My friend, photographer Emily Hall, wrote a blog post that inspired me. All of us do our best of the year posts, which I’m guilty of as well. Emily did something different, she wrote about all her goals of 2011 and how she accomplished them, or failed. I was reading it on New Years Eve, mesmerized, and all I could think was “wow what guts this takes”, to publicly announce all this.
So with a deep breath, and a purring cat beside me, I’m sitting here thinking about my business goals for 2012.
1. Establish office hours for myself. I want my family to know when to expect me to be working, and most importantly that when it is not office hours (or when I’m out working with a client) I can give them my full attention.
2. Make the business side of things a priority. I am an artist. I don’t like dealing with numbers and much prefer Photoshop to Quickbooks. This year, I will take one day at the end of each month to keep my bookkeeping clean, be aware of all the numbers, and find ways to simplify the process. Step number one is already taken. I am meeting with an accountant to discuss planning this week.
3. Take my customer service level from great to exceptional. I just love when businesses go out of there way to provide exceptional service. I’m a small business and I get to know each of my clients personally. I just want to find ways to make sure they know I appreciate being chosen as their wedding or family photographer.
4. Blog regularly. I’m not committing to an exact number, but I need to find balance and blog 2-5 times a week. I believe in blogs. If a company catches my interested, I go to there blog pretty quickly. I want to hear the voice of who I am dealing with, and see what types of things they talk about. I think brides benefit from knowing who I am. I want you to choose a photographer whose work you love, and who you really click with. (Sorry about the pun, not intended.)
5. Be me. I recently ditched my wedding packages in favor of simple pricing, something that goes against what any sales publication will recommend. On the opposite side, I recently turned down a wedding I really wanted to photograph because what the bride wanted didn’t coincide with my policies. Thinking back I could have just went with my gut. In the future, I am giving myself liberty to break my own rules, incorporate things I believe in as part of my business, and just go with what feels right.
6. Expand my family portrait business. I love weddings, and plan to keep photographing as many as last year. I enjoy the diversity of working with families too, especially maternity and newborns. Photographing in a lifestyle manner, I love capturing the little moments. My favorite is when one of my brides calls me a year or two later to ask me to photograph her new baby. As part of this, I would like to photograph a birth. I’m scared out of my mind to do it, which means I should. Our doula photographed a lot of my labor and immediately after my daughter was born. I treasure these photos. (Thanks Taffy!)
7. Print my photos, and encourage my clients to do the same. This is the most important. I need to print samples. I need to print personal photos. I also need to convince every single one of you to make prints of your photos too. Yes, I believe in professional quality prints, especially for the big 20×30 enlargements. More so I just want everyone to get their photos off their computer and onto paper, in a book, on the wall, on the fridge… anywhere as long as they can be seen and shared.
8. Make all this pretty. I’m working on making my blog, website, and all those branding things pretty, or at least cohesively me. Oh, and this includes my office too!
Here’s a favorite from a recent family portrait session. New little feet to start the new year!
