Business at home? What to do?

[guitarkid]

One of my coaching clients doesn't even have a studio in her home... she's strictly an "on location" photographer... and in only her second year, she'll probably pull in $40,000 or more. It really can be done.

That is amazing! that's great for her, and only in her 2nd year!! what i have done is cancelled all advertising and am just going to think of more creative free ways such as flyers and such. When it happens, it happens. I'm not relying on this as the main income yet. Jim, you said you don't spend much time or any at all with meta tags and SEO stuff. So you don't rely on people searching for you then....you just use your site as a place you refer people to?

thanks,
steve

 

[neea]

This is what I've done... and honestly, it's worked to well. I've been contacted 3 times in the last year to do weddings. Something that 1. I never thought I'd want to do and 2. If I decided to, I'm no where near ready as far as equipment goes.

I had a webpage and my url was my name. Living in a smaller area there really isn't too much competition. I posted my info on an online business directory for the next largest town. It's been the best way to get hits so far. I had statcounter.com installed and it tells you how people are getting to your page. ie: google, yahoo.
Because my url was my name there's less of a chance of someone else being called 'Sheena Neil Photography'.
I spent HOURS making meta tags and registering my site with google, yahoo, lycos, etc.
I used to be first on google but right now the directory that's been so popular is ... which is fine. My sites there too.

I've thought of getting new business cards printed. I've also thought of randomly leaving them in odd places. Somewhere where someone else might accidently leave them. Bathroom counters or something and the next person who walks go by goes 'Hmm.. what's this?'

Hopefully by the end of the summer I will have started on my own 'studio'. That's if we can find a house to buy this summer. Then I really plan to hit the pavement and get myself out there.

 

[guitarkid]

very interesting. i did the same thing. i left cards at odd places...bank counters, bathroom counters, customer service desk at jc penneys, etc.....never got a call from that stuff. oh well. i spent hours on the meta stuff too...not really any luck with it. i'm laying low. it drained me....i'm going to see what happens and try the flyers on cars thing next. i don't like that idea but what can it hurt. 100 flyers a week is 400 a month...someone is bound to know someone who needs stuff done.

 

[brighteyesphotos]

I've got my website up, business crads are printed, word of mouth is out (and boy does it help!).. now.. MY biggest problem right now is legal issues. What contracts to use, what forms to set up, what signatures to get for what, etc. Release forms and all that stuff. What's really important and what is not?

This book is also a great book to have for legal forms. It comes with a CD with all of the forms on it saved in several forms. You can pull up, say the .doc version, edit the contract to fit your situation better, fill in the blanks, and print. [ame]http://www.amazon.com/Business-Legal-Forms-Photographers-CD-ROM/dp/158115206X/ref=pd_sim_b_2/104-6570466-9099913?ie=UTF8&qid=1175396903&sr=1-8[/ame]