I spent all day shooting gorgeous swimsuit models who were wearing nothing but bra's and panties).
Damn you!! Meanwhile I spent all day sweating out a broken restaurant A/C and the crabby cook who went ballistic because her floor was starting to sweat and get slippery. It wasn't for free though.
I'd ask do you TRULY believe this will pan out? I've had too many people promise me the moon and the stars to get what they've wanted or needed. Once they did the promises were all but forgotten. If you're spending your time helping them they should be courteous enough to reimburse you at least something. I get people all the time that think I should work for nothing. As much as I HATE to turn down a job, if the price is not right, I will. You got to take care of Numero Uno. I'd say something to them about it. And if they can't see their way to throwing you a few bucks I'd start looking around for something else. Right now they're "having their cake and eating it too".
Good luck!
The deal I struck last year with the photo studio was that they would guarantee me five days of work a month at minimum.
Is this deal in writing? If so, enforce it. The fact that they are not selling enough is their problem not yours. They should either give you five jobs that are going to their staff guys or pay you the equivalent day rate.
As for the SEO thing, I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this. The deal was that I was to be paid X amount of dollars per client per month. But I'm spending far too much time doing advance work for clients that I don't even know will come on board.
Again, what was spelled out in writing? What kind of advance work are you doing? Are you supposed to get paid for the SEO specifically, or is it a whole package thing? When consultants contract for a company they usually have a "scope" document that says "for X dollars of compensation, I will do exactly this, and only this. Any thing else is outside the scope of the agreement and requires a new deal and bid"
As a photographer, I'm very, very good. Students who graduate from colleges in the state know my name. Their instructors show the students my work. I didn't know this until last year. I thought the students were just trying to butter me up to get some freelance assistant jobs.
As for the SEO work, I'm also very, very good at that. I've spent five years learning how to get sites on the first page of the major search engines.
Then you are getting ripped off. Put a stop to it. You obviously have the skills to be an industry leader in your ventures. Why are you nickel and diming to line the other guys pockets.
And I'm a very, very bad salesman.
Then get good. Your livelihood depends on it. It's more a science than an art. You can learn to sell if you apply yourself to it the way you have in these other things.
Before Snap-On went PC, I shot all of their girlie posters.
Did I mention you're my hero
I wish the topic of guns weren't so touchy a subject. I can ask anyone to do a search for "New York gun shops," and they'll find my Gunshopfinder.com site #1 out of over 30,000,000 results. Search for "Remington rifles."
Do a search for "CZ pistols." The Shooters Shop has been #1 for years. I got them there, as well as for many other search terms.
So minimalize it right up front with new people. "One of my hobbies is shooting. Because of that interest I naturally gravitated towards something related when I started doing SEO. The results of which are that "x" company has been listed #1-5 for "y" years, which as you know is an eternity on the internet. Now let me show you what I can do for you"
As long as who you are talking to isn't a hard core anti, you've just defused everything by letting them know that you started with something familiar to you - not that you are looking for the nearest bell tower.
Another thing rolling around in my mind while typing the other.
However, they do ask me to come out for free and work with him on testing for projects that are upcoming, and ones where they think he'll be booked on other jobs.
If they aren't giving you your 5 paid days a month there is no reason for you to be out helping them sell other business. For them it's great, they don't have to pay you anything & get all your experience. For you otoh, you are out a day's productivity, gas & wear & tear on the vehicle, & wear & tear on your equipment. Not exactly a win/win situation.
We actually went through something similar (sort of) a few years ago. My wife is a consultant in a software industry. We had a relationship with a reseller where they would go out & sell the package & offer training. My wife would then be subcontrated in to do the training (at a discount to her normal hourly rate but there were no sales costs to us (finding the prospects/demo/proposal preperation/etc) involved so it worked out ok. On one particular really big sale $100k+ they asked her for her help with the sales process (she can do a much better demo/explain things better). She agreed (verbally) provided that she got 25-33% of the comission if it went though to a sale. That was agreed to (also verbally) by the reseller who promptly stopped doing anything towards the sale. She eventually sold the product to this other company & when she asked for her portion of the commission (which probably should have been higher by that time as the others had stopped doing anything) & was told "Oh, we'll make sure that you get a few training hours out of it". After going round & round for a month we finally sent them a very detailed itemized invoice for close to $5k for her work on the sales process (mainly time invested - but that time could have been spent being productive elsewhere, but there was several hundred dollars in actual expenses that she had). We've never heard from these people again.
Now the point of that long story was to bring home to you that you don't need to be around these people who have so little consideration for your time/talent. They will continue to leech off of you as long as you allow them to. You need to find yourself busy the next few times they want you to come out & "help" (knowing you that "help" is probably doing most of the work yourself). Eventually they'll either start to pay you or stop calling. Either way it can't be any worse than it is now.
Unless and until I can find another company to do photography/SEO work for, I don't have any alternatives. At least not as far as my myopic vision can see.
Then you need to get your vision corrected. Stop starting a sentence with a statement of why you can't and ask the question of how you can? That will get the creative process flowing. I did a google on SEO and got like 1.6 million hits. There's obviously a market for it. Who says you have to find another company, why not start your own?
Also, don't confuse sales with marketing. They are related but not the same. It is marketing that piques their curiousity, that makes them want to know more and ultimately contact you. You can get a local college kid who's studying it to help you, or get one of the Guerilla Marketing series books. Sales is simply closing the deal once you get them to the table, by that point it shouldn't matter what the site you are showing is, what should matter is you can produce results.
So, I guess what I need to do is tell him that all of this "advance" work can't be for free, and that he has to build the cost into whatever project he's quoting going forward.
That's a good first step. If he goes for it, then you're better off in the long run. If he balks, you are still better off because you now know his intent was "something for nothing" all along.
This is serious, though. We're going to come up short on next month's bills unless something changes.
Now we get to the crux of the problem. This will require a more immediate response on your part.
I'm assuming from what I read that you don't have any savings built up. That makes the situation worse and only adds to the dread that is preventing you from acting.
So first we deal with the immediate problem. You need to find a job, any job, that pays a regular income. I know it's hard to settle for a job that's less money, and/or below your skillset. I went from being a dept. head for a lending institution to working as a cashier in a stop and rob in a matter of a week due to corporate downsizing. Did I hate the job? Sure. I live in a small town and several of the customers were people I knew. But it kept $$ coming in until I could recover and start fresh.
You can also consider a yard sale, or putting some junk up on eBay. That will get cash flowing so you can pay bills and eat, from that you need to build up an emergency fund of $500-1000. Next step is to build up about 6 months of expenses in a savings account that you don't touch unless you need it. This will give you room to breath while you work on your business ventures part time. Once your business is going strong and you have that savings put back, you can work full time on your own interests.
I wish you luck.
P.S. I was being tongue in cheek with the "hero" comment. I know being a staff photog. is hard work, and there's nothing really glamourous about it. It's just another shoot. But you know, as I do, that every kid who ever looked through a viewfinder dreamed of photographing Playboy bunnies, or getting a news shot on the cover of Time.
Dick,
Daniel, I just caught your last post while I was typing this one. I failed to lower expenses by moving out of my 5,000 square foot studio back in 1998 or so and into a smaller one. However, given the current photography market, I'm certain that moving alone would not have saved my business. The photographers I know in the area who I consider my competition have cut expenses severely, but are still just hanging on. One I know is $500,000 in debt, although he does have a couple of years of equity in a small building that he bought.
The advantage I have now, if I can get the studio I'm freelancing for to come back to the table with a guarantee of work, is that there's no money going out.
So the main component that you're not addressing is that owning your own photography business is HIGHLY risky in today's market. That industry-wide, expenses may be down, but so are revenues. IMHO, $40K/year is NOT worth the amount of risk, and stress from the risk, that you're enduring. It is awesome that you're recognized but if you can't even sleep at night, who cares? There comes a point where the risk of doing something can be overwhelming. I'm not trying to focus on the negatives but don't miss them by repeating positives over and over.
And I think what Barbara is trying to say is that: past performance doesn't equal future results, that you can still do photo/SEO on the side while maintaining a "normal" job, that a lot of people have talents but have to work normal jobs, and that life throws us all curveballs (we can't be successful in every venture we try).
Daniel, at this point, I don't have a photography business. And I wouldn't have one, given the risk that you recognize. I work part-time for a studio that hires only one freelance photographer: me. That's one of my part-time jobs.
If I haven't already made it clear, let me respond to your point about past performance versus future results: I'm not going to make the kind of money in photography that I did just a few years ago.
But all this goes back to my original questions. This studio needs me to shoot when their salaried staff photographer is booked. I need to get an agreement from them that, in exchange for my freelancing for nobody but them, I get at least X number of days of work per month.
Is that a reasonable or unreasonable idea?
I guess I view freelancing the same as owning your own business. Getting an agreement is entirely reasonable. If they expect you to be "on-call" then they should agree to at least provide you with a minimum amount of guaranteed work. If they are unable to provide the work, I would negotiate for some sort of minimum compensation. Otherwise, they'll take advantage of you and your availability.
And, as for the internet company, I need to get some sort of agreement that any sales presentation work I do outside of my regular job functions must be compensated for.
Is that a reasonable proposal?
I think that is also reasonable. All you're asking for is to get paid for work that you do. It isn't like you're working a partnership where you'll later benefit greatly from your work. You're providing a company with service NOW and you should be compensated for it.
Daniel, in my above post I mentioned that I'll make probably $40K this year. Not a lot, but it's close to what most "normal" people around here with normal jobs make.
IOW, I'm already "normal." (Well, many folks would disagree).
If I take on a generic job doing "something" for a something company, I'm reducing the hours that I can devote to SEO work, and pretty much ruling out any photography work. (All of this assumes that I can convince the owners of both companies to fairly compensate me for work that I do outside of our mutually-understood prior agreements).
Doing something for a something company will pay what? I'm not familiar with going rates for non-skilled workers. I only know what my neighbors make, and they make about $40K a year for jobs that require little or no education. Factory or warehouse work. Cops, teachers, and pharmacists obviously make much more.
I wouldn't say you're "normal" in that you seem overly stressed out. I LOVE to play guitar, but I know that I can't make any money doing it. I'd much rather go to work, come home, and jam for a few hours. It would be give and take though if you decided to do SEO/Photo just on the side. My wife for example shoots a wedding every few months. She makes good money at her regular job. So photo is a source of extra income with the weddings and also a form of artistic expression (she spends most of her time taking art-oriented pictures).
One thing I left out of the above post where I detailed what I'm paid is that the studio I freelance for pays me $250 a day to shoot new photos for my portfolio. The sales reps are on my tail for new work to show, but I'm at a point where the new photos I shoot just aren't resonating with the buyers. So, the lack of response bothers me, and that feeds on itself.
Try doing some needs-oriented questioning with the buyers. What DOES resonate with them? Ask them to describe what could be better about the shots? It could be something that is easily fixed.
I have an agreement with a photo studio that they will pay me $500 per day to come out and shoot for them. However, they haven't had enough work to provide me with a steady income stream. They've also had me come out and work on testing for new clients, but those testing days are for free. Is it in my best interest to sit down with them and negotiate an arrangement where I'm guaranteed a certain number of days from a photo assignment that I helped test for? Or that I should be given at least X number of days per month, regardless of whether or not their salaried staff shooter is busy, just so that I can continue to be available to them?
Personally, I would charge a very modest hourly rate for testing. That way you're not working for free and that it shows the studio that your time is valued. On top of that, I would take the average number of days/month that you're actually shooting and ask them for some kind of guarantee that you would get say 6 days of shooting per month, otherwise they pay you 6-X*Y, with X being the number of days you actually shot and Y being some reduced rate.
I have an agreement with an internet outfit that I will work on their clients' sites for $600 a month per client, doing all that I've learned about SEO. Unless the owner of the company is completely hosing me, I see a lot of growth potential here. But I must insist on being paid for work outside of the SEO realm. Reasonable or no?
If you're working outside of what you're specifically getting paid for, you should be compensated for it. If I were a lawyer and I had a drug case where I was paid $2500 and then the client got into a DUI situation, I wouldn't do the DUI for free. They'd have to pony up the extra cash.
I also have another business--Gunshopfinder.com--which is bringing in money. Thanks to my SEO skills, the site brings in enough to pay the mortgage and utilities, and then a bit more. And the revenue from the site is growing, although at a slower pace than I expected (if I can't make the phone calls because I'm doing free work for someone else, that's why).
The photography industry is dying, but with the right agreement, I can continue to generate income from that while I grow the SEO and Gunshopfinder.com revenues.
That is good stuff!
Or, I can go do a generic job. And hope that I get a raise every year. (Yeah, that's the risk-taking side of me being snide).
My personal strategy is to get my MBA, work in the financial industry with a high salary, then eventually start my own holding company. Having a regular job isn't too bad of an idea as long as you have a plan.