I love the start of a new year and the exciting possibilities that it brings for wedding photography businesses. With the new year comes time to re-evaluate business, create new marketing strategies, and hopefully book lots of new bookings! As we evaulated our pricing this month and try to find ways to attract as many new clients as possible, it’s tempting to drive bookings by creating huge promos and discounts. We love the immediate results that can come from lowering rates and giving generous incentives. It’s very exciting to see the deposits come rolling in! However, lots of work doesn’t always promise lots of profit. In this article, I’ll share two cases where lots of work wasn’t worth it and hopefully it’s something we can
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Don’t Do It Alone: Build A Team
I have never run a business by myself and I can not image ever doing it. I recently led an open forum discussion with a group of photographers. The ongoing themes I heard were, “I’m overwhelmed. I’m having a hard time doing this without any help. Coming tonight was what I really needed as I need to get input from others.” Hearing all of these comments reminded me we all need to work with a team at some level. If you had the chance to read my last post: Things to Know Before You Go with Associates, you have gotten a look at the associate photographer part of my team. Not only do I have three wonderful photographers, who are all employees, but my team
Things to Know Before You Go with Associates
A few years ago “associate photographer” was the catch phrase within the wedding photography industry. It seemed you couldn’t be a legitimate photography studio unless you had at least one associate photographer. The concept was easy: on the days your already booked, book an associate. Unfortunately, a simple idea turned into a complicated reality for many photographers. As I watched many studios fold their attempts at working with associates, we launched our associate label, The Collection with three amazing photographers. We immediately booked over 40 weddings, to be performed within the first year, and continued to book weddings for an even more successful second year! This wasn’t luck or a case of being in the right place at the right time. We just chose to spend