Bonus Video: 3 Ways to Stay in Business Longer Than 6 Months
Lesson 2 from: Accounting for PhotographersCraig Heidemann
Bonus Video: 3 Ways to Stay in Business Longer Than 6 Months
Lesson 2 from: Accounting for PhotographersCraig Heidemann
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2. Bonus Video: 3 Ways to Stay in Business Longer Than 6 Months
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Lesson Info
Bonus Video: 3 Ways to Stay in Business Longer Than 6 Months
Hi, I'm craig, heideman and here's. Three tips to stay in business for longer than six months it's commonly known that started businesses including service industry service industry businesses like photographers, really have about a fifty five percent chance of not making it to your two. It gets better in the earth two and you're three, but still the odds are stacked against you all the way up to your five so three things that you can do to make sure that you're in business as long as possible, and obviously that starts number one with getting a contract between you and your clients. Now, a lot of aa lot of times in this fast paced world, we really don't have an opportunity to sit down with their clients, find out what they want, let them understand what we want is photographers on dh yet we've got the contract and the contract can help us put all of that in one package and it's part of what I call the essential legal work flow now an essential legal work flow is something that you do ...
every time, so you don't have to remember what to do every time. It's all in your contract now everybody thinks the contract is to be unique to every job, but contracts one size fits most. And so I have my contract, for instance, at every wedding I know I'm going to have time to eat, and I'm going to get fed. Why? Because I put it in my contract, I know I'm not going to get sent into the back to eat with help to ruin my creative eye because it's in my contract that I get to eat with everybody there now, who wants to go in the back at a wedding and eat with the help I don't, and I know I don't have to worry about that because I put it in my contract. I also tell my clients when I expect to be paid, how I expect to be paid, that they have to come meet with me before doing a gig and let me know what their expectations are in that way, there's no misunderstandings, so having a contract that you use every time is super important, and if you do that that's one step in the strategy to being successful on being around for year two now, the second thing is we're going to make sure that you understand how important accounting is a photographer let's face it photographers are not good at business and because we recognize that and we're honest with ourselves, we're going to make sure that we understand how to track our money and how to measure our success, because who wants to dive into a new business and commit all of the hours and all of the time and all of the money to try and be successful and not be able to gauge whether or not we're actually meeting our goals and accounting is the language of business and it helps us understand whether we are being successful from a profit and loss standpoint and if we find at the end of a given year that we're making less money than we would have had we applied for and obtained the job is the greeter at the local wal mart we might want to re adjust how we're running our business, so having a great relationship with an accountant is the second step tio making sure that your business is going to thrive for years to come now the third step is knowing what your responsibilities are when dealing with employees and independent contractors. Many people dive in and they hire employees or the higher second shooters to help them, and they don't understand what they're getting themselves into. Whether it's the requirement in your state that you provide workers compensation insurance, whether you have to withhold taxes and pay those to state and federal governments whether or not you even own the copyright to the work that they're creating every time they press the shutter button so understanding what you're getting into when you hire independent contractors and employees is super important you'll need to understand the irs is twenty factor test it's simple to find out what kinds of things the irs will look at in deciding whether or not you've correctly classified your second shooter's an independent contractor or an employee so just google, irs dot gov and twenty factor employees, you'll pull it up and you can read through it and find out the things that the government will look at to determine whether or not you're playing fair with them. So, finally, as far as employees were concerned, you have to have a copyright assignment from your independent editors. There is a work for hire exception, but generally speaking, if you have a true independent contractor when they push the button on the shutter, they own the copyright and obviously you hope to sell their work to your clients and perhaps use it for studio promotion. So making sure that you've got a rock solid independent contractor agreement will solidify your relationship with your employees and your independent contractors and avoid misunderstand. So take those three tips and go be successful, and I look forward to hearing how successful you are in years two and three of your business. I'm craig heideman, thanks for your time.
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