Welcome to The Profitable and Happy Photographer. Here we discuss business, marketing and life from a photographers perspective. If you are a photographer, small business owner, entrepreneur or mom finding her way, you are welcome here. I’m Kellianne Jordan, I’ve been a wedding and portrait photographer for over 16 years and I have learned the ups and downs of running a business, having a family and keeping things in balance. Now I coach photographers and entrepreneurs on how to create businesses that delight their souls, provide an actual income and allow them to have a happy and profitable life. If this sounds like what you are looking for then you are in the right place. If you are wondering how you can go from hobby or side gig to full-time photography business it’s not as hard as you think. Today we will be talking about how you know you’re ready and what you need to do to be able to go full-time and have a successful, fully booked photography business. This podcast is filled with everything you need to go to know if you are ready to go full-time with your business and what you need to have in place to make sure your business thrives. We talk about what to expect with a business plan and sales. We talk about niche marketing and how to choose the niche market for your business. We go over what you need on your website to make sure people are truly understanding who you are and are seeing your best work so they book with you. Listen in because we also talk about the best ways for you to market your business right away (and for free!). I see three different types of people who want to go from hobby to full-time. You’ve got those who have been doing this on the side, just as a side hustle, and now you really want to dive in and do this full-time because, let’s say your kids are in school (finally) and you have more time or, whatever the reason is, you’re ready to go from just sort of seeing if this could work to having it be a full-time business. If this is you, I want to say, “Awesome!”. It is time to dive in if you are ready emotionally and you have the time to work on your business. The second person is somebody who just quit their job, or maybe got fired, somebody who needs to have income coming in right now. Friend, you probably have a lot of time on your hands and you really need the money. So I want to say, it is even more urgent and more important to listen to this whole podcast, understand exactly what you need to do to actually book clients and get them in your door because you need the money in your pocket now- you have bills to pay. The third person is going to be that person who works full-time. Now you’ve been doing this photography thing for a while, it’s just been here and there, on the weekends and at night, and now you’re thinking, “you know what, I’d really like to do this full-time”. “I really don’t wanna be at my job anymore.” “I’m ready to quit and just go for it OK.” Now if you are this person, you are in a tricky situation because you’re limited on time, but you have resources to pour into your business right now. So what I wanna say to you is, before you quit, it’s best if you can save up money to be able to pay your bills in case you don’t book things out. I’d say save up 3 to 6 months worth of money. And on top of that you want to be spending your time investing into your business to get it set up for success, and especially into marketing, because before you quit your job, you’re gonna want to see a fully booked calendar. Fully booked means something different to each person and it’s going to depend on what your business plan is. So now that you know who you are, when you’re thinking about going full-time, I want to make sure that you have a really solid business plan in place. When I first really started taking my business seriously, I mean this was years and years and years ago, I made a business plan and I ran the numbers and I was like, “Yep! I’m going to shoot two sessions per week and then I’m gonna shoot 30 weddings every year and I’m gonna make like $200,000 every year.” Those numbers looked amazing, but I want to make sure that you guys have a reality check and know that you’re not gonna stay fully booked out all the time. So it’s really good to have a goal in mind as far as what you’re trying to book, and then really look at the marketing and try to book those things. Make sure it’s really what you want you to do and that you can actually do the work and get it turned around quickly to your clients, because there’s nothing worse than a photographer who is fully booked up at really cheap rates, and then can’t get the images to the clients. I promise you those clients will not come back. A really good goal when you are first starting out is to aim for two sessions a week. If you can do three sessions a week that’s even better because it’s more income. So let’s say that you are aiming for 2-$500 sessions per week. If you multiply that thousand dollars by 50 weeks you have $50,000 of income coming in which is fantastic. But I want to ask you, if you only booked half of that would you be OK? Is $25,000 a year OK with you for the first year? When I’m coaching photography students, I am all about making $100,000 in one year, so I’m hoping that the 25,000 is not OK with you and that you want to do more. But if it is OK with you then I would say that’s a really good sign that you’re ready to try and do this on your own and to really push forward with your business because, maybe you don’t need a ton of money, you just need some and you really want to get the business and the marketing nailed down. $25,000 is good for the first year, if you’re not needing more than that to pay your bills. For those of you who are like “oh my gosh, that is not enough money”. I got news for you, the first year is hard. People are still just finding out about who you are, they don’t know what you offer, they don’t know what you do, and if your photography isn’t top-notch, like really high-end photography, you are going to have trouble booking out and you’re probably going to be at an average of one session per week. Especially if you charge what you are worth. So before I really dive into all the rest of the stuff that you need to put in place to really make sure that you are booking out right away when you decide to go full speed ahead and make this your full-time job, I want to take just a bigger picture look at everything that needs to be in place and why. My goal for every photographer I coach is to make sure that they are marketing to the highest end client possible. Now that doesn’t mean that you need to be booking high-end clients, it just means that the marketing that you do needs to resonate with those high-end clients because that will filter down. So if you are actually booking the medium income families for your $500 sessions, that’s OK because if you look high-end they are going to feel like they’re getting a deal and they are going to feel like you are the most amazing photographer possible, and that’s really exciting because that’s how you get referrals, which is just free marketing. That is also how you get people coming back through the door. You wow them! As you’re starting out and you’re wanting to dive into this full-time thing, there are a couple things that you need to have in place. That's going to be a Facebook page, and probably an Instagram page because photographers are searched for there, and then a website. Now the website isn’t necessarily something you have to have right away, but if you want to go full-time, I’d say, yeah, it’s kind of a big deal. On top of that, if you are trying to market to the higher-end client the website is going to be huge for them and it needs to be mobile friendly, because they’re going to book from their phone. They are busy and they want professional amazing beautiful photographers who are easy to understand, easy to get to know, and easy to book with. Client Communication Once you have those items in place you need to make sure that your client communication is really perfect, and by that, I mean you’re going to need pricing guides to send out, you’re going to need emails that you send out consistently- so the same pre-written email over and over again that you can tweak for each client. Make sure that your client communication is simple and easy. You also need a planning guide so that they know how to plan for their session, and then you probably need some sort of thank you package afterwards. Now, you might be thinking well, “I’m not marketing to the high-end person”, but I want to remind you that this is a really competitive industry these days and you need to set yourself apart, so even if you aren’t marketing to the high-end photography client, you still need to make sure that your clients know and love you. You need to help them to understand who you are and how amazing it is to work with you by knocking their socks off every step of the way. Next, you need to get back to clients quickly. Even if you are working a full-time job, you still need to be checking your emails every single day, because no matter where you’re at in this path, you need to respond to your clients within 24 hours of them emailing you or Facebook messaging you or texting you. You have to respond to them right away or they are going to go find someone else to book with. The number one thing that I hear from my clients is, “Oh you picked up the phone. Wow, that’s amazing,” and then they book with me. Or “Wow, I can’t believe you got back to me so fast. I’m so excited, let’s book.” I kid you not, showing up quickly and being there and being responsive, is the easiest way to get somebody to book with you. It’s also one of our top
