10 Photography Business Resolutions for 2012

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– Posted by Mark

Since my personal life and business life are closely related/largely the same – these resolutions work for both – or the appropriateness goes back and forth.

1. Read more. Read Again. Over the past two years I’ve read… a lot of books – and most of them not about photography – and we make it a general rule to avoid photography ‘business’ books. We read for new ideas. Photography business books generally have none of those. These are a list of books we’ve already read and some we want to read. I never read so much in my life until I started this photography business.

[Rework] [Street Smarts] [Marketing Outrageously] [Business Model Generation] [The Filmmaker’s Eye]

[A Practical Wedding: Creative Ideas for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration]

[Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition]

[Game On: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games] [Thinking, Fast and Slow] [Ogilvy on Advertising]

[Different

A quick note about being different. It’s very difficult. Especially around photographers.

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2. Do that damn accounting – and keep it up all year long. 


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3. Buy No New Gear. 

Seriously. We have lots of cameras. We have lots of lenses. I’ve essentially been on a shopping spree the past two years. Too many lights. Too many batteries. And there is always some other piece of gear that we could buy/need. It’s endless. So how about it. No New Gear this year.

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4. Work Harder. And Harder. And Smarter. And stop wasting time. Did I mention working harder?

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5. Really work on our Social Media Marketing.

There is so much more we can be doing. It’s not ‘free’ either. It takes a lot of time. Sure you can simplify things – but the fact is that the most expensive cost of ‘social media marketing’ – is the number of hours you end up spending to keep ‘posting’ everywhere. Even if you only select a few channels, you’re still spending a fair amount of time on the upkeep. Because it’s all a conversation – and keeping up a conversation requires that you pay attention to who you’re communicating with. So yeah. This year we’re going to start focusing a good bit more on our social media marketing. Finally.

[Facebook] [Twitter] [Google+] [Pinterest] [Tumblr] [My Facebook]
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6. Be Nicer to all of the Interns and +Photographers. 


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7. Work the Interns and +Photographers much harder.


Atlanta Wedding Photographer | LeahAndMark.com | Vintage | Modern

9. Learn more about Photography. Learn more about editing. Learn more about selling and the sales process. Learn more design. Learn more about operating a business. 

10. Do More Things Differently. Because We Can.

11. OH – And get That Newsletter going again.

We have a great deal planned for the next few months. We’re doing a full wedding giveaway very soon, in a few weeks we’ll be taking applications for the next season of our Photography Internship, we’ll be traveling to Phoenix and the Bahamas for a few weddings – and BabyRoX is constantly growing and being awesome.

I know many other people make resolutions such as being more ‘balanced’ and not letting work takeover their lives. I’m not in that camp. Ever since BabyRoX was born back at the end of November, I’ve been largely here at home. I’ve been able to spend much more time with Leah and BabyRoX than I ever could have if I was still working my desk job. Photography is my life because it’s allowed me to really live my life – and that’s even more important now that I have a son. There is no way I’m turning things down and slowing everything just because I’m supposed to achieve some kind of moderate balance. We’re going all out because we don’t live like we’re dying, we don’t live like tomorrow is our last day. We live like we’re going to live a long exciting life. Living a long life isn’t difficult – but it takes a lot of work to keep it exciting – and I’m going to do whatever it takes.

Let’s. Go.