#018 Steal My 6 Essentials to Create a Solid Business Foundation

Mastering Your Creative Business: Essential Tips for Success

Join Keith and Melissa, seasoned photography business owners, as they explore the essential components of building and managing a successful creative business.

This episode covers critical topics, including setting up the right business structure, effective management and bookkeeping with tools like 17 Hats and QuickBooks, and the benefits of hiring a bookkeeper. Gain insights into transparent pricing strategies, the importance of contracts, showcasing your work, and maintaining a professional image.

Perfect for both newcomers and experienced professionals, this episode provides practical advice to solidify your business foundation, streamline operations, and ensure long-term success and client satisfaction.

17Hats
Quickbooks

00:00 Understanding Your Worth: Don't Undercharge!
00:11 Introduction to Keith and Melissa
00:25 Setting Up Your Creative Business
00:57 Business Designation: Choosing the Right Structure
02:12 The Importance of Insurance
04:04 The Necessity of a Business Bank Account
05:24 Establishing Client Policies
06:47 Basic Bookkeeping: The Cornerstone of Your Business
12:18 Essential Tools for Business Management
14:05 The Importance of Basic Pricing
15:16 Creating a Transparent Pricing Structure
18:17 The Necessity of Having a Contract
19:17 Showcasing Your Work Professionally
21:30 Responding to Client Inquiries Promptly
23:04 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

Understand what you should charge. Please please please. Do not undercharge. Do not underestimate what your time is worth and how much time is invested on your end for what you offer.

Welcome. We're Keith and Melissa, photography business owners for more than 25 years. And our mission is to help you find the success you want. And we know firsthand the role that mindset plays in figuring it all out. Now, today's episode. 

Okay, my fellow wedding creatives, today we want to talk about the basics of setting up a creative business from the outset.

Whether you're brand new and starting a business, or you have been doing this for a while, having a solid foundation for your business is critical for long term success. There are six categories that are foundational for a business to have in place. In my humble opinion. So here we go. Where do you start when you're getting your business off the ground or ready to professionalize your existing business?

Let's start with number one, the basics.

Number one of number one, the designation for your business. Many smaller businesses opt to be sole proprietors in the beginning, but there are partnerships, corporations, and LLC options to think of depending on the type of business you have.

 I would consult the advice of A CPA to help you make this determination and what you decide in the early stages of your business can always be changed.

But I 1000% always advise to seek professional advice and of course to do your own research so that you're prepared when you do talk to the professionals

I also highly recommend getting a CPA on board at the outset. Maybe you think you aren't ready or big enough yet for this professional, but believe me, their fees pay for themselves. You want their knowledge on your side, especially when it comes to difficult tax questions and other issues that can pop up throughout the year.

 And of course, at tax time, they're a huge help,

and I'm sure you may be sitting there thinking

, look, Melissa, how do I know if I need all of this? This just seems like too much. But I'm talking about the foundational stuff here. When you start your business at the beginning, instead of just jumping in, it would be great if you started it the right way.

That way you can adapt and change as time goes on. But start with a solid foundation. And that will certainly help you go further faster.

So after you've figured out your name, the name of your business, and what type of business structure you have, now it's time to get insurance. I can't tell you how many established fellow creative business owners I know that do not have insurance or are underinsured.

They don't have enough insurance. Regardless of what creative profession that you're in, think of all the gear that you have. Imagine it gets stolen, or imagine working at a venue and somebody trips over your light stand or box of flowers and gets injured.

These are things that can make or break your business. 

And in fact, a lot of venues require you to have insurance. So it's something that even if you choose not to get insurance, there's going to be somebody in your foreseeable future that's going to ask you for it and you're going to have to get it anyway. So start with it at the outset for your own protection.

And please, please, please make sure that you follow through on getting insurance.

Not only can insurance protect you in the event of theft, you will also need insurance to work in certain venues, as I just said, and other premises.

And beyond just these two reasons, there's so much more to an insurance policy that can protect you in the event of all sorts of things that can happen or go wrong. None of us want to think this can happen, but unfortunately it does. , you could leave your camera bag sitting at a somebody runs away with it.

Your DJ equipment could be stolen, your flowers ruined, you could have your car stolen and you had a bunch of your gear in there, laptops, you name it. So just protect your valuables, protect yourself, protect against liability. You want to make sure that you're well protected. And once you have employees, there'll be other insurance concerns. But for now, I'm assuming that you're starting as a sole proprietor, you're starting this business by yourself, or you're currently operating a business on your own with no employees.

 There's a lot to talk about with insurance, including health insurance, workers comp, and everything else. But right now, we're going to keep it simple, and we're talking about just making sure you have the insurance we spoke of.

And the last thing I want to mention in the basic section is that it's imperative to have a bank account for your business. Even if you're a sole proprietor, have a separate bank account. I cannot stress this enough. Set up a business account for the one and only purpose of being used for your business.

This will save you so many headaches down the road, especially at tax time, and more specifically, understanding your business, your income and expenses, and what is the overall health of your business can be seen so clearly, especially in the beginning, just by looking at your bank statements,

Can you imagine if you had to fish out your business expenses from your personal checking account? 

You just want to know these numbers from the absolute beginning of your business. At any point in your business, you have to know your numbers.

 And when you're at the beginning, these are imperative numbers to know, like how much are you making? Are you paying yourself? And the numbers can clearly be seen when you have your own checking account designated solely for your business. Now with these three items taken care of, you've taken the first steps to professionalize your business and get the foundation you need.

By now, you're probably bored to tears with this podcast episode, this is definitely not the sexy stuff. It's not the fun stuff,

this is the stuff you really, really need. You have to professionalize your business. And the sooner you do that, the easier a successful business will be.

Number two, establish your policies. Think of your policies from the potential client's perspective. What do they need to know from you and about you? This is helpful to do ahead of time because it outlines what your client experience will be. What are your timelines? What is your turnaround time?

Do you require a retainer? What is your cancellation policy? Your rescheduling policy? How can they order from you? What is your policy on last minute changes before the wedding day? What happens if the wedding runs over? How much do you charge for extra services like late pickup, early drop off? Do you take credit cards, cash, Venmo, checks?

You definitely don't want to be making up these policies on the fly.

Again, we're professionalizing every part of your business. Your policies remaining consistent from client to client is a big one. That doesn't mean they aren't going to evolve as your business does, but you need to start with a core set to get you going. I guess my main point here is like, look, if somebody contacts you and you don't have an answer and you're fishing around thinking, oh my goodness, what is the answer?

It just doesn't look good. So make sure you have, maybe it's a Q& A on your website or a PDF or something like that, but make sure you cover the basics so that you're not kind of reinventing the wheel every time somebody reaches out to you and wants to know what your policies are when it comes to booking you for the services that you offer.

You have to make it easy for them to work with you. 

Number three, basic bookkeeping.

Another fun one, but please don't turn me off now. But these are all extremely important and you don't have to listen to this episode all at once. And I think I may chunk these out piece by piece and elaborate on them in separate podcast episodes because just glossing over them like this, it's too light.

So if and when you want to spend more time on it. I'm definitely a numbers gal, so I'll be going over this in much more depth. So again, number three is basic bookkeeping. This is the cornerstone of your business, hands down. You have the bank account set up and now you need to set up your basic bookkeeping. This is where most of our clients get overwhelmed for sure.

Finance and money may not be their strength, but I promise this is not as challenging as you may think, especially with the help of something like an app or a program like QuickBooks and other bookkeeping software. These bookkeeping practices are what powers your business.

Knowing and understanding your numbers is paramount to having a successful long term business. And so a business management software like 17 hats can keep track of your scheduling and also your contracts, your quotes, stuff like that. 

 But it is also a basic bookkeeping system as well. And it ties in perfectly with QuickBooks. So for me, because our business is a little bit more complex at this point, I use them My bookkeeper uses them in conjunction with one another. Other friends use HoneyBook, Excel Spreadsheets, which I think is an absolute time killer. , using Excel is fine when you're very simple and you only have a handful of jobs, , but when you start taking multiple jobs with multiple payments and multiple locations, it gets complicated.

 And an Excel spreadsheet is wonderful. I love Excel, but honestly, you're going to need something more robust. And unfortunately, Excel just doesn't cut it when it comes to automation. And I do have other friends in the creative field that actually handwrite their information into notebooks, and that works for them. They can tell me right off the top if I ask them how their business is doing, what type of money they're making, what are their income and expenses.

They can actually answer me because they've taken very diligent copious notes in these notebooks about their income and expense, and they know right off the top of their head what's going on in their business.

And really, the main point of having a bookkeeping system is not to complicate it. It's to actually make your life easier. And it's for you to be able, on a moment's notice, to know what your business is doing, what it looks like. , and for me, it's about profit and loss.

Like, I really want to know all the work that we're doing is paying off. , are we getting the return on our time like we should?

And, and this is something that if you start out always looking at your numbers and Always having a good bookkeeping system, you will get to see your business grow right in front of you. You're going to be looking at month over month, season over season, year over year numbers and seeing your growth and seeing your profit margin.

And you can break it down to see what you're spending on gear and what your sales are for a particular product offering, a particular month, however you want to break it down. It's going to give you all of this information.

And again, if you do do something simple, like keeping track of it in notebooks, which is great. You get to choose personally how you want to create your bookkeeping system. But for me, I prefer something a little bit more automated because I'd rather just click a button and run reports and also just turn it over to my CPA at the end of the year.

I personally strongly recommend using something like QuickBooks for a multitude of reasons. Photography, in my case, is the type of business that can quickly get out of control. But so can floral, wedding planning, video, stationery, small jobs, big jobs, multiple jobs, and whatever your niche is. How do you keep track of clients, retainers, open balances, etc.?

And a good bookkeeping system is worth its weight in gold. I cannot stress that enough. If it's not something you personally want to stay on top of because you were intimidated or don't have the time, then I recommend hiring a bookkeeper for a small business. Like a new creative business, we're talking like maybe 50 a month.

And honestly, even for a slightly busier business, maybe you're looking at max like a hundred dollars a month, and again, that is money well spent, just like the CPA, this person is going to be on top of your bank statements, on top of your receivables, on top of everything. Every single thing that's coming in and out of your business.

They are going to alert you if a payment wasn't received instead of it all falling on you. Again, as a solopreneur, you are the person doing it all. Which is where the 17 hats name comes from. You're wearing every single hat in your business, from marketing to finance to accounts receivable, basic bookkeeping, everything.

You are the person showing up to do the work, but you're also the person delivering the goods and doing most things for your business yourself. I mean, you are literally doing it all. So if you can have peace of mind for 50 a month that somebody's on top of your bookkeeping, I think it's money well spent, 

it's something that pays for itself.

Just consider, if you make one error overlooking an open balance, or losing track of payments, or retainer deposits, , things start getting crazy quickly. Just another thing you have to worry about, or add to your huge pile of things to do. So again, I realize that money's short in the beginning or when you're not making enough money, , but sometimes there's money well spent and I think having a bookkeeper that does the basics is definitely one of those must spends in my opinion. When you think you have the money to spare, the 17 Hats Honey Book Combo with QuickBooks works seamlessly and you can find links to all of this on our website.

I list every resource and tool that we've used for years. And for us, for me personally, 17 hats, I think it's been out for maybe a little over a decade at this point and QuickBooks I've been using for 25 or 30 years. I can't even believe I'm admitting that. So that's something that over the years I've come to know very, very well. And I think it's a great, easy, easy user friendly way to handle your bookkeeping.

And what I like about the Seventeen Hats QuickBooks combo is that it syncs to each other as well as to my calendar, , making everything so easy to keep on top of. So I keep such a tidy set of books and can check at any point to see the status of a client or look back at old quotes, accepted quotes, accepted quotes.

Invoices are generated automatically when somebody accepts the quote. The client uses their online portal with 17 hats. Say a repeat client contacts you for a big multi day job. And I can't remember what the breadth of the work was and what we quoted the last time. Well, I can look right there and I can see this is exactly what we did. This was the scope of the work. This is what we quoted. This is what they accepted.

This is what they paid. And it just gives you historical data, and it also helps you if you had another client that contacted you for something similar and you wanted to see what you quoted for that type of work.

And the beauty of 17 Hats, the quoting, the contracts, the invoicing, the payments, everything is 100 percent online, making it so easy for not only you to look at everything, but also for your bookkeeper to reconcile everything.

I know we all have so many monthly charges and so many things come with certain monthly charges that are invaluable to you. If you check our website under resources, you're going to see these names show up the tools that we highly recommend because

it's what keeps our business running and keeps me from being awake at night. 

Number four. Basic pricing.

 Please, please, please do not get stuck here and not get your business off the ground because you don't have your pricing structure in place.

I feel like pricing is one of the number one concerns with creatives. And I know this is a big topic to make sense of, but get a basic price list together that you can easily share with your potential clients. 

It's another one of those must haves to professionalize your business. You can have your pricing as a hidden page on your website that you share the link with those that ask. Or maybe you create a pdf to share with those who inquire. way you want to create the pricing canvas is a great option.

Just create something. Make it super easy on yourself, but please make sure it's something that you can easily send out to people who inquire. There's nothing worse than asking for someone's pricing and getting an, um, I'll get back to you type of response. And it's also transparency, sharing pricing, all the pricing as well, so that people can see upfront what you charge.

Please remember, don't be afraid to have full disclosure with your pricing. You should not be hiding anything. We always want full disclosure so that your clients are not blindsided after you share your pricing. I was just speaking with one of my newer clients Who is just getting her photography business off the ground.

And she happened to mention that she herself had a family session recently and was kind of shocked , she thought she had paid for what she wanted. And then after the session, the photographer hit her with a whole series of different costs that she was going to have to incur in order to order for her to get prints with the digital files.

She had to pay extra for editing and stuff like that. Things that she had no idea were going to show up after the fact. So I'd like to know that ahead of time, wouldn't you? How the photographer shared that ahead of time. I'm sure this client would be a happy, would be a happier customer right now.

I try to treat our clients like I would want to be treated. And also on a business note, I mean, you are in business to make money. Like we're not nonprofits. So if you're not up front with your clients ahead of time, you're probably losing sales.

And if they don't know what to expect every step of the way that can backfire. Just be up front. 

I don't know why people hide certain things about their pricing, I don't know if it's that they don't completely understand their own value, or they're afraid to put it out into the universe, so they don't want other people to know, maybe they think they're going to be judged, whatever hang up there is with pricing, that's something I'm going to go over in much more detail. And please just know your basic pricing structure and be able to share that as easily as possible so that if someone inquires, get started with them and get them into your universe.

we don't want sticker shock. We want to use the price list to pre sell and prepare your clients for what it is like to work with you. Every step of the way. Another note on creating pricing, this is a huge topic that needs to be covered at great length, but I can't stress this enough. You need to understand what you should charge. Please please please. Do not undercharge. Do not underestimate what your time is worth and how much time is invested on your end for what you offer.

One of my first exercises I like to have my clients do is to make a list of every single thing that goes into working with you. Add all that time up. Come up with a number and say including emails, delivering the contract, driving around, trips back and forth, the actual job, assembling, creating, editing, setting up, emailing again, phone calls, etc.

How many hours does it take for each part of what you do or what you deliver?

A great starting point to understand how your business is doing and what you're paying yourself is to know what you make per hour to work in your own business. What would you have to pay somebody else to come in and do the job for you?

But like I said, this is a huge topic and I plan on going over it in much greater detail because I know it's a sticking point for many of us.

Please have a pricelist that can be shared ahead of a meeting or discussing working together. I promise you will be so helpful and create more of a professional feel for your clients and your sales will be better.

, more on this topic, lots more coming up in another podcast episode. 

Number five, have a contract. This is a must. All of these that we're talking about are musts, but this protects you in the event a client cancels or doesn't live up to their end of your agreement.

It should also include anything you deem relevant, including your expectations and policies, retainers and any payment information And remember, include in your contract anything else you deem important. For us, we felt that items like photographer substitution, and in the event that one of us became ill, favorable cancellation policy, of course, that protected us, and other miscellaneous items like, we can't guarantee a specific shot, we use our artistic freedoms, which of course should be why they hired us in the first place, but sometimes they forget what your style is, and what they're looking for. But whatever things are specific to what's important to what you do, that's what needs to be in your contract.

And anyway, to put this all out on the table in the contract, I think is very sound advice. 

That way there's no misunderstanding and everyone's happy.

Number six. Your client has to see your work. So this can be a website. This can be Instagram or some other way to share your work with potential clients.

This is your calling card. Don't forget that people need to see images or videos of what it is that you do. And when it comes to being a professional, they have to see evidence of your professionalization. 

We have to show what sets you apart. You don't need to work on this endlessly and never get your business off the ground because you don't think you have enough to show. Believe me, I know a lot of people like that, 

they feel like, I don't have enough of this, or I don't have enough of that. They just stay stuck and don't get their business moving forward. Therefore, their business just sits there. It just stagnates and they don't put up their website or they're afraid to. They don't share anything on Instagram because they don't have enough of what they want to show.

That things aren't perfect. At the end of the day, start showing something because you have to get the ball rolling. Whatever it is you do, just put visual evidence out there somewhere so people can start finding you.

If you literally sit and wait, it's never going to happen. And a website can have one gorgeous photo. You literally could have one gorgeous photo that they land on. That explains everything you do, whether that's invitations, DJ. wedding planner, photographer, whatever your niche is, make sure that they can see that.

Make sure that they understand exactly what you do. As long as there's information, you have your policies in place and you're ready to respond like a professional to their emails and show up professionally. Your potential client needs to feel that they've come across a pro.

Even if you're brand new or transitioning to a new niche, you have to present yourself in the most professional light possible. This also includes, in my opinion, a real email address. That's a big sticking point for me. I can't stand it when people have their personal email in my opinion, a real email address says a lot about you. The story needs to go something like this. Client is looking for a creative in the wedding industry. They Google the niche or search on Instagram. They come across a beautiful site or feed that has the look of what they want.

And it seems professional, they take that next step. They reach out to you via the email, hopefully the professional email that goes with your brand. And this is really big. And you get back to them quickly. I'm talking about within 12 hours quickly, not a couple of days, not a couple of weeks, but within a day at the very longest.

This, my friends, is the number one way for you to start booking more clients. You've actually responded to their inquiry. It sounds so intuitive, right? Somebody reaches out to you, you get back to them, you book a client, and the rest is history.

This is something I hear all the time from our clients. People don't get back to them, but because you have policies in place and a pricing page to share , and wow them with your professionalism, you get the job.

We have heard over and over for over two decades that we were one of the few people to respond in a timely manner. I can't wrap my head around this. Everyone wants more clients and when clients actually reach out, it's crickets.

It makes no sense. I don't know. I don't get it. There's absolutely no excuse in the world not to get back to a client within a reasonable amount of time.

Anyway, this is another example of showing professionalism. I hate to say this because it's going to sound like I'm oversimplifying how hard it is to consistently maintain a profitable and prosperous business, but a lot of what works are these basics, these simple things.

, I would scream it from the rooftops. If anyone would listen, these small things, literally being on top of your customer service, responding to people quickly and professionally. And I'm going to say happily, because obviously we all have lives and there's things getting in the way. But, you know, to have a good attitude when you get back to people, these small things go a very, very long way.

 Keith and I have a well oiled machine and we have the six things that I just went over. We didn't have it at the beginning, but we definitely figured things out the hard way.

I definitely believe the success of our business for the long term is because we had these six things in place. So that is what creates a well oil machine and that will become a booking machine for you in no time. I promise you. Honestly, when you show up professionalized like this with clients and do good work, they will start raving about you.

This will be the beginnings of your prosperous creative business having a sustainable business for the long term. , thanks for listening. I'm looking forward to diving in deeper on some of these topics. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to this episode all the way to the end. Bye bye.

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