“Hope is not a strategy and success is not an accident.” – Unknown Preacher
It has been a little over a year since I registered my business, Kumolu Studios, LLC. Working on my business haven’t been easy since then and I have been working hard at getting better at dealing with every aspect of the business. The truth is that I have actually thought about quitting several times in the past 1 year. However, some of the quotes that I learnt over the years from family, friends, church and my good ol’ days of being an avid self-help book reader 🙂 have carried me through for now. “Your destiny is in your hands,” a quote my mom used to say when we were growing up is one of them. Other simple quotes like “Never Give Up,” “Keep on Keeping on,” 🙂 and some of the others below have pulled me through. Regardless of the challenges and my thoughts of quitting, I am loving it so far!!!
Over the past 3 or 4 years, I have listened to several tutorials and classes on Photography and growing a Photography business. Last year, while listening to one, I found and wrote down 6 aspects of managing a photography business that have stayed on my office wall since then. These aspects also keep me motivated and challenge me to get better. Today, I am doing a much-needed tuneup of my business using these aspects.
1) Financial Management
This aspect is crucial and I have a lot of work to do here. I am working on being a million times better at itemizing all my expenses and revenue by the end of October. And thanks to one of my friends, I can now organize my receipts in files for each month. 🙂
2) Shooting & Delivering Quality Work
My biggest issue here is obsessing over the “close-to-perfection” editing of my clients’ photos. I try to make the photographs look as great as possible and deliver too many photos for weddings. Like one of my clients recently said after I told her I had over a 1000 photos from her wedding, “That is too many photos. I don’t want to see that many photos. People will get bored.” Since then, I have gotten a little better at taking less time to edit but frankly, I still have issues with selecting less photos to give clients. I just feel like I want my clients to see almost every moment of their day. 🙂 I will keep working on doing better at taking less time to create the quality photos that I have learnt to create (and keep improving) and selecting enough 🙂 photos for clients leading to delivering photos as scheduled at all times.
3) Sales Sales Sales
So far, I am making sales but of course, I need to make much more. 🙂 I need to help clients see the need for photography in their families. They help preserve moments for generations and can be a source of strength and motivation in certain times in their lives. I love the power of photographs. They can change moods for the best without people even realizing it.
4) Maintaining Steady Stream of Work
For a 1-year old business, I am performing decently here but I have a looooong way to go and hoping to continue working hard and smart enough to create more steady stream of work.
5) Time Management & Work/Life Balance
This right here is one of my biggest issues. So far, I spend over 70% of my time editing and that is definitely unsustainable. I need major improvement here! I need to spend less time editing and more time working on gigs, marketing, bookkeeping and spending time with friends and talking to my family much more than I currently do.
6) Client Loyalty & Referrals
So far, I have had quite a number of clients refer others to me. Frankly, since I started business, probably over 80% of my clients have been through word-of-mouth. However, I know I need to keep working on improving my service in order to ensure that every customer is very comfortable with referring me to others.
I will use this opportunity to say a big THANKS to all my clients for their support so far. I really appreciate it and pray that you and your loved ones will be immeasurably blessed!!!
Overall, I have learned a lot and have a lot of work to do and I am definitely working on improving every aspect of my business and service. So help me God as I help myself!! 🙂
