Business Plan - number of clients

<p>I have trouble to find someone to give me answers with their experience on their first year. <br>

am working on start up photography and business plan. I have hard time to calculate number of clients for first month first year. I am curious how many clients first month then lead to 3 years. Hope you can share with me. <br /></p>

<p>You're going to need to supply a lot more information in order for anyone to give you a reasonable response. Things like: what market are you in? what type of photography are you doing? how many competitors do you have? are you going to price to gain business or just go for quality? what are you going to spend on marketing? how do clients find you? how big is your network of connections?</p>

<p>Think about it this way. If someone asked "I'm opening a bakery, how many people will buy from me?", would you have any idea without knowing a lot more? It's the same for photography.</p>

<p>I am doing portrait photography. It is start up business. I am working on business plan finanace on first 3 years. That's why I would like to know what is the average number of clients per month. 2 - 4 or 10 - 20. So I can calculate on financial part. Hope that helps. I just want to know how many clients at your first 12 months when you start up.</p>

Without knowing your location or what ypu are doing for marketing, how can anyone give you the answer you want. Most

likely the answer is none unless you already have people asking you to shoot their pirtraits in which case you know the

answer for the first month. The second month will jave something to do with how many of those people then refer you to

other people, etc.

 

But from a cold start, a safe bet for at least the first six months is zero.

<p>Right. Are we talking about people bringing babies to your studio, or are you talking about trying to arrange on-location corporate head-shot projects with multiple sitters? Are you in a small town with a very small pool of prospective customers, or a big city with millions of people (and lots of competition)? The best bet is indeed to assume you'll be operating at a complete loss while you get to know your market.</p>

<p>Hello Laura,<br /><br />You will find some good information on the site <strong>PHOTOMINT.COM</strong> whose owner, Laura White, has a book aimed at photographers who want to start a business.<br /><br /><strong>Photography Business Secrets: The Savvy Photographer's Guide to Sales, Marketing, and More</strong> (Laura White)<br>

http://www.amazon.com/Photography-Business-Secrets-Photographers-Marketing/dp/1118488407/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1461692955&sr=8-1&keywords=Photography+business+secrets<br /><br />Her philosophy is based one a fundamental principle:<br /><br />"To succeed as a photographer, it’s vital that you wholeheartedly embrace business strategy and development. Your passion may have led you to pursue photography full-time. Now it’s time to build standards, practices, systems, and structures around that passion so you can succeed long-term.<br /><br />"We believe that <strong>owning a photography studio is 80% business and 20% photography</strong>. You may have a great eye, incredible natural talent, and fantastic equipment. But if you don’t earn more than you spend and know how to develop a steady stream of clients or referrals, you won’t be in business for long."</p>

A book I highly recommend about the business and life of being a professional artist is "The War Of Art" by Stephen

Pressfield. Don't get started without it.

<p>Usually a business plan works in the other direction. You figure out how much it's going to cost to start/run the business, then you figure out how many customers you need to meet that goal. Then you figure out a marketing plan that determines how you are going to get those customers.<br>

Then you execute to that plan.</p>