What was/is your second year plan ?

[Banbert]

In broad terms our first year plan was all about building our portfolio, equipment, learning new photography and pp skills and developing our reputation/customer base..... weve gone about this in various different ways and were pretty happy with how most of its gone.

Our plan for our second year is to continue doing all the above but then were also doing a little bit of video for at least one wedding (I think being able to offer both and merge the 2 will be a big thing for the future and its something we plan to develop). We also plan to invest some more in our education by attending some seminars or maybe attending the WPPI in Vegas.

We will continue to build our prices as bookings come in and hopefully we will be able to stretch things so that going full time in year 3 or 4 is an option for us.

Before the end of the year were planning to have converted some space in our new house for use as a customer area so that increasingley customers will come to us rather than us travelling to them or the venue for meetings (this will be a big time saver) and also it will allow us to present things in the way we want to and have more samples available for showing them..... hopefully this will help support our increased prices.

Before the end of the year I think the websites going to get a major makeover and we may get some help with that. Ive been really pleased at how well its been recieved this year but I would like something a little more professional and upto date looking for next year .... although I will still want it to be a simple design... just a bit prettier.

Album design is something we plan to do more of in year 2, weve done a little this year but hopefully next year we will have more time for this.

Thats our general plan for year 2 anyway .. anyone like to share their past or present one or any thoughts on the above.

[RobKirkwood]

For us, year 1 was about running around like headless chickens (or so it seemed) and scrabbling to collect enough kit and build a better portfolio than we had when we started promoting ourselves. It was also about finding the best working practices for us, like processing workflow, and discovering/fixing all the other things we'd not really thought through well enough - like how we produce customer web galleries with online ordering without spending ages coding HTML for each wedding (we settled on EOS template).

Year 2 has really been about refinement - improving our camera kit, improving our skills, and moving our portfolio more to where we want it to be ...this is just starting to show through a bit in our website galleries.

We already offer video as an add-on, because we were formerly a multimedia production business and already had a decent camera (Sony VX2100). Our son Tom joins us to shoot the video footage, and we basically cover the key elements - bride arrival, ceremony, speeches, first dance. We just bought a Fig Rig stabiliser thingy at his request, and he'll be using that in anger at a couple of weddings-with-video during the next few weeks. We don't have a lot of take up so far, but then we haven't really been pushing it either. I'd like to upgrade to HD cameras sometime soon, and I think that could well open up new possibilities (we already have HD capable editing software - Sony Vegas - and could burn to blu-ray discs if we had a recorder). Currently our end result when shooting video is a DVD Video combining stills, video and music.

Next year (year 3 for us) I'd like to think we can begin to make some money - but we need to stop spending to make this happen quicker, and I can already see us heading towards buying a couple of 40D's to replace our 20D's/30D!

Year 4 - retirement (yeah right). If things are continuing well, we may look at employing other photographers working to our standards of customer service to shoot additional weddings for us.

Rob

[picturecrazy]

Aside from the usual booking targets, by year two my goal was to break even. Year one was deep in red from all the gear purchases. Year two was very close to breaking even. That is the year I concentrated on building the portfolio. You have the wedding process down and are in more control during the day now, so you can think more about your shots and making them great. Also this is when I started looking at bigger marketing options like bridal shows, magazine ads etc... and going to trade shows/seminars.

I don't do video... period. Photography is a tough enough beast to master, and I likely never will. I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT have another completely new industry to learn when I still, and always will, have so much to learn. It has been proven time and time again that people who specialize are the best at what they do. I believe that in doing both, you'll prevent yourself from being the best photographer you can be, and also, prevent yourself from being the best videographer you can be. That is the same reason I ONLY do weddings and have no studio. Specialize, focus, target your energy.

[Padawan Dad]

That is the same reason I ONLY do weddings and have no studio. Specialize, focus, target your energy.

I couldn't agree with this more.

I'm really just completing my second year, but really haven't focused much on plans for my business. Life has been very busy for me in other aspects and has slowed me down somewhat.

I have probably done a total of 15 weddings in these two years and many portraits, small events, and some "kiddie" candids. In a sense, I think that next year will be considered my second year. I have the equipment, and want to focus more on working on formal photography, and advertising. I am weeding out all of my other services and focusing strictly on wedding photography. Thus far, all of my work has been through word of mouth... I need to get my name out there to get the phone ringing. Portfolio building is also another priority this coming year.

[suyenfung]

well we just finished out first real season last week (thank goodness). it was a whirlwind, headless chickens for sure, but good fun! honestly i need a little more time to breathe and organize my thoughts (actually writing this out should help a great deal), but here's what i have in mind for the upcoming year -

develop a brand identity

develop web site (fun!!!), choose or develop online ordering system (seems they all suck?)

develop business intranet (again, fun!!!) with calendars, blogs, crm, maybe financial data

refine the pricing/packaging system, fully survey album/book/product options

cover traditional advertising and attend a bridal show or two

fill in equipment gaps - 40d, 70-200 2.8is, sigma 30, backup flashes, more umbrellas, better (easier to use) lightstands, as many pocket wizards as we can afford, carrying cases, hack a speedlight to paulcbuff speedring adapter (foldable softboxes!)

organize our creative ideas, and practice them - having made it through a year more or less playing it safe, we are definitely going to get a little more zazzy next year. i know now roughly how the day is going to flow, and where the opportunities to get creative are. i want to focus on flash techniques, specifically off camera arrangements (multilight portraits) and gelling to affect color temperature. anything to enhance the emotional impact is desirable.

refine post workflow, develop presets based on most used post settings from this year

figure out how much we can book without overextension

book, book, book and

QUIT MY DAYJOB!

[spphoto]

More bookings (first year had 10 with no samples or advertising, so taht shouldn't be hard).

Upping my packages to only give away files with albums, pushing albums more (something that will take some educating around here).

Really putting myself out there and getting my name known. I've already started this, but I'm going to keep going, with gallery shows, collaborating with vendors, etc..

Keep having fun!

[RobKirkwood]

I don't do video... period. Photography is a tough enough beast to master, and I likely never will. I ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT have another completely new industry to learn when I still, and always will, have so much to learn. It has been proven time and time again that people who specialize are the best at what they do. I believe that in doing both, you'll prevent yourself from being the best photographer you can be, and also, prevent yourself from being the best videographer you can be. That is the same reason I ONLY do weddings and have no studio. Specialize, focus, target your energy.For a one-man band I can see your point to a degree, however, we're not talking here about being a master of photography AND a rocket scientist - stills and video are two closely related creative skills. In our case (and I suspect this is also what Banbert intends) there are a team of 3 of us when we also shoot video - it's not like there's just one of us trying to be a one-man band with stills cameras in hand and video cameras strapped to our knees! :D ...and what we offer (again what I believe Banbert is talking about too) is a hybrid service, stills mixed with video - not a separate stills package AND a full video coverage package.

Rob

[picturecrazy]

Yes, I agree...
but no matter what, your resources are going to be split. Different marketing, different equipment, different industries to keep tabs on, different networking, etc....

[SuzyView]

My 2 year plan to take some more classes in PP and maybe get to a few seminars around the DC area. I don't advertise, people just find me, but I don't mind a short wedding here or there. In 2 years I want to slowly get into sports photography in the local area and maybe shoot some concerts. I have a lot of possibilities, so it's not just a dream. I shoot mainly for charity.

[Jimbo24]

I'm definitely gonna add more gear, build a website instead of using Smugmug, do a lot more marketing and plan on attending a workshop or 2...