's $10 out of your pocket. But when you give somebody a free dessert, when they already spent $50, maybe that dessert only costs you $3. So now it only costs you $3 rather than 10. But for, the people who are more attracted to upgrades, right? Those are the clients who are value conscious rather than price conscious. if you only have 40 bucks, like, you have to go to that first restaurant. Who's gonna give you $10 off when you spend 50? But if you have the $50 anyway, why not choose the place that's also gonna give you a free dessert? There's a higher perceived value. So when you think about ideas for promotions, try to get into the head of your customer and ask what do they want? Why are they getting their family photos taken? Well, it's to, to capture their family at this stage of life. Okay? Why? Because they know that their kids will grow up fast and, these days are gonna be gone. Okay. So how do they wanna showcase their family? Well, they're working professionals, so maybe social isn't the most important. But they, they wanna have a photo, on their desk at work and a large photo in the house for them to see every day. Great. Here's a promotion. Get a free desk print for your office. When you buy a piece of wall art. Wow. Well that speaks directly to your ideal client. It's a value add. And yet it encourages them to either buy a second wall piece so that they get an additional desk print, where they're gonna, figure out in their mind where they're gonna put that extra wall piece. Maybe that'll be a gift for a grandparent or something. or they're just gonna buy an additional desk print, right? There's two desks. They both work. They both want a photo on their desk, so they're either gonna have to buy another piece of wall art or buy an additional desk print. In both ways. They're buying something additional in what they originally were gonna get in the first place. Remember, promotions, you don't have to give away the farm. You don't have to give them a canvas and the two desk prints and wallets, and you're gonna mount it in their house. You just have to entice them enough to come in. So I encourage you to create a list of maybe 10 possible promotions, so that you can schedule them throughout the year. It's one less thing that you have to worry about. Schedule it now so that it's done. Now you just go ahead and get to work. That brings us to section five here, which is all about the operational plan, and this is. one of the ones that sounds the most boring, the most tactical, but it's all about setting up the logistics of your business. Things like, day-to-day business operations, figuring out what equipment is necessary, what software, how are you gonna keep the books, as well as like legal considerations. the first thing again to figure out here is what is the essential equipment that you need to start your business? So once you know. What your business is, who it is that you serve, how you're gonna serve them. Now you need to figure out what it is that you need to achieve that now to shoot weddings despite what YouTube will have you think. You don't need three bodies. You don't need six different lenses. To shoot portraits, you don't need a studio. You don't need an eight foot Octa box. Are they nice? Yeah, sure. But you can get all those things later. Right now, just start where you're at. What do you need? I would say to shoot weddings, you do need two bodies and a flash, but also remember that you can rent camera bodies. You don't have to buy one today just to get started. That's what I did. All that I had when I first started shooting weddings here in Indiana was a Canon 40 D and a, uh, well, it was a crop sensor of 17 to 52.8 lens. That's all that I had. And because I hadn't shot weddings here yet, I didn't have the money to buy a full frame camera, which is what I thought that I needed at the time. So what I did was I just rented it. Most camera shops will allow, they have like a rental department. So that's what I did. I just rented, uh, gear, rented a new body, rented a new lens. And what was cool was that I always like upgraded when I would rent, I would always get, whatever camera I wanted to shoot on. And then my actual camera kind of became my backup camera. And this allowed me to get the type of photos that I wanted, allowed me to practice with more professional equipment and essentially do like an interview for what is the gear that I'm going to buy when I'm ready to purchase new equipment. So, again, you don't have to buy an additional body right now if you don't have one, but I would suggest that you buy a flash, in fact, two flashes. Because if it dies and it's a dark reception, what are you gonna do? The flash is cheap enough. You can buy 'em for, about a hundred bucks, 110, 15 bucks, on Amazon. I've used Young Nuo for a while. I know a lot of people have great luck with God docs as well. Just buy something cheap enough to get going. And then again, as time goes on, you can upgrade later. When you figure out, what is the equipment that is gonna make your life easier and also allow you to capture more of the work that you want to capture. But to start, you just get what you absolutely need. Alright, next we gotta figure out how we're gonna handle client management. And this is from, inquiries to invoices, to emails and scheduling shoots, and knowing what packages clients booked and when their shoot is and hasn't been edited, has it been delivered, when are you gonna email them to ask 'em for a review? When are you gonna follow up? Asking them to, inviting them to, to get a new session. There's a lot to handle when it comes to client management, and if you have like seven or eight clients all at different stages. It is super easy to forget a step and drop the ball and seven or eight clients. It's not, you know, depending on where you're at in your business, it may seem like a lot, but it's really not a lot. Like eight clients isn't going to serve you for a year's worth of revenue. Like you're gonna need a lot more. So if you can drop the ball at seven or eight clients, imagine what's gonna happen if you book 30 or 40 clients. Now there are a ton of services that offer things like client management. I use 17 hats for years, but they pivoted away from mainly focusing on photographers. And when they did that, their price just went through the roof. And that's not good when you're just getting started. Luckily if you use cloud spot already to deliver your photos. Even if you have just their free account, you can use Cloud Spot Studio, which is their client relationship manager already. It's already built in, and what's great honestly about having a CRM is that for every client, all you gotta do is just click on them and see where you're at. You can see, oh, I sent them the invoice. Okay, these people haven't paid yet. For this other client, oh, this is the package that they shot. So I gotta go ahead and get ready to design their album. Oh, when's the shoot again for this one? Oh, that's right. Oh, this one has a note that says this is a surprise proposal. Don't spoil it. But the point is that it is an invaluable tool because it's one place that houses all the information for all of your clients. So to me, I mean, the fact that Cloud spot just includes it even in their, their free account, is truly amazing. And of course, when your business is ready to, then you can upgrade and have some more features. But to get started, where you're at in your business right now. You don't need anything else. So if you don't already have a cloud spot account yet, you can do so right now and grab your free account by heading over to deliver photos.com. Okay, so now we figured out how, you know, what equipment we need and how we're gonna handle client management. Next is, what are the different types of business entities? What business entity will you, I. B, I'm gonna try my hardest to give you enough information here without completely overwhelming you. Okay? Because there's many options. And this section right here, I'm specifically talking about if you are located in the States, right? There's an LLC, there's an S corp. You could be a sole proprietor. Again, I know that it sounds scary. I spent a ton of time looking into each one and here I'm gonna share with you what I learned, but take all of this information knowing that I'm not a tax or a financial expert, I don't claim to be. This info that I'm gonna share with you is simply, it was simply helpful information to me that I wish that I would've had. And it applied to me in my family situation. So that's the lens that I'm looking through all of these options through. Okay. Your family situation might be different. I don't know, but here's what I learned. Being a sole proprietor is the easiest and probably the most common entity for photographers to get started. It has the least amount of paperwork just to get started. And at tax time you actually don't have to do anything different than just claim the additional income on your taxes. And that's it. Congratulations. You're in business. Next is an LLCA limited Liability Company. And this is similar, but now your business is its own entity, and remember the term LLC, limited Liability Company. So because it's its own entity. You do have to have a separate checking account. You have to file business taxes, which by the way is way easier than I thought that it was going to be like when I first got started. I still do it, because I'm a single member, LLC, there's not multiple people who own the business, on my own family, taxes each year. You just need to have the number separate. That's for all intents and purposes it. But what being your own entity means is that there's a limited amount of liability. So let's say that you walk, or that you ask your client to kind of go over to that beautiful spot of light, so that you can take their photo. Let's say they accidentally slip and they break their leg, and then even worse they decide to sue you. That'd be bad news bears, if you're a sole proprietor, they can sue you for all of your assets, all of your business assets, right? The cameras, the whatever money is in the bank account, but also your house, your car, any of your retirement funds, everything, everything that you are worth is how much they can sue you up to if you are an LLC. The business is its own thing that you simply operate. So your business, your LLC, can only be sued for up to the amount of the business' assets, the camera, gear, the bank account. I know that that would be like catastrophic, that would suck. But I would much rather simply lose a business than lose a business and my house and my retirement, and my kids' accounts, and my cars. So that's why, that's the main difference between being a sole proprietor and an LLC. Now, there's also an S corp, which is, the most involved. it offers the most amount of tax breaks, depending on where you live. And in general, in general, it makes the most sense if your business is earning probably more than a hundred thousand dollars or so in revenue. I chose an LLC and I'm glad that I did. with all of this though, again, your situation may be different, so talk to the person doing your taxes to determine what's best for you or your state will have a lot of information on the subject. Your state wants you to open a business, that's how they make money. So, they're gonna have information for you. Luckily, Indiana had a ton of info online that answered all of my questions and guided me through the whole process. If you're not in Indiana, just Google how to start a business in, Georgia or whatever state you live in. And then just look for the first link that has a.gov listing from your state that's gonna have all the information for you. Okay. Section six here. Okay, we're at the end. All right. Let's do a quick recap. We talked about understanding our business' identity, what kind of business we want to be. We talked about the market research or the market, analysis, rather figuring out who. Would be a good fit for our business and who it is that we wanna attract. We talked about the, possible competition. We then talked about services in pricing to figure out what it is that we're gonna offer, how we're gonna make money, how we're gonna bundle things rather than a la carte. And creating something that is unique and just for us. Then we talked about marketing and sales strategy, where we talked about describing our business, where we talked about what kind of promotions we can offer and setting that up. And then lastly, we talked about creating an operational plan for you to, not only figure out what gear and equipment does your business need to get started, but also how you're gonna handle. Your client management and what kind of entity your business will be that will fit your family. Okay? Wow. So what is left? What is left? Section six here is all about financial planning. And this one is difficult because, well if you've never been in business before, if you've never shot for money before, then how do you know, what your income could be? And also from any photographers. We have irregular income, so having a system for budgeting your money is going to save you so much stress. But how can I budget initial and ongoing costs? Right? So we need to figure out that first, what are the ongoing costs going to be? So first we start off with that needed equipment that we talked about. Do you need those flashes? If you need the flashes, then you also need batteries. Then you also need battery chargers for those batteries. So figure out what the needed equipment is. Figure out what supplies you'll need, uh, paper if you need a printer or something like that. What are your marketing costs gonna be? How are you gonna get in front of people, What are those ongoing expenses gonna be like? Maybe it's a website. Maybe it's a subscription to something like, like the knot if you're a wedding photographer. Next, we gotta figure out what our pricing strategy is going to be to ensure profitability. Okay? Remember, you're in charge here. There are a million different things that you could do, but just pick one, and remember that you can always change them later if you need to. The good thing about a photography business is that, even though you may have repeat clients, your client can, it can change. Like it's small enough and people aren't going to like freak out. If you walked into a Burger King or you know, whatever, and suddenly it was a coffee shop, you'd be like, what is going on here? But if, you had a family photographer and then they became a I don't know, a wedding photographer, you wouldn't be like, hold the phones. This isn't gonna work. is crazy. it's gonna be fine. You can make changes. So figuring out your pricing strategy is important as far as what it is that you're gonna offer. Are you gonna offer the a la carte menu, something like mini school photographers do? Or, real estate photographers. Are you gonna sell through packages, right. Or are you gonna offer a subscription service? Holy cow. How great would it be to just have reoccurring revenue every month? You have 20 or 30 clients who are all paying you like $200 a month. How great would that be? I know that it seems impossible, but I personally know photographers who are running each of these a la carte packages and subscription, and they all work. It just depends on your client and your type of photography. You could start a family photography subscription where again, a family gets to come in and shoot every single year, and then they simply pay for it throughout the year, and then you are guaranteeing that you're gonna document their family growth. How cool would that be? If I were new, I would say just stick to simple packages for now, because you don't really wanna promise like a multi-year subscription and then find out, oh, actually I'd rather just keep photography as a hobby. And then now you're stuck with it. But you can always add onto those things later. But if you're, if you're a little bit more advanced, you can start a subscription to photography and it'll work. Next is figuring out or answering, how are you going to plan for irregular income in a seasonal business? So as a wedding photographer, couples would book me like, say, a year or so in advance. As a family photographer, spring and fall are your busy times. What are you gonna do in the summer or winter when you still have operational expenses to cover? One thing that I still do today is that I add up all of my monthly or yearly expenses, that I would have in an entire year. This isn't gear, this is just like subscriptions. So website domain, Lightroom at the time, 17 hats, wedding wire, all the things. Add them all up, all the things that you pay for. And then I made a, a bucket, I guess you could call in my budgeting system called Yearly Subs. So these were yearly subscriptions. They were also monthly. I just, I don't know, called them yearly subs, whatever. My goal then is that with every dollar I made was to save a year's worth of expenses. That's what I wanted. I wanted to be able to save up a year's worth of expenses. Therefore, if I had a slow month, that's fine. I have a year's worth of expenses that I can pull from. I know that I'd still be able to cover, cover everything. Once I saved that much money, then I took the yearly total and then divided it by 12, and that's how much I would then put back into it. Each month. So while some months I only had like, I don't know, $60 in expenses, other months might be $700 legitimately. But I always knew that if I kept putting one 12th of my yearly expenses into this bucket, well then it would be covered, and I'd be able to run my business for an entire year without earning a dollar if I needed to. And lemme tell you something that relieves so much stress. You go from like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna get clients today? I'm gonna give away the farm. I'm gonna do everything. I'm gonna do all this, and I'm gonna charge like next to nothing. Just so that I can get clients in to, okay, well how can I build something that's gonna get me great clients, in the future and then keep them coming in relieving that stress is so, so helpful. So, the question becomes how do you set goals? How do you set financial goals for your first year in business? And I can't answer that. Sorry. All right. Thanks everybody for letting. No, I'm just kidding. The truthfully, I can't answer that question because there are so many factors. If like, maybe if you are gonna be full-time or if this is just gonna be a weekend side hustle, Things like how much drive you have, what are the market conditions, where you live, what are your current household expenses and so on. I can't answer those questions. So the easiest way to set a goal for your first year, if you want the easiest way possible, I would say add up all of your expenses, including your gear and supplies and marketing for the entire year, and aim to earn that much. So, since you have a pricing strategy set up, simply divide your yearly expenses by your, if you're gonna do the, the package option, simply divide your yearly expenses by your cheapest package to discover how many shoots you need that year. And then of course if somebody chooses the middle package or the highest package, well then great, like, that's extra money. But that's how I would set my financial goal for the first year. And then from there you can start to build a marketing plan to ensure that, you can get that many clients if you're more ambitious. It's really the same formula for growth as well. You simply take your yearly expenses, add in how much you want to bring home. And then add about 30% for taxes, and then divide that number by your cheapest option to discover how many shoots you need to book. And remember if the number of clients that you need sounds crazy. You can always either raise your prices to bring in more money or lower your operating costs to adjust how many clients you have to book yearly. I know it was a lot today. It was a lot to cover. What we did was we built a business essentially from scratch. Today, if, if you have no knowledge of business and you want to get into it, this is how you do it. These are the questions that you need to put together to figure it out. If you're driving, if you're at the gym and you thought this is a whole lot to cover, there's no way that I can remember all this. No worries. I have all of these, these questions and, the ideas, set out for you that you can download in A PDF. All that you gotta do is head over to beginner photo pod.com/bp for business plan. To download your copy today, you can download that and then get started to work again, re-listen to this episode because I promise you, now that you've listened to the whole thing, you're gonna realize all the parts that you missed are just, they weren't connecting in the first place. Now that you've heard the whole thing, they will, and having that printout that you grabbed@beginnerphotopod.com slash bp will help you to go ahead and write out what your business plan will. Look like. So that is it for today. I hope that you enjoy it. I hope that you have a business plan that, is gonna give you that guiding light to show you where you need to get started and help, furthering you down the path on your photography journey to becoming the photographer and the business owner that you want to be. That is it. Remember, until next time, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Talk soon.