9 things you need to do before going freelance full-time

Here is a checklist I recommend going through to go full-time freelance. You may think of even more to add to this list.

Microsoft Excel Home Budget Template

Create a home budget – You need to have a budget on what you need to survive. This includes housing, food, healthcare, car payments and entertainment to name just a few. My recommendation is if you have Microsoft Excel is to use their home budget to help you get a solid number of what you need to live. Break this down from yearly to monthly amounts.

NPPA Cost of doing business calculator

Create a business budget – You need to know all the expenses beyond your home budget that you need to run your business that also can be written off your taxes as legitimate business expenses. I recommend using the National Press Photographer Association’s “Cost of doing business calculator.” Some things that you could be moved from your home budget to this list would be your phone. You will need to know what you need to run your business monthly and yearly. Things like a website, advertising, Internet connection and other items are things you must have even if you are not shooting a job.

6 months of savings that is equal to both your home and business budgets combined – This is a bare minimum you will need. The odds are pretty high that you will not have a regular stream of income for anywhere between 6 to 18 months.

Don’t quit your full-time job until it gets in the way of your freelance business – I would even recommend seeing if you can go from full-time to part-time with your employer so you are transitioning over a longer period of time. You can offer to go on contract with them and give them 2 – 3 days a week and then you have 3 – 4 days to build your business.

Buy all necessary equipment before you go full-time – You really need to have your basic camera gear, computers, software and any office equipment that you need to do your business paid for before you start freelancing. While you may have budgeted a figure each month for the business for all this equipment you will be putting some of this money away for when things break or need replacing.

Debt free – Ideally having no debts except for a house payment would be perfect. I do want to spell out why this is very important. If you purchase things on credit you could be paying 10% to 20% more for everything you purchase. When the difference between paying bills and going bankrupt is often just a very thin line your business failure is much higher by carrying unnecessary debt.

Synchronize your photography ambitions with your lifestyle desires – If you want to be a war photographer and have a family these are two incompatible desires. You might be able to delay your family dream for a while, but most likely will have to change what you photograph later. Another example is photographing for nonprofit or faith based group and be family oriented. Often these groups pay so little and many expect the photographers to raise their own support. Examine your ambitions. Maybe the reason you want to do certain kind of photography is really your desire to help people. When you get to this core value there maybe other ways to shoot for say green companies that have more money to pay a livable wage.

Alex Garcia, photographer for the Chicago Tribune, talks with a student about her work during the student practicum at the Southwestern Photojournalism Seminar in Fort Worth, TX last February.

Find a business coach/mentor – they do not need to be a photographer; just a successful businessperson will do just fine. They can help listen to your issues about running your business and ask questions that help guide you to being successful.

Create a business plan – If you need a loan to start you will need a business plan for the bank. If you are set, still do a plan for yourself. It will help guide you and make decisions that you need to make every day. This will be your compass. You can contact the US Small Business Administration in your area and they can help you. Often this is free.

Can you think of suggestions to add to the list?

Advice for those going from staff position to freelance

Landing in a sand trap is how I would describe my layoff. You don't want to be in one, but it is something you can get out of. (Nikon D2x, ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/750, 600mm)

In 2002 I was laid off from what I considered a great job. Well truthfully I was very frustrated with the environment for the last few years I was on staff. While I enjoyed the opportunities to shoot a variety of subjects, I was finding myself out of sync with my coworkers.

I should have left earlier, but I didn’t think I could made it as a freelancer. I liked having people just give me things to photograph and go home and come in the next day and do it again.

When I got called in and told that my position had been eliminated I was devastated. I called my wife and friend to come and help me pack up my gear and books and move out. As we were packing up my things my friend was trying to comfort me and made a very profound comment. “Stanley if you put in the amount of effort you have been doing here in your freelance, you will be a very successful photographer.”

I thought about his comment a lot that first year of freelancing.  He had said it to me with such conviction that I realized he really believed it to be true. Later even my wife would comment and say that he was right.

My life did change and each day I got up and worked hard. I didn’t drive to downtown Atlanta every morning, but I did put in many hours of work. Here are the things I did and still do today. I call these tips for the freelancer.

Take your time and get your thoughts in order. Just like this golfer has to read the green to sink the putt, look at your goal and you too will see how you will need to plan some path to success. (Nikon D2x, ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/1000, 400mm with 1.4 extender)

Tips for the freelancer

• Keep a similar work schedule to the one you had on staff. Get up and go to work. While you may not have to drive anywhere to commute, still get out of bed eat breakfast and then take that commute to another part of your house/apartment.
• Get dressed for work. One of my friends Ken Touchton told me in those early days that he used to get dressed and put on a tie just to go to the next room. It helps put you psychologically in a different frame of mind.
• Create a calendar of events. Just like you had in your last job, schedule time for different thing you need to be doing. You need to create; meetings, lunch dates, and find events from things like the Chamber of Commerce to attend in your community.
• Create a database of clients, prospects, and family/friends. You may need to buy a list to add to your present list. You may need to go to the library and find those resources with contacts in them for your niche´. Remember this formula that for every 1,000 contact names in your database only 100 of them will be interested in your services. Of those 100 contacts only 10 of them will become a client.
• Create a plan on connecting to those in your database. Another formula is to know that it takes about 6 – 8 touches with a contact before they remember you. Therefore you need to have a plan on how to contact these folks in a way that is positive and not annoying. I recommend mixing up your arsenal. I use: Phone Calls, emails, eNewsletters, Blogging, Postcards, and events as ways that I can make contact with my prospects and clients.
• Develop an elevator speech. You need to be able at a moments notice explain to anyone what you do. Here is a link to mine.

Attitude Adjustment

When on staff you had a role. You would contact people asking if they needed your services. If this is how you worked then you need to change.

Your goal should be to develop friendships. You need to get to know people so well, that as they talk about their life, you can see ways you could help them. This is a lot of listening and offering good advice that isn't solicited. Once you are at this level in a friendship, it is much easier to give them suggestions of something that might help them.

With my best friends I listen and often if I have a suggestion to help them I am pointing them to a friend and not me. This is how I have learned to build my business. I am there as a resource and to help point my friends (clients) to solutions and other friends I have to help them.

My friends (clients) see me as someone looking out for them and helping them to be successful. When my friends do the same things for me I know I can go to them with even more things. I try and include them even more in my life.

We all have those acquaintances that are always trying to get us to use them. We do use them when they are a good fit, but we don’t go to them and talk about our life. We can’t trust them like our friends.

Continuing Education

You need to continue to get better and more relevant for your prospects and clients. Set aside time to do research on your industry. Find out what is next on the horizon. Go to associational meetings and hear what others are doing.

Join a professional association. Become friends with your competition and you will discover they are your colleagues. I am often booked and have just a few friends that I can trust with helping my clients and not trying to steal my clients.

Get involved in those professional associations by helping with meetings and serving as an officer. It will help you grow in knowledge and make you more valuable to your clients.

A team works together for the good of all. The practice together so they can perform flawlessly. (Nikon D3S, ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/640, 300mm)

Build a team

You need to find an accountant, lawyer, and maybe someone to assist you on a contract basis. As you grow you will need to farm out things that take up your time that can be done by someone else.

When you start out you need to consult experts. One of those should be a mentor/coach. Find someone who will help you navigate the waters of freelancing. They may live in another city. Whoever you find, be sure you regularly work with them.

Summary

Freelancing is like a farmer. You will be plowing the fields, weeding and doing a lot of work long before you will be able to harvest the crop.

If the farmer doesn’t put in the time and investment then there is no harvest.

Just like the farmer you can do everything right, but there are things outside your control. Most of the farmers I know have a tremendous faith in God and know that while they can do everything right there is much out of their control. They pray for guidance and wisdom. Most of all they pray for grace.

How long does it take to become successful photographer?

This is my actual gross sales numbers from the time I started out full-time shooting freelance back in 2002.  I started in April of 2002.  My wife was working full-time and it wasn't until about the second or third year I was making enough to fully support our family.

If starting a business with perfection is your dream then it will never happen.  It takes time to become successful.

Six to eighteen months

If you do everything right to market yourself, from your first contact to the first sale can take easily 6 to 18 months for you to close the deal and get paid.  This is why almost experts advise to have at least 6 months of money for living and business expenses on hand before venturing out.

Why does it take so long?

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter Announces Three Countries Left in Guinea Worm Eradication Campaign: Nigeria and Niger Honored as Most Recent Nations to Halt Disease Transmission.

Event photography

A client hires a photographer once a year for an event. They have a photographer booked for that event. You introduce yourself and they not only love your work but want to hire you.  They have already signed a photographer with a contract in place for this year.  That means that the earliest they can hire you is a year from the date of the event. If the event for this year is 6 months off then you can see how it is 18 months before you see any money from a perfectly executed presentation.

Kid Rock signs an album cover for Alisha Mullen of Point Pleasant, WV, at the Waffle House restaurant in Duluth, Georgia on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 for local non-profit charity, Nicholas House, Inc., a homeless Family shelter in Dekalb County.

Editorial Photography

You get a meeting with the editor and they love your work.  They expect you to have story ideas. Your ideas were just done by the magazine.  In this scenario it will most likely be 5 years before they do those stories again.  You now need time to come up with more stories.  This takes some time.  You did an almost perfect presentation--they like your work, but need some ideas as well.

They may add you to their list of freelancers. Most editors give those who have served them well first shot at assignments.  Until this photographer or photographers are booked they will not be calling.  However, if they think your style is a better fit for an assignment they will call.

Sports photography has changed more for me than any other segment in my business.

Industry changes

One of the biggest changes for me has been sports. When I started to freelance I had numerous teams that would call and have me cover their games.

Today those same people are having parents and alumni calling them up to shoot on the sidelines. The difference is today's cameras will let anyone get sharp in focus and well exposed photos. These photographers all have other jobs that allow them the resources to buy they latest cameras and lenses to cover the game.

Most of them started shooting their kids playing sports through high school and then realized they would like to stand on the sidelines of college and pro games.

While most of their photos are not on the same level as Sports Illustrated, they are good enough that for the price of "free" the sports information directors of the teams will use them and help save their club money.

While I depended heavily on sports when I started out freelancing full-time I have had to grow other parts of the business to make up for this which actually plummeted in sales volume.

Change in management

You have a great meeting with a client and then when you check back with them in a month or so about some possibilities you find they either were promoted or moved to another company.  Either way they no longer hire photographers. You have to start over with the new person that replaced them.  You loose a few months just figuring out all the changes.

Monthly I send out an eNewsletter. Each month I have numerous emails that did not go through because of changes of employment. Many of my contacts have changed companies. This is very common with agencies. It is easier for a person to go from agency to agency and increase their income than it is for them to stay with one agency and get the same increase in salary over time.

While many people are moving around in order to move up, recently many of the emails I had returned were agencies failing and going out of business. 

Recession and budget cuts

The company you have been in talks with about a project has frozen their money and have decided not to do any new projects and any projects not already started are killed. You did everything right, they just now do not have the funds to pay you for projects.  You decide not to walk away completely, because they may start back in the near future.

You were again successful in your marketing, but things beyond your control continue to happen.

Experience (the unmentionables)

You are a big risk when you first start out in this business.  Your first job is a major risk to the client.  You have no track record and they have no way of knowing if you can do what you say and if you will deliver on time.

Think of it this way, would you have bought a Kia or Hyundai when they were first on the market?  Would you have been like many people and decided to go with something more reliable like a Toyota or a Honda?

It is difficult at first not because of how good your work is or your ability to meet your obligations, but people's careers are on the line if you don't deliver.

Milestones

How long you are in business affects how much more business you can get.

For a long time it was said that 50 percent of businesses fail in the first year and that 90-95 percent were gone by the fifth year. Good news those are not the real numbers being reported now. According to the SBA, about two-thirds, or 66 percent last past the first two years, leaving only a third of businesses that fail within these two years. Extended to four years, the number of surviving businesses decreases to only 44 percent, meaning that about 56 percent of businesses fail at the five-year mark, a far cry from the 90 to 95 percent previously claimed. http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5212542_many-businesses-fail-first-year_.html

For my business I can point to a few points where I could feel the difference in the response to my marketing.

Starting out

Since I had been working on a staff as a photographer, when I went full-time freelancing many of these clients used me right away. They knew me and trusted my work. However, for the most part all the new clients while impressed with my work were not jumping at using me.

This was a time when I had a hard time sleeping at night. I was constantly worried about paying my bills and I believe this stress is noticeable to clients and potential clients.

Year two

I could honestly say there was a change in attitude about the second year. My postcards had been going to these potential customers now for two years. They were getting my eNewsletters and occasional phone call from me now for a while. I was a known photographer and was more established.

Year five

This is when I became more comfortable with freelancing. I was sleeping more than I did the first five years. I was not as worried about the jobs coming in. I felt like I was in the flow of things.

Funny thing is that this was true for me when I was on staff. I always remember that around year five I was confident and those around me treated me as a senior employee and not the new kid anymore.

This confidence is what I think helped me get bigger clients.

Tony Messano created my first logo that I started to use in 2001.

Year Seven

They say to most store front photographers that at year seven you most likely have enough presence in the market that you could now move your place of business and your clients would follow.  Earlier than this you risk much more and most likely will be starting over.

I was now being asked to speak more often at industry events and to my colleagues. This was when I knew I was doing something right, because I was getting phone calls from so many wanting to be photographers.

Tony Messano designed this logo for me my seven year being a full-time freelancer

Tony Messano, a creative director friend of mine, recommended I change my logo. He had designed my first one and thought I needed a new one.

He recommended a bolder font to reflect the confidence he was seeing in me.  I think Tony was right, I felt so much better than I did when I started.

Today

Looking back over all these years I am amazed out how blessed my family and business has become. When I started out we were in debt and I went further in debt to buy some equipment.  I don't recommend doing this, but we had no choice. I didn't plan to start in 2002 freelancing, I lost my job and had to do something.

Freelancing full-time isn't for everyone. There are major risks you must take. Not knowing from day to day what you are doing can be very stressful. 

While I did everything I knew and worked very hard to get where I am today--I know that everyone of my clients had other choices. There are many better photographers than me in the market place.

I see much of where I am today as a divine thing. I don't think I could have done nothing and God would have made it all happen for me, but I don't think I did it alone with out God.

I frankly would have jumped off the cliff long ago had it not been for my faith. I also had an incredible support system. My number one support comes from my wife Dorie. Her father was an entrepreneur.  She grew up in this lifestyle, I had not. Dorie new things would be fine when I had no confidence we would be paying our bills the next day.

Today the business is still growing. We are debt free except for a mortgage payment for our house.

Freelancing full-time is a faith walk

While I grew up going to church every Sunday and even went to seminary later in my life, it is freelancing full-time that made me grow in my walk with God. I could not think of nor looking back can I see much more that I could have done to be successful. I was frankly working very hard.

For me my faith played a very huge part. I believe it helped to give me hope. I know it helped in keeping my sanity. I drew a lot of strength from biblical characters like Jacob who overcame many adversities.