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The Business Plan
Part 15 on the business aspects of being a successful photographer by Ron
Pybus ma aswpp.
At some stage in the development of your business you will have had to
prepare a business plan. In the majority of cases such plans have to be
prepared for presentation to the bank manager when seeking financial support
for your business. Often, in small businesses, this is the last time they
are used. Few businesses see them as a vital management tool. If you are in
this situation, now is the time to think again!
A business plan will probably be 10 to 12 pages in length, but will carry an
executive summary of one or, at most, two sides of A4. It must outline where
you are now and where to aim to be in a few years (typically five years)
down the road. Business plans are an essential management tool and must be
consulted and amended regularly.
Even if you wrote your business plan 12 months ago, with the development of
the recession over the last six months, the likelihood is that it is no
longer a viable operational document.
An ideal business plan should start out with clear statements as to what are
your primary and subsidiary businesses and where you are now with these
businesses. It should make it clear what your key business is and whom is
your target market. It should also detail how you plan to market to your
target consumers and the source of any competition. It should detail your
assets (cameras, equipment, premises), your financial position (how much
money is currently available within the business), and the current income
(your average weekly or monthly turnover), your monthly expenditure, (rent,
rates, electricity, print processing, etc). Additionally it should detail
your staff, their hours, their background, experience and expertise, and
their current training needs.
In other words a clear statement as to the health of your business as it
stands today.
The second part is probably the most important. It is a projection from
where you are today to where you feasibly see yourself and your business
being in, typically, five years' time. Over the last few months this
projection will have changed, which is why it is time to rewrite your
business plan. We were all looking to continued growth over the next few
years as the world continued in an ever buoyant fashion, but now most
businesses, especially the photographic trade, is having to draw back its
development plans and look to survival over the next 12 months with possibly
gradual expansion for the following two or three years.
One essential point is that YOU must write the plan. It should not be
something that you ask your accountant to prepare. He or she will only be
able to put a financial slant on your situation. YOU need to write the plan,
because YOU need to own it. Better still, if you have staff it is an
opportunity to encourage them to develop as an integral part of the business
if you directly involve them in the production of a business plan. Present
them with a plan and it will be your plan, include them at every stage and
they will have an ownership of what is planned.
As photographers, we have to admit that were are right at the end of the
line when it comes to personal expenditure. The majority of people are
concerned about job security, paying the essential bills, putting food on
the table, keeping cars, and the like, in running order. Following this
there is clothing, the children, etc, and right at the end comes family
portraits. I am finding that I am attracting a similar number of customers
through the door, but they are spending a little less. This is likely to
continue until the media move away from dishing out their daily doom and
gloom messages and creating more upbeat news.
There are likely to be some fundamental changes. Firstly equipment is
certain to rise in price as the value of the pound falls even lower. My new
price list from my framing suppliers has informed me of an overall 8%
increase in prices from 1 March, the photographic press has indicated that,
now that Focus has finished, you have had your last opportunity to buy
equipment at pre-increase prices. Yet our customers are looking for even
better value for money. Secondly the number of weddings continues to reduce
dramatically and the likelihood is that only a small percentage of couples
will want to be as lavish as they would have been in the past. When I
started out in the 1960s weddings were covered in about 36 exposures, with
no visits to the bride’s house and no evening photographs. My photographic
partner and I used to regularly cover six weddings on a Saturday and still
have time to spare, rather than the fullday shoot, as is the case for the
majority of weddings today.
I do not want to be negative, but I do need to be realistic in rewriting my
business plan and you must take the same line in rewriting your plans. I am
projecting a downturn in income of about 10% in 2009, but because of strict
management of my expenditure, only about a 5% fall in overall profit. In
2010 I project that my profit will be about the same as 2008, but by 2011 I
am projecting a rise of about 10%.
Hopefully the media will become less infatuated with doom and gloom and will
be taking a more positive approach, especially when they finally see that
their doom and gloom is affecting both their actual sales and their
advertising income. Hopefully someone will soon see that continued negative
news will not help them survive.
So you have allocated time to rewrite your business plan. That is only the
start. Do not just file it away, but be positive and turn it into a series
of planned, timed and costed actions which will assist you in achieving the
plan you have prepared.
In preparing your plan, make use of the resources that are available to you.
Organisations such as Business Link’s website can help with the drawing up
of an effective business plan. Preparing plans and dealing with the business
part of photography may be the routine and boring aspects of running a
photographic business, but unless you look after the business aspects, you
will probably have no business to look after in a couple of years. Those
businesses that do survive are the ones where the managers are looking into
the future, planning changes and developments and generally looking after
the business just as much if not more than the actual photographic aspects.
Are you starting out in business and need help in writing your first
business plan or do you want help in rewriting your outdated plan or do you
just want some guidance in coping with the recession?
Ron runs regular one-to-one courses over two days at his Wiltshire Studio
and Training complex for a fee of £195. He has also developed a new course
on managing the recession, geared specifically at photographers. This course
has already been used by a variety of small business organisations and will
form part of a presentation in May to the Chartered Management Institute.
Further details from Ron on 01225 774440
or Ron@pybusstudios.co.uk
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