Zenologue

How do we measure success? As far as I know there’s no ruler or gauge that we can use to measure it. Do we wake up one day and suddenly find ourselves successful?

Are there varying degrees of success? If so, where’s the point at which a higher degree of failure becomes a lesser degree of success?

Perhaps this is a “half-full” versus “half-empty” type of question.

Some people might measure their success by the amount of money in the bank, others by the achievement of awards or the attainment of goals. Others count themselves successful if they’re living life on their own terms. Is being successful the same as being happy or content?

In 1969, NASA launched Apollo 11 on a successful mission to the moon. There was no possibility of partial success in that case, only absolute success or failure. Making it halfway to the moon did not constitute a quarter-successful mission. Neither did landing on the moon itself, although that was certainly a major milestone. Success only came when Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins made that wonderful splash in the ocean upon their safe return.

President Kennedy defined the terms of the mission’s success in his own seemingly prophetic words in 1961: “…I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

The Apollo mission could only be said to be a success when the goals had been met.

Perhaps we can learn something from this as professional photographers in our own business if we consider the following question:

How can we hope to be successful if we do not define the goals and objectives we need to meet?

What goals are you going to set for yourself and your business? Now, at the beginning of a new decade, a new year, what will define your success? The answers to these questions could reveal the uniqueness of you and your specific business; that same uniqueness that separates you from the other photographers in your area.

Are you ready to launch your own Apollo program with its own goals and commitments?

business business, goals, professional photographer, success

It’s a new year, a new decade in fact, so perhaps we should start out with a new attitude – a mindset designed to win. Let’s forget all the negativity and depression that came to a head in 2009, and start afresh with a new outlook.

Think of your favorite successful brand for a moment.

They probably have a CEO, numerous vice-presidents, departmental managers and front-line workers.

Photographers, on the other hand, are usually one-man bands – we have to do everything from opening up shop, managing the accounts and cleaning the bathrooms.

Often, that’s the root of most of our problems…

We get lost in the everyday tasks of running the front line of the business that we forget or don’t have the time to consider the vision, mission and strategies that define where we want our business to go.

Instead, if we consider that we have various roles in the business, from the CEO to the divisional vice-presidents, on down to the front-line operatives, we might have a better chance of making the correct decisions to operate the business more successfully and efficiently.

This is where time management and planning really come into play.

For example, we could spend the first hour of our day planning and working on the vision of the business as the CEO of our company, not really considering the strategies or operational procedures needed to carry out those plans. We can then move the company forward towards achieving our goals. In this sense, the CEO is not concerned with the how, only the why.

Next, we switch hats as divisional vice-presidents of the departments affected by our musings as CEO in order to develop the strategies needed to accomplish the goals we’ve set for ourselves. Our job as strategists is concerned with the how of achieving the goals, the route we’re going to take so to speak.

The managerial tasks are up next – taking care of the tactics and the tools required to fulfill the strategies we’ve developed. This level of thinking deals with the methods, tools and systems we’ll use to accomplish tasks.

The final level – front-line operations – is probably the easiest to deal with. We simply need to come up with fixed procedures to carry out the tasks needed to do the job at hand.

It’s going to take some time and practice to get used to this segmented way of thinking but I believe it’s critical to the success of any business, no matter how small.

business business, professional photographer, professional photography, success, time management

No one can be in business for very long without encountering the phrase, “to write a business plan.” Usually, the sentence is formed in their own mind, preceded by the words, “I need…”

Business planning is important, and an actual documented business plan is a necessity. A lot of photographers and other small business owners know they need one, but are hesitant to start on it, often with the excuse that they are too busy running their business to stop and do it.

That’s like saying you’re too busy driving to think about where you’re actually going. Most people usually have an idea of their destination and how they plan to get there before starting the car. They might even have a map, courtesy of mapquest, or even a GPS unit to help guide them on the way, but it makes no sense to drive away in a car with no destination in mind.

Are We Too Scared To Plan?

I think the reason most people don’t have a business plan is that it sounds too abstract or complex to handle, or that they imagine it has to be full only with financial projections. But this needn’t be the case, and I would argue that a simple actual business plan is much better than no business plan at all.

I learned two things this week that really come together here…

One is that writing a business plan is not the correct way to approach it; one should think of it more as designing a plan for your business. It’s a subtle, but very effective difference in approach and it requires a different mindset and attitude that will produce a better result.

Secondly, as photographers, we need to wear a lot of hats in the course of running the business. We are often the CEO, the managers and the staff all rolled into one person. The problems start when we fail to tell the difference between the roles we need to play, or we mix up jobs completely by wearing the wrong hat for the role. Usually, this manifests itself as the photographer making CEO-style decisions while not wearing the CEO hat and therefore considering the implications of those decisions from the appropriate level. For example, buying all the latest photography gear because it’s nice to have without thinking of how it might actually serve the business.

Elephants Can Be Eaten One Piece At A Time:

So how can we make a suitable plan for our photography business? The answer is quite simple – we can break it down into sections starting from the top; the different hats we were you might say: 

• CEO – create the vision, philosophy and goals of the business
• Head of Sales & Marketing – Overall strategic planning of sales and marketing
• Head of Product Development – Overall strategic planning of products
• Head of Finances – Overall strategic oversight of financial planning
• Sales Manager – Oversees the tactics of sales
• Marketing Manager – Oversees the tactics of marketing
• Product Manager – Oversees the design and production of products
• Finance Manager – Oversees the functions of accounting
• Marketer – Broadcasts the company message and brand
• Sales person – conducts sales meetings with clients
• Photographer – Take photographs, edit, enhance images and produce final products

If we look at the above tasks in more detail we can safely conclude that there are four basic stages involved in the organization of the business: 

• Philosophy and Vision
• Strategy (i.e. the logic of how we will achieve our goals)
• Tactics (i.e. the tools and methods we use to implement our strategy)
• Implementation

When designing our business plan we can address these areas independently, making the whole process so much simpler to handle. As long as each level pays consideration to the levels above it, we ought to be able to conceive of a sound plan.

For example, the implementation level might include an option to offer CDs of copyright-released images to our clients. This would only be acceptable if the tactics to do so are available (i.e. the tools and the ability), there is a valid strategy for doing so (a solid reason in other words), and it fits in with the overall philosophy and vision of the business.

There also needs to be some kind of financial analysis and projection, but this can be kept to a necessary minimum in my opinion, especially if this part of a business plan is what’s keeping you from designing one in the first place.

Conclusion:

I know this has been a very simple article on a very complex field, but I do believe that, in order to be successful as a photographer, we need to tackle this issue head on. It’s not going to do us any good in the long run to avoid creating a business plan through confusion or fear. The intention of this post is to get you thinking about this in ways that are appropriate to you and your specific business. There is obviously a lot more to it than I’ve written here, but it would take many posts to cover everything in such detail.

There are plenty of great resources on the web, as well as books on the subject and I think that it makes it a lot easier to start off simply and take it one step at a time. So, I encourage you to take a few steps back for a while and try on those different hats while really thinking about the roles they represent. Start with the CEO and work your way down to the bottom, all the while ensuring that your company vision and philosophy are protected and well served.

business business, business plan, business planning, professional photographer