December 30, 2023 • 23 mins
Transform your entrepreneurial dreams into a profitable reality as I recount the pivotal shift from my desk-bound day job to a flourishing photography venture in the concluding part of our mini-series, "Lessons from a Day Job." Embrace the art of annual budgeting and learn how it can be your secret weapon for financial stability and long-term success. It's not just about the numbers; it's about aligning your fiscal strategies with your business goals to create consistent six-figure revenues. Listen in, and I'll show you how strategic resource allocation and expense management played a pivotal role in my journey, and how you can apply these lessons to turn your passion into prosperity.
As the curtains draw on this 3-part series, I delve into the essentials of crafting a workable, flexible, stress-relieving budget for your business. Discover how to navigate income predictions and expense management with ease, because a well-defined budget shouldn't be intimidating—it should be empowering! By breaking down the importance of revenue categorization, seasonal booking projections, and a payment structure that ensures a steady cash flow, I lay out the roadmap to a financially sound future for your business. You'll walk away with actionable strategies to transform budgeting from a chore into a source of joy.
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(Use promo code BOP for 90% off our Annual Calendar through Jan. 15!)
College101 (FREE 5-Day Mini Course): https://www.square8studio.com/college101
17 Ways to Make Money: https://www.square8studio.com/17ways
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to the Bop the business of
photography podcast with RobGreen, a photographer to
contagiously positive clientsand fierce believer in building
people-focused businesses thatleave a lasting impact.
If you're an entrepreneur withdreams in your head, ideas in
your heart and passions burningdeep down in your soul, this is
the perfect place to be, becausethis is where dreams come to
(00:33):
thrive.
So are you ready to build yourbusiness, wow your clients and
make photo magic?
Here's your host, rob Green.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Aw, coming at you from DFW Texas.
You are listening to the Bop.
Happy New Year, friends.
It is right around the corner.
We are about to turn the pageon 2023, heading into 2024.
My name is Rob, so glad to haveyou with us for this third part
of a three-part mini-series ofepisodes, all about lessons from
(01:04):
a day job, things that Ilearned in years and years and
years of sitting at a desk andworking in jobs that were not my
current job, hoping to one daybe able to do the job that I do
now for a living running my ownbusiness.
Because y'all, it can be hard.
And you have this dream, thismassive dream to run your own
(01:26):
business, create your own life,your own schedule, your own
rhythms.
It's just sitting out there onthe horizon as this thing you're
reaching for and you want it sobad.
And yet you feel so stuck inthe realities of the current
position you're in that currentjob, the stability of the bills
that get paid because of thatjob.
(01:48):
Y'all it can be hard.
I get it.
I've been there.
I created this series of threelessons from a day job to be
able to help those of you thatwant 2024 to be the year that
you're able to go full-time withyour business.
To be able to do that To showsome of the lessons that I
learned that as I put these intopractice really made a massive
(02:09):
difference for me in being ableto grow a business that has been
successful now for eightstraight years, that has brought
in six-figure revenue for eightstraight years.
I want that for you too, and so, if you haven't caught up on
the previous two parts of thisthree-part series, if you're
just jumping in for the firsttime today, I want to encourage
(02:30):
you to go back and check outparts one and part two.
In part one, we covered planningyour calendar and the ways that
I organize my calendar eachDecember, early January, to be
able to prep for the year ahead.
Then, in part two, we talkabout planning your marketing,
because once you have a calendarin place and you have this
overarching picture of what'sgoing to be going on in your
(02:50):
business in the year ahead, it'seasier to start working out in
advance and planning themarketing for these things that
you want to do in your businessthis year.
And finally, today we are goingto be talking about planning
your budget.
Y'all this one is huge becauseyou can plan all the great
things you want to plan.
You can market it however youwant to market it, but at the
end of the day, if the dollarsaren't there to keep the
(03:12):
business profitable, you'reprobably not going to be doing
this for very long, and so,y'all, I want to give you some
incredible, just frameworks andprinciples that I use when
planning out my budget each yearthat will help you to be more
profitable in the year ahead.
Now, all of this is based offthe calendar that I put together
(03:32):
.
So if you haven't checked outthose episodes, one of the
things I talk about in both ofthese first two episodes is the
calendar that I use.
I use both an annual and aquarterly calendar that I've
created to do all of my planning, and I'm giving you guys 90%
off my personal annual calendarthrough January 15th.
So if you want to takeadvantage of that, go to
(03:53):
square8studiocom slash calendarand when you go to check out on
that annual calendar, put inpromo code BOP and it'll be good
through January 15th.
It'll take 90% off the price.
I'm trying to bring this thingas close to free as we possibly
can for you guys so that you canbe set up for success in the
year ahead, but all my budgetplanning is based off and built
around the calendar that I'vealready planned out at this
(04:16):
point.
Now, like I said, these seriesof episodes are called lessons
from a day job, and so I want tokick off today's episode with
the lesson that I learned aboutbudgeting from my day job, and
this is the lesson that Ilearned artist budget by the gig
, ceos budget by the year.
Here's how I learned thislesson when I first got to Fort
(04:38):
Worth, texas, the job that I hadwas working at a church and, as
I mentioned in the last episode, I asked my boss if I could
spend my opening weeks at thisjob simply working on a plan for
the future, which meant that Iwas getting into all the ins and
outs of budgeting what kinds ofresources were allocated to
which parts of the budget andwhat I found was we had a budget
(05:01):
for this youth ministry thatwas maybe 30 students at the
time.
That was as large as the budgetthat I had for a youth ministry
of 800 to a thousand studentsback in Atlanta, and so I
started looking through thenumbers and going where is all
this money going?
(05:22):
And what I found was it wasgoing to this one big event that
was happening at the start ofthe year that everybody loved so
much and were so excited about.
The only problem was, over theyears, it had drifted to
becoming something that a bunchof other churches brought all
their students to but weren'tputting in any money towards.
We were putting in all themoney, they were bringing their
(05:44):
students to benefit from it, andit wasn't doing anything to
help our our students grow andreach their friends.
So ultimately, what I realizedwas we had the resources to put
out an entire year's worth ofprogramming for our students If
we would just start to be morestrategic about how we spent our
dollars on this one big eventat the start of the year.
(06:06):
But what does this have to dowith running your photography
business?
Fantastic question, fairquestion.
When I started looking at takingmy photography business full
time, I went around and askedall of my photography friends
questions about how they runtheir business.
Maybe you have photographyfriends in your world You've
been doing something similarwith.
(06:26):
I was looking for themes in thethings that successful people
were doing and themes that theunsuccessful people were
struggling with.
As I did this, what I realizedwas all of my friends that were
really stressed out and notenjoying themselves as
photographers had two problems.
Number one they were buriedunder the weight of all of their
(06:48):
editing piles.
They had gotten behind on theirediting.
So I made a real quickcommitment I'm not ever going to
get behind on editing.
But more to the point oftoday's conversation, all of my
friends that were strugglingfinancially with their business
were all living from gig to gig.
They were living from bookingto booking.
They would say things like if Ican just book one more wedding,
I can get that lens.
(07:08):
If I can just book one morefamily session, then I can get a
new iPhone.
Everything was based around ifI can just get one more of these
things, then I can buy one moreof these things.
All right.
But then on the other side ofthe equation, I was thinking
about what I was learning at myday job.
(07:29):
And at my day job, every year wehad to submit a budget for
approval.
This budget had to reflect allof the income that we planned to
bring in from events, fromt-shirt sales, from anything
else we had going on that wouldgenerate revenue, but it also
had to reflect all the expensesthat we would have along the way
.
If we were planning to put onan event, we had to go and
(07:49):
pre-calculate and pre-determinemonths in advance what we were
going to spend that money on.
And what I found was by takingtime each summer to develop this
budget, to submit to someoneelse for approval, to check and
put eyeballs on and go yes, thislooks good, this looks
realistic.
It allowed us to make a planfor a year and then work that
(08:12):
plan all year long, knowing thatas long as we hit our marks on
income and expenses each time,we were going to be just fine
budget-wise.
And then what that also allowedus the freedom to do was, if we
brought in more income or wereable to be better stewards of
our expenses than we had planned, we could go back to the people
over us and say, hey, we havesome additional revenue.
(08:34):
We have this dream that wewould like to go after of a
certain event or a certain giftfor students, whatever it might
be.
We had the freedom to go and dothose things because we beat
our budget projections, and thatmeant for me, as I was starting
to plan my business, I said,gosh, I don't want to be like
(08:55):
all my friends that arestruggling, trying to make a
booking so they can buy a phone.
I want to be more like thisbusiness that I've been working
for that takes time each year tosit down and plan for their
income, to plan for theirexpenses, so that every month,
throughout that year, every daythroughout that year that
follows, they're actuallyworking off a plan and they're
(09:18):
working with intentionality andbeing good stewards of the
resources at their disposal.
Because when you're a goodsteward of your resources, your
resources can go a lot farther.
I must say that again, whenyou're a good steward of your
resources, your resources can goa lot farther, and that's why
(09:38):
this budgeting exercise that I'mabout to walk you through, that
I do each December, can bereally influential for your
business in the year ahead.
So, again, our underlying themehere, our bop bite for the day,
is that artists budget by thegig, but CEOs budget by the year
, and that's what we're going todo is walk through how I budget
each year.
This is an exercise that I havejust gone through myself and
(10:02):
have worked out for the yearahead and I'm really excited
about because we've got somereally exciting initiatives on
the agenda for 2024.
And I wanted to know that I hadthe resources to be able to
fund those initiatives.
Let's start with income, because, let's be honest, it's way more
fun to make money than to spendmoney.
We don't like seeing the moneyflying out the window.
(10:22):
We like seeing it come in thedoor so that we have it for the
things that we need to be ableto spend money on.
Here's the question I want topose to you when it comes to
your income Is $1,000 a month agood month or a bad month?
Some of you right now are goingthat would be a phenomenal
month If I could bring in $1,000every month.
That would be mind blowingprogress for my business.
(10:44):
Some of you, though, arehearing $1,000 a month and
thinking that would be terrible.
I would flounder.
My business would be strugglingif I had only $1,000 come in
one month.
Here's my answer to the questionit depends how much did you
budget to make that month.
If you only budgeted to make$200 and you made $1,000, then
(11:06):
that's a really great month, butif you budgeted to make $10,000
and you only make $1,000,that's a really bad month.
Everything you generate is goodor bad based on what you were
anticipating bringing in in thatmonth.
And, to make matters worse, notall months are created equal.
Yet a lot of us, when we thinkabout revenue, we think, oh man,
(11:29):
I just made $10,000 last month,I'm going to make $10,000 this
month.
And that's not always the case,because there's an ebb and a
flow and a rhythm to where thatmoney comes in throughout the
year.
And one of the things that Ilove about creating a budget is
you can then track your progressyear over year and see where
those ebbs and flows happen, tosee where your slow seasons are
(11:50):
revenue wise, to see where yourbusy seasons are revenue wise
and, little hint, they're notalways the same as where you're
busy and slow.
Shooting seasons are Sometimes,for me, my busiest seasons for
revenue are my slowest seasonsfor shooting.
It's all a matter of how you runyour business, but you can't
know what to expect if you don'thave a plan in place.
(12:11):
And this is what I love aboutthis process is it allows me to
have a plan and know what toexpect from month to month.
Here's how I do it.
The first thing that I do in mybusiness is I set up the
categories of revenue that Iexpect to generate throughout
the year.
For me, those things look likecollege grads, weddings,
(12:31):
sororities and corporate events,headshots, prints and education
With each of these.
I ask myself this question andthis is what I'd like you to ask
yourself as well, as you'replanning this Realistically, not
pessimistically, because wetend to get really down on
ourselves and we think aboutwhat's possible.
But I want you to be realistic,not crazy.
Optimistic, not negative, nancy, just realistic.
(12:54):
Realistically, based on thetime that I plan to spend
working on my business eachmonth.
What is the minimum number ofeach of these things that I see
myself booking in January,february, march, april?
Go month by month and guessrealistically at what you think
is the minimum number ofbookings you could have for each
(13:14):
of your categories in thatmonth.
Now here's where it gets fun is,if you've already followed
steps one and two of my planningguide, then you already have a
calendar set up that you can useas a guide.
You want to pay attention toyour busy seasons, you want to
pay attention to your slowseasons and then you want to
estimate accordingly.
If you know January is not amonth where you get a lot of
(13:36):
revenue coming in, then don'tbudget for a lot of revenue
coming in in January.
Likewise, if you're like man,march and April, those are my
big revenue months.
Plan for bigger revenue inthose months, plan for more
bookings in those months.
And this is where understandinghow your business works will
have a big impact on where youbudget this money.
(13:57):
For me, any booking under $3,000is all due up front at the time
of booking.
Anything $3,000 and over getssplit up.
Where 50% is due at the time ofbooking, the other 50% is due
60 days out.
This allows sororities,corporate events, weddings all
to be able to spread out theirexpenses.
(14:17):
It also allows me to go aheadand generate future revenue
right out of the gate.
When they book, I can alreadygo ahead and plan.
Not only am I bringing in 50%of that revenue right now in
this month, I'm also going tohave another 50% coming in at a
later date, 60 days out from theevent.
But what that means for me islet's take college and sorority,
for example.
(14:38):
Most of our sessions happenbetween March and May for our
spring grads, but most of thosesessions get booked between
November and January.
So while many of my photographyfriends have their businesses
slowing down, mine is ramping upin terms of revenue, where
November through January can besome of my biggest months of the
year, because that's whenpeople are booking the sessions
(15:00):
that are being shot Marchthrough May.
So figure out what your rhythmsare in your business, where you
expect your bookings to come in, and slot those expectations in
by the month January throughDecember for the year ahead.
Now let's talk about expenses,and I know this part isn't
always as fun because this iswhere the money's going out.
But I'm telling you guys, whenyou have a plan, it's not as
(15:23):
scary, it's not as dreadful, itcan actually, dare I say, even
be kind of fun.
So, with my expenses, the firstthing I do, just like my income
, is I set up my categories Forme in my business.
What I do is I categorize myexpenses by people.
These are things like secondshooters, fees paid to campus
reps for their referrals.
(15:44):
They bring in associatephotographers.
Then I have a category for gearpurchases, for marketing, for
online services, anything like agallery hosting platform or a
CRM.
I have a category of expensesfor travel, for my own education
, admin and taxes, and then Ikeep a miscellaneous category
that I just put a little moneyin and plan for extra expenses
(16:06):
in this miscellaneous categoryevery single month, just like
with your income.
You're going to ask the questionbased on my plans for this year
, what are my known expenses?
This is where you can tap intoyour marketing plans and your
calendar and start looking atokay, if I've got these events
going on and these things that Ineed to market for these things
that I want to run Facebook adsfor, these things that I want
(16:28):
to create flyers for, theselenses that I need to buy in the
year ahead, this apparel that Iwant to get to ramp up my
branding game when I'm outshooting, whatever it may be,
this is where you want to askyourself what are your known
expenses?
Start with the monthly stuff,the expenses that you know, like
a CRM or a gallery service aregoing to be there every single
(16:50):
month.
They're not going away.
Put those in first.
Then start with your annualexpenses, and one of the things
I want to encourage you to lookat for your business is moving
some of your monthly expenses tobecome annual expenses.
That can be scary at first,because you're thinking, oh, but
then I have to pay hundreds ofdollars all at one time for my
gallery service.
Yes, but by paying monthlyright now, most of these
(17:14):
services charge you extradollars for the freedom and
flexibility of using theirservice monthly.
If you will pay for it inadvance, you often get one or
two months of their service forfree.
So if you know these expensesare coming every month, go ahead
and make the expense an annualexpense and save sometimes as
much as 20% on your annualexpenses across your budget
(17:37):
simply by paying one time a yearinstead of 12 times a year.
Lastly, put in the one timeexpenses things like gear
purchases that you're hoping tobe able to make in the year
ahead.
Go ahead and pick a month whereyou're planning to buy it.
That way, you can look at itacross your projected income and
your projected expenses and seedo the numbers add up to make
(17:57):
that purchase during this month?
Which brings me to the last partof the process, which is
balancing the budget.
This is the fun part.
You get to check your incomeand your expenses and you get to
ask yourself do the numbers addup to a positive number or a
negative number?
If they're a positive numberevery month, great, you're good
to go.
If they're a negative number,you have two options.
(18:19):
Number one you can plan forincreased revenue, which is
typically more bookings orhigher price bookings, or you
can plan for decreased expenses.
When I'm decreasing my expenses,I start with my one time
expenses, like gear purchases.
Why?
Because they're often largerand easier to postpone than a
monthly service fee, not tomention easier to add back in if
(18:42):
your revenue comes in higherthan expected.
A monthly thing is typicallysomething that you're locked
into and need for your businessover and over and over again, so
it's harder to reduce thoseexpenses.
And the great part is y'allthis is no longer guesswork.
These are real calculations youcan make with your bottom line
in mind.
If you see there's not moneyfor a lens purchase in June, but
(19:03):
the projected revenue for Julyand August is going to be higher
, then push that expense back toAugust so that there's always
money in the bank to be able tokeep your business going.
Now you might be wondering howdo I keep track of this
throughout the year and makesure I'm staying on track Like
it sounds fun to do once inDecember.
But how do I keep this going?
Well, uno, if you remember, Ireferenced in part one of this
(19:28):
that I start by planning myrhythms of rest in my business,
my out of office days, and whenI plan those rhythms, one of the
things that I plan for is Ipick a day on my calendar to
track my progress each monthwith my budget projected versus
actual, and then I update myprojections accordingly as I go.
So if I wind up with a monthwhere I was planning to book
(19:50):
three weddings and only one camein, then I will go through and
see do I need to make anychanges to my future projections
and expenses based on this.
If there's plenty of money inthe bank, despite my wedding
projections coming in lower thanexpected, I don't make any
adjustments.
But if I see that missing themark by two weddings in June
(20:11):
causes me to start going underon the in, going into the
negative in July and August,that's where I want to start
shifting my budget projectionsaround to make sure I'm staying
in the positive.
This can be a huge stressreliever, anxiety reliever,
because you now have a mechanismin place.
You don't have to wonder am Igonna make it next month?
(20:31):
You can literally go intonumbers that you have projected
and tweak things and alterthings to plan for your success,
to plan to stay afloat whenthings don't go as you planned
in one particular month, andy'all.
This is why I say you alwaysguess low on the income and high
on the expenses.
That way, every time you'rewrong, every time there's an
(20:52):
error, it's always in your favor.
If you start with the lowestpossible income and you're wrong
, then you're wrong because youbrought in more revenue.
If you guess the highestpossible expenses and you're
wrong, then any reduction inexpenses means more money
sitting in the bank for you.
This is how I plan my budget.
I plan it every year, I trackit every month, I adjust
(21:15):
accordingly.
I guess low on the income, Iguess high on the expenses and
y'all.
It's allowed me the freedom todream, to grow my business, to
see six-figure revenue from thevery start.
From year one in my business,I've been able to go after the
goals that I put on my calendar.
I've been able to market themwith excellence because I
(21:35):
planned ahead and there werebudget resources that were
always available to fund thosedreams and fund those goals
because of the planning that Idid in advance.
That's it for today's episode.
Y'all.
I hope this has been anencouragement to you as you're
sitting at your day job.
I hope this gives you thefreedom to dream a little bit,
the freedom to have anactionable plan for the year
(21:57):
ahead.
Cannot wait to see what you dowith this.
If you put it into practice,drop me an email.
Admin at Square 8 Studio.
Let me know how it's going foryou and would love to hear or
shoot me a DM on Instagram atSquare 8 Studio.
Would love to hear how this isworking for you in your business
.
We'll be back next month withour regular interview format.
(22:18):
Cannot wait to share with youall the things we have in store
for 2024.
Until next time, friends, keeplearning, keep loving and keep
chasing those dreams you weremade for.
You know what no photographerever asks how can I make less
(22:55):
money?
As small business owners, we'realways looking to make just a
little bit more, and most of usjust need someone to show us how
.
What if I told you college andsorority photography could give
you not one, not two, but 17different ways to make more
money in the months ahead.
To download my free guide,visit square8studiocom.
(23:16):
Slash 17ways today.
You're listening to the Bop the business of
photography podcast with RobGreen, a photographer to
contagiously positive clientsand fierce believer in building
people-focused businesses thatleave a lasting impact.
If you're an entrepreneur withdreams in your head, ideas in
your heart and passions burningdeep down in your soul, this is
the perfect place to be, becausethis is where dreams come to
(00:33):
thrive.
So are you ready to build yourbusiness, wow your clients and
make photo magic?
Here's your host, rob Green.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Aw, coming at you from DFW Texas.
You are listening to the Bop.
Happy New Year, friends.
It is right around the corner.
We are about to turn the pageon 2023, heading into 2024.
My name is Rob, so glad to haveyou with us for this third part
of a three-part mini-series ofepisodes, all about lessons from
(01:04):
a day job, things that Ilearned in years and years and
years of sitting at a desk andworking in jobs that were not my
current job, hoping to one daybe able to do the job that I do
now for a living running my ownbusiness.
Because y'all, it can be hard.
And you have this dream, thismassive dream to run your own
(01:26):
business, create your own life,your own schedule, your own
rhythms.
It's just sitting out there onthe horizon as this thing you're
reaching for and you want it sobad.
And yet you feel so stuck inthe realities of the current
position you're in that currentjob, the stability of the bills
that get paid because of thatjob.
(01:48):
Y'all it can be hard.
I get it.
I've been there.
I created this series of threelessons from a day job to be
able to help those of you thatwant 2024 to be the year that
you're able to go full-time withyour business.
To be able to do that To showsome of the lessons that I
learned that as I put these intopractice really made a massive
(02:09):
difference for me in being ableto grow a business that has been
successful now for eightstraight years, that has brought
in six-figure revenue for eightstraight years.
I want that for you too, and so, if you haven't caught up on
the previous two parts of thisthree-part series, if you're
just jumping in for the firsttime today, I want to encourage
(02:30):
you to go back and check outparts one and part two.
In part one, we covered planningyour calendar and the ways that
I organize my calendar eachDecember, early January, to be
able to prep for the year ahead.
Then, in part two, we talkabout planning your marketing,
because once you have a calendarin place and you have this
overarching picture of what'sgoing to be going on in your
(02:50):
business in the year ahead, it'seasier to start working out in
advance and planning themarketing for these things that
you want to do in your businessthis year.
And finally, today we are goingto be talking about planning
your budget.
Y'all this one is huge becauseyou can plan all the great
things you want to plan.
You can market it however youwant to market it, but at the
end of the day, if the dollarsaren't there to keep the
(03:12):
business profitable, you'reprobably not going to be doing
this for very long, and so,y'all, I want to give you some
incredible, just frameworks andprinciples that I use when
planning out my budget each yearthat will help you to be more
profitable in the year ahead.
Now, all of this is based offthe calendar that I put together
(03:32):
.
So if you haven't checked outthose episodes, one of the
things I talk about in both ofthese first two episodes is the
calendar that I use.
I use both an annual and aquarterly calendar that I've
created to do all of my planning, and I'm giving you guys 90%
off my personal annual calendarthrough January 15th.
So if you want to takeadvantage of that, go to
(03:53):
square8studiocom slash calendarand when you go to check out on
that annual calendar, put inpromo code BOP and it'll be good
through January 15th.
It'll take 90% off the price.
I'm trying to bring this thingas close to free as we possibly
can for you guys so that you canbe set up for success in the
year ahead, but all my budgetplanning is based off and built
around the calendar that I'vealready planned out at this
(04:16):
point.
Now, like I said, these seriesof episodes are called lessons
from a day job, and so I want tokick off today's episode with
the lesson that I learned aboutbudgeting from my day job, and
this is the lesson that Ilearned artist budget by the gig
, ceos budget by the year.
Here's how I learned thislesson when I first got to Fort
(04:38):
Worth, texas, the job that I hadwas working at a church and, as
I mentioned in the last episode, I asked my boss if I could
spend my opening weeks at thisjob simply working on a plan for
the future, which meant that Iwas getting into all the ins and
outs of budgeting what kinds ofresources were allocated to
which parts of the budget andwhat I found was we had a budget
(05:01):
for this youth ministry thatwas maybe 30 students at the
time.
That was as large as the budgetthat I had for a youth ministry
of 800 to a thousand studentsback in Atlanta, and so I
started looking through thenumbers and going where is all
this money going?
(05:22):
And what I found was it wasgoing to this one big event that
was happening at the start ofthe year that everybody loved so
much and were so excited about.
The only problem was, over theyears, it had drifted to
becoming something that a bunchof other churches brought all
their students to but weren'tputting in any money towards.
We were putting in all themoney, they were bringing their
(05:44):
students to benefit from it, andit wasn't doing anything to
help our our students grow andreach their friends.
So ultimately, what I realizedwas we had the resources to put
out an entire year's worth ofprogramming for our students If
we would just start to be morestrategic about how we spent our
dollars on this one big eventat the start of the year.
(06:06):
But what does this have to dowith running your photography
business?
Fantastic question, fairquestion.
When I started looking at takingmy photography business full
time, I went around and askedall of my photography friends
questions about how they runtheir business.
Maybe you have photographyfriends in your world You've
been doing something similarwith.
(06:26):
I was looking for themes in thethings that successful people
were doing and themes that theunsuccessful people were
struggling with.
As I did this, what I realizedwas all of my friends that were
really stressed out and notenjoying themselves as
photographers had two problems.
Number one they were buriedunder the weight of all of their
(06:48):
editing piles.
They had gotten behind on theirediting.
So I made a real quickcommitment I'm not ever going to
get behind on editing.
But more to the point oftoday's conversation, all of my
friends that were strugglingfinancially with their business
were all living from gig to gig.
They were living from bookingto booking.
They would say things like if Ican just book one more wedding,
I can get that lens.
(07:08):
If I can just book one morefamily session, then I can get a
new iPhone.
Everything was based around ifI can just get one more of these
things, then I can buy one moreof these things.
All right.
But then on the other side ofthe equation, I was thinking
about what I was learning at myday job.
(07:29):
And at my day job, every year wehad to submit a budget for
approval.
This budget had to reflect allof the income that we planned to
bring in from events, fromt-shirt sales, from anything
else we had going on that wouldgenerate revenue, but it also
had to reflect all the expensesthat we would have along the way
.
If we were planning to put onan event, we had to go and
(07:49):
pre-calculate and pre-determinemonths in advance what we were
going to spend that money on.
And what I found was by takingtime each summer to develop this
budget, to submit to someoneelse for approval, to check and
put eyeballs on and go yes, thislooks good, this looks
realistic.
It allowed us to make a planfor a year and then work that
(08:12):
plan all year long, knowing thatas long as we hit our marks on
income and expenses each time,we were going to be just fine
budget-wise.
And then what that also allowedus the freedom to do was, if we
brought in more income or wereable to be better stewards of
our expenses than we had planned, we could go back to the people
over us and say, hey, we havesome additional revenue.
(08:34):
We have this dream that wewould like to go after of a
certain event or a certain giftfor students, whatever it might
be.
We had the freedom to go and dothose things because we beat
our budget projections, and thatmeant for me, as I was starting
to plan my business, I said,gosh, I don't want to be like
(08:55):
all my friends that arestruggling, trying to make a
booking so they can buy a phone.
I want to be more like thisbusiness that I've been working
for that takes time each year tosit down and plan for their
income, to plan for theirexpenses, so that every month,
throughout that year, every daythroughout that year that
follows, they're actuallyworking off a plan and they're
(09:18):
working with intentionality andbeing good stewards of the
resources at their disposal.
Because when you're a goodsteward of your resources, your
resources can go a lot farther.
I must say that again, whenyou're a good steward of your
resources, your resources can goa lot farther, and that's why
(09:38):
this budgeting exercise that I'mabout to walk you through, that
I do each December, can bereally influential for your
business in the year ahead.
So, again, our underlying themehere, our bop bite for the day,
is that artists budget by thegig, but CEOs budget by the year
, and that's what we're going todo is walk through how I budget
each year.
This is an exercise that I havejust gone through myself and
(10:02):
have worked out for the yearahead and I'm really excited
about because we've got somereally exciting initiatives on
the agenda for 2024.
And I wanted to know that I hadthe resources to be able to
fund those initiatives.
Let's start with income, because, let's be honest, it's way more
fun to make money than to spendmoney.
We don't like seeing the moneyflying out the window.
(10:22):
We like seeing it come in thedoor so that we have it for the
things that we need to be ableto spend money on.
Here's the question I want topose to you when it comes to
your income Is $1,000 a month agood month or a bad month?
Some of you right now are goingthat would be a phenomenal
month If I could bring in $1,000every month.
That would be mind blowingprogress for my business.
(10:44):
Some of you, though, arehearing $1,000 a month and
thinking that would be terrible.
I would flounder.
My business would be strugglingif I had only $1,000 come in
one month.
Here's my answer to the questionit depends how much did you
budget to make that month.
If you only budgeted to make$200 and you made $1,000, then
(11:06):
that's a really great month, butif you budgeted to make $10,000
and you only make $1,000,that's a really bad month.
Everything you generate is goodor bad based on what you were
anticipating bringing in in thatmonth.
And, to make matters worse, notall months are created equal.
Yet a lot of us, when we thinkabout revenue, we think, oh man,
(11:29):
I just made $10,000 last month,I'm going to make $10,000 this
month.
And that's not always the case,because there's an ebb and a
flow and a rhythm to where thatmoney comes in throughout the
year.
And one of the things that Ilove about creating a budget is
you can then track your progressyear over year and see where
those ebbs and flows happen, tosee where your slow seasons are
(11:50):
revenue wise, to see where yourbusy seasons are revenue wise
and, little hint, they're notalways the same as where you're
busy and slow.
Shooting seasons are Sometimes,for me, my busiest seasons for
revenue are my slowest seasonsfor shooting.
It's all a matter of how you runyour business, but you can't
know what to expect if you don'thave a plan in place.
(12:11):
And this is what I love aboutthis process is it allows me to
have a plan and know what toexpect from month to month.
Here's how I do it.
The first thing that I do in mybusiness is I set up the
categories of revenue that Iexpect to generate throughout
the year.
For me, those things look likecollege grads, weddings,
(12:31):
sororities and corporate events,headshots, prints and education
With each of these.
I ask myself this question andthis is what I'd like you to ask
yourself as well, as you'replanning this Realistically, not
pessimistically, because wetend to get really down on
ourselves and we think aboutwhat's possible.
But I want you to be realistic,not crazy.
Optimistic, not negative, nancy, just realistic.
(12:54):
Realistically, based on thetime that I plan to spend
working on my business eachmonth.
What is the minimum number ofeach of these things that I see
myself booking in January,february, march, april?
Go month by month and guessrealistically at what you think
is the minimum number ofbookings you could have for each
(13:14):
of your categories in thatmonth.
Now here's where it gets fun is,if you've already followed
steps one and two of my planningguide, then you already have a
calendar set up that you can useas a guide.
You want to pay attention toyour busy seasons, you want to
pay attention to your slowseasons and then you want to
estimate accordingly.
If you know January is not amonth where you get a lot of
(13:36):
revenue coming in, then don'tbudget for a lot of revenue
coming in in January.
Likewise, if you're like man,march and April, those are my
big revenue months.
Plan for bigger revenue inthose months, plan for more
bookings in those months.
And this is where understandinghow your business works will
have a big impact on where youbudget this money.
(13:57):
For me, any booking under $3,000is all due up front at the time
of booking.
Anything $3,000 and over getssplit up.
Where 50% is due at the time ofbooking, the other 50% is due
60 days out.
This allows sororities,corporate events, weddings all
to be able to spread out theirexpenses.
(14:17):
It also allows me to go aheadand generate future revenue
right out of the gate.
When they book, I can alreadygo ahead and plan.
Not only am I bringing in 50%of that revenue right now in
this month, I'm also going tohave another 50% coming in at a
later date, 60 days out from theevent.
But what that means for me islet's take college and sorority,
for example.
(14:38):
Most of our sessions happenbetween March and May for our
spring grads, but most of thosesessions get booked between
November and January.
So while many of my photographyfriends have their businesses
slowing down, mine is ramping upin terms of revenue, where
November through January can besome of my biggest months of the
year, because that's whenpeople are booking the sessions
(15:00):
that are being shot Marchthrough May.
So figure out what your rhythmsare in your business, where you
expect your bookings to come in, and slot those expectations in
by the month January throughDecember for the year ahead.
Now let's talk about expenses,and I know this part isn't
always as fun because this iswhere the money's going out.
But I'm telling you guys, whenyou have a plan, it's not as
(15:23):
scary, it's not as dreadful, itcan actually, dare I say, even
be kind of fun.
So, with my expenses, the firstthing I do, just like my income
, is I set up my categories Forme in my business.
What I do is I categorize myexpenses by people.
These are things like secondshooters, fees paid to campus
reps for their referrals.
(15:44):
They bring in associatephotographers.
Then I have a category for gearpurchases, for marketing, for
online services, anything like agallery hosting platform or a
CRM.
I have a category of expensesfor travel, for my own education
, admin and taxes, and then Ikeep a miscellaneous category
that I just put a little moneyin and plan for extra expenses
(16:06):
in this miscellaneous categoryevery single month, just like
with your income.
You're going to ask the questionbased on my plans for this year
, what are my known expenses?
This is where you can tap intoyour marketing plans and your
calendar and start looking atokay, if I've got these events
going on and these things that Ineed to market for these things
that I want to run Facebook adsfor, these things that I want
(16:28):
to create flyers for, theselenses that I need to buy in the
year ahead, this apparel that Iwant to get to ramp up my
branding game when I'm outshooting, whatever it may be,
this is where you want to askyourself what are your known
expenses?
Start with the monthly stuff,the expenses that you know, like
a CRM or a gallery service aregoing to be there every single
(16:50):
month.
They're not going away.
Put those in first.
Then start with your annualexpenses, and one of the things
I want to encourage you to lookat for your business is moving
some of your monthly expenses tobecome annual expenses.
That can be scary at first,because you're thinking, oh, but
then I have to pay hundreds ofdollars all at one time for my
gallery service.
Yes, but by paying monthlyright now, most of these
(17:14):
services charge you extradollars for the freedom and
flexibility of using theirservice monthly.
If you will pay for it inadvance, you often get one or
two months of their service forfree.
So if you know these expensesare coming every month, go ahead
and make the expense an annualexpense and save sometimes as
much as 20% on your annualexpenses across your budget
(17:37):
simply by paying one time a yearinstead of 12 times a year.
Lastly, put in the one timeexpenses things like gear
purchases that you're hoping tobe able to make in the year
ahead.
Go ahead and pick a month whereyou're planning to buy it.
That way, you can look at itacross your projected income and
your projected expenses and seedo the numbers add up to make
(17:57):
that purchase during this month?
Which brings me to the last partof the process, which is
balancing the budget.
This is the fun part.
You get to check your incomeand your expenses and you get to
ask yourself do the numbers addup to a positive number or a
negative number?
If they're a positive numberevery month, great, you're good
to go.
If they're a negative number,you have two options.
(18:19):
Number one you can plan forincreased revenue, which is
typically more bookings orhigher price bookings, or you
can plan for decreased expenses.
When I'm decreasing my expenses,I start with my one time
expenses, like gear purchases.
Why?
Because they're often largerand easier to postpone than a
monthly service fee, not tomention easier to add back in if
(18:42):
your revenue comes in higherthan expected.
A monthly thing is typicallysomething that you're locked
into and need for your businessover and over and over again, so
it's harder to reduce thoseexpenses.
And the great part is y'allthis is no longer guesswork.
These are real calculations youcan make with your bottom line
in mind.
If you see there's not moneyfor a lens purchase in June, but
(19:03):
the projected revenue for Julyand August is going to be higher
, then push that expense back toAugust so that there's always
money in the bank to be able tokeep your business going.
Now you might be wondering howdo I keep track of this
throughout the year and makesure I'm staying on track Like
it sounds fun to do once inDecember.
But how do I keep this going?
Well, uno, if you remember, Ireferenced in part one of this
(19:28):
that I start by planning myrhythms of rest in my business,
my out of office days, and whenI plan those rhythms, one of the
things that I plan for is Ipick a day on my calendar to
track my progress each monthwith my budget projected versus
actual, and then I update myprojections accordingly as I go.
So if I wind up with a monthwhere I was planning to book
(19:50):
three weddings and only one camein, then I will go through and
see do I need to make anychanges to my future projections
and expenses based on this.
If there's plenty of money inthe bank, despite my wedding
projections coming in lower thanexpected, I don't make any
adjustments.
But if I see that missing themark by two weddings in June
(20:11):
causes me to start going underon the in, going into the
negative in July and August,that's where I want to start
shifting my budget projectionsaround to make sure I'm staying
in the positive.
This can be a huge stressreliever, anxiety reliever,
because you now have a mechanismin place.
You don't have to wonder am Igonna make it next month?
(20:31):
You can literally go intonumbers that you have projected
and tweak things and alterthings to plan for your success,
to plan to stay afloat whenthings don't go as you planned
in one particular month, andy'all.
This is why I say you alwaysguess low on the income and high
on the expenses.
That way, every time you'rewrong, every time there's an
(20:52):
error, it's always in your favor.
If you start with the lowestpossible income and you're wrong
, then you're wrong because youbrought in more revenue.
If you guess the highestpossible expenses and you're
wrong, then any reduction inexpenses means more money
sitting in the bank for you.
This is how I plan my budget.
I plan it every year, I trackit every month, I adjust
(21:15):
accordingly.
I guess low on the income, Iguess high on the expenses and
y'all.
It's allowed me the freedom todream, to grow my business, to
see six-figure revenue from thevery start.
From year one in my business,I've been able to go after the
goals that I put on my calendar.
I've been able to market themwith excellence because I
(21:35):
planned ahead and there werebudget resources that were
always available to fund thosedreams and fund those goals
because of the planning that Idid in advance.
That's it for today's episode.
Y'all.
I hope this has been anencouragement to you as you're
sitting at your day job.
I hope this gives you thefreedom to dream a little bit,
the freedom to have anactionable plan for the year
(21:57):
ahead.
Cannot wait to see what you dowith this.
If you put it into practice,drop me an email.
Admin at Square 8 Studio.
Let me know how it's going foryou and would love to hear or
shoot me a DM on Instagram atSquare 8 Studio.
Would love to hear how this isworking for you in your business
.
We'll be back next month withour regular interview format.
(22:18):
Cannot wait to share with youall the things we have in store
for 2024.
Until next time, friends, keeplearning, keep loving and keep
chasing those dreams you weremade for.
You know what no photographerever asks how can I make less
(22:55):
money?
As small business owners, we'realways looking to make just a
little bit more, and most of usjust need someone to show us how
.
What if I told you college andsorority photography could give
you not one, not two, but 17different ways to make more
money in the months ahead.
To download my free guide,visit square8studiocom.
(23:16):
Slash 17ways today.
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