Do you ever think why you run a business, read a book, meet people for a coffee? Is there a purpose to it? Do you know what you want?

I have spoken before about how important it is to network.  It is important especially if you are working alone and most of the time from home.

I don't know why the importance of local networking came to me at such a late stage of my business. Networking with your local businesses is more powerful than anything else. People tend to trust you more, especially if you have done business with someone in the area before.

So on a Friday afternoon I attended a local Ratoath Business Women Networking Group and I was amazed at how open and friendly everyone was at the meeting. I have never felt so ... at home and powered up by the opportunity to find new business friends in a local area!

At the meeting I spoke about how lonely and sometimes even self destructive it can be sitting behind your computer day in and day out.  By stepping a little bit out of your comfort zone it may seem a little bit daunting at the start but you will get better at networking with what seems to be strangers at first.

You'd be surprised at how open, friendly and driven people are out there. No matter what you think, but small businesses are all in the same boat as you.

All it takes is a little bit of courage :)

I decided to go to a business conference to network. Full stop.

First thing in the morning we were sat down to listen to a forty minute speech of a beautiful business woman selling us her services. I've learnt quite a lot from these forty minutes and I've also have made some conclusions...

It has become quite popular to sell services on how to start up your own business and grow it real fast. The fear of people who are starting up, their insecurities and their lack of self confidence is simply converted into money. It's smart and it's really effective and people who know how to run businesses made it their mission to populate the market of newly start ups with their services.

I admire it. I admire the help that people can get from that. Things like 'Learn how to convert prospect customers every time' are quite tempting and ... seems like it will solve all of your problems. The thing about it is that those coaching sessions cost just about what you can afford on start up of your business. So they are expensive.

Dear friends, there are so many resources online that can help you out for free. Perhaps you will need a session or two but only on something extremely particular that deals with one certain issue in your business. You can take as many coaching sessions as you want but none of those titles that are included in the coaching course aren't going to make your business thrive magically in a week or two.

They are selling you the idea of teaching you how to be you, sounds ridiculous doesn't it?

Most people might not have noticed but the secret of this forty minute session was revealed. You don't have to go off and spend thousands of euros on learning how to be motivated by your business. The service that is being sold to you is most certainly short term effect because the industry is constantly changing. But what you can do is understand that all you need to succeed is YOU.

The selling process made me angry and now I understand why. We have so much fear and we have become so open about it that someone decided to take an advantage of that. If you're afraid, be brave to accept your fear, don't let it cost you money.

Yesterday I discovered the power of Lightroom... And even though it took me ages to install it, watch tutorials and figure out how to work with colour, I will never forget the moment when I realised that I can edit a wedding about... ten times faster than I used to! Just let it sink in. Ten. Times. Faster.




If you have no idea how to even begin, watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=867ysQfh4sU


If you want to learn how to start colour correcting your photographs, watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QJ-JzGGN-k

If you want to buy Lightroom get it here, it's not that expensive anymore:

http://www.adobe.com/ie/creativecloud/photography.html?sdid=KKQPG&s_kwcid=AL!3085!3!69045272570!b!!g!!photo%20shop%20lightroom&ef_id=Vjpn0wAAAKozmvA6:20151105182238:s



Trust me, if you have an immense amount of photographs to edit daily, this is so much better than Camera Raw. It's faster and there is so much you can do with colour!

I can't be more excited than I already am. If you haven't done it yet, put a day aside and do it tomorrow, it will be so worth it!

Self Employment is no joke.... It is lonely, it is boring, it is certainly challenging.

The 5 things that I am talking about below may not stick with you for the entire lifetime of your business.. Some of them you will outsource as you grow... But until then, you get to be an office rat in your own home!

1. You get to keep track of your business and personal accounts.
Yay! Who knew that when you decided to become a business owner you were agreeing to something like this?! This is my least favourite part.. I'm not good with numbers, I'm not good with organising them and keeping track of them. But this is something that I had to learn... There is no way around it, it is truly the heart of your business!

2. You get to do your own market research.
And it's not something like... I'll go out and chat with other photographers and suppliers, no! It's more like getting your mind to think like your customer, thinking a couple of steps ahead, keeping track of what is trending and what is dying. And guess what?! There is a lot.. and I mean it... A lot of internet research.




3. You get to be humiliated. 
It doesn't matter weather you are an assistant or a main photographer people find a way to make you feel humiliated. Suck it up, it's a part of your lifestyle now!

4. You get to process your images.
So on top of all of that sitting down at home... You get to sit down some more. And this is the longest part of sitting down. Deleting bad images and processing them in Lightroom makes me sleepy. So buy quality coffee, you'll thank me later!

5. You get digitalise your personality.
And by this I mean Social Media. More sitting down! It's like... being comfortable talking to a wall or something. Humiliating? Yeah... Quite a bit. It gets better and trust me. A lot of people enjoy it even if they don't say so. They get to know you better and moreover... You get to know you better too :)

When I first thought about this ... I realised that it's as hard to pick out my top 10 mistakes as well as my top 10 successes. A further series will follow with more specific details .. But for now I would like to address emotional struggle that everyone faces when they start out.

Organising your business... Is the hardest thing I have dealt with so far.

And I mean... I'm the organise freak!

When you are a wedding photographer, you are at least ten other things as well as that. Keeping your receipts for accounts as well as making them, advertising, marketing, designing, networking, inspiring yourself as well as educating, being good at people's skills and list goes on!

Believe it or not my shooting time adds up to only 20% at most.

At this stage.. I am as overwhelmed as I was at the beginning. And I think a lot of small business owners will agree that sometimes it's just a bit too much.

I have lists. Alot of them. I have a diary (two diaries), I have an online programme (www.trello.com), which is quite good, I have a glass board that I like writing my to-do lists on and all of it just doesn't seem to work.

So, here is what I decided to do. Instead of trying to do everything at the same time and ending up doing nothing, I sat down and laid it all down on paper.. Once again!

I had all of my main headings written down, such as Accounts, Business Plan, Marketing, Social Media, Post Production and so on... Taking each heading then on separate sheets of paper, I wrote down all of the things that have to be done immediately.

To my surprise every heading had only 3-5 bullet points to be completed immediately. I know that it's a lot and the list will grow. Tiking off one bullet point a day is much better than trying to do everything and ending up doing nothing.

....You're simply extraordinary....

Renting gear is OKAY.

A lot of people think that if you start your own business as a wedding photographer, you should have at least two camera bodies, and a lens range that will cover everything on a wedding day such as; large groups of people, portraits, candids, walking up the aisle photos, details... and some people want a little bit extra for creativity. This is a lot to carry in your bag as a starter kit, especially when you have a lot more expenses to think about besides your gear.

The amount of gear that you will have to carry in your bag on a wedding day is not the issue. Changing lenses can become a nightmare. Not knowing which lense to use at what point in time, can become a nightmare number two. It is stressful, so start off simple.

Some people can shoot a wedding using only two lenses. For example 35mm for large groups of people and details, and 70-200 for the rest. That will be a great range that will cover you from portraits, to details, to walking up the aisle, to candids. I've done it! Other photographers have done it too!


Before you start booking consistently there is no point in investing a huge amount of money in gear. I promise, the size of your gear bag will grow along with your business! Be patient :)

Instead of going through the risk of buying an expensive piece of gear that can possibly turn out to be a huge mistake because it doesn't reflect your style of photography, you can rent it. When you are comparing the cost of a purchase and it's risks, renting out gear, is a very small price to pay.

There are some great rental shops in Dublin that can be of interest to you if you are looking to try your gear out before you buy.
CameraKit Dublin 6W 
ISS Dublin 8

Don't rush into purchasing it. It may only seem like it will make you more of a professional but you might not exactly be able to afford it.

Don't be ashamed of renting out gear, be proud of it. You will see how much it will pay off later in your business.

...You're simply extraordinary...

Today I attended my first day of a super boosted business course hosted by a fabulous woman Fiona Carmody at Business In Mind www.businessinmind.ie

I remember the tedious research on the legal structures of a business, registering for tax, first year of taxation and the worst thing (!) preliminary tax. And today Fiona concisely outlined all anyone could know about setting up a business as a sole trader.

What is a Sole Trader?
It is set up by small businesses, such as Wedding Photographers in Ireland.
There is only one person in charge with an ability to employ people.
You are not obliged to register for VAT unless your income exceeds €37.5k a year on services and €75k on goods.
To notify Revenue that you are self employed you have to file a TR1 form both online or physically.





What is your first step?
Check if a business name you chose is available by logging into your account on cro. (www.core.cro.ie)
Check if your domain name is available
Make sure your business name is not patented
Register your business name with Companies Registration Office (www.cro.ie)
(Only if you chose to trade under a name that is different to the one you have in your passport)
Do it online for €20 or in paper for €40
After filing online CRO will issue a letter to you where you will place your signature and send it off to them by post
After you receive your certificate of business name registration, file the TR1 form with Revenue

Tax Filing
Your filing deadline for taxation is the 31st of October every year*
This is a synopsis of your earnings
If you started your business in 2014, you will file tax return Form 11 by 31st of October 2015
(2014 period will end on the 31st of December 2014 eg. if you started in August 2014 the year will end on 31st of December 2014)
Then you will calculate your preliminary tax for the year of 2015 based on your earnings in 2014 and pay 90% of liability tax for 2015
On the 31st of October 2016 you will pay the rest 10% of that tax

Tips
Address problems with revenue in person in your local revenue office. In my case it would be in Navan as I am based in Dunshaughlin. Sometimes we make mistakes without realising it. Coming in and speaking to one of the officers may change the situation and prevent you from paying any penalties once it's a genuine mistake. Once your case is outside Navan in Collector General's Office, there is nothing to be done then.

If in the first year of business you have income coming in, don't set it aside. Re-invest it into your business by creating a website or buying gear or anything that will make your business grow even a little. This way you won't lose any money by paying taxes on that income.

Make sure you register for the online tax filing system (ros.ie and revenue.ie)


This is as simple as it gets guys :)

Once again, a big thank you to the source of this knowledge Fiona Carmody from Business In Mind (www.businessinmind.ie)








*15th of November if you are applying online through ROS and 31st of August if you want the revenue to assess your Financial Statements for you

In this blog post I'm not going to go into the very technical and formal idea of a Business Plan for Wedding Photographers. You can find multiple online sources that provide business plan templates describing a step by step approach.