Tips for Relocating Your Photography Business
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Relocating to a new city or state can certainly be a stressful undertaking. What about if you also own a photography business? Today Carleen Cuevas is sharing some things to think about if you find yourself in this situation.
There are many decisions, choices, and actions to take when you’re facing a major relocation. It is one stressful ordeal, that’s for sure! So here are a few details to consider for your photography business and tips if you decide to rebuild in your new area!
Business as Usual? Consider this.
Were you enjoying your business before or burnt out? If burnt out consider taking a couple of months off and just shoot for you. Use this break to find new locations, experiment with a new genre of photography or learn a new technique like double exposures, painting with light, or working with a speedlight. This personal time will help to add to your bag of tricks when you are ready to jump back into business!
Do your finances depend on your business income? This is pretty self explanatory. If you have bills to pay you’ll be jumping right back in. If you are truly unhappy with your business though, consider transitioning focus. There are many ways to take the knowledge you’ve gained as a professional photographer and business woman and create a new income source. Examples are teaching, stock photography, joining a studio, or second-shooting.
How long will you be in your new location? If only six months to a year, it will be quite a bit of work to re-establish yourself to then move away and do it all over again.
Would you like to switch genres or niche down? If you were caught up in one genre before but would like to switch, moving is a great time to do it. If you were a jack of all trades before, consider choosing a niche and diving full force into it in your new location.
Would you like to change your business? A relocation is the perfect time to make major changes whether it be revamping your brand, raising prices, or changing your business structure. Use the new location as an opportunity to change your business to better fit your vision and your experience.
Back to Business: Steps to setting up shop in your new town
Join the Chamber of Commerce and make it official! Use the Small Business Administration’s website to find out what licenses and permits you need to run your photography business out of your home. Get all of these documents in order and submitted. Once this is done, you can get to work. First and foremost, join your city’s Chamber of Commerce and go to the meetings! This automatically connects you to many other small businesses in the area and is a huge network building opportunity. Don’t just hand out and take business cards blindly, really listen and get to know your fellow small business owners. Find those who connect with you and your target clients and keep in touch!
Give to the community before you ask of the community! Contact local schools, charity organizations, and your contacts at the Chamber of Commerce. Ask what you can do for them and then do it! Make sure who ever you offer your support to is aligned with your target market and mission. Be sure to ask for credit and acknowledgment where appropriate. Especially for silent auctions or raffles, ask to have a table set up with your products and work so you can interact with guests and start building those relationships.
Be where your target clients are! Once you’ve settled in, start looking for potential locations. Not just photo shoot locations but places that your target clients frequent. Find where your clients spend a decent amount of time and just be there! Get involved, build relationships, make friends! You are new to the area right? That’s a great conversation starter to ask potential clients questions and just get to know them and their habits. These first few clients are not going to be the full paying clients you’d like. Offer them your gifted session card or a gift certificate for a certain amount. What’s a gifted session card?? Glad you asked!
Gift Sessions to Key Clients aka Cheerleaders! Always carry a few gift session cards with you wherever you go. Use these cards when you see a family or potential client with a style that works for your brand. And don’t forget to write down their contact information and send them a quick email saying hello and thanking them for participating in your portfolio shoot. Don’t leave it up to them to contact you, even though they have the card, it is more to make you look official than for them to actually use.
Pamper your first few clients! Those first clients are taking a risk on you, an unknown name in the area, so love them for it! Go above and beyond for them! Leave them your business cards and gift a large mounted print for their office or home! (You can use 3M Picture Hanging strips to hang the mounted print straight to the wall) Or if you are a products based photographer and can afford to gift a specialty wall art item, do it! I’d also include a mini accordion album for their desk or purse and one for their spouse. Be sure to include your logo and web address on the back cover so it’s out of the way but an easy reference point when they mention you to friends, family, and their clients. Surprise them with their favorite Starbucks drink when dropping off their order! Give them great service and a reason to rave about you and they will! I will be fully transparent, this idea was inspired by Derek Sivers’s TED Talk. Watch it here, it’s informative, funny, and less than 50 seconds.
A move is exhausting and exhilarating all at once. Take time to reflect on what will bring you joy in your photography journey and use your relocation as a time to refresh, renew, and reconsider what you want out of photography. Then enjoy the process, business or not.
Carleen Cuevas
Carleen Cuevas is an on-location photographer preferring a mix of natural light, light modifiers, and flash. She has moved several times within Texas, to Alaska, to California, and is currently relocating, again, back to Houston, Texas. She is taking her own advice and stepping back from her service-based business to launch a new project.
000Tags: how to move your photography business, moving your business, photography business tutorial, relocating your photography business
Categorized in: Business, Guest Bloggers
3 Comments
Great suggestions, Carleen! Thanks so much for sharing with us. 🙂
These are wonderful and sensible tips! Thank you! I have moved to Germany from South Africa for 2 years. Sometimes my decision not to build up a business for this time, feels like a cop-out, but you’ve re-affirmed what I’d decided. I was in the portrait scene, but that would be very difficult to follow here with language barriers, so I am writing a blog, building up my portfolio and trying out new directions. By the time I return, I will be ready to start up a whole new business.