Commercial Photographer: Your Guide to Marketing, Creativity and Growth Business Planining
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The show starts talking about why would you have a business plan?
The most basic answer is it helps you achieve your goals in life and in business. This is linked to where you and your business want to be in one year or in five years. Then the key is working out how you are going to get there. Sam thinks this is the essence of a business plan and it should be for you, personally. The goals might be financial, lifestyle, number of shoots whatever is relevant and important for you.
So the business plan is about you helping yourself to achieve your goals. This means the business plan is not a one off price of work that is then ignored. It is a living document, it is guiding us day to day to help us meet our goals.
What do you put in a business plan?
It depends what your goals are. There will usually be a financial element. There will be steps you need to take to achieve your goals. Most plans will include: Marketing, sales and finance as a minimum. There could be all sorts of other things in there like business processes, your team (if you have one). There could be a section on your development and equipment. The key is it’s about the things needed to reach your goals.
Marcus asks about if there are apps etc to help. Sam said there
are loads of advice and templates out there. It’s a case of finding ones that work for you.
The business plan usually contains big steps in your journey to achieve your goals. Therefore you need a system to break those down into much smaller steps that you implement in day to life in your business.
Marcus asked if an accountant or business coach is the best person to speak to, to get support with making a business plan. Sam suggests it depends on the focus of your plan.
The first step in your business planning process is thinking about what do you want to achieve. This is about making it interesting, fun and relevant for you.