Why do photography businesses fail

As a full time photographer, you have to spend more time behind your computer doing marketing, sending emails and do phone calls with clients, go to meetings, work on your website and social media, schedule and organize your portfolio shoot, edit your commercial shoots and so much more. Only when you really believe in it the law of attraction and when you are willing to work hard, your business will succeed. This means that you know your niche. For me this is fashion and portrait photography.

Of course I did all of them when I just started and I recommend to do the same, first experiment a lot until you find the genre that makes you happy. Before you start working for clients, you have to know what your costs are to do your business. Some photographers think they have to be super cheap to book clients, but this is not how it works.

Trust me, if you only attract clients that book you because you are cheap, you are dealing with the worst kind of clients. The rest is about business; Real-to-life business application. What is the greatest challenge to photographic business? Understanding that many standard business principles apply to this industry, but to a degree, business principles take on a customized spin to photography business.

Does the usb end up in their desk drawer? Do they go out and order some prints at one of those mainstream DIY stations with awful print quality? Or does your gorgeous newborn picture of their baby end up on a coffee mug or a mouse mat? Your work is your business card and an all-in-one photography service must offer product sales. You need to make sure that your images are finalized in the best shape and form possible, so you can have your clients fall in love with their images day in day out—and have them coming back for follow up sessions!

Secondly you need to make your images shine and have the products like wall art and albums do the promotion work for you. Guiding your clients in their product choices and offering ordering appointments will up your service level and give your brand an overall look and feel of one that is professional and high-end. Psst, you can pin this article to your "Marketing for Photographers" board on Pinterest!

That can sound quite stern, but when you run a business you need rules so you and your clients can live up to them and avoid any hassle. When things run smoothly you probably feel amazing, but that can change in an instant when something goes wrong and the client had a complaint and, in the end, a bad experience with you as their photographer. Each business has complaining clients, but rules and regulations like your Ts and Cs and a good client agreement can save your business and any bad consequences for you and your business.

Your reputation as a service provider is on the line without good paper work. To avoid legal issues or people not being happy with your service, please put a client agreement or booking agreement in place, deposit your general Terms and Conditions at the Chamber of Commerce and have them up on your website as well as a good Privacy Policy that shows people that you are the professional that respects their portrait rights and their experience with you as your client.

With all of these systems above set in place you will not start booking your calendar on auto-pilot yet. You need to have a plan to go out there and market what you are doing.

People need to know about your business and be able to find you. When you start out or are ready to branch out, you need to have a network around you that can help you promote your work. Their type of clients are my clients and we each help each other by offering something for free. Offer a free photo opportunity for a venue or a small business owner and create a big box of flyers of both your services, so they can promote your photography business in their network. Or print out vouchers for their clients with a discount on a session with you.

That way they can give a free gift to their customers who can all come and check out your work and book sessions in with you. Have gorgeous wall art or albums to decorate waiting rooms, sales rooms, etc. And just do that for free. Helping other vendors with upgrading their customer experience can help you get in the right photography clients and that goes a long way!

Having a blog helps bring visitors to your website without paid advertising. A recent study showed that Google drives 8 times more traffic than all social media networks combined. But blogging takes time and it's often difficult to find photography blog content and topics to write about. There are so many other things demanding your time and attention in your photography business, let alone your personal life.

I've done all the hard work for you and put together monthly blog posts that you can take and post on your blog. You can edit them as you'd like or post as is. This will save you a ton of time and help you build momentum in your blogging efforts. I understand that when you're first starting a photography business you may not know exactly what type of photography suits you the best.

So in the beginning it's okay to test out different photography niches. Hint: one of the hottest photography niches right now is Personal Brand Photography Once you find a genre you like, make that you main focus. It's much easier to perfect a certain style of photography and market to one particular group of people than to try to appeal to everyone at once. For example, wedding photography requires a whole different skill set than high school senior photography and of course the clientele is different too.

Not to mention, the way you speak to your potential clients in your photography marketing materials and on your blog will be entirely different from one niche to the next. Focus on one niche, specialize in it, master it and then add other areas as you are able.

This is a mistake I made and one that I see a lot of photographers make. Then when the slow seasons come, they aren't able to pay their bills and are forced to look for a job. For some photographers the summers are slow because of the climate that's how it is here in Phoenix.

You need to be prepared for that ahead of time. It might mean budgeting your money better throughout the year or putting some into savings for the slow months. Or it might mean finding additional ways to bring in income with your photography business, such as teaching photography to kids or adults.

This is what I did in order to pay my bills one month. I totally get it, there are so many different social media platforms and marketing strategies, it's difficult to know which to choose.