CaptainC Loc: Colorado, south of Denver

Well...
Kinda like some people who think they can be president! :-)

Self-Assessment has extremely variable accuracy.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

Gotta go with Cliff on this one….


;-)

Jana-TAS Loc: Washington

Clint,
SharpShooters advice in joining your local Chamber is great advice. Going to their meetings you could possibly find a person who owns a small local picture framing business and become friends with them and approach them with putting photos in their shop. I once worked for a person years ago who was very involved with 2 different Chambers and she gave the Chamber members even 10% off of picture framing. Also a small business like that is going to have a lot more knowledge of the framing than a large business like a Michael's that does framing.

Glaspark Loc: Glasgow, Scotland

I don't mean to sound rude but really. If you need to ask for advice on running your own business, you are in the wrong business. If we all got this information for free without working for it, we would all be self-employed.

Bobbee

I hear you. I do Thumbtack. Love/Hate relationship. I also have FB (facebook.com/bbphotographytampa) I pass out cards and I do things for free for people in exchange for advertising. I just got in a local newspaper and I am up on an Equality Web site. I am hoping to get in that niche. I focus on Weddings, but do branch out to portraits, commercial and I do Photobooth. I have entered into a conversation with one of the best DJ's in Tampa to get him to promote my business. I met his group two years ago and I have been providing his business name as a DJ reference. When I went to talk to him I had a list of weddings he got from my referral. That was good as I had my talking point. Basically, when you talk to DJs, Florists, Coordinators and Event halls, make it worth their while to promote you. You understand I hope.

tshift Loc: Overland Park, KS.

Why do you sell your photos for such a cheap price?? You are killing the market for the rest of the photographers!

ole sarg Loc: south florida

Capt you just gave some good honest advice.

Gifted One Loc: S. E. Idaho

Starting a business and growing a business is a little like making an omelet. Got to break the shell. And if anyone is watching you not only have to be professional but look professional.

You live in a high population area. You need to net work in multiple ways. People you know and that they know. Business contacts.

I too am troubled by your write up on your site. A statement that says I shoot for me not my client would be a sign to corporate account of trouble. They are looking of ease of work.

Most shooter in my area and it is a low population area started by word of mouth and grew. The lady across the street does point of destination wedding with multiple location and times.

Rework that web site and have someone that will critically look at it give honest assessments that you can follow. In marketing you need to be brave. Frankly when you have to ask a question like this on this type of blog I would question your business sense.

J. R.

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

Strive for simple elegance on your business website. Less is more.

Take some inspiration from some of these sites.

http://news.smugmug.com/2014/02/14/9-great-smugmug-sites-we-fell-in-love-with-so-far/

What's your logo/brand/watermark look like?

bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

Hi I hope your following all this great advise...
I just saw you had a website. I visited it ....
first I looked at a few pics and your selling 8x10 for $1.99 is that right? What are you making on that 25 cents????
That is WAY too low. You might as well give it away free.

next if you want to start a photography business, your website has to say, hey IM in business. I do weddings or portraits or I shoot pets and show us some of what ever you do. as it is , your just trying to sell pictures.

Then as I said a few messages back, you have to get the word out. No one is going to find your page if they dont know who you are.....

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Consider joining PPA or WPPI.

Go to https://photovisionvideo.com for a wealth of information.

Find Will Crockett's stuff on YouTube.

Find Sarah Petty's Joy of Marketing site.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Yes.

First you need a business plan. This will completely describe your business - what you do, who you do it for, what your operating costs are, and how much you need to charge.

Second you need a marketing plan - which identifies in greater detail the who and the how much. If you do high end real estate shoots - you can get away with charging $1000 a day or more to shoot a single property. If you work with your local real estate office you might get away with charging $200/day and you'll have to shoot 5 properties.

The marketing plan will start with feasibility study, or market research, to see what you need to be doing. No point in doing pregnancy and newborn, or budoir photography in a Florida retirement community - well, based on what I have seen, maybe leave the budoir out of that one. :)

Market research will also determine what you "can" charge. Together with the business plan you can decide where you need to get the clients in order to meet your needs.

The marketing plan, again, together with your business plan, will provide a complete roadmap for your business, and will address all of your questions above, and a bunch more that you haven't thought about.

If you are going to do work for hire, you had better be prepared to do whatever the customer wants/needs to get it done. It's not about you and your skills with the camera, it's all about the customer and his/her experience with you and your process. Actually its 80% customer relations and 20% pictures. If someone tells you otherwise, they are either not working professionals or they are pulling your leg.

Decide what your focus is, then design a business plan to make sure you are fully prepared to serve your clientele. For free solutions are not going to give you the quality leads that you need to start and grow a business. Unless you just want to be a weekend "shoot and burner" and are ok with doing a wedding and delivering a CD with a 1000 jpegs on it for $500 - as a means of augmenting your regular income. In that case, don't quit your day job.

Weddingguy Loc: British Columbia - Canada

I can answer that question for you . . . snapshots are cheaper than photographs.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Worst place possible...

Many CL shoppers are "bottom feeders" looking for bargains, are the most likely to bounce a check or to complain about silly stuff and demand a discount off your already-way-too-cheap-rates. That's all you can ask for on CL, because CL is absolutely flooded with wannabes who don't have a clue how to price their services. Last time I looked there were 700 "photographer" ads on my local CL... most offering horrible work at ridiculously low rates way below their cost of doing business... if they were charging at all. A lot were offering to shoot for free "for the experience and too build up their portfolio". Most of them will be out of business with in a year... but they sure screw up the marketplace before they go by the wayside, and every time one goes OBX, there seem to be two or three more bright-eyed wannabes clutching a new Rebel with a kit lens and offering to "shoot weddings for $200".

This is a huge question, there are myriad possible answers. Plus the "right" answer can be very different depending upon the marketplace, one's specialization, and much more. Good answers aren't likely to be found in online forums.

I would highly recommend looking into any small business incubators in your area, as well as business classes at a local community college. You need to develop a business plan, which will including your marketing and advertising. And it all needs to be tailored to your particular area, taking into account your local competition, the communities economic condition and much more.

Being a "professional photography" (i..e., getting paid to take photographs)... is 90% business skills, 10% photographic abilities.

Yooper 2 Loc: Ironwood, MI

I checked out your website on Smugmug. You shouldn't publish it to sell your work until you are finished with the price list. As it stands now you would barely make a profit on your work. 200% to 300% markup is standard for most mid-range photographers. Higher end photographers would want to use a 400% markup. Pros shouldn't need Smugmug. I noticed that many of your photos are out of focus a bit and most are pretty dark. Often I couldn't figure out what the subject was. I also noticed that some don't fit the standard photo sizes that you chose. So the customer will lose some of the photo trying to fit it into your chosen sizes. Make sure your photos are cropped to one of the standard sizes you offer. I use 12X18 and 16X20 for my photo sizes. I crop if necessary. They will fit several standard larger and smaller photo sizes for printing. All things to consider before you publish.