This is the time of year to reflect on the previous years business and make plans for the coming year. For me a business plan is an important part of running my business and can often take me a day or two to complete.
But I'd like to hear about others here .. so who does a formal business plan? .. and how specific is it?
How about you guys who just wing it? .. do you think your business would improve with a business plan? .. or is the time & effort to do a plan not worth it?
Anyone who used to have an annual business plan and stopped using them?
Only thing I plan is new gear purchases . I am not setting a plan up to be broken when something changes . I have a travel schedule for client work and for the stock shoots I am obligated to shoot . Other than that it is a waste of my time . I know what needs to be done and do it without a formal plan . A big reason I am self employed is that I don't like looking at a piece of paper to tell me what to do .
I'm trying to be in a heavy growth mode - moving from a part time shooter towards full time. I've tried to do some projections on how many jobs I can get, and then the costs involved as well as the marketing I'm trying this year. It's some educated guessing at this point, and it's goals I want to achieve.
I usually plan out my year by quarters, or seasons and plan each segment based on past history or experience while allowing for flexibility for the unexpected.
Actually it is more of a reminder list so I can plan for ordering materials, scheduling myself/assistants and prep time/ideas for any advertising/marketing in advance. If a particular ad campaign produced less than desired returns last year, I will look to develop a different plan or opt out and place my investment elsewhere. If I look back and and see a particular order was held up for materials or needed more time in the lab, I can try schedule and plan better this year to try and avoid problems. Again, I don't do a propper business plan perse, but I do plan.
The flexibility part is key as there will always be the need to address the unexpected. Both good and bad.
rodeostore wrote:
does anyone have suggestions on good books/websites for business plans referencing photography?
You should have no problem finding online business planners, many are freeware or no-cost. Much the same principles apply to all businesses so it need not be photography specific.
Mike I have a problem finding information on the marketing planning. The financial stuff is pretty standard but you have to admit our marketing isn't out of the box "normal".
By the way I shoot mostly sports/events with some portrait work thrown in. I'm looking at expanding the business beyond what I've been doing and trying to get more portrait and wedding work.
rodeostore wrote:
Mike I have a problem finding information on the marketing planning. The financial stuff is pretty standard but you have to admit our marketing isn't out of the box "normal".
By the way I shoot mostly sports/events with some portrait work thrown in. I'm looking at expanding the business beyond what I've been doing and trying to get more portrait and wedding work.
Marketing is so important .. your business is a little like mine, but my son does the sports end of it and I do the commercial shooting and weddings.
We no longer market the sports end of our business and generally have several tournaments that we do every year and we're happy with that level of business.
Weddings are relatively new and we're really putting a push on the marketing .. this year we'll be updating our website (and our SEO), doing two bridal shows, starting an adwords program aimed at weddings, starting a small newspaper ad program, and finally hiring a publicist.
The publicist is a bit of an oddity but we're trying to take this to a different level of marketing .. having a third party (like a magazine article on your business) saying you're a great photographer carries more weight than saying it yourself. And that's the job of the publicist .. to get us in the papers.
I'm totally bankrupt (as usual) on ideas for marketing my commercial business .. it has been some small print advertising and website.
I do mostly rodeo, family has had ties to the business for years so I'm fairly established in the local market. But I need to expand, need to get this side of the business making it's own money and not relying on handouts from my other jobs. Actually I'd like to switch primary incomes and do my full time part time and vice versa.
I created a 62 page business plan in November, it's due to be revised Jan. 2 when I next meet with my business coach. Is the plan something I refer to daily - or even weekly? Nope. It was the research involved that was the real value, understanding the market size, competitors, target market and then based on that my marketing plan.
So now that I've been operating for a whole month, even over holidays, enough information has been gathered to do a quick revision to the document - which will again be put into a file folder and ignored once the revised strategy is understood and put into practice.
