Walt's Photos a photo blog of Walt Sorensen

(This is a reprint of a series of notes I wrote on Facebook in 2009) In our last episode we discovered our Start up costs for a homebased photography business would be about $6870 with an additional $6581 annual reoccurring costs. This is just costs, too that we talked about adding a small take home pay and self-employment tax. For this episode I wanted to point everyone to a great resource, the NPPA Cost of doing business calculator. (sorry, the link was down at the time of republishing this writing, but a Google search should help you find a good CDB calculator) Take a look at the CDB calculator, and plug in your numbers for your business....what did you find? Are you charging enough in just costs for your work? We ran the default numbers in the calculator to find the following: Results Total annual expenses (including desired salary) $89,850.00 Weekly Cost of Doing Business $1,727.88 Your Overhead Cost for a Day of Shooting $898.50 The cost for a day of shooting i...

(This is a reprint of a series of notes I wrote on Facebook in 2009) In our last episode we discovered our Start up costs for a homebased photography business would be about $3370 with an additional $3081 annual reoccurring costs. I thought I would touch on pricing a little. I'm not going to say what you should charge, or exactly how you should come to a pricing point. I am going to discuss cost factors in pricing. In our last episode we discussed an estimated number of shoots; working out to 20 weddings and 100 portrait sessions for the year. we also talked about the hard cost of copyright registration at $35 per collection. Are business starting cost plus annual reoccurring cost averages over the 120 shoots to about $54. That brings our hard costs per shoot to $89. But wait there is more. We haven't talked about equipment. Depending on who you talk to your equipment costs for shooting digital will vary based on the type of system you have for your DSLR or your computer. ...

(This is a reprint of a series of notes I wrote on Facebook in 2009) In our last episode we discovered our Start up costs for a homebased photography business would be about $2950 with an additional $2661 annual reoccurring costs. I this episode we'll talk about Copyright registration costs. In any photography business if you want to protect yourself, your clients, and your business; you need to register your images with the copyright office. If you ever publish your images even to facebook , blog or website; you need to protect what you created. The creation of a photograph is intellectual property, it is art, it is one of a kind. I know there are lots of photographers who think I'll take my money give the client a disk with hi-res photos, provide a release with all the rights, and run. But doing that opens you and your company to risk. Once those files leave your possession with a full release the cat is out of the bag. Here are some potential issues: you no longer can us...

(This is a reprint of a series of notes I wrote on Facebook in 2009) In our last episode we discovered our Start up costs for a homebased photography business would be about $2440 with an additional $2151 annual reoccurring costs. This will be a short episode. So our subject thought they would rent some photography equipment from a local rental company called Redman's to shoot some portfolio stuff with studio lighting. Redman's doesn't have much photography stuff but they have tons of lighting for movies and photography with c-stands backgrounds etc. Our subject calls up Redman's, sets up some of the details; like what equipment and the date of the rental. Then we get down to paperwork, and the first request is "we'll need you to send over a copy of your business insurance showing a minimum of $1 million in general liability insurance." Our subject is a little taken back by this request, they hadn't even thought that their business should have ins...

(This is a reprint of a series of notes I wrote on Facebook in 2009) In our last episode our subject started to set up a foundation for their business. They picked up a few services like a website, cell phone, Internet service. They also joined the local chamber of commerce and a trade organization. We brought our total business start-up cost to $1110 and reoccurring annual cost to $821. In this episode we will further explore marketing and the cost of running a business. So what marketing should we do for this wedding and portraiture business? Lets start with some traditional marketing, Yellow pages ads. For yellow pages we have to ask which one we'll advertise in. Which one, our subject asks confused. Yes which one, there are several yellow pages books, To name a few: Dex, The Yellow Book, The us yellow pages, super pages, etc. Second we need to decide where the ads will run since every area has a different book as well. We also need to decide what kind of ad we'll place: jus...

(this is a reprint of a series of notes I wrote in Facebook in 2009) So our subject is finding out the real costs of doing business and decided to scale back to a home based business when faced with the cost of a retail location and build out. In this episode I thought we would talk more about incidental costs to running a business. We started with a minimum hard cost of $229 dollars to set up an LLC and get a business license. Our subject decided they would accept credit cards, requiring a merchant card service and equipment. The merchant card service cost $300 for the Equipment and $8 per month, not to mention the transaction fees. For the moment we'll focus on the hard costs totaling $396 the first year and $96 every year after. Do you want a website? Oh yes, our subject chimes in. Do you really need it? I would say you can not get away with out having a website since a website can bring you business and could be an invaluable marketing tool. To have a real website you need a do...

(this is a reprint of a series of posts I wrote on Facebook in 2009) So everyone thinks it is so easy to start and run a business, Really??? I tell them. Do you know everything about what it costs? Do you know what Businesses pay in rent or their licenses? etc... The answer to these questions is almost always no, spoken with a downward glance and an change of subject. Well I'll fill you in on some of the details. Let's start from the beginning as if we are starting a new photography business. Question one, what type of photography will you be doing? portrait, wedding, commercial, journalism....Oh yes I'll be doing that kind of photography, says our subject. Wait a second, I tell them Each of these example areas is a dedicated field in photography that have unique markets and skills. Pick one of these areas and focus on it. After some debate our subject says they want to do weddings and maybe portraiture, and maybe commercial. (thinking to myself, didn't I just explain t...