I started my business in 2017 with literally barely any experience but a lot of enthusiasm and grit. My business building journey was both slow and fast at the same time. Fast, in that I booked a lot more work than I expected pretty early on… but slow in the fact that it took me much longer than I’d like to admit to figure out some of the fundamental parts of being a business owner.

Now that I’m in year 4 of this crazy ride I finally feel like I’m in a position to speak on my experience and share some of my “Do’s” and “don’ts” of the business.

• Do get a portfolio
  • People are not going to book you unless you have photos to show them. You NEED to build a portfolio before you start asking people to pay your for your images.
  • Ways to build a portfolio
    • Ask friends and family to take their photos for free
    • Ask a local photographer to second shoot for them for free
• Build a quality website from the beginning
  • A website is the best way to showcase your work and to make your business look more “legit”
  • Invest in a domain (don’t settle for a free one – its like a $100 and its worth waaaay more than that in the long run)
  • Choose a quality hosting service that will be able to accommodate sophisticated SEO implementation (when you progress enough in your business that you care about that) it is a HUGE hassle to move from one hosting platform to another, so just start with a quality platform
    • I recommend https://showit.co or https://www.squarespace.com
    • I know wix is cheaper but in the long run their SEO capabilities fall short
• Post on instagram like a business person
  • it will undoubtably feel awkward and weird at first but just do it
  • If you post on instagram promoting your services or even showing people that its something you are currently doing you are going to see way more results! (my business comes 75% from instagram and I’m not even that good at it)
• Business License & Insurance
  • The second you start charging for your work you should invest in a license and insurance
  • It’s so important to protect yourself and your business
  • It feels like a big expense at first… but imagine how much of an expense it would be to replace all of your equipment if it were to get stolen…