I am unsure how to go about learning the business side of photography. how to judge what i should charge vs what the market says to charge. stupid kijiji mentality.
You should be charging enough to make a living wage. Pricing is a complex topic that really boils down to just that. A living wage. As your skill increases so too should your compensation.
Count on 30% going to taxes. Count 40% going to reinvest in your business for the first five years ( in order to buy those props, backdrops, studio lights etc etc. done properly you need $10, 000 to launch a studio, assuming you have some basics like props and a studio space and your first year marketing materials ready. ) you can drop the 40% down to 20% after five years.
So, if you're making $100 a week ( two $50 sessions, or one $100 session) then $70 of that is gone, off the top. You can't live on $30 a week. " so, I'll do more sessions" you figure. The max you can fit into a week while doing a fairly poor job of it is 7. So $700 in our fictional scenario. You will have made $300 of that in salary for yourself. Still not a living wage.
So, to distill a whole business class into a paragraph: you can't shoot every day and you can't work every day. You need days off, you have kids that will eventually have a flu, you need a break at times too. So you can't work 365 days a year. you need at least a day a week on marketing and blogging and client relations. Two to three days a week on editing and orders. That leaves you a max of three days a week of shooting, if you have no weekends. So if you push yourself and get good at your organization and workflow, and rarely get sick and get behind, you might pack in four clients a week in your first years in business. How much money does 4 clients a week need to spend on Blith photography in order to get you to your desired salary?
Or, to put it in a logical format: figure out what you need and want to make in a year. ( say, $30,000 to be conservative. That means you need to make $100,000 a year in order to clear that amount for yourself. If you need to make $100,000 you can do that by bringing in 1,000 clients at $100 or you could bring in a more possible and practical 100 clients at $1,000, or 200 clients at $500 each. 200 clients, 52 weeks in the year...approximately 4 clients a week!
TA DA!
:-).
Seriously, read the book. And get off kijiji, it's harming your business before it's begun. Network instead with professionals... Reach for the level you want to be at, right? Not the level you want to avoid.
Crash course
Get this book. Study it like it was the last bible on earth for a fundamental Christian: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1581154976/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=a0ede1-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=1581154976
You should be charging enough to make a living wage. Pricing is a complex topic that really boils down to just that. A living wage. As your skill increases so too should your compensation.
Count on 30% going to taxes. Count 40% going to reinvest in your business for the first five years ( in order to buy those props, backdrops, studio lights etc etc. done properly you need $10, 000 to launch a studio, assuming you have some basics like props and a studio space and your first year marketing materials ready. ) you can drop the 40% down to 20% after five years.
So, if you're making $100 a week ( two $50 sessions, or one $100 session) then $70 of that is gone, off the top. You can't live on $30 a week. " so, I'll do more sessions" you figure. The max you can fit into a week while doing a fairly poor job of it is 7. So $700 in our fictional scenario. You will have made $300 of that in salary for yourself. Still not a living wage.
So, to distill a whole business class into a paragraph: you can't shoot every day and you can't work every day. You need days off, you have kids that will eventually have a flu, you need a break at times too. So you can't work 365 days a year. you need at least a day a week on marketing and blogging and client relations. Two to three days a week on editing and orders. That leaves you a max of three days a week of shooting, if you have no weekends. So if you push yourself and get good at your organization and workflow, and rarely get sick and get behind, you might pack in four clients a week in your first years in business. How much money does 4 clients a week need to spend on Blith photography in order to get you to your desired salary?
Or, to put it in a logical format: figure out what you need and want to make in a year. ( say, $30,000 to be conservative. That means you need to make $100,000 a year in order to clear that amount for yourself. If you need to make $100,000 you can do that by bringing in 1,000 clients at $100 or you could bring in a more possible and practical 100 clients at $1,000, or 200 clients at $500 each. 200 clients, 52 weeks in the year...approximately 4 clients a week!
TA DA!
:-).
Seriously, read the book. And get off kijiji, it's harming your business before it's begun. Network instead with professionals... Reach for the level you want to be at, right? Not the level you want to avoid.
Other resources: www.takeoffyourmommygoggles.com
Professional photographers of America ( association for all of north America)
http://www.napcp.com/
http://www.professionalchildphotographer.com/information/
http://www.jotte-workshops.com/
http://www.kerimeyersphotography.com/newborn-mentoring-opportunities/