Are you an new photographer looking for a way to turn your new love into a career? Or maybe you have been doing photography for years and have all of the talent to make big bucks but can not seem to get clients. It’s a good chance that you are doing a few things wrong. No need to worry I will cover all of the necessary things you should try in order to turn your passion into a career.
First and foremost it is important to have a logo. Now you may have a logo but this is where you have to be honest with yourself, does it look professional? Think of all the brands that you see and think of how their logos look. They are memorable, easy to read, minimalistic. That is the same thing you need as well. If you aren’t the most talented person when it comes to graphic design that is alright and you do not have to dish out a lot of money. you can always use Fiverr. The best thing about Fiverr is you get to choose the artist that you would like to work with in order to pick the right artist for the job. I highly suggest you just browse through fiverr and I’m sure you will be very impressed with all of the things they have to offer.
Next will be having a professional website. Depending on social media for people to see the quality of your work is not a very smart option. Places like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and others compress our photos and when you are trying to get a potential client you want them to see the quality of your work that they will be receiving. Not only should you have a website but you should be pushing your website to as many as your followers or subscribers as possible. Make sure you keep giving a reason to view your website. Maybe post 2 photos from a previous shoot and tell that they can see more of that session on your website. The way your photos will look on your website will bring in more customers. I suggest that you go with Squarespace for your website needs. Squarespace is LOVED amongst all photographers. Their templates makes everything easy to set up. You do not need to have much knowledge of web design to make a website that will increase the way clients look at you. Also invest into a business email address. Gmail is good for beginners but your business will look very official when you have your business as the .com instead of gmail.
So once you have your Logo and Website it is time to register your business. I suggest you do a LLC. Keep in mind I am not a lawyer so this is only advice. Also laws are different in different states and countries so please do your research when looking into this. One of the most important parts of having your business as a LLC it insures that you will not be held responsible if something goes wrong. It will fall on your business and not you meaning you will not be able to get sued and all of your personal belongings will be safe. If you do anything that can cause you to get sued and you do not have a LLC they can come after your house, your car, and any of your other personal belongs. You will also be able to get a business bank account. This is very important as well. You want your finances from your business to be separate from your personal bank account. This will also help you with your taxes. Please do your research on business bank accounts and definitely invest in one.
Next lets focus on having a strong social media presence. Now although I stated before that you want to direct people to your website it is still very important to have a strong social media presence. How can you direct people to your website if you have no one to send there. If you aren’t getting much growth on social media it is probably because you aren’t being social. There are algorithms that are put in place for us to get discovered and instead of doing the opposite its easy to just do what they want us to do. Keep people on the platform and be more interactive. Do not get caught up in the hype of how many followers you have compared to how many you follow. Make sure you are constantly being social. Like others photos, comment, create stories that has polls and things for people to interact with and you will be rewarded by social media.
Now since we have all of the technical stuff covered. When we start photography we love to take photos of models and advertise our services to models. We have these dreams of being published in a magazine and seeing our photos on billboards. Now I’m not saying that if that’s your passion to stop it. But what I will say is that you shouldn’t be advertising your services to them. Just like you their are a lot of photographers that will shoot models for free. If you want your business to grow you need to think more of being a family photographer. Photographers that focus on family will always have a job because of word of mouth. You will be doing a lot of events like birthday parties, engagement parties, baby showers, even weddings and when you get good with a family you can find other people there that may need photographers and then you just keep working your way into so many other families. You get to take their family portraits, Senior photos, graduation photos. This is what will keep your business profitable for years to come. If you want to continue shooting your models go ahead but do not make your business be one that caters to models because you will not make much money doing so.