I find it absolutely amazing how many photography programs at well respected colleges and universities throughout the country fail to teach the real essentials of photography. Even at F.I.T. where I attended, we had one course that focused on the “business of photography”. Being a successful commercial photographer is not just about f-stops and shutter speeds, but in reality you have to possess much, much more.

As a photographer, you must be a Full-Time CEO, Full-Time Artist, Full-Time People Manager, Full-Time Student, Full-Time Counselor, Full-Time Accountant, Full-Time Sales Executive, and Full-Time Marketer. No wonder most of us work 120 hour weeks and still don’t have time to get everything done that we need to.

I must admit, every small business owner is in this situation, but by our very nature, we’re artists. The business side of things is the last thing on our mind. Unlike the local pizza joint or auto mechanic, the competition is probably steeper, the pay isn’t always the best, and most of us don’t have a store front so anyone driving by can find us. We’re forced to learn the in’s and out’s of how to run a business, we’re forced to go out and look for work, we make mistakes on our tax returns that get us audited, we lose business to the other guy because he’s a better marketer, and some of us succeed while way too many photographers fail. You could be the most amazing photographer, but if you can’t stay in business, you’ll probably end up working a desk job somewhere for a company that you hate, or in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt because you just made too many bad business decisions.

You really have two options:
1) You have a huge amount of working capital from the start and hire amazing people to be around you to handle everything but the f-stops and shutter speeds, or
2) You learn to wear several hats, many times several hats at once, to build your business until you reach the point where you can take advantage of your working capital to hire amazing people to be around you to handle everything, but the f-stops and shutter speeds (even then, you still need to have a good grasp on your entire business).

This blog and other online and physical networking ventures have allowed me to meet many very talented photographers, many who I would admit have images in their portfolios that I would have love to have created, but they just have no clue how to run their business. So they come to me for advice… Usually it starts something like this:

THEM: How do you make money in photography?

ME: What does it cost you to operate your business every year?

THEM: Umm. I'm not quite sure.

ME: It's ok, you don't have to tell me, but do YOU know?

THEM: Ummm. (pause, with a puzzled look on their face) Well, my studio rent is this much, and my cell phone bill is this much. I think I spend about this much every year.

My next question is usually something like:

ME: If you don't know what it costs for you to operate your business, how do you know what to charge to make a profit?

( I usually get a more puzzled look than before )

THEM: I just charge a little bit less than my competition.

Well, I’m glad they know what their competition is doing, but undercutting the market is never going to make you (or the industry as a whole) successful. The scary thing is many photographers that I know operate their business this way. They have no clue what their overhead is. They have no clue where their money is going, but they know that they struggle every day just to eat. Their credit cards are maxed out, but they’re not quite sure how it got to that point. And worst of all, they have no clue where they’re going and how they’re going to get there. While it would be great to focus 100% of our time on creating beautiful images, all the other “stuff” takes up somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of our time and is, actually, just as important as the images we create.

Over the next few weeks, on Tuesdays, I will post a new “Being an Educated Photographer” article each looking at the different areas that photographers should be spending time educating themselves to be a successful in business.

Current Articles In This Series:
Being An Educated Photographer: (Part 1) The Introduction
Being An Educated Photographer: (Part 2) The Full-Time CEO
Being An Educated Photographer: (Part 3) The Full-Time People Manager

Coming Soon:
The Full-Time Counselor
The Full-Time Accountant
The Full-Time Sales Executive
The Full-Time Marketer
The Full-Time Student

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