For Photographers: Before you go full time

For Photographers

July 23, 2013

One thing that a lot of other photographers ask me a lot is, “How do I know when it’s time to go full time??”. I struggled with this for a long time myself, especially once my business started to grow and I started to almost resent my full time job because I started to feel like it was keeping me from what I really wanted to do, which was spend my time growing the business! Making that decision was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life, but it’s been so worth it! I wanted to share some of the things I think are important to think about before you decide to go full time. Keep in mind I can only speak from my experiences and what worked (and what didn’t) for me…hopefully they can help you guys!

Have a financial plan. Before I went full time I sat down and broke down my financial situation completely. I looked at how much each wedding cost me (from packaging to equipment, to actual time spent working and taxes) and how much I needed to make each month. It costs me a few hundred dollars just to shoot a wedding and then taxes are at minimum 30 percent. (YES. THIRTY PERCENT) I looked at how much I had coming in for the rest of the jobs I’d already booked for that calendar year and then came up with what I needed to book to make it work. Since we rely on my income each month to pay bills, it was super important that I knew that I could cover the bills and then some before I left my job. Lucy’s kibbles aren’t cheap and a cat’s gotta eat!

Save up a sizeable cushion. When I left my job I had a little saved up, but I wish that I’d had a little more socked away for the ebbs and flows that are kind of inevitable in a seasonal business like wedding photography. To be perfectly honest with you guys, there were a couple of times last year when I was very worried about my financials. Luckily, the great thing about being an entrepreneur is that your fate is really in your own hands! I was able to go out and book more jobs and find some ways to bring in more cash flow, but it would have been so much more stressful to know that even if we hit a slump that we had a big cushion to fall back on.

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Decide how much you are willing to sacrifice. A month or two before I decided to take the leap, I did a mentoring session with the always wonderful Justin and Mary. One of the topics we discussed was whether or not I was ready to go full time. I remember telling Mary, “I plan to go full time at the end of the year, maybe later than that depending on how much I save and how much I book, but when the time comes, I’ll do ANYTHING I have to do to make it work. I’ll get part time jobs, I’ll shoot things I might not want to, I’ll get out there every day and bust my butt to make it happen”. I had also spoken of how unhappy I was at my office job, so she turned to me and said, “If you’ll do ANYTHING to make it happen, why aren’t you already doing it?”. I panicked a little bit when she asked me that because it wasn’t what I expected to hear. But in my heart I already knew that I would sacrifice going on vacations, eating out at nice restaurants, buying new clothes, and more to become a full time photographer. I just knew in my heart it was going to HAVE to work. Or I was going to go out in a blaze of glory trying.

I think it’s important to decide how much going full time is really worth to you and what you’ll be willing to do to get there. You also have to make sure that if you’re married, your spouse is on board with those sacrifices. Lucky for me, my husband is always my biggest cheerleader and he was also willing to make those sacrifices with me. We’ve actually put off buying a house for a few years because I told him I would rather be happy living in an apartment than miserable living in a house that we own!

Research your options for health benefits. When I told my mom I was thinking about going full time, the first thing she asked me was, will you have health benefits? I had health insurance with my previous job, and though I’m young and healthy, you really never know when you will need health insurance. This past year one of my friends and her journey through her own health troubles inspired me to start taking better care of myself and make sure that I’m listening to my body and going to the doctor regularly just because you never know. I hate to be preachy to you guys, but health insurance is so important because doctor visits and stuff like that are expensive! Just having allergy testing is costing me $300 out of pocket…and that’s WITH health insurance. I can’t even imagine what that would cost us without. Research your options and figure out a plan! Add the cost of health insurance into your financial need for each month and make sure you can make it work. For me, I was lucky in that John works a great job that has health insurance benefits for spouses too (me!!), but we also had to make sure we budgeted for the added cost of adding me to his insurance! I would strongly advise having a plan for your health (insurance and otherwise) before you take the leap.

If you’re married, discuss expectations with your spouse. John and I talked a little bit about what the change would mean for us, but what we neglected to discuss were our expectations for one another and for what the change would mean for our marriage. I think it was easy for John to assume that since I would be home more during the day, I would be able to take on more housework. The reality was, once I started working from home I became almost a workaholic! I would work from when I woke up in the morning until 8 or 9 pm. I was rarely able to do housework and dishes and things were piling up all over the place! We had to really sit down and talk through our roles and what our expectations of one another were. And as with everything else you do when you’re married, we’ve had to learn to compromise.

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Have a plan of action in place. Decide what you would plan to do to make the most of the extra time to focus on your business if you do take the plunge! Knowing exactly WHY you want to go full time and what it really is you plan to accomplish with the freedom to focus on your business will help give you direction and set you up for success.

Have a support system in place. One of the most helpful things since going full time has been the support of a group of other photographers and self employed creatives that also run their businesses full time. Being able to look to others who had paved the way before me for guidance was so valuable! Working for yourself can have a little bit of a learning curve and if you don’t have anyone else there to help guide you or to bring you back to reality when you start to get crazy or stressed, it can be a lot harder! I feel so grateful for my “coworkers” who have been in my corner over the past year!

Weigh the risks and benefits. For me the benefits outweighed a lot of the risks. I couldn’t stand to work at my day job much longer, especially when I had taken on so many photography clients that it was really difficult for me to manage the business and a full time job. Leaving the job would mean more time to grow the business, network, blog, and turn around client jobs more quickly. But it would also mean an uncertain financial future and the always fun potential for failure. I’m still pretty young, we don’t have kids, and though we definitely rely heavily on my income, that’s not our only source of money. We don’t have a mortgage, we only have one car payment, and we don’t really mind not going to Europe or other locales (I mean, we’re people that skipped having a honeymoon to afford our favorite wedding photogs!) so for the two of  US, the benefits outweighed the risks (I think John was hoping to have his NICE wife back instead of the crazy one who was always on the computer). My business had also grown really quickly and we were projecting to grow even more this year (which we did!!) so it wasn’t as scary as it could have been.

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To close out this post I just wanted to tell you guys that it’s HARD. It’s so hard, but it really is worth it! It was for me at least. I don’t think being a full time wedding photographer is for everyone…not by a huge stretch. But I think that if you really want it and you work really hard, you can make it happen! Hope that this helps you guys at least a little bit!! Feel free to email me if you have questions or want to know more!

 

 

Leave a Comment

  1. Lauren C says:

    Great post. Much needed for me as this is something I’m right in the middle of struggling with. Thanks for sharing your advice!

  2. I love this post Katie! You seriously think through everything in your posts and it’s amazing to see what you’ve learned along the way. And as always, your honesty is amazing!

  3. Natalie says:

    It is hard… Very, very hard. Reading your post reminded me how similar we are. And I love how you shared such honest advice! 🙂

  4. Erin says:

    Such a great post Katie! So encouraging for me to hear while going through some of the same issues! 🙂

  5. Jenna says:

    Thanks for the pointers! Love Mary’s words, too: “Why aren’t you already doing it?” I keep going, oh it’ll be time to quit the office job next month… next month… ugh.

  6. Such a great post! I especially love the part about discussing expectations with your spouse! I didn’t do that and we totally should have! Thankfully it’s worked out… 😉

  7. katie says:

    Love hearing your honesty! I’m definitely experiencing some of those struggles right now and its nice to hear I’m not alone! Love seeing how you’ve grown so quickly!!!

  8. Tina Tabibi says:

    Great post love! I agree and struggled with the same decisions. Kudos for the honesty and helping others with their journey to self-employment. xoxo

  9. Emilia Jane says:

    Okay I’m obsessed with that first bouquet! And all great advice.

  10. ashley link says:

    this is such a great post! i’m hoping i’ll be full time one day! haha. gotta pay these student loans off first!

  11. Annamarie says:

    I love this post!! Also I love being one of your “co-workers” 🙂

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