Starting from scratch….again. The ten commandments of survival
The new year brings the prospect of starting to earn some money again, after a bit of a strange year chasing my tail. The last 12 months has taught me lots of things about finding new business – what works, what is a complete waste of time, what sort of businesses have a total disrespect for freelancers etc. I spent a lot of time disposing of spare equipment from the studio – clothes steamers, rails, mannequins, shelving, desks, computer equipment, paper rolls, lighting accessories, books, bags, and all sorts of gear that will never be of use outside a studio environment. Most of it was either sold at a massive loss, dumped, burned, or stored under my stairs at home. I’ve stripped my business expenses down to the bone so that I don’t need to ride the gravy train just to pay for stuff that I don’t need.
Along the way I’ve learned some big lessons – my ten commandments. Feel free to utilise some of them, and also to ignore my rantings if you’re a big-time mutha. A lot of these don’t apply to wedding and portrait guys – it’s really aimed at commercial shooters who don’t deal with the general public.
MY TEN COMMANDMENTS:
Thou shalt Ignore Facebook Posts. Everyone on Facebook is a photographer, and they all appear to have a diary jammed full of model shoots, PR assignments, and well paid editorial jobs. I’ll let you into their secret – They don’t. The vast majority of freelancers barely scrape a living, and often rely on partners or second jobs to pay the bills. 90% will fail within 2 years. Fact. FB is largely for fantasists who insist on impressing their “friends”. (Apart from me obviously).
Growing thy business takes time – lots of it. Be prepared for a long haul.
Thou needs to be IN with the right people. Finding fresh work by cold-calling, scattergun mail shots, emails etc is a total and utter bloomin’ waste of time. Unless you KNOW the people who can give you the jobs, or introduce you to them, then you’re out of luck.
Be thee ever youthful as thee can be. As shallow as it sounds, if you’re getting grey, bald, fat etc, you’re going to need some tremendous personality to succeed from scratch. Ironically, once you’re IN, then you can let yourself go completely. Just remember that the bearded dude or blonde gal with the skinny jeans and Arab scarf will beat you to the jobs every time.
Thou shalt not covet unnecessary gear. It’s very tempting to put that new £1200 lens that you think you NEED on a credit card – your clients will REALLY appreciate the extra sharpness in the 600 pixel shots for their website. Only have what you really, really need. You don’t need Sugru, a .London domain name, plastic business cards shaped like a a camera, a film-Leica, Holga, vintage Polaroid camera etc.
Leave printing to thine professionals. You are not a printer, and your Epson inkjet and ridiculously expensive paper needs 130 attempts to get anything acceptable out of it. Use a lab for god’s sake.
Thou shalt put thirty percent of every payment received for a job aside for tax – a third. Not twenty percent. HMRC demands might not screw you over this year, or the next, but at some point you will be in deep shit if you don’t put the money aside. I speak from dire experience.
Specialise if thy can. Be the best you can be within that specialism, gear up specifically for that specialism, and price yourself accordingly for that specialism. When you get an email asking if you’ll shoot a birthday party or something random which doesn’t lie within your area of specialism- SAY NO!
Bee thee not their bitch – If a prospective client gets in touch, and the opening line is something along the lines of “how much do you charge?” be very careful. Some business people only think in terms of cash, and regard you as themselves, only with a better camera. You’ll HATE working for them.
Do not forsake thy master – For God’s sake, don’t work for I AM VIP. You just end up trying to sell key-rings to pissed people in crap bars.
Follow these, and this time next year, you’ll be a millionaire.
