A very exciting time

Some of you know that I have recently opened my own studio and gallery - although still tweeking some things before I do full on advertising - so while I am working on the business and it's evolution, I am perfecting and testing pricing, shooting, products, labs, workflow etc.


I have a business plan written, and have funded this from savings and working in my other business. For almost 20 years, I have been a financial/accounting consultant to entrepreneurial businesses and I have to say that starting a business all over again in a field, as a hobby, that I have been dabbling in for 30 years is very exciting to me. I am prepared with all the things in place I have advised others to do - business plan, financing, budgeting etc.

But no matter how prepared, every day I find that there is some adjustment I need to make. For example, I went to a house with great window lighting to shoot a 4 month old. I only brought my 5d and three lenses that I was satisfied to have, a flash, memory and some props - a blanket with interesting texture and a boppy ( a donut shaped pillow) for having the baby in a position to get good facial shots. The images were what I wanted, but, I realized that I really want/needed two cameras for a shoot like that. I missed a few expressions - not really a big deal, but, I would have liked to have had a different lens and body available. I ran out of memory on one camera and I could have just reached for the 2nd one. I wanted a different focal length and could have just used both lenses on two bodies.

And there is the wish list: The same day I was shooting in my studio, and I changed backgrounds and found while working I would be very nice to have a background system in place to flip a switch to have multiples ready for shooting. There is a light panel system that I'd love to have and some grids for my softboxes and some new furniture for props and my list is quite long and probably will never be finished - there is always something but in the interest of trying to create some profit (it's a business now, not a hobby) we have to plan our purchases - it's not like a new outfit or pair of shoes.

So I am adjusting to a whole new career at age 52. And playing with kids and calming nervous brides is right up my alley. {sigh} Thank you, Asher, for all of your support and letting me share my new venture here. BTW, if you are in my shoes, I am also a Certified QuickBooks Consultant. I do have the business side of business nailed down.

So many facets to the business of photography. I'd love to chat with you about them.

Kathy,

I'm impressed by how you have taken you business skills in serving clients and applied it to your own new studio. I am pleased to have visited with you and seen how you have done things first class.

The one thing I would strongly suggest to anyone opening a studio is the highest quality of all interfaces with the client.

Asher

Hey Kathy,

I think I only saw one recent picture of you taken by your hubby, and I must say I am quite astonished to learn that you are a UHU already, I would not have guessed that! Must be the good air or something in the water, or goofing with kiddos in your studio all day long.

I also wish to congratulate you again, to risk that in this chapter of life is quite an undertaking, and I know what I talk about, being 47 myself and stomping it out of the ground myself at the moment.

In your case, you are lucky with respect of no needs for an accountant. In my and most other cases people need to find an accountant, and I can not overstress that point to make that a top priority on your list of achievements to kickstart a business in photography. My first accountant well, I fired this idiot after 3 meetings for reasons of incompetence, and trust me, I made that pretty clear to him! - I am known for to call a spade a spade! -

Luckily, then found Seamus, and it is a 100% Trust situation that developed into a friendship. He is so much more than only an accountant to me, in fact he acts like a CFO and takes an interest in my business, priceless! If someone from Ireland reads that here and needs a recommendation for an accountant, send me a PM and I get you in contact.

Business plan, don't get me started, sigh, my personal flippin Nightmare!! Took me 2 month alltogether, and I could not have done it that well without my accountant.

I suppose my biggest problem was my need for "correctness", "accuracy", whatever it is called, and the business plan of a startup is somewhat like looking into a cristal ball by all means, and I hate this with a vengance! LOLOLOL

However, a BP is a working document that is finetuned and changes all the time.

Hehehe, not long ago, my BP changed literally by the hour due to events and cooperations happening.

Btw. thanks for this new forum, excellent idea!

~^..^~

a UHU?

What is a UHU? (and was that photo was enhanced? NO ! Asher and Will and Nik can answer that)

Yes, a business plan is a living type of document that will constantly need fine tuning. Numbers change, concepts change.

My philosophy for a BP is this:

1. Write about the business and it's purpose - 1 page
2. Write out the skill and biography of the principals - be honest;
3 Where do you see the future of the business - 6 months, 1 year 2 years (detailed) 3 and 5 years (in general)
Make separate sections on Operations; Costs and income, Customers and types of work
4. Money: targets for each period above - income and expenses - yes a budget/spending plan - this is where the accountant comes in handy. Don't forget employees and taxes too.

5. Marketing Plan and Budget: Who are your customers, how do you get them? What will you do to attract them? And how much are your going to spend to do that? This should be detailed with lots of planning. This is the key to making it all happen!

Editing to add that there needs to be a bit more formality in this IF you are looking to borrow money to make your dream succeed.

Hi Kathy,

It looks like we'll be riding this train together. The urge to do photography on a full time basis has hit me hard and I'm now in the process of fleshing out my "plan of attack". Until recently my photographic income has always been a nice suppliment to my salary, and now I intend to live off it - a scarey proposition.

So, you can see that while I may have suggested the creation this forum and offered my time to moderate it, I'll also be learning lots from those willing to share their expertise. No false modesty here.

My biggest problem is that I'm living in France, the land of the bureaucrat. Setting up in business is extremely complicated and its difficult to get appropriate advice. It's particulary complicated for photographers because we can choose to pay our social socurity charges to one of three government organisations, each of which takes different charges and has different rules as to what you can and can't do.

For example, I pay my charges to the "Agessa" which only deals with people who sell rights to their images. As such I can sell stock, I can create images for companies for their business campaigns and I can even sell limited edition copies of my work, but I'm not allowed to do family portraits or weddings since there are considered "commercial". It's ridiculous. On the plus side I pay low charges with no annual minimum, so it's a great way to get started.

I've also gone through the process of becomes registered for sales tax. That's useful because the tax on the sale of image rights is 5.5%, but the sales tax on goods is 19.6%. I therefore recover for more on tax than I have to pay out.

Filling out my first income declaration was a complete nightmare. Not only do I have to cope with the complexity of the system, I have to learn all the French accounting terms first!

Still, it's all coming along. Next week I'm shooting the hotel on one on France's few prestigeous 3-star restaurants!

Tim

In Ireland the tax situation is somewhat different I suppose. What is VAT like in France and US?

I am VAT registered, matted pictures have 13.5% and framed a whopping 21% on it. Art however is excempt, and I am fighting on the subject of limitted editions whereby the "reproduceability" is of concern to the Tax man, and I state that the RAW files are destroyed afterwards as a garantee to the client. Hence I do not see the point in paying 21% on limitted editions of fine art, of course the tax man sees that different, but we have not finalised the discussions. Sigh... LOLOLOL

Georg Baumann said:

In Ireland the tax situation is somewhat different I suppose. What is VAT like in France and US?

I am VAT registered, matted pictures have 13.5% and framed a whopping 21% on it.

Click to expand...

Wow, that's a weird ruling.

As I mentionned, commercial products in France have 19.6% tax. So a picture in a shop, framed or otherwise, would have 19.6% tax on it.

On the other hand limited edition prints (up to 30 copies) are considered under the sales of rights (strange, yes) and are thus subjected to just 5.5% tax.

Tim

Rip off Ireland.... <shrugs>

Tax

Well at least if I am in Europe then VAT is refundable if I spend my US Dollars. So you can hope that the USA Sales are brisk.

We have Sales Tax (8.25% in Los Angeles) which the buyer pays - on photography it's on the labor and finished products, Income Tax for USA and California (varies based on income), Social Security Tax, Medicare Tax, A disability tax/insurance (California) and if you are incorporated, then some additional payroll tax. By the time the average business person is done it's about 40% average. Then we have a City Business License - which for photography is either a percentage of retail and a percentage of the fees.

In any rate, after you pay rent, taxes and your General and Administrative expenses (phone, advertising, electricity - the cost of running the business) the profit is your "salary". A new business has enough expenses there might not be any!

The US Small Business Administration has some sobering facts that 80% of new businesses fail within the first 5 years. I won't fail because, I am not giving up my accounting work so that I can support the new venture. I am giving up many of the luxuries I have been able to afford, like some travel and a few extra pair of shoes (it's a girl thing!) but camera gear is just as much fun.