GOALS I by Joshua Hudson

I am reading a lot of people trying to make the jump into photography as a business. How many post a week are on here that start out "I am thinking of going into the wedding photography business ..."

Before you read any further, note that before you go into the business of photography, or any business, you need to be a subject matter expert in your field. You should be beyond, "do I need a back up camera?" or "What flash should I use?" or "Where do I put the film in my Canon 20D?" This is a service job, that requires you to already be professional in your skill. Would you hire a mechanic that went online and asked "Where do I buy a good torque wrench?" or "What does the transmission do?"

Ok...so you are confident that you know photography. You have honed your skill like a samurai with a sharpened blade ready to take on the world. You are going to be a self-employed wedding photographer, but how?

Goals. Any journey starts with a single step. Make a clear vision of what you want, and then put markers along the way to worry about. As a combat camera photographer I use to be put in the woods every year and told to go to coordinate on a map. It seemed easy...you look where you are and then where you want to be and start walking --- err.. thataway! But the world isn't a flat map. There are mountains, trees, rivers, rocks-- in other words obstacles. Before you know it, you have ended up totally lost and wondering what went wrong.

In land navigation, you learn how to read your map. To identify markers and set short term goals to achieve so that you can navigate around your obstacles and eventually steer your course to your destination. It sounds so simple, and yet we never do it.

So before you do your business plan, print up business cards and telling friends you are open for business, get some paper and work with me.

1. Write out a goal of the end of your life. Do you care if you leave a hidden fortune of cash for your kids (even the illegitimate ones?) Or do you just want to be able to retire with enough cash to live modestly on. This is important, because you are your own retirement plan. The day when you give up work and relax is the end game. Look into how much money you would need in your retirement funds to live like you do now or how you want to live.

2. Write out a goal of where you want to be in your business by the time you retire. Do you think after working ten, twenty, thirty years, you should be making $1million a year or $50K?

3. Set a 10, 5, and 1 year goal. How many clients do you think you can get in your door? What do you need to make in a year to feel like you were successful? At what point do you feel comfortable experimenting with different marketing ideas like print and radio ads?

4. Be flexible and re-evaluate often.

When I started Dragonfly Digital Media... my business plan was to do video, graphics, photography, and desktop publishing. I had twenty years experience in all these areas. I had worked for the military, and civilian companies and felt comfortable that I could give my clients great products.

a. My six month goal was to have a web site up, and get free work to get my name out there. Within six months, my knowledge of marketing I had a small one page article in shutterbug magazine and a four graphics jobs. But I was still working full time and spreading myself thin on capital and time. I dropped desktop publishing and video from my services and concentrated on photography.

b. By the end of my first year, my work had me move from Virginia and all the networking I had there to Pittsburgh. The job was a good move because I had more time to put into DDM. I re-evaluated a new business plan to be JUST photography and did a lot to get my web site noticed. My goal was to have ten clients by the end of the year. I made eight.

c. My one year mark came. I missed my goal of ten clients. But I did make my goal of showing fairly high on the web sites and started working for some small papers where I got some name recognition. My day job is in Public Relations and I started networking. My year two goal (or my new one year goal) was eighteen clients. I also saw that I was expected to get most of my work in portraits, but it turned out most of my work was in weddings. I retooled my web site and skills to accommodate more weddings and less of everything else.

d. Year three I made my goal of eighteen weddings, four portraits, two magazine jobs and more work for the newspapers. I made all my goals and had enough money to invest in better equipment, and services.

e. I am in year four, and coming onto the start of my five year evaluation. I am on mark for my client goal. I am banking cash because I have all of the equipment on my wish list (bought with business money not my paycheck). My main marketing tools, like the internet, word of mouth, etc are doing well enough that I need to set higher goals. HOWEVER, my home roof collapsed, my cars are falling apart and I don't have the personal capital to handle it from the business. I have to make hard decisions to take business money to pay for personal problems. I make the choice to pull from the business but it costs me all my capital and a D1X.

f. My five year review. I am feeling comfortable. My bookings are enough that I have had to hire my wife to work for me. I had wanted to be booking 20 clients a year and bringing in enough to match a good portion of my regular day job paycheck.My marketing techniques are on track. I took advantage of the day job and worked on building my name in the community and my business sense. Although I went off the trail at first with some serious set backs, I am not so far off that I won't make my ten year goal (which is now adjusted with lessons learned)

OK..so I poured out myself out to the world. How does that help you? Goaling. My example of my life is a good way to see how goaling and regular re-evaluation (or report cards) of those goals will keep you going forward. If you just keep walking west in the wilderness you will surely get lost if you don't stop and recheck your path.

**Be flexible early in the process and keep it fluid. Don't commit too early. Expect your first plan to be provisional and subject to revision.
**Ask yourself if your experience or expertise gives you the right to an opinion on your specific opportunity. If you know nothing about the effectiveness of radio on your business shouldn't you ask someone? If you don't know anything about senior portraits, you should look into it before plunging head first.
**Identify your potential deal killers: variables that are likely to prove fatal to the venture. Number ONE deal killer is lack of vision and planning
**Clearly identify what you see as the key drivers of success. What are you betting on here? If you are betting on your artistic talent to make you money STOP HERE and forget it. You are a business owner now, not an artist. Make pretty pictures on the weekend for you friends and family.
**At some point take the plunge and test your service on a small scale in the real world. Take your portfolio out and ask strangers what they think. It sounds horrible, but I went to a bridal show to check out the other photographers and as soon as I heard someone say they were booked, I would say "I"m not" and give a card. Some clicks on the web site later and people called to say they liked my work. I knew that I had some market appeal. I also put my site up for critique on here and other sites and got it torn apart. The site I have now draws in 300% the number of clients it did four months ago and 1000% number of hits.
**Test and refine your business model before expanding your operations.

Lee Iacocca said, "The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen."

With that all being said beware of the darkside of goaling!

You must be honest when you are goaling. Your goals are there to help you and be your own map guide to your destination. If you are not self-evaluating, you can really hurt yourself.

Some people set goals to impress: themselves as much as others. I could have easily said, I want to set a goal of 50 clients my first year, and then gone furious when reality doesn't match fantasy. What is worse, I could set my first year goal at one client and say how happy I am I got five times that many. Remove yourself from your business and be an advisor. If you walked in and were looking at the photographer you.....what do you think that guy is going to realistically accomplish. What does he need to do and learn? What would be a good success for him in six months or a year.

Some people set goals to be the success. Remember, the goals are just markers to help you to your final destination. Do not make your goal your mission but your guide. Your goals should be able to be changed at a moments notice if you think they need to be and replaced.

Focus is often a problem with goaling. "I want to have ten clients this year, with two magazine covers, go to WPPI, win a pulitzer, save the whales, etc" You need to prioritize goals. Give some more weight than others. If you were to give them points, figure out which ones are 10 point goals and which ones are 5 point goals. You obviously work harder to make the 10 point goals.

Don't let goals by your To Do list. You are self-employed. This means you have to be self motivated. Goals are milestones, not day to day things. It is like your goals are gas stations you are trying to get to on the road trip to success. But your daily to-do list are the little things you need to do all the time to keep your car on the road. I keep two planners with me. One has my schedule of what is going on with my life and the other is a log of what I did today (people I talked to, things accomplished). This is my one horrible anal thing I must do in a day to be my own boss (even in my day job I am a department of one). If I don't make myself the jerk whipping myself into action, then no one will and I will fail. All too often people set their goals, which is good, and then let everything else just happen organically, which is bad. Keep on top of your daily grind and time manage (another topic I need to do)

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan, 'Press on,' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race -- Calvin Coolidge

You are what you think. You are what you go for. You are what you do! --Bob Richards

Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.--John Wooden

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
--Unknown