PhotoBiz introduces one of the most customizable features to ever hit the web template industry!  As a business owner, you are looking for a unique, customized, dynamic website that doesn’t break the bank.  There were already so many great customizable features with our Flash templates, and now you can be even more unique to create your own dynamic website!

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The PhotoBiz team has made some great improvements to our HTML website templates!  The changes that are being made will work with both the “stand alone” HTML websites and the HTML “mirror” websites.  Theses are mostly featured requests by customers, so what does PhotoBiz do?  We step up to the plate hit another home run!  Best of all, we continue to add value instead of raising prices.  If you already have the HTML website or Mirror site, you will see all of these additional features implemented for FREE.  If you don’t currently have an HTML website or Mirror Site, we strongly encourage you to get one for the low set-up fee of only $45!

Here are Two Samples of Our HTML Websites:

Sample 1                                        Sample 2

Why Get an HTML Mirror Site?               Only $45 one time set-up fee  NO MONTHLY FEES!!

The HTML Mirror site is an addition to your Flash Website with PhotoBiz.  Many business owners are adding this solution to the web presence for two main reasons: read full blog entry…

I previously wrote about “How to create a Successful Business Plan for Photographers” and received a great response from it!  Many of you wanted to know a little bit about how to determine your prices and evaluate your competitors.  There are a few easy steps that we can take to better understand this section of the business plan.

Step One:

First of all, it’s important to note that you should NOT determine your prices based on your costs!  Of course you want to cover your costs; and the more money left over in the end, the better.  This is called profit margin.  But if your prices are not comparable to your competitors based on quality and reputation, then it doesn’t matter if you are covering costs or not because you will have no customers.

Background Research:

The first step you will want to take is to get a lot of background research.  Try to find “ALL” of your competitors or at least 25-50 and list them in an excel spreadsheet.  Get a general idea of their prices, quality, location in proximity to you, etc…  The more information that you have, the better off you are.  Here is a basic graph that I made comparing Photography companies.

**Take some time to truly evaluate where you should be positioned in this map!  Ask friends, customers, mentors, etc… to give you a true assessment.

What does this graph mean?
This graph is a basic comparison of you business versus your competition based on your quality and prices.  The dotted line represents an “average” or “fair market value”.

• If you are to the right of the dotted line, you are offering your customers a better “value” based on price and quality alone.
• If you are on the dotted line, you are offering a “fair” market value.
• If you do not know your prices yet, determine where you stand in regards to quality and start on the dotted line.  If you are able to go down on price and maintain the quality, you should see an increase in business as you are offering a better “value”.
• Due to a changing industry and your changing skills, you will want to re evaluate this periodically.

PLEASE LEAVE US YOUR COMMENTS, QUESTIONS & IDEAS

Building your website, you often wonder…Did I mess something up? Is everything finished? Did I leave something off? Well PhotoBiz has created a solution for you! PhotoBiz recently launched a new “Website Health Check”.
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Having a solid business plan is vital to the success of any start-up.  This is going to become a very big part of your future not only in time but also as a personal investment.  Taking just a little time before you take these big steps will really pay off in the future.  There are some obvious advantages to starting a photography business over most other businesses.  In relative terms, it can be much less risky, less capital intensive, and started part time while still working your “real job” as I hear very often. While writing your business plan, I would recommend that you follow two basic rules:

1. Keep an open mind
2. Have a realistic projections and assumptions

Fist key, keeping an open mind, is being open to suggestions and constructive criticism. If you go into your business plan with tunnel vision, you may find yourself “fudging numbers”.   This can happen when you have invested yourself and are passionate about your idea.  Now don’t get me wrong, these are key ingredients to making your business successful, but if you come across something that seems to be critical, be true to yourself and stick to facts. 

Second objective is to have realistic projections and assumptions.  You want to minimize the amount of assumptions that you will have, but the ones you make should be backed up by a lot of facts and well thought out ideas.  This will become very evident when putting together financial statements.  Good working financial statement will take time to put together.  Get the majority of your research, and writing done before you get too heavy into this section.

What do I put in a Business Plan?

Most of you reading this are probably not looking for any type of funding so you want to keep in mind that this plan is for YOU!  This plan will help keep you on track to meet your goals, overcome potential problems and be a map for your future.  Here are the main sections of a business plan:

Executive Summary- Highlights of the whole business plan in 1-2 pages.  Many will say that if you can’t do this, you don’t know your business.  Ironically, you want to do this last.  Believe me!

Business Description–  General description of your unique product of service, industry background, goals, and potential.

Management– Team and legal structure!  An “A” team with a “B” idea is better than a “B” team with an “A” idea!

Marketing–2 parts – (1) Research on who your target market is, market size, and trends, etc… with competition analysis and estimated market share.  (2) Marketing plan, pricing, promotions, and strategy.  *PhotoBiz has some great tools to help you here!

Financials– Forecasting the money.  This can take a lot of time but is one of the most important aspects.  It should include balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements for the 1st 3-5 years.

Operations– Location and its advantages.  You should have a reason why you do everything.

Critical Risks– Potential problems, obstacles, risks; and what you will do to avoid and overcome them.

Milestone Schedule– Goals are very important, give yourself a timeline and deadlines.

Exit Strategy– What happens in the end?  Successor, transfer of assets, etc…

Appendix– If you are trying to get funding, tell the investors where you are getting your information from.

*** Don Kuratko, who is one of the best entrepreneurial instructors in the country, recommends 40-50 pages in length.  (This does not include financials or appendix)

This is a passion of mine and I would be glad to go into more detail if we get a good response from readers on this subject.  This is just touching the tip of each section so please let me know where you would like us to focus with your comments!