It’s that time of year where we’re making plans and setting goals, and business is on our minds.  As I suspect many of you may be small-business owners, may be considering becoming one, or just might be interested in hearing about our approach to our business, I’m hoping to blog more about business this year.  If you find it useful or interesting, we’ll do more of it, so give me some feedback and let me know what you think!

I thought I’d start out by responding to a question I received in my email inbox, which hit close to home as we are starting a new year, I have to admit that money is on our minds.

Dear Ann,

I am just starting out my photography business, and I’m not sure how to budget my money.  I have some money saved, but not a lot, and I’m not sure if I should use it for equipment, a new website, or if I should save it for a rainy day?

When you’re starting out, it’s totally confusing.  There are so many things to do and so many places to spend your money that it’s hard to know where to start.

Personally, I keep thinking about the idea of investment, and what it has meant for our business and what means in our personal lives.

Maybe it’s because I’m from the Midwest, but I’d say I grew up in a pretty fiscally conservative home.  In fact, I’m a natural saver.  I was the kid who saved her Halloween candy under the bed, trying to make it last as long as possible.  (Even to the point where my parents would tell me to eat more!)  As an artist, being careful with your money can be a pretty good strategy to get you through those years where you’re not making a whole lot.

But, when you have your own business, the rules kind of get flipped upside-down.  Don’t get me wrong, you really have to be careful about your spending, but there are certain areas where you need to invest in order to grow.

When  you’re just starting out, you have a lot of decisions to make.  What gear to purchase, where to advertise, who your target market is, what your pricing will be… the list goes on and on, and meanwhile, your stomach is tied in knots just hoping that you make the right decisions so that you can continue to do what you love.  It can be really scary to think about investing at times like these because you when or even if the clients will start coming in so that you can pay your bills and get off the ground.

For Kamran and I, we have a few core principles that have really helped us grow our business without overloading our debt:

– Always ask, “Will this expenditure help me grow?”  It seems simple, but get in the habit of asking, especially when it comes to purchases like equipment.  There is a foundational set of equipment that you will need, but remember, you can always rent the things that you can’t afford to buy right away.  Renting is also a great way to try different pieces of equipment so that you can decide what you like the best before you make a big investment.  So make sure you have equipment you can trust, but don’t spend all your capital on new gear.

–  Sometimes the answer to the above question is not obvious.  Take your website, for example.  There are a lot of options for wordpress-based websites, many of which are free or low-cost.  In fact, the first couple months of our business, we used a wordpress template.  It wasn’t long before we realized we needed a platform that allowed us to be more creative with our brand and that would allow us to give more to our clients.  Though it was a scary leap, it made a huge difference to have a website platform that we loved.  Down the line, we invested more into a unique website design, but that early decision to invest in our services created a mentality of investment that we’ve built upon.

– Budget for mistakes.  Advertising and marketing are tricky, and you have to figure out the right combination of media that will work for you.  There are a few places where we advertise that are awesome partners for us and have helped us build our business from day 1.  There are other places that we thought would work just as well, and simply have not performed.  And then there are things that we tried and thought were going to be awesome, and were total flops.  But the key is that the things that work for us work well enough to let us experiment, and that we keep an eye on our referral sources so that we know what’s working.  When something doesn’t work, just say goodbye.

– Reach out and talk to other professionals to find out what a realistic budget looks like.  (Yay for you for reaching out already!)  I wish I had had the nerve to ask somebody for advice on this when I first started, but I was afraid of getting put down, and so had to learn everything the hard way.  Trust me, there are nice people out there who are willing to help you!

Ok, well that was really long, and I guess the short answer is – get your foundational equipment, and invest in your website and a few marketing/advertising sources that will help you get your feet off the ground.  No, it’s not cheap, but nobody ever said it was.

I hope this was helpful, keep the questions coming!

And since every post needs a photo, here’s one last shot from our session with Jeff Shipley.  I feel like this is our superhero shot.  We are the “Be Smart with Your Money” Superheroes!  haha