How Many Clients Do You Need?

I used to think I needed as many clients as I could get, but that was a fast recipe for disaster until I had systems in place that allowed me to take on more work than I could personally handle.  Many people only learn what their limits are when they actually go beyond their limits.  This is a natural learning curve for new entrepreneurs and businesses, and hopefully you learn it early enough to benefit from finding your creative work boundaries early as well.

Once my client list got too big to personally handle, I started to outsource, insource, and run a team of more people to help behind the scenes.  The more distance I had from my own work and serving clients directly, the more I came to realize how much I missed being personally involved and having a part in each step of the process for clients so that I could assure great communication and quality imagery at every step.  I also realized how much more time and administrative function was needed to manage a team of people rather than operating as a boutique customized personal service business.

The grass is often greener, until you have to actually mow the lawn.

Some people get into business to grow profits and then sell-off or exit the business.  However, providing a creative product or service offers the opportunity to be more boutique, more custom, and more hands-on in a business, which is often what I love most about being in business at all - getting to help people directly.

Reaching the point of having too many clients to handle, and then experiencing what it was like to move from artist to manager in order to serve so many more clients, taught me exactly how many clients I could take on while still giving the boutique level of one-on-one service I preferred.  It also forced me to realize that in order to provide that boutique level of high touch and personal service, I also needed to have the appropriate price for that much intensive client care.

In order to deliver very personalized service to each wedding client, I maxed out at 30 clients and felt best at 20 clients.  In order to deliver very personalized service to each architecture & design client who had multiple projects over the course of a year, I maxed out at 25 clients and felt comfortable at 20 clients.  Some clients took 20% of my time and some clients only took 2% of my time, but together they all kept me busy as a full time photographer, and my pricing was designed to help me support this high-touch level of one-on-one service for each client.

When you think about how you want to grow or expand your business in the future - consider how growth may also change the type of work you do and how involved you want to be with clients versus your team of contractors or employees.  If you hate dealing with client issues and would rather deal with a team you've hand-selected, than expanding your team and training your staff is going to be your sweet slice of pie!  If you love working directly with your clients, you may want to focus on the boutique business model and use outsourcing & contractors supporting you behind the scenes.

When you look into the future of your business, what feels right for you?

Once you know what feels right for you- you can then decide if what you're focusing on going forward is to bring in fewer clients who value your work at a very high level, or focusing on more volume with value-minded clients who will help you support more staff that you can mentor and rely on to grow the business together.

Anne Ruthmann is a retired professional photographer in New York City. With over 13 years of success as a full-time photographer in weddings, portraits, editorial, architecture, and interiors.  She now spends any extra time she has helping others find smart solutions to business problems.  Stay in touch on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

PhotoShelter Review from a Commercial Photographer

Before deciding to use PhotoShelter in 2016 for my Commercial Architecture & Interior Design Photography business in New York City, I had been a long-time user of Pictage for my Professional Wedding & Portrait Photography business while living in Massachusetts, Indiana, and Michigan from 2005-2015.  Before I had settled on either of these solutions for my photography business, I had investigated a lot of other solutions first.  I mention this just to provide some context and background for my time and experience with professional image vendors in the photography industry.

BEFORE USING PHOTOSHELTER:

When Pictage closed in 2015, I had to scramble to find a way to transfer my 10 years of professional image archives out of that solution and into a new solution.  The quickest answer that I could manage online at the time was to FTP all client image archives from Pictage into Dropbox.  This wasn't the best solution, but it was the solution I had time to manage, along with the help of a virtual assistant that I had hired to make sure the task was completed properly.

My NYC Real Estate, Rental, Architecture, & Interior Design Photography clients had very different needs than my Wedding & Portrait Clients.  Wedding & Portrait clients needed some print fulfillment options for greeting cards, wall prints, framing, sharing images with guests, selecting how private their images would be based on who was looking at them, and album proofing, printing, and binding to help them pull together family and wedding albums.  Commercial clients needed no professional print fulfillment from me, just digital solutions.

Commercial & Residential Real Estate, Rental, Architecture, & Interior Design Photography clients needed to be able to share the images with multiple vendors, have a variety of image licensing options, have a variety of downloading sizes and file types (TIF, JPG, PDF), and have a sense of privacy and control over who could see and access the images. I also needed to be able to store some RAW files to collaborate with retouchers and post-production specialists who were based in other states or cities and give them access to download those files easily.  The total file size needs were not in giga-bytes, but in tera-bytes, so I needed an unlimited image storage solution that could deliver fast uploads and downloads.

In my scramble to find an interim solution, I found that Dropbox was awful for images.  Color accuracy was atrocious, which ruined all the careful white balancing I'd done for commercial architecture and interior clients who spent hours picking out the right colors for their projects and relied on me to nail that color accuracy in photos.  The colors were fine after they were downloaded, or if they were being viewed offline, but online- terrible.  I almost lost some clients over this issue, so I really needed to find another solution other than Dropbox for my commercial clients.

I shopped around comparing various industry photo hosting and storage vendors, and found that many of them were mainly focused on catering to the needs of wedding & portrait photographers.  Which is, after all, one of the largest photography industry markets, so I get it.  Many fewer businesses need professional photography than number of people getting married or having families.

MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF PHOTOSHELTER:

Photoshelter appeared somewhat small in terms of photography market share of users.  They had been slowly and steadily building their platform and it appeared that they were focusing on users that came out of the New York market of clients.  Photojournalists, Fine Art Photographers, and Commercial Photographers dominate the New York photography landscape.  Professional Real Estate and Rental Photography has only exploded in the last 5 years.  Interior Design & Architecture will always remain a very small niche market of photography mainly focused in the top cities of the world.  So the question came down to whether or not Photoshelter had everything I needed as a commercial photographer?  The following is a run-down of what I've found to be good and what can be improved after using PhotoShelter for a couple years.

UNLIMITED STORAGE: *****

Initially, they didn't have an unlimited storage option, so it was tough for me to sign up right away, knowing that I would have limits on the number of files I'd be able to manage on their platform without incurring extra upcharge fees that might be unpredictable.  Luckily, they started offering an unlimited option under $50/mo shortly after I started considering them, which made it much easier for me to bring all of my commercial image needs onto their servers.  I had been paying Pictage $100/mo for unlimited image proofing & storage, but they also provided many other services I needed as well.  I had been paying Dropbox $50/mo for shitty image proofing & storage of only 500GB, so PhotoShelter was a much better choice simply on the unlimited storage to cost ratio and the fact that I could integrate several other things into the same online service.

VARIETY OF IMAGE FILE TYPES: *****

Since I provide different types of image files to different types of clients, I really needed a solution that could handle a variety of image files from RAW to TIF to JPG... and even PDF... and I was happy to find that PhotoShelter was able to manage all of these file types and provide color-accurate online previews of the files no matter what type they were being stored and offered in.  This made my clients happy to see such great color accuracy and quality detail on their images, and it made me happy to not have to explain to every new client that the color and quality would be better on download.  My clients purchased more images because they looked great- which is super important when you enter a realm where images can be licensed one by one for hundreds or thousands of dollars.

PRIVACY & CONTROL OPTIONS: *****

One of the other important factors in commercial work was being able to control who could access the images, who could download the images, what file size and type they could download, as well as how long they would have access to those downloads.  I was happy to see that PhotoShelter had built-in options for offering different file sizes from one original download, as well as giving me the ability to limit who would be able to download based on email or password, and how long they would be able to download, based on expiration date or a one-time download link that lasted a few days.

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT: *****

I wasn't really expecting to get a portfolio included with my online image hosting & proofing provider, but with PhotoShelter I did, and it was so easy to drag and drop images from the unlisted proofing side of the website to the listed and visible website portfolio side of the website.  There are also some built-in image SEO tools, watermarking options, and website layouts that make setting up and revising your portfolio as easy as just dragging and dropping from your latest projects.

COMMISSIONS & ONLINE SALES: ***

For photographers who want to keep their money where their images are, PhotoShelter is OK, but it takes a bigger cut of your sales than other solutions.  So, I had to make a decision about whether I was going to run my client invoices and sales through PhotoShelter or continue using other options that I'd already started using after Pictage closed.  Unfortunately the commission and online sales structure through PhotoShelter took too much of a percentage for my tastes.  I'm not giving up 8% of my commercial client invoices, sorry guys.  It might be great for someone occasionally selling fine art, who is comparing another online gallery ownership take of 15-50%, but I came from using a business solution that took no more than 3%, so the 8% commission option on the pro plan was a killer for wanting to use their sales engine for commercial work or invoicing.  I just chose to avoid that entire part of their services completely, since I already had another solution that worked better and gave me more profit from my sales.

CUSTOMER SERVICE: **

I had a very close relationship with Pictage when I was using their service.  They had tiers of customer service response based on how heavily you were invested with them, so pro users and members had no issues talking to someone right away with their pro client concierge service.  They had round tables where they would discuss improvement ideas with power users, so improvement ideas were valued when they came from the community of users.  It was a level of service that feels rare in the online marketplace now.  Anyway, that's what I'm comparing to when I talk about customer service.

Photoshelter has OK customer service.  It exists at a minimum level.  It's still better than Dropbox.  It's still better than a platform solution you need to install and manage yourself.  Even though I've been a pro-member of PhotoShelter for a couple years, the two occasions I reached out for help didn't yield that much help.  If I were a first time online proofing solution user, this might be a problem.  Luckily, their system is mostly streamlined and works quite well in general, so you may not need much customer support.  Just know that it may be limited if you do need that support.  

The Photoshelter office is literally up the street from me, and I've been several times for their community events, so I asked about sitting down with the team to talk about some issues my clients were expressing with regarding to downloading their images.  I knew that these comments could create some great UX improvements, but the support team pretty much came back to me with the comment "we're always working to improve" but no follow-up to actually hear about the ways it could be improved.  They were looking at the system through their experienced eyes and seeing no problems, rather than taking some time to look over the shoulders of some people who weren't photographers or UX designers and who hadn't used their system before and were clicking the wrong buttons at the wrong time and getting the wrong results because of the UX design.  I digress.  It's an area they can improve upon, and I hope they do improve upon it.

At the end of the day, their UX for proofing and downloading images still gave my clients fewer headaches than using Dropbox as an interim solution, so it didn't stop me from using the service.  My design and commercial clients were just mildly frustrated that they kept making the same mistakes when downloading their images because of the way the site was designed.

OVERALL: ****

It is still one of the more robust online proofing & delivery options for commercial photographers.  So yes, I'd recommend it and I think it's a solid solution for professional photographers.  Just go into it knowing that you may need to hand-hold your photography clients through some mild confusion if they miss some steps in the proofing & downloading workflow.

Anne Ruthmann is a retired professional photographer in New York City. With over 13 years of success as a full-time photographer in weddings, portraits, editorial, architecture, and interiors, she spends any extra time she has helping others find smart solutions to business problems. Stay in touch on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Old Equipment - Sell, Trade, Rent, or Donate?

As I've been taking a look at all the assets I built in my photography business and what I might do with them now that I'm focusing more exclusively on consulting and reiki work, here's the process I've been going through...

1.  Decide How Long You'll Keep the Equipment As Backup

Maybe you're just upgrading equipment  and want to keep some backup equipment around.  In my case, I decided that I'd hold onto my equipment for 6 to 12 months after announcing to my clients that they'd need to start finding another photographer.  I created a timeline on how long I'd keep gear so I could really gauge for myself how much I'd actually use my gear for my own personal fine art or creative interests once I wasn't doing commercial photography work full time.  Gear loses value pretty quickly as new gear comes out, so months eventually become dollars lost too.

If you've already got great working backups but still have a few pieces of equipment laying around after your upgrade, act sooner rather than later to help get a return on your upgrade cycle.

I needed to know if I'd realistically have any desire to pull out my professional equipment, after some time and distance from the daily work of commercial photography would open up my creative juices again.  It took me about 4 months, but today I actually thought of a photography project I would need my specialized equipment for and might actually want to spend time doing when I need a break from working on other things.

I share this just as an example of how sometimes we can feel really, fully, done when we make a decision about something, but given some extra time and space, we may change our mind about a few things.  I can always rent equipment whenever I want, but that takes some planning, and I didn't want that to be a barrier for those spur of the moment creative ideas I might have.

2. Assess The Remaining Value & Demand

Once you've decided what pieces you're definitely willing to let go of, take a look at what it's actually worth right now when sold as a USED piece of equipment.  Also, take into consideration how old that piece of equipment is with regard to how in demand it would be for someone to search for it online and want to purchase it.

For example, if it's a digital camera body that's more than 5 years old, you might try to sell it, but it may be highly unlikely that anyone will actually want to buy it.  A lens is likely to hold more value over time, but take a good look at your equipment to see what kind of shape it's in and if you'd considering buy it in that condition from someone else.  Taking a look at the USED sale value of items should help give you a more accurate picture of what is actually worth selling and what has such low value or demand that you might as well keep it or donate it.

3. Listing What's Worth Selling

I'm not a fan of craigslist because of the number of scammers that seem to troll the site, so I'm more a fan of the Facebook Marketplace or specialty Facebook Groups for selling equipment under a certain manufacturer from one person to another.  At least there's a little more accountability and specialized interest in the equipment you have to offer and a better idea of where people are located when they're inquiring, but if you can't sell it there, try EBay next, then Craigslist as a last resort.

Buyers are 10x more likely to buy used equipment that has fully accurate, detailed photos of the actual condition of the equipment.  They want to see any scratches, worn paint, dents, etc.  Don't try to hide these things or make it look better than it really is, just be super real in order to establish trust with a future buyer.  If you use stock photos or don't show detail of equipment, expect less interest and more questions.  Accurate photos save you time in your effort to sell.

4. Trading In What Has Value but Isn't Worth Listing

If listing your equipment and managing inquiries about sales is your least favorite thing in the world and you don't care that you'd be losing money, one last ditch effort to get some value out of your equipment that might be using it as trade-in value for something else.

Best Buy has a trade-in program that will take working equipment and provide a trade-in value that you can use at Best Buy toward a current product in stores.  This is a great way to get rid of your equipment soon and not deal with shipping hassles or negotiations.

5. Renting What's Worth Keeping

In the last few years of crowd-sourcing, we now have the option to also crowd-source our gear and rent it out to other image creators and professionals.  As photography rental outlets become more difficult to rent from and require more up front business identification and insurance, crowd-sourced rentals become easier with insurance options built into the renting process.

One of the companies currently pioneering this effort is KitSplit.  Before listing your own gear, you can search for the gear you're thinking of renting and see what options are already available in your area.  If you're outside of a major city, my guess is that you may actually dominate your local area as a rental option if you want to, otherwise you can see who else is in your area and how often they appear to be renting out their equipment or equipment similar to yours.  This is also a great option to share with the other image makers in your area who know you already- and may want to rent some of your gear when you're not planning to use it.  Do you know of any other crowd-source rental options available?  If so- post them in the comments!

5. Donating What's Not Worth Keeping, Trading-In, or Selling

If it's really old gear that no one is likely to search for, and it's just taking up space as a hazard or liability sitting in your storage area, it would be much better put to use as a donation to a school or a youth organization that doesn't have the budget to update electronic equipment each year.  Schools and youth organizations absolutely value any working gear that could be provided to help students with their projects, and think about how much happiness your equipment can give someone else when it isn't sitting in your storage area.

Before clearing out my portrait studio, I got in touch with the local Boys & Girls Club and asked them if they'd like my office supplies, old photo equipment, and other odds and ends like markers and poster board, etc.  They were SO HAPPY to get so many creative tools donated!  They turned around and gave me a tax-deductible donation form that I could record with my accountant that year, which was worth way more than letting it all continue to gather dust in my closet.

6. When It Isn't Even Worth Donating

Sometimes schools or youth programs will actually take equipment that doesn't work in order to be used for electronics dissecting or other electronic repair projects, but always ask first before dropping off something that doesn't work.

One last way to make your old equipment do just a little more good in the world, is to send it to Recycling for Charities, which takes old equipment and donates any income earned from the donation to the participating charity of your choosing.

If you aren't going to use it, give it a chance to get into the hands of someone who will.

If you have other great resources for selling, trade-ins, rentals, or donations - please add yours to the comments!

Anne Ruthmann is a constantly evolving creative soul based in New York City. With over a decade of success as a full-time professional photographer, she spends any extra time she has helping others find smart solutions to business problems and finding more ways to travel the world. Stay in touch on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

Maximizing Productivity with Time Blocking

*This blog post was originally written on The Photo Life Blog - ShootQ on May 9, 2011.
The company has since stopped updating, so it is being saved here for preservation.
https://shootq.com/2011/05/09/creating-a-schedule-to-maximize-productivity/

When we work for other people, having work hours, weekly meetings, and daily tasks is practically expected.  However, when working for ourselves, it’s very easy to let time slip by if we don’t create a schedule for our productivity.  The great thing about working for ourselves is that we can create a schedule that works with our own peak productivity and distraction times.  If we know that we are most productive with post-production late at night, and we have the freedom to wake up later in the day, than we can create a schedule that allows us to focus in this way.  If we know that we’re most alert to responding to emails first thing in the morning, than we can create a schedule that works with our peak alertness.  By simply planning out when we will deal with our regular tasks for a typical week, we can quickly increase our efficiency.

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR SCHEDULE

1. Shooting Days and Times – Stay in control of your schedule and your time by letting clients know when you’re available, rather than asking them when they’re available.  Designating shooting times in your schedule allows you to easily provide clients with your next three available times and days.  If you’re a wedding photographer, you may not want to schedule engagement shoots on Saturdays during your peak season in case a wedding opportunity comes along at the last minute.  If you’re a portrait shooter who works outdoors with natural light and you prefer to have your weekends free, than you may only want to schedule portrait shoots during the week during your golden light hours.

2. Post-Production Times – Once you know when your possible shooting times are, then you know that you will also need to designate an appropriate amount of time after each shoot for post-production like backing up images, culling, editing, and enhancement.  Whether you do this, or you give this task to someone else, there needs to be time set aside in your week to deal with these tasks.  Once you make time for this in your schedule, it’s easier to enjoy an evening out because you know that you’ve set aside post-production time the next day to move the project forward.

3. Marketing Times – Whether it’s blogging, Facebook, Twitter, emailing vendors, or working on a newsletter, there needs to be time set aside in your schedule to help market yourself and share your work with future clients and referrals.

4. Communication Times – As tempting as it is to check your email as soon as something new comes in, you will be much more efficient if you designate time in your day when this is appropriate.  Since email can easily take more time than we’d like, it may also be helpful to set a timer in order to make sure that your time spent on email isn’t leaking over into times you need to work on other tasks.

5. Meeting Times – If you do in-person sales after a shoot, or meet your clients in advance of their shoots, you need to make sure you have room in your schedule to make these happen at a time and day that works for you.

6. To Do List Times – Inevitably there are tasks that fall outside of the above categories and will need to have time set aside in your week to be dealt with.  Perhaps it’s running to the store to get supplies, entering your financial numbers, updating software, researching your next piece of equipment, or following up with inquiries that you haven’t heard back from.  Allowing yourself a time during the week to catch up on things you’ve placed on your to do list means that your to do list will never get too long.

SAMPLE SCHEDULES

Below are just a couple examples of how a 9am-6pm work schedule could be broken up differently.  Obviously, you want to create a schedule that works best for you and takes advantage of your peak working, communication, and distraction times.  It’s also good to designate other productive tasks that would be appropriate in each time slot in case you don’t have post-production, shoots, or meetings during the times you’ve set aside for them.  When you know what’s coming next in your schedule, it’s harder to get distracted and lose track of time.

What does your weekly schedule look like?  Share your answers in the comments!

Sample Schedule A –  Portrait Photographer

Monday – Friday

9am – 11am Post-Production
11am – 12:30pm Communication
12:30pm – 1:30pm Lunch Break
1:30pm – 3:30pm Marketing/To Do List
3:30pm – 4:30pm Communication
4:30pm – 6:00pm Shoots/Meetings

Saturday – Sunday – Off (or premium shoots only)

Sample Schedule B – Wedding Photographer

Tuesday – Friday

9am – 11am Marketing
11am-12pm Communication
12pm – 1pm Lunch
1pm – 3pm Post-Production
3pm – 5pm To Do List/Communication
5pm – 6pm Meetings/Shoots

Saturday – Shooting
Sunday – Monday – Off

Written by Anne Ruthmann

Anne Ruthmann is a philanthropist and visionary, who makes a living as an international award-winning wedding & lifestyle photographer.  She geeks out about business strategy and finding ways for artists to make a living doing what they love, which is why she feels strongly about developing community at her Boston PUG and sharing information onPhotoLovecat.  She also recently started offering the Smarter Business Workshop in order to provide hands-on help to photographers in several different cities around the US.  When she isn’t working or helping others, she enjoys traveling the world with her husband and trying foods she can’t pronounce.

Posted on May 9, 2011 by ShootQ in Anne Ruthmann, Organization, Right Start

Money Management Made Easy

*This blog post was originally created on The Photo Life blog at ShootQ.
Since the company has stopped updating, I'm saving it here for preservation.
https://shootq.com/2011/04/05/money-management-made-easy/

You’ve just received a check in the mail- YAY!  You run to your bank to deposit it into your business account (or you see that Pictage has automatically deposited it there) and now you feel like you’ve justified your next big equipment purchase, right?  Think again.

If you’re really taking care of your business and your personal life, you’ll divide that money up before you start spending it.  To make it super simple, take half of that check you’ve deposited into your business account and transfer it immediately into your personal account (assuming you’re a sole-proprieter business structure with no employees).  This quick & easy method helps you make sure that you’re bringing home the bacon while still taking care of business.  By maintaining a 50/50 split on your revenue, you’ll gain a clear understanding of when you’re dipping into your personal income to pay for a business expense and when you’re borrowing from your business to pay for a personal indulgence.  If you’re like 85% of Americans, you’ll spend whatever you have in your account- so separating the money right from the beginning will help save you headaches later on.

To take this a step further, it’s also wise to set aside 30% of your personal income to pay self-employment taxes as well as any funds that you’d like to set aside for your retirement.  You may choose to pay your health insurance out of your personal account or your business account, but liability and replacement insurance are generally business expenses to be paid from your business account.  Any credit you give clients toward products, deposits, and retainer fees paid in advance should be set aside in your business account so that they cannot be spent until the service or product is delivered.  Sales Tax should also live in a separate business account so that it can be written as a simple check to zero out the account when your sales tax is due.

Here’s a sample breakdown for a $2500 job that requires a $500 retainer and provides $500 in product credit in a state with 7% sales tax:

100% Revenue = $2500

7% Sales Tax = $175

1. 50% Personal = $1250
a. 30% Income Tax Account = $375
b. 10% Retirement Account = $125
c. 60% Household Account = $750

2. 50% Business = $1250 + Sales Tax of $175
a. Sales Tax Account = $175
b. Retainer Account = $500
c. Product Credit Account = $500 (in reality you’ll probably only need to save $200 of this if your products have the appropriate profit, but it never hurts to save more and have back-up funds for emergencies.)
d. Overhead Account (Equipment, Insurance, Rent, Education, Marketing) = $250

With only $250 left to spend on that shiny piece of equipment- you might see why it’s important to save up before the next purchase, or you could just skimp on your groceries and cancel the cable connection instead.  It’s all a matter of what’s most important to you!

Written by Anne Ruthmann

Anne Ruthmann is a philanthropist and visionary, who makes a living as an international award-winning wedding & lifestyle photographer.  She geeks out about business strategy and finding ways for artists to make a living doing what they love, which is why she feels strongly about developing community at her Boston PUG and sharing information on PhotoLovecat.  She also recently started offering the Smarter Business Workshop in order to provide hands-on help to photographers in several different cities around the US.  When she isn’t working or helping others, she enjoys traveling the world with her husband and trying foods she can’t pronounce.

Posted on April 5, 2011 by ShootQ in Anne Ruthmann, Legal & Finances