Six years ago my photography business was born…
…I was sitting in an ‘All Hands’ company meeting with my employer, Nokia, in London. I’m sure you know the kind of event I mean. It’s the one where the company brings all their employees together so they all hear a piece of news at the same time. It’s usually bad news too: a big redundancy announcement, closure of the business or something else that the employees need to hear first hand rather than learn through the press.
This meeting was to be a large redundancy announcement. I’d been forewarned by one of my sources a few weeks earlier so thankfully I’d had time to think and prepare if he turned out to be correct.
He was.
How it all began…
As I sat there my mind started racing. Today was a decision point. It felt like several timelines suddenly all converged on this moment…
- 2 years ago my GP advised a lifestyle change as the stress in my job was killing me
- 1.5 years ago I’d told my wife I wanted to start my own photography business.
- 1 year ago I’d started this blog, theLightMatters.com
- 9 months ago I’d become house photographer for Dilema Models in London
- 1 month ago I’d paid off my mortgage
- Today I was 100% certain I’d be made redundant
- Tomorrow my season ticket ran out
The way I saw it, I had two options:
Door 1: Try to cling on to my job in the hopes something better would turn up
Door 2: Take the money, say ‘thank you very much’ and start my own business
As an aside, I’m really curious to hear what you’d do under the same circumstances? Leave a comment and let me know 🙂
As for me, I chose Door 2.
Today was the very day, 6 years ago, that I made my decision to leave the rat race and start my own business.
Looking back…
The last 6 years have been the toughest of my life. They’ve also been the most liberating, the happiest and the most fun. I’ve achieved more than I ever dreamt possible (don’t worry, I’m not going to mention them all), the highlights being
- Cover photos for Hampshire Life and APlus Education
- London Fashion Week
- Portfolio shoot in a major rock musician’s living room in his mansion
- Won an international Best Business award
- Had images published in books and magazines all around the globe
- Feature photographer in British Vogue
- House photographer for a London model agency
- Photographed captains of industry in Finance and Semi-conductor
It’s not been without problems though. The amount of animosity I’ve received from a few local photographers on seeing my portfolio has been immense. Mostly it’s just snide comments but one went as far as to have me banned from a local business networking group in Woking. It’s a real shame as there’s more than enough business out there and I’ve turned down enquiries for baby and family shoots that I could have passed their way had they been more professional.
That’s quite enough of that as I want to keep this post positive and upbeat.
Biggest Lessons Learned…
1: Don’t race to the bottom of the barrel
The funny thing about photographers is they mostly seem intent on driving their prices down. I got caught in this trap too for a while. Then I did the maths and realised I was charging, full speed down a path of self destruction. Sure, I’d won some assignments but when I found myself on a 60-mile round trip for a client who only bought one image at £20 I saw the light.
Who’s fault was that? Mine of course. I’d quoted and agreed the price with her, nobody else. Sure, I was expecting a larger order but that never came.
That was one of my most valuable shoots as it taught me to value my work and my time because nobody else would value it if I didn’t.
2: Don’t work for free
When I first started out I did a lot of work for free in the hope the client would like my work and book me for another shoot or recommend me to their friends. Never happened. When I analysed the figures, nobody I’d ever done a free job for had ever booked me for a paid gig. Nope. Not one. Never.
When I analysed the figures, nobody I’d ever done a free job for had ever booked me for a paid gig
Why was that? They valued my work at ZERO. Working for free was keeping me busy but it was costing me money rather than making it. Worse still, I was devaluing the brand.
3: Learning how to charge
Learning how to charge a client was really tough. It’s a mindset issue and also related to valuing your work and your time.
You can’t earn a living if you don’t charge for your work
I remember feeling embarrassed at asking the client for money and worked to overcome this very quickly. After all, you can’t earn a living if you don’t charge for your work.
Ultimately it’s something you have to get on with. I hadn’t come from a sales background so wasn’t used to asking for or collecting money.
4: Tracking my marketing and sales
This one was huge and really helped to shape my business. I picked the tip up from Nigel Botterill when I was a member of his Entrepreneur’s Circle. It’s very easy to implement too.
Basically you need to track every piece of marketing or advertising you put out to find out how many leads it generates for you. It works for everything: social media, printed adverts, directory advertising, emails, web links, telephone calls — if you advertise somewhere, you can track the leads that piece generates. I even used it with my business cards until I realised of the thousands of cards I gave away, nobody ever called the number!
Tracking my marketing let me understand where my marketing money was working and equally important, where it was not. Two of the most ineffective forms of advertising I was spending money on were on-line directories and printed adverts. How do I know? Because each one had a tracking URL, tracking email address and/or tracking phone number and Ihad absolutely no results.
5: Knowing my numbers
When I started Gavin Thorn Photography, I did so because I wanted to be a photographer. I soon realised that running a photography business meant I needed to change the way I thought about my photography. I needed to start thinking and working like a photography business and not just a be a photographer.
If you want to run a photography business, you need to be a photography business, not a photographer
I had to know my numbers — that meant targets, sales figures, overheads and all manner of other numbers I’m not going to go into here.
6: Marketing Matters!!!
If you want to run a photography business you have to be able to market yourself. A good marketer will outperform a good photographer every day of the week. Why? Because they’re the ones able to market their business and get the clients in. Making the world’s most beautiful, artistically perfect and technically brilliant images won’t make you rich unless you’re able to find someone to buy them.
To be a successful photography business, you need to first be a successful marketer of a photography business.
And For The Future…???
That remains to be seen.
I want to really build theLightMatters now as a brand in it’s own right. As Zack Arias once told me, it’s a “great domain name” and very apt for a photographer. I’ve learned so much about photography in the last 32 years since I got my first SLR as an 18th birthday present I want to use theLightMatters as a portal to share some of that knowledge.
GTP needs rationalising as I have my finger in far too many pies. Some genres need to be dropped to allow me to specialise. We do fashion, makeovers, commercial, headshots, boudoir, food, bands, performers, families… (The list goes on ad on, trust me) The biggest problem there is me. I hate to let go and in many cases the set up is very similar, it’s just the subject that changes.
I really want to publish my first book too. It’s written, I just need to edit it then figure out the publishing mechanism and marketing it.
That was a bit of a waffly post I’m afraid but I wanted to get it out today. I doubt anyone will make it this far through but if you have, leave a comment and say Hi below. I’d really appreciate it.
Here’s to the next 6 years,
Gavin
