What’s your long game? It’s an important question, but one too few photographers ask themselves when starting a business. Over the seven years my wife Eileen and I have coached photographers to make their studios more profitable and manageable, we’ve noticed an alarming trend: Most photographers don’t have a plan.
Sure, most of us have a plan for this week. We know we have to edit three wedding projects before another day passes and our clients grow antsy. We have great intentions to blog or submit images to publications (fingers crossed). Or we may get ambitious enough to create a spreadsheet that calculates our profits and expenses so we’ll know the exact number of sessions we should hope to book next year. (That counts as long-term planning, right?)
Of course all bets are off if Netflix or Facebook delivers something new to divert our attention.
It’s a painful cycle, isn’t it? Is this really how we want to spend our precious lives? Of course not. So rather than scraping by day to day, take the first steps toward building a business that allows you to thrive for decades.
Great advice. Thank you for encouraging and sharing.