For me, I wish I would have known how important both marketing and advertising are. As a result of my total lack of marketing ability, I am closing up my photography business. With the economy being what it is and the gas prices as well as the costs of advertising and marketing, I can no longer afford to stay in business. I blame it more on my lack of knowledge of marketing myself because it's quite obvious that many photographers thrive regardless of the economy because they know how to market. I have found that photographic skills without marketing skills makes one the proverbial starving artist. All I need to do to see the starving artist is look in the mirror. Sad, but true.

Many colleagues of mine have said that if they could do things over again, they would have skipped photography in college and concentrated on a degree in marketing instead. A lousy photographer with awesome marketing skills will thrive whereas a great photographer with lousy marketing skills with lose his business. I fit that bill unfortunately.

Good day.

Mike

That's so sad. I'm sorry to hear you have to shut your doors. Thank you for sharing your "lessons learned."

Is it really too late? Could you get some pro bono help? I have a professional photographer friend who masterminds with other photographers online. Don't give up!

What I knew then, but didnt have in place yet, were value-exchange relationships with local business and community leaders. I had loads of contacts, but not with the right people in the right vain.

Before I started my own business, I spent years learning about all the aspects of business I could. I didn't go into my first business until I was 37. Also, I studied business and economics in college though my graduate degrees were in the social sciences. I then learned about what business I had the best chance of making a profit in before I narrowed my search. When I picked my company - it was a franchise - I went to five other branches, independantly owned and to the headquarters and spent a full day in each before I decided it was for me.

It was clearing a small profit from the first month of business. By my fourth business which I started last year, I pretty much knew what to look for, how to market, how to structure price v cost and how toi minimize the risk.

All four were successful. Two sold for a nice profit and the otjhers are running, though one is reduced in size to what a retiree like me wants to handle.

Working for oneself works only if you are prepared to live without any profit for the first few years in most cases. I was lucky. I never had a losing month and had a few a year that were spectacular, allowing me to run without loans after one year in a business where the costs exceeded $300,000 the first year and I went in with $40,000 cash and a reserve with six months living expenses. After 3 months, I dumped my emergency cash into the business because I sawe that if I expanded, I would do even better.

I should put a caveat: Don't try this at home on what I have done. I am the exception to the rule. Four out of five businesses do not make it to the fifth year. Two of them don't make it out of the first year.

The biggest problems I've seen out there? * Failure to advertise enough.

* Overextending credit.

* Undercapitalizing

* Trying to pull out a salary before the business reaches break-even

* Signing an unfavorable lease

* Misreading the market and not keeping inventory at the proper level

* Not working for the customer

* Putting making money ahead of integrity

* Having a product or service where the competition is already saturating the market

* Not reading the needs of the marketplace properly

* Buying your inventory according to what you like rather than what the customers will buy

* Not networking to build business and goodwill

* Overlooking an existing market that is underserved

* Poor hiring practices

* Failure to fire an inappropriate or nonfunctioning employee - even if it is your spouse!

* Sloppy bookkeeping and inventory control

* Thinking that a new business cvan be run on banker's hours

* Inattention toi the little details

* Delegating the responsibility instead of the work

* Cutting corners in the wrong places like getting el-cheapo equipment and staff

* Refusing to talk to competitors top see what they are doing

* Allowing the sharks to eat you alive: advertising people selling ad space and time, Factory reps selling you their doggies

* Refusal to make deals to close a sale. Ten times 90% is more profitable than 5 times 100%

* Treating your customers as if they were unimportant or ignorant