As millions of Americans look for greater control over their financial destiny, the dream of self-employment has become more compelling that ever. Just the idea of launching a small business to become their own boss, and financially independent, drives many people to stake their life savings on everything from franchise opportunities to some gadgets they’ve invented.

To entrepreneurial spirit is, of course, a part of our great national tradition. The problem is that many people devote a lot of their time to half-baked ideas and high-risk flings that have little chance of success.

There is always some gamble involved when you start a business, whether your investment is $50.00 or $500.00, or more. But once you begin to view your new business as a “gambling” the risk-reward radio tilts out of whack! The shrewdest and most successful entrepreneurs know that “taking the plunge” works best when you take along tested principles that put the odds in their favour.

TAKE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED AND BUILD YOUR BUSINESS AROUND IT

If you decide to join the ranks of self-employed freelance photographers, you will soon discover there is no magic in being able to earn thousands of dollars every year. Forget about the notion that you can start up a business just because you have a camera laying around you know little or nothing about. If you try the casual “learn on the job” approach with photography and competitors will capitalize on your mistakes, promoting customers to turn elsewhere for the products and services you market. Then your business will be floundering by the time you get to know what it takes to succeed. Never expect people to pay you while
you practice on them and waste their time and money. And never take an assignment you can’t handle. Being honest with yourself and your customers will be your benefit in the long-run.

The best approach to starting your freelance photography business is to start off slowly and build on a base of knowledge and experience. In other words, take the knowledge that you presently have about your camera and build a company around it. Start out by offering a particular service where you can be competitive from the first day you are open for business.

YOU DON’T NEED A STUDIO & FRENCH PROVINCIAL FURNITURE TO GET STARTED

You don’t have to open a studio with elegant French provincial furniture, glass showcases, and large expensive frames all over the walls, to go into business as a freelance photographer. It’s actually just the opposite; you don’t need a studio at all!
What you will need, is a camera, a couple of strobe lights, lights stands, and a black-and-white darkroom setup. From there, it’s just as easy for you to go to your customers as it is for them to go to a studio.

How much money you make will depend on the amount of time you want to devote to your business. The beauty of being a freelance photographer is that you can create your own markets, and establish your own rates. If you go into freelancing with the intent to earn extra money working on weekends, you should be able to earn $1,000-$2,000 per weekend if you did nothing but shoot weddings followed with package deals. If you decide to go into business on a full-time basis, then you could earn up to $50,000 and more depending on your specialty. It really boils down to one important thing; you must have the ability to use the equipment you have to produce a good photograph. People are willing to pay top dollar if you produce quality results. They don’t like paying for poor work that isn’t pleasing or effective.

The opportunities for getting free advertising for your product or services are limited only by your own imagination and energies. There are so many proven ways of promoting your objectives without cost that it literally boggles the mind just to think of listing them.

One way is to write an article relative to your particular expertise and submit it to all the publications and media dealing in the dissemination of related information. In other words, become your own publicity and sales promotions writer. Get the word out; establish yourself as an expert in your field, and “tag-along” everything you write with a quick note listing your address for a catalog, dealership opportunity, or more information.

Another really good way is by becoming a guest on as many of the radio and television talk shows or interview type programs as possible. Actually, this is much easier to bring about than most people realize. Write a letter to the producer of these programs,
then follow up an in-person visit or telephone call. Your initial contact should emphasize that your product or service would be of interest to the listeners or viewers of the program–perhaps even saving them time and money.

Other ways of getting free or very inexpensive exposure include the posting of advertising circulars on all free bulletin boards in your area, especially the coin-operated laundries, grocery stores, and beauty and barber shops. Don’t discount the idea of handing out circulars to all the shoppers in busy shopping centers and malls, especially on weekend. You can also enlist the aid of the middle school students in your area to had out circulars door-to-door.

Some of the more routine methods include having a promotional ad relative to your product or service printed on the front or back of your envelopes at the time you have them printed with your return address.

Be sure to check all the publications that carry the kind of advertising you need. Many mail order publications just getting started offer unusually low rates to first-time advertisers; a
free-of-charge insertion of your ad when you pay for an order to run three issues or more; or special seasonal ad space at greatly reduced rates. And there are a number of publications that will give you Per Inquiry (PI) space–arrangement where all orders come in to the publication, they take a commission from each order, and then forward the orders on to you for fulfillment.

Many publications will give you a contract for space. In this arrangement you send them your ad, and they hold it until they have unsold space, and then at a price that’s always one third or less the regular price for the space need, insert your ad. Along these lines, be sure to check in with the suburban neighborhood newspapers.

If you send out or publish any kind of catalog or ad sheet, get in touch will all the other publishers and inquire about the possibilities of exchange advertising. They run your ad in their publication in exchange for your running an ad for them of comparable size in yours.

Finally, there’s nothing in the world that beats the low cost and tremendous exposure you get when you advertise a free offer.

Simply run an ad offering a free report of interest to most people a simple one page report with a “tag-line” inviting the readers to send money for more information, with a full page advertisement for your book or other product on the backside. Ask for a self- addressed stamped envelope, and depending on the appeal for your report and circulation of the publication in which your ad appears, you could easily be inundated with responses!

The trick here, of course, is to convert all these responses, or a large percentage of them, into sales. This is done via the “tag-line,” which issues an invitation to the reader to send for more information, and the full page ad on the back of the report, and other offers you include with the complete package you send back to them. As mentioned at the beginning of this report, it’s just a matter of unleashing your imagination. Do that, and you have a powerful force working for you that can help you reach your goals.

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