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A creative business blog for PORTRAIT photographers
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Photography Business Strategy Blog
Small Business Blog: Should You Be A Business Owner?
You may already own your own business. Or you may be trapped in a full time job you want to leave and dream of owning your own business. The Entrepreneur Equation, just released by author Carol Roth, helps ‘wanna be’ entrepreneurs and those who are looking to take their business to the next level ask the first necessary question: not “Could I?” but rather “Should I?” start my own business.
Small Business Blog: The Importance of Feedback
I’m a cereal eater. Every morning, like clockwork, I have a bowl and sometimes as a snack before bed. I don’t have five varieties in my pantry, rather just my one stand by. I’m a packaged goods company’s dream customer; loyal to one type of cereal, a heavy-consumer, likely in their top 20% of all customers.
Three weeks ago when I entered my local grocery store (a small chain), my cereal had been replaced. It was missing from the aisle.
Boutique Marketing: Show Your Clients Some Love
As many of you know, I am a business book junkie. I am not sure how I have missed this book, Hug Your Customers, but it is now officially one of my favorites (which basically means that I have already started gifting this book).
Small Business Strategies: What Are Your Visions For Your Business?
There’s a lot of hype about vision boards and the practice of visioning. From the best-selling book, The Secret, to a recent Inc. Magazine article by Ari Weinzweig on the topic, picturing what you see success looking like in the future and then committing it to paper or some other media helps many people stay focused. Rather than mapping out a strategy for how to get ‘there’, the vision simply defines what ‘there’ looks like.
It’s All In How You Say It: A Marketing Idea
This weekend my husband and I braved the Dallas ice and snow to grab dinner at one of my favorite restaurants. When we walked in, we were asked if we had a chance to call ahead to save a table. We had not made a reservation, but I was taken aback so I wanted to share this easy marketing idea with you.
Find Marketing Issues By Looking at Your Client’s Journey To You
Do you understand the journey your clients took to find you?
Was it a 2 minute Google search?
Did they visit Yelp?
Read your Google
places page?
Dig into reviews?
Go through your galleries?
Find you on Facebook?
Did they hear about you
from a friend first and then go to your website?
Or did they see an ad you placed in a magazine or on television?
Hear about you from a charity effort?
Get a
direct mail piece from you in their mailbox?
3 Marketing Ideas To Avoid A Price War With Your Competitors
I hear a lot of small business owners (especially photographers) talking about how many competitors they have. As far as being a professional photographer, everyone who owns a nice digital camera is really capable of calling himself a professional. So it’s tempting to compete on price.
Business Marketing Stategies for Suriving a Disaster
This week, my flight to Dallas, Texas (of all places) was canceled due to weather. You know that when the southern states close their airports due to snow and ice, the rest of us are in trouble. When your city (let alone half of the country) shuts down due to weather, it effects small business owners worse than the rest of the world. Think about it. People aren’t leaving home, they aren’t driving so they aren’t buying gas or spending money shopping. I think about all of the restaurants who are losing money because of spoiled food costs.
Put More Effort on Fewer Marketing Ideas for Greater Return
Are you focusing your marketing efforts on too many marketing ideas at the wrong place and the wrong time? Research on how customers make buying decisions in the McKinsey Quarterly says you may be. If you’re a geek like me and want to read the whole study, it’s fascinating. If not, here’s what you need to know as a small business owner.
7 Myths About Becoming a Professional Photographer (and the Realities)
When thinking about becoming a professional photographer, it’s easy to have on the rose-colored glasses that make everything look easy and wonderful. But the reality of those false perceptions can actually destroy the chance of owning your own studio (and a successful...
From Hobby to Jobby: 3 Steps to Making Photography Your Full-Time Gig
Answer this: Would love to take your side gig doing photography to the next level and turn it into your full-time job? But maybe you can’t yet make that leap—for a variety of reasons. You’re not bringing in enough money from it to support yourself. You’re worried...
A Marketing Idea for Photographers with Big Hearts
We all have causes and organizations that are near and dear to our hearts. And because those organizations are usually non-profits, there’s a constant need for help with fundraisers. As a photography business owner, there’s a way for you to help them out and get new...
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