"Behind the Scenes" would be remiss if we only showed what goes on behind the scenes of a photo shoot. Advertising photography is a business and there are all kinds of things that go into making the business side work. This post is about some of the organizational aspects of the business of photography.
During the holiday season our studio slows down. Most clients have spent their budgets for the year, holiday activities abound, and many agencies take the week off between Christmas and New Year's. You would think it would give you time to relax and take a break. Wrong. It's your time to catch up on all the things you didn't get done during the year, put last year to bed and get ready for the next year. You might say, "like what?" Here's a small list of must-dos:
- Box up all last year's records
- Issue W-2's
- Meet with your accountant to go over taxes owed
- Make sure all the business insurance is up to date
- Make sure all your archived images are up to date
- Organize files on the server and RAID
- Review estimates on jobs not awarded and reasons why
- Work on a new marketing plan and set goals
- Toss or recycle out-dated promos
- Work on new promotional materials
- Review and update your portfolio
- Get rid of out-dated props
- Do a general file and office clean
- Restock supplies
- Make a list of equipment that needs to be replaced
- Repair broken equipment
- Catch up on the latest software
- Catch up on the latest trends
- Catch up with friends and associates
- Catch up on your sleep
- etc., etc., etc.
These are just a few of the things we do on the business side. Not as fun or exciting as the creative side of the business, but just as important.
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| Job files we store in our studio vault. |
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| Job and Recept files should be stored for 7 years for the IRS. |
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| Self-promotion mailers all neatly organized for quick access. |
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| RAID image archive hard drives in the studio vault. |
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| Our 5 bay RAID to archive new jobs and access old archived projects. |
