Archive for Starting a Business – Page 3

Starting a Photography Business: Part 43 – Keep Knocking

By Ruth Bayley
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

A few things have happened in the last couple of weeks and I wanted to share these with you, because you may be in similar situations. I’ve got in contact with different people for running courses of different styles, photography and the mental health courses, and not everyone has got back to me straight away. Previously I’ve not always been so self-assured if people don’t respond immediately; I’ve always assumed it means a no or they aren’t interested.

Recently I was listening to a business coach who was teaching you how to create a sales pitch properly so that by the time you get to the end of it the people will want to buy whatever it is that you are selling, particularly if it’s on the phone. And, if at the end of the sale people said they need time to think it over, he was imploring us, not to be put off by that and to keep in contact with that person until you get a definite answer one way or the other.

It doesn’t matter how many phone messages you leave or emails you send, you keep following up until you get an answer.

And it is good advice; just because they haven’t got back to you doesn’t mean that they aren’t interested, they could have a mountain of things to do on their desk. I’m looking to run photography courses at a local hotel and just making the initial contact has been quite a long winded process. It took me ages to track down the person in the hotel that I needed to speak to; whenever I rang the receptionist would take my name and try and reach the woman and then come back and say we can’t find her.

Not for a moment did I let myself get paranoid that she might not want to speak to me, I continued making contact until eventually, I got an email address for her. She responded quickly and positively to the email forwarding it on to a different manager who would make the final decision. Read More→

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Starting a Photography Business: Part 42 – Work Perks!

By Ruth Bayley
Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

I can imagine that there are a lot of organised events that happen throughout the year, that come under your type of photography. So for example for me, I’m looking at agricultural and horticultural shows, as within those shows there are a lot of opportunities for images that I can use within my business.

These events may be places that you already go to year in year out, yet now you need to think about it from a business point of view; you are a photographer, and your photography gives you the opportunity to promote this event in some form, by selling online, in your gallery or maybe displaying them in an exhibition. And these events all give you the opportunity to use the subject within your work.

So should you be paying to go along as a member of the public? Or should you be contacting the event or marketing company to ask for press passes? I’ve done this for a couple of things now and I have been surprised by how willing people were to grant me press passes.

There are a lot of perks to being press, besides always having somewhere dry to go if it’s bad weather and generally being provided with free refreshments, you get great access that you wouldn’t normally have; good positions for photo opportunities without anyone asking questions.

At the agricultural show I went to I got there very early and went into areas that I would have felt a bit intimidated to go into as a member of the public; with a press badge on I didn’t have any qualms about getting quite up close and personal with the animals, as close as was safe to, without getting kicked by a cow or a horse! Read More→

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Starting a Photography Business: Part 41 – Heart and Soul

By Ruth Bayley
Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

This last week I have been spending time on getting another business that is very close to my heart closer to launch. The inspiration came from something that happened to me and how I overcame it; and that story can now help others.

A few years ago I lost my voice; the previous day I’d had the most severe sore throat I’ve ever had and the next morning when I woke up I simply couldn’t speak. It wasn’t a normal cold and sore throat, I was in severe pain and I stayed this way for many months. In that time I was only able to communicate by writing what I wanted to say on paper or type it on my phone, and of course I could only comfortably go out when I was with someone; so they could speak for me.

The doctors were baffled and perhaps not surprisingly, with only my thoughts going around in my head and no quick way to express them, depression and anxiety set in. As with many people I had no idea I was depressed, I was too busy focusing on the pain in my throat which I felt on waking and all the way through the day; I was really wrapped up in my own pain and how it restricted me, and giving the throat pain an awful lot of power.

I started to do a little research, and with the help of a friend took a turn down a more alternative approach to healing; meditation, living in the moment more to keep me grounded in the here and now rather than past or future events. Hence my twitter name became @iaminthemoment to help to remind me that is where I need to be, which is challenging enough on its own!

There was a bit more to my recovery than meditation and living in the moment there were other therapies, yet the one thing that helped me to move out of the gloom of depression, and take my attention away from me, was returning to my landscape photography. Read More→

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Starting a Photography Business: Part 40 – What it Says on the Tin

By Ruth Bayley
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Whilst I was at the agricultural show last week, (having a fantastic time incidentally, taking shots of cows being given a shampoo and set), I had a wander around some of the business tents. Amazingly, these places are a fantastic opportunity to make some great contacts.

One stand made me stop and question what the business was all about. On their advertising hoardings they had graphics of pools of water beside each bullet point, yet the statements were talking about self-esteem issues. The name of this company is The Water Project; I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. They were in a marquee that was dedicated to companies helping the environment and so I assumed, wrongly, that they were in some way helping this country or others with water shortages.

I was a little groggy from tiredness but it took a couple of minutes of explanation from the stall holder before I fully understood that the water was a metaphor for purity and actually they weren’t a conservation company, but a community charity encouraging people to all work together. A really worthwhile cause but I was left baffled by the company name.

I walked around for the next couple of minutes trying to work out if there is anywhere in my business where I’m being ambiguous and expecting people to understand what I’m doing whilst actually confusing them and giving mixed messages. Is there anywhere in your company that you might be doing similar? Read More→

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Starting a Photography Business: Part 39 – Alter Ego

By Ruth Bayley
Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

I read an article in the British Journal of Photography that fired my imagination and helped me to work out how to unite the two different forms of photography I like to do. The article was about an exhibition being held that features work by photographers who use a pseudonym. By working under a different name it allows them to sell work that doesn’t quite fit in with their main band of work; it frees them to work without restriction or be judged by other people’s pre assumptions about their normal work.

Gosh this was a freeing article to read; I quite often do photography that doesn’t really fit in with straight landscape photography and although my Signature collection allows me some leeway, there are times when I know and feel in my heart that some images I’ve taken just don’t sit well alongside my other work, and so I leave them stored on my SD card waiting until I find that right place for them.

I’m sure we’ve all taken images where we are veering slightly away from our original brief of what our customers expect of us; by creating an alter ego it allows us that freedom.

I love taking things within a landscape; close up of flowers, shapes of trees, animals and quite often things I would describe as arty; the type of images that you might see in an exhibition though probably not on someone’s wall in their sitting room. The article has given me a new lease of life, and I’m seriously considering how to move forward with this. Read More→

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Starting a Photography Business: Part 38 – Best in Show

By Ruth Bayley
Monday, June 13th, 2011

As you read this I will be preparing to go to my local agricultural show; it’s a two day event, and I’m looking forward to lots of fun. I love agricultural shows; my mum and dad used to take me to them as a young child.

The sights the smells, the bull that tries it’s best to pull the handlers arm off as they are standing in the ring being judged. The elegant dogs in the dog show, the rare breeds; sheep and the smelly pigs, for me along with the cows my main love is the horses.

So much goes into getting the animals ready for the show ring, you see huge bulls being washed down, brushed and combed, pampered and fussed over like all good dogs are at Crufts. There’s a vast difference between the mucky cows I take photos of in fields and the pristine nice smelling cows that are exhibited at the shows, it must be like living in a parallel universe for them.

An agricultural show offers the everyday person the chance to get up close to these beautiful animals, wander around their stalls and observe the reality of a day at a show. For farmers and horse owners alike it can mean very early starts to get the animals ready for travel, and competitors can travel great distances, to enter their specimen with big prize money and pride at stake.

For me, I divide my time between the cattle and the horses. There aren’t many opportunities to see working horses being dressed for the ring.  Like the cows their day starts early and getting them turned out for the ring is a big responsibility. The shire horses that pull the dray, (the old style wagons that used to deliver a companies wares, mainly breweries enter these competitions now), have their manes dressed with little flowers their tack rubbed, brass polished and shoes washed. When it comes to the show jumpers, some of the horses will have had their manes plaited before they go into the ring. At these shows, no animal enters a ring unless it is looking it’s best. Read More→

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