 How's it? How's it? Can you make money from photography? Of course the answer is yes, all right, but it's not as cut and dried as you think. And I'm going to share with you some of my experiences of running a portrait studio if you are considering dipping your toe into the world of selling your photography. Unsurprisingly, it is actually quite a lot of fun to do something day in, day out and get paid for it that you really enjoy doing. But there are some pitfalls which you need to know about so that you can avoid them. Because if you fall into these traps, then it's actually going to suck all of the joy out of this for you. So right at the beginning, if you think that successful photographers are successful and they sell a lot of images and they have clients coming through to do all the time because they have fantastic photography, then you will be laboring under a misapprehension. The reason that these people are successful is because they understand what is really important in running a photography business and that is marketing. Now marketing doesn't mean a website with as many pictures as you possibly can think about to put on there. And then a bio thing talking about how you've always had a passion for taking photographs since you were like two years old. And you know, here's a picture of me holding an Argo C3 and I have all of the latest gear and I've got insurance and I've got this and yeah, and I use triple backup SD cards and things. The people who are looking to have a family portrait or an engagement picture or some pictures of their kids, they do not care. They don't care at all what camera you use. Do you care what tools the mechanic uses when he fixes your car? No, right? They care about the result. They care about, are you going to listen to them? Are you going to make them feel comfortable? Are they going to have a good experience with you? And are they going to enjoy the result? Now, yes, of course, your image quality is going to play a role in that, but not as much as the words that you use, not as much as the way that you as a person come across. They are buying you as much as the photos. Now buying, of course, leads us into the world of how much do you price these things? And everybody seems to use an 8x10. How much is an 8x10? How much should I charge for an 8x10? Let's get something straight here. If you want to actually make some money from selling images, you can't be selling CDs of photos. The Gern and Bern, so Gern is a thing for smiling in the UK, so the Gern and Bern of putting images on a DVD or obviously these days on a USB stick is a bone of contention. And I will say, I did offer digital images as part of my packages, but they came at a premium. They are actually, if you want to sell them, one of the top end products, not the bottom end, right? So you're not charging $30 for a disc with a bunch of images on, you're charging $3,000, right? I can hear there's an intake of, that's a lot of money. Yes, you're going to have to change your opinion or perspective about what people are actually willing to spend. When I first opened my studio, you know, ages ago, I was sitting, you know, pricing up things and I went, oh, these feel like they're expensive. I wouldn't pay this and of course that is, that's the key to know that you're heading in the right direction. I overheard a piece of, you know, dialogue, I said dialogue. I overheard something at a convention where somebody said that if you can afford your own product, then you aren't charging enough. And I thought that seems a bit weird, but over time, it actually made a lot of sense. If you want to be taken seriously, if you want people to buy in, as it were, to the idea of you know what you're doing, you need to charge a reasonable amount. And if you are, you know, somebody who was paid, you know, let's say $1,000 a week or something like that, to you paying $3,000 for an image on the wall might seem like, oh, that's a lot of money. Wow, nobody would buy that or it's just too much. And I used to think the same way. And it stymies me how much money I let walk out of the door because I was selling things for what is actually quite cheap. So when you're thinking about products and what have you, don't think of individual prints, an 8x10, a bunch of wallets or something like that. Think about framed pieces, about collections of images. Deliver value to your client and they will be happy to pay what it is that you're asking. No matter if you have one client, five clients, a hundred clients, you know, you need to keep track of all of the messages, their contact details, what they've bought, their requests for images. You name it, there's a lot to keep track of. And you should invest in some software. I have used a piece of software called Studio Ninja and I've had a chat with the guys and they've got a discount code for you in the description box below. And if you don't do this, what happens is that you are trying to juggle so many things in your head, you know. And I guarantee you will lose stuff. So having at least a system like Studio Ninja to put all the stuff into will make your life so much easier because you're not going to forget things. Because word of mouth in your business is going to pay you huge dividends. So if you forget somebody's name, if you forget where they're actually, you're going to go and shoot them, right? You know, or any of these, you know, if you order the wrong images, that's a black mark against you. So having something to keep track of all these things and of course, you know, keeping track of the sales and the tax, sorry, that you're going to have to pay on these things is important. It's also going to allow you to schedule your time properly. Now there's a great issue and it was summed up by a post that I read on Facebook a few years ago that made me maybe laugh. And somebody was saying, do you, what are your hours for dealing with clients? And it was kind of like office hours, you know, such and such. And then after one, one was kind of like other, let me know. And in the comment section, the lady responded and said, I am available whenever my clients need me because I go the extra mile. And I thought, okay, that's great. How many other businesses do this? Does your pharmacist allow you to just phone them up any old time and say, come along? You know, it just doesn't happen. You need to think about your photographic business as a business. You have working hours. You have times when you're available and times when you're not. I know it's tempting to say, oh, well, you know, you want me to photograph your family and you want me to do it on the same day as, you know, my auntie's birthday party. Okay, that's fine. I'll come and photograph your family instead. You're going to end up being led a merry dance around by all of these people who think that you are just going to go out of your way to please them. This is a very different thing to doing a good job for somebody. So again, we come back to Studio Ninja, section off times and dates that you will work, have a calendar and stick to it. If you have people, if you're shooting out on location, don't say I will photograph anywhere you like within like a 50 mile radius. Because again, what happens if you have one person on a Saturday who says, I want you to photograph me here. And then another person on that same Saturday who says, Oh, in the afternoon, can you come and photograph me at somewhere that is actually like the other side of that radius? Use your time wisely. Find a place nearby to you that is photogenic, a park, you know, a forest, a sea front, somewhere where you can ask people to come to you that you can say, okay, this is where I'd like you to come and shoot. And then also because this is a place that you know, you have the secret trick up your sleeve that nobody tells you when you're getting started. And this is to have a shoot map. Now a shoot map is an idea of images or ideas of a number of images that you can work through in a session. All of the big studios that I've had dealings with over the years have a list of images that they will sort of go through, you know, groupings, you know, mum and dad and mum and dad and the kids and things of that nature. And they are tailored a little bit to fit the specific requests of any family. But they're more or less the same image. You don't need to make completely unique images every single time that you have a session, right? There will be moments where you get a chance photograph, but most people will conform to a set of, you know, rough frameworks with photographs. And when you start doing this and when you're shooting at the same places over and over again, it makes the session go a lot smoother. Because you're not having to worry about the technical bits, you're not having to think up ideas for pictures on the fly. The single best return on investment of my time in my studio was to draw up shoot maps for various types of sessions. Once you start doing this, everything becomes so much easier. Now obviously, there's a huge amount to running a photographic business and portraits studios, especially because you need to source products and you need to find all these sort of things. And that goes a little bit beyond the scope of where we are because, you know, I'm based in the UK and most of you are based in the US. But as a guideline, if you go to places here in the UK like the photography show at the NEC in Birmingham or in the US, I think it's WPPI, somewhere where there will be lots of exhibitors of framing companies of, you know, places where you can buy product. Go and visit these places. Look at what they're offering. Okay. Talk to the people on the stands. Ask them about free samples or discounted samples. Once you build up relationships with companies, they will start offering you discounts. They will start offering you payment on terms. All these things that make your life a little bit easier. Don't underestimate the power of networking. I have a wealth of knowledge, information, all that kind of stuff about running a business and I would love to share it in depth. But unfortunately it goes way beyond the scope of, you know, some YouTube videos. So I'm thinking about putting together a course in, you know, how you can just build a photographic business from the ground up. If you'd like to find out more about this, let me know in the comments below so I can gauge a little bit of interest. Now, obviously running a photographic business is not all loveliness and sunshine and stuff. And eventually, because I didn't take some of my own advice, it got a little bit too much for me. And if you'd like to know why I ended up closing my studio, check this video here. Thank you ever so much for watching and I will see you again soon.