Helping amateur photographers make the transition to paid professionals.

What is the Minimum Viable Product for a startup photographer?

September 4, 2015This is Business

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Is "My art isn't good enough!" holding you back from launching?

Then you're trying too hard to produce 'visionary' art where 'salable' art will do.

Perfection is always the greatest enemy of done.

And your market isn't waiting for you to be perfect - they're waiting for you to be done.

Done worrying.

Done being scared.

Done thinking and reading and dreaming instead of launching, serving, and delighting.

The Number 1 reason PTPs get stuck pre-launch is the inability to recognize the value of their work.

But "good enough" art is impossible to articulate. You can't measure "good enough" when it comes to the subjective.

Releasing your Minimum Viable Product to the world is the best cure to getting unstuck as a perfectionist - it is the simplest, most affordable, most focused version of your offering. The first draft. Version 1.0.

And launching enables iteration: you're then able to listen, and evolve the value you create based on market feedback.

Where we artists get this all wrong is in the chronology: we desperately want to perfect everything about our art, marketing and business before we open our doors. We want to control every aspect, every pixel, every impression. We fear rejection, being laughed at, being found out as 'impostors.'

Which is why you're reading this post - so long as you're stuck pre-launch, you're just staring at the mountain of success out your window; you're not actually making any progress.

Perfectionism pre-launch leads to:

• Bloated up-front investment: More equipment you don't need, more classes you don't need yet, more books you aren't going to read (and if you do, you aren't going to act on), more Photoshop actions and tutorials you sure as heck don't need, and endless other ways to waste your time and money.
• Longer lead time before launch: General George S. Patton said that a good plan, violently executed today, is far and away better than the perfect plan tomorrow. You can't gain traction, build a reputation, grow your circle, gain clients or earn dollars until you get your art and message out into the world.
• Feature creep: "But I need this idea! And that idea! And what about this product? Or that pricing strategy! And I've got to get these studio samples first, Soandso Photoguru said so! Oh just let me watch a few more classes on CreativeLive first, then I'll figure out what to do..."
• Delaying 'first to market' release: While you're procrastinating, your competition is hustling. The longer you wait, the more saturated the market becomes, making it all the harder to define and communicate your unique value proposition.
• Investing in unwanted features: The longer you drag out the pre-launch stage, the more likely you'll overthink what the market wants or needs. Don't invest time and money into features the market never cared about in the first place, like the $8,000 I poured into a retail studio space only to find out my clients much prefer the location shoots I was already doing.

What's the Minimum Viable Product for a PTP?

Let's term it Salable Art.

Odds are, if you're reading this, your art is well beyond the minimum threshold of 'salable.' You may not think so, but consider two of the most basic, formulaic, uncreative, yet successful models in the photography industry: chain studios and school photography.

Most chain studios found in shopping centers and malls give you a pose book - a kind of menu for your photo session. You might have a few dozen poses to choose from, or just a handful. Depending on your investment, you'll walk away with a stack of prints all of the same pose, or if you pay the big bucks, you'll get some variety - even if that variety looks like everyone else who walks into that studio.

Whatever pose(s) you choose, your photographer will roll the camera cart or pull the camera-on-a-boom into place, copycat the posing from the menu, and snap one or two shots. You may get a choice of three or so backgrounds. Muslin FTW!

You then sit at the sales station together, blow your budget, and walk away with the exact same portraits as thousands of people before you.

Average sale per client for a chain studio? I can't find any real data, but anecdotally I am told between $200 and $500, with big sales reaching well past $1,000.

An old high school friend told me she gladly paid $1,400 at a chain studio for portraits of her and her three kids.

I gave her my prices. She gaped. "Oh my gosh. I wish I had known that before!"

And these kinds of sales are coming out of chain studios offering packages starting at $19.95.

Their business model is rock solid for what they do and how they do it. Guaranteed, they wouldn't be occupying high-value, high-traffic rentals like in the La Cantera luxury mall in San Antonio if they weren't consistently profitable.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not picking on chain studios, nor am I demeaning their work. They are creating and communicating value, which is what every professional photographer, craftsman and small business owner should strive for.

But you've got to see the potential success beyond your hang-ups about your own art.

Can you create art, either today or with a measure of purposeful practice, that compares favorably to the chain studio's offering of eight or so mix-and-match poses and scenes? Absolutely.

Can you craft an awesome customer experience that far exceeds that offered by the formula-driven chain studios? Doubtless.

$1,000 An Hour

Let's study another model of formula-driven photography: school portraiture.

School photographers are beasts: 15-second photo shoots? Check. Guaranteed profit on every photo they take? Check. Some averaging over $1,000 an hour in sales? Double check.

As my father and Mark Ronson would say: "Hot damn!"

Alongside chain studio portraits, creativity and innovation have almost no place in school portraiture. The goal is to herd as many kids past the camera as fast as possible while collecting parents' two- and three-digit checks for hours on end, days at a time, week after week throughout the school year.

Even more so than chain studios, it's volume work - you make your numbers on speed, efficiency, low Cost of Goods Sold, and low overhead.

In case you didn't hear me: Over $1,000 an hour for formulaic 15-second photo shoots with art that has barely evolved in 40 years.

Can you make better art? Yes.

Can you create a better customer experience? Hell yes.

Humble art for humble pay.

Salable art.

That's where you're aiming to launch as a startup photographer.

If you let it, perfectionism will kill your dream.

Minimum Viable Product In Action

So in the wild, is the MVP for a part time photographer...

• A 20-image portfolio?
• Business cards and a Facebook page?
• An old Canon 40D and a Nifty Fifty 50/1.8 lens?
• A nifty logo?
• A half dozen print product options to offer?
• An ad in the high school football program?
• A magnet billboard on the side of your car?
• A uniform?
• A custom-embroidered camera strap with your business name on it?

Yes.

And no.

I can't say.

There are thousands of stories of photographers launching their business with less than you have right now.

I started with a Fuji Finepix 1.3 megapixel camera and a byline in the local newspaper's sports section.

The only thing you truly need is consistency.

You must be able to reproduce for a potential client some approximation of the art you show them via your marketing.

Consistency.

That's it.

That's all you need to launch with your Minimum Viable Product.

If you're not where you need to be in your art to consistently reproduce the images in your portfolio, then build yourself a curriculum and timeline to learn that consistency.

Build it from good books, good blogs, and good courses.

You're not going to just wake up one day a talented, consistent, valuable artist.

You have to Do The Work.

And what gets scheduled gets done.

Set a goal to consistently produce a salable series of images from every photo shoot. Block the time on your calendar to study and practice and get yourself where you want to be.

Your images don't have to be the most visionary, creative, unique works of art your market has ever seen - they just need to be as good as or a shade better than the formulaic chain studios or hyperspeed school photogs. Not in technical quality (those studios do make nice, sharp images), but in creativity, location and scene, personality, and the experience you craft for your clients.

Create value, and communicate that value

The more make excuses pre-launch waiting for the mythical "right time", the more likely you'll psych yourself out of launching at all.

Your art and the people waiting to be blessed by it deserve better.

"Because one does not want to be disturbed, to be made uncertain, he establishes a pattern of conduct, of thought, a pattern of relationship to man. Then he becomes a slave to the pattern and takes the pattern to be the real thing." - Bruce Lee

Next Steps

• Time's Up: If I held a gun to your head and said "Launch today or die!", what would you do in the next four hours? Make a list. Break the list into baby steps. Now pull up your calendar, and within the next seven days, block off four hours. Do The Work. You don't have to actually launch - that decision is always yours to make - but I bet this exercise will jar you into a much better idea of what your own Minimum Viable Product looks like.
• Brainstorm Session: Get out your pen and paper. Less is more. As Saint-Exupery writes, perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. If you stripped your art and business down to the absolute core value - the 80/20 rule applied to your art, the experience you craft for clients, and the ideal clients you seek to serve - what would that look like? Does that simplicity make it easier to envision who your ideal clients are, and how you would market yourself to them?
• Subscribe Today: It's my calling to help you earn your first $5,000 to $50,000 as a part time professional photographer. I am truly grateful for your readership, and encourage you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• Do This Now: What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
• Start The Conversation: If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below or drop me an e-mail. I'd love to hear how you're hustling to better your art, life, and business!

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by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor

Three practices for progress without procrastination, perfectionism or paralysis

August 21, 2015This is Business

What if you could make steady gains in your businesses without stress?

Without procrastination.

Without perfectionism.

Without paralysis.

Can you imagine how it would feel to move boldly toward your dreams with confidence, comfort, and clarity of purpose?

Take a deep breath - doesn't the thought alone give you ease?

If you master the following three practices, all of which are within your control, this is exactly how you can feel while you're climbing the mountain of success.

Your allies in this war against stress and The Resistance are:

• Kaizen
• Imperfect Action; and
• Iteration

Master this triad of painless progress and you'll be able to launch, grow, and succeed with grace.

Kaizen

Kaizen is the philosophy of small daily actions that lead to big change over time.

We artists get paralyzed in our progress attempting wild leaps toward our goals instead of reasonable baby steps.

There are no shortcuts, no "Secret Trick Known Only To Millionaire Photographers!(tm)", no pills that will Double The Girth of Your Artistic Talent for the next four hours.

Your art improves as you earn skills. Your business improves as you earn clients.

Every step up the mountain of success is earned. Some are blessed with natural talents, some with lifestyles that allow more time or money to invest in learning - but we're all in control of our choices. Success is a choice. Success is a long string of hard choices. No amount of talent or money can overcome lazy.

If I told you I could make you a successful photographer for $10,000, but you had to pay today, you'd probably shrug and say, "Sounds great, but I don't have $10,000 to give you."

What if I told you I could make you a successful photographer for $10,000 paid out one dollar a day?

That's possible. That's manageable. That's something you could do without breaking a sweat, or breaking the bank.

This is the power of kaizen.

This is the power of baby steps. When you break your goals into small, manageable baby steps, no single step feels like such a big leap of faith. The risk is low. There's less gravity. The investment of time and effort into any single step is big enough to move the needle but small enough to feel unimposing.

Every project on your plate, whether it's getting legal or developing your web site or launching your business, is made up of dozens of baby steps - five minutes here, 15 minutes there.

You can spread baby steps out, stealing a moment here or there. You can string them together by scheduling a time block on your calendar, getting into a flow state and pounding out a long list of steps.

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

Break your goals and projects into small steps, then break them again into the smallest baby steps. It may feel borderline absurd, but keep breaking down to the smallest, simplest, most clearly defined steps as you can.

It will take imagination, and patience.

But this shift in thinking will turn your confusing, frustrating, intimidating goals into a clear road map guiding you from where you are today to where you want to be tomorrow.

Imperfect Action

To pulverize perfectionism, you have to accept reality.

General Patton said it best:

"A good plan, violently executed today, is far and away better than the perfect plan tomorrow."

True on the battlefield of art and business, as well.

Reality is, we artists are especially vulnerable to perfectionism. We are our own worst critics, incessantly comparing ourselves against the world and finding ourselves inadequate. No matter how good we get, there's always someone better - in fact, because we're constantly striving to evolve, we're always surrounded by art better than our own.

The practice of Imperfect Action gives you permission to let go.

Let go of the responsibility to do everything perfectly.

Let go of the fear of putting your art in the world.

Let go of being The Best - at art, business, anything.

The insidious danger of perfectionism is that it builds within us the habit of never shipping, of never putting our work into the world so it can bless others and produce feedback. Every time you hide your work instead of share it, every time you choose inaction over imperfect action, you make it harder to overcome that self-limiting inertia.

Indulging perfectionism makes it easier to be your weakest, least empowered self.

(If you're like me, you've got a lot of inertia to overcome.)

Every time I sit down to write here on PTP, I have two choices:

I can indulge my perfectionism. I can write with fear, water down my words, play it safe, avoid risk and vulnerability, then hold onto my words for some mythical day when I'll be able to edit them thrice and the result will be polished, powerful, and absolutely perfect.

That day ain't never gonna come.

My only other option is to punch fear in the face, and pound the keys hard and fast. I have to take Imperfect Action. Knowing that nothing I ever write will be "good enough." Knowing my words will never "be ready." I have to persevere with tenacity in the face of The Resistance.

What we don't create never blesses anyone.

What we don't share never creates value.

It never helps.

It never serves.

It never delights.

It is never cherished.

It's never shared joyously.

Accept reality. Practice the power of taking Imperfect Action, one baby step at a time. Create imperfect art. Say imperfect things to potential clients. Craft an imperfect client experience. Put imperfect marketing out into the world. Price your work imperfectly. Choose an imperfect name for your business.

Be imperfect.

Don't be apathetic. Don't be aloof. Don't be flip. Don't be disinterested. Don't be uncompassionate.

But do be imperfect. Get your art and business into the world so you and your people can be blessed by it - so you can begin building your business, your client base, your experience, your artistic style, your business acumen. So you can create value.

One imperfect action at a time.

Iteration

If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late. - Reid Hoffman

Iteration is the third practice to help battle procrastination, perfectionism, and paralysis in your business life.

As artists, and as first-time entrepreneurs, what we think our business should look like at launch - Version 1.0 - is a serial entrepreneur's Version 9.0.

By the time we feel we're ready to launch (if that feeling ever comes), the successful serial entrepreneur would have launched nine times earlier, with a product or service nine times simpler, and had nine times as long to get feedback, and made nine times as many invaluable iterations from that feedback.

This is the power of iteration.

Version 1.0 of your business, the art and marketing and message and client experience you launch with, should be your truly Minimum Viable Product. It should be the simplest commercially-viable version of your business imaginable.

The simpler and sooner you launch, the sooner you can begin accruing one of the most valuable assets in business: feedback.

Tim Ferriss says there is no failure, only experiments and feedback.

From this perspective, all action is growth, every choice is progress, every baby step gets you one measure closer to success.

This is the power of the Minimum Viable Product, and its kissing cousin, Iteration.

Practicing Iteration gives you permission to launch today, to be imperfect in every arena of your art and business.

Most powerfully, it gives you permission to do your best, and know that your best today is good enough for today. Tomorrow you'll be a shade better. So it goes, until by way of kaizen, imperfect action, and iteration, you look back and can't believe the progress you've made as an artist and business owner.

Practicing The Triad of Painless Progress

What if you knew that no matter what imperfect action you take or best-guess decision you make, you're winning?

Progressing. Growing. Getting closer to your dream.

What if you knew it?

What if you believed it?

What if, even though it's a leap of faith, from this day forward you choose to believe it? And when you just can't believe it, you act like you believe it. As the good gentlemen from The Art of Charm teach, the body follows the mind, and the mind follows the body.

Just as you can inadvertently train yourself into an artist of inaction, you can purposefully train yourself into a person of powerful action.

Today, you may not believe it - you may not see it in yourself.

That's why it's just practice. You're Just Practicing.

Any time and every time you catch yourself procrastinating, indulging perfectionism, or atrophied by paralysis, just take a breath, give yourself grace, smile and say, "I'm Just Practicing."

Then bring yourself back to center, and back to the practices that enable and honor your best self.

Next Steps

• Three Sticky Notes, Please: On one, write Kaizen - the next, Imperfect Action - the last, Iteration. Stick these on your monitor, on your mirror, or wherever you most need to be reminded of the choices that are within your control.
• Brainstorm Session: Get out your pen and paper. What does your perfect day look like? Not what could happen to you, but what choices you would make, what actions you would take, what mindset you would maintain, how you would honor your best self. Describe in delightful detail what your perfect day would look like. Then at the end, write three lines: "This is within my reach." "This is within my control." "This is what I'm practicing for." File this away in your Brainstorms folder.
• Subscribe Today: It's my calling to help you earn your first $5,000 to $50,000 as a part time professional photographer. I am truly grateful for your readership, and encourage you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• Do This Now: What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
• Start The Conversation: If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below or drop me an e-mail. I'd love to hear how you're hustling to better your art, life, and business!

---

by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor

Niche pickin'

August 19, 2015This is Business

"Identify your niche and dominate it. And when I say dominate, I just mean work harder than anyone else could possibly work at it." - Nate Parker

The single most vital piece of advice I give to struggling PTPs is to tighten your niche.

But if you haven't even launched yet, how are you supposed to know what target market you want to serve?

Make it up.

Like so much in the startup phase of your business, you're just going to have to make the best educated guess you can. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

To make your life and business easier, err on the side of fun.

What do you love?

Who do you identify with?

What market best aligns with your energy, personality, and experience in life?

Every niche - children, babies, couples, families, seniors, events, weddings and so on - can be broken into ever more refined subsets.

For example, I'm a high school senior photographer. But my ideal clients are performance seniors - theater, choir, cheer, dance. I was in choir back in high school, which puts me in a unique position to serve this clientele. Some of my first clients were my classmates.

My wife is a newborn photographer. Her ideal clients are home-birthing, breastfeeding, all-natural "crunchy" moms - people just like her; folks she can relate to based on her life experience as a mother to our three kids. For her ideal clients, she's "the" photographer for them.

The more we embrace a tight niche, the easier it is for our ideal clients to know we are "the" photographer for them.

This is powerful voodoo.

Everything from artistic growth to marketing becomes easier and expedited with a well-defined path.

Choosing a tight niche pre-launch is not about making the perfect permanent decision. It's about putting a stake in the ground, choosing the best path you can, then allowing yourself the grace and flexibility to take imperfect action. What's important is that you move forward boldly - otherwise you'll get stuck at the starting line. You'll be fantasizing about the perfect photos, location, web site, lens, or marketing piece while your competition is scooping up your ideal clients.

Procrastination is a disservice to you, your talent, your passion, and your clients. Your people are out there thirsty for the blessing of your art and personality, being under-served by other photographers who aren't the perfect fit for them.

The more you play and have fun, the more you shoot, the more you practice, the more you Do The Work instead of sitting in front of your computer waiting on "the right time," the more clearly you'll see the unique, right path for you.

You'll never see past that hill until you've taken all the steps that get you to the top.

Every crest gives a new perspective, new knowledge, new experience, a fresh look at the best path to carve up the mountain of success.

Keep moving forward.

Follow your heart, and follow your fun.

Never forget: you're a part time professional photographer because you want to be; because you choose to be. Even the hard stuff - overcoming limiting beliefs and stepping out of your comfort zone and moving forward even when you feel completely unready - should be fun. Not easy, not simple, not without fear or Resistance... But fun. Purposeful. Fulfilling.

Be persistent.

Be tenacious.

You'll score your first paying client.

You'll win your first photography contest.

You'll earn your way to your first four figures - then five figures - of income as a part time professional photographer.

You'll refine your art, marketing, and business until you're booked solid shooting clients you love for the pay you're worth.

That's the sweet spot for the PTP. That's the promised land.

It exists. It is real - there is no debate. And it's waiting for you.

If everybody is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction. - Sam Walton

Next Steps

• List: Make a list of every niche of photography you could imagine doing: babies, families, commercial, headshots, events, weddings, quinceaneras, children, seniors, couples, engagement, fashion, corporate, whatever you can dream up.
• Cull: Put a big, bold strike through every niche that you're sure you would not enjoy.
• Prioritize: From what remains, strike out everything except your top three niches. Really dig deep here, introspect, and ask yourself, "What three niches would I have the most fun shooting?"
• Experiment: For the next three months, you're going to shoot four different clients in each of these three niches. Free or paid, doesn't matter. The goal is to cut loose, be yourself, have fun, and see which niche you enjoy shooting the most. We need to do four shoots each niche to rule out dud clients or bad days on your part.
• Book: Get on the phone or social and start reaching out to your circle to get booked solid for the next three months shooting within these three niches, four shoots each. Try your best to make these shoots with people two degrees of separation from you - at most, acquaintances. If you just shoot within your circle of friends and family, you won't get a real feel for working with typically unknown clients coming in cold to a shoot.
• After Action Report: After every shoot, do an AAR. Journal your emotions and energy, how much you enjoyed (or didn't) the shoot, and explore why. These notes will prove vital to getting clear on where you want to take your business, and what niche you're most excited to serve.
• Get Clarity: Three months may feel like a long test period, but what are you doing otherwise? If you're already steamrolling along, keep up the good work - but if you're reading this, you're probably struggling to get where you want to be. Try this, see what clarity it brings you, benefit from the practice and contacts and testimonials and referrals, and see which direction you want to grow your business... For now. As always, it's your business: you can change anything and everything anytime you want.
• Brainstorm Session: get out your pen and paper. Guess: what's going to be your absolute favorite niche? Let's pretend this is fact, that you know it to be true in your heart of hearts. What will your business look like now that you're going to focus your efforts exclusively on reaching your ideal clients in this niche? What will your marketing copy say? What will you feature on your web site? How will you practice and grow your artistic skills to serve this niche? Who will you co-op market with? Where are your clients - where do they shop, hang out, visit the doctor, work, play? What are your ideal clients' interests and hobbies? What non-profits does your ideal client support? Play with these ideas, flesh out a clear picture of what your business and marketing will look like now that you have a tight niche in mind. And enjoy how much more easily all these questions are to answer, knowing who it is you want to serve, and why.
• Subscribe Today: It's my calling to help you earn your first $5,000 to $50,000 as a part time professional photographer. I am truly grateful for your readership, and encourage you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• Do This Now: What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
• Start The Conversation: If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below or drop me an e-mail. I'd love to hear how you're hustling to better your art, life, and business!

---

by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor