business plan – JWNPhoto.com

Articles Tagged with: business plan

Introducing JOEGOESPro.com

About a week ago I started to write my business plan. I got stuck on my mission statement. I need a mission statement. It’s like proposing to marry someone – it seems so permanent. That’s when it occurred to me, if the entrepreneurial world has drastically changed so much, why do I need to do a traditional business plan?

On the way home from the grocery store a few days later an idea came to me. Why not create a new kind of business plan? Why not ask for involvement of my peers, while giving advice about what I already know from my other business? An interactive business plan that changes with the business! I thought of a domain name for my new idea – I hurried home and immediately looked up joegoespro.com to see if it was registered and oh, the photo gods were looking out for me that evening.

So, I kicked off the site this weekend with 3 articles covering the psychology of becoming a professional photographer in today’s climate. These articles are based on not only my experience as an entrepreneur, but from the teachings of current top creatives and business people, books I’ve read on the subject, and my own observations about what’s going on in the artistic community.

The first article talks about branding yourself, the importance of taking care of your health, and defining your style in all aspects of your life. The second article tackles the fear of success and how to identify and work around it. Finally, the third article is about finding your place in the saturated world of photography.

To help kick off this venture, I’m giving away a copy of one of my favorite photographer’s latest books. It’s “Photographically Speaking: A Deeper Look at Creating Stronger Images” by David duChemin. All you have to do is go over to JOEGOESPro.com and comment on one of the first 3 articles linked above. Say something encouraging, something insightful, or just say hi. Make sure to use a real email address when you comment so I can contact you! I’ll pick a winner in two weeks to a random commenter. The only other rule is that you have to live in the United States (sorry, but I don’t know enough about international contest laws).

Turn Up The Volume

As we approach the coming Christmas holiday, we rapidly run right into the new year almost as an afterthought. It usually feels like the wrap-up party of the holiday season. I’m taking this time between now and the day the ball drops as a time to focus on reinventing myself. I have nothing scheduled as of yet for 2011, but I plan on doing just that as soon as possible. If I’m going to keep myself sane I need to obey the voices that are not only in my head, but also coming from the people who really know and are close to me.

So, the biggest thing early on will be to increase my volume of artistic photographic work. I will begin with defined personal projects. I will also invite and include anyone who wants to join or help me on these as they will be huge learning experiences. I want to network myself to find good contacts who are photographers, make-up artists, models, designers, agents – anybody in the business that is working for the love of the art.

In order to facilitate that, I will need to hire people for my other business to lighten my own personal load as well as grow it and support its growing customer base. It’s no longer a passing thought that I will get to at some point – it is a need that must be fulfilled in 2011. I don’t need to talk about the details of that here because it isn’t within the scope of this blog, but it’s something that will help my artistic work in the long run, so it must be addressed.

Finally, I am determined to open my own creative doors to photographic assignments by the year’s end. What I mean is I want to get hired to do something really cool. I want my personal projects to be a foundation for other work – work that an art director will sit down and say, “We want to achieve this and you’re the person who can deliver it”. Once that starts to happen, I can use all of the skills I’ve acquired through my diverse lifetime of creativity and technical skill and do work that is meaningful to me (and hopefully to others as well).

That’s it in a nutshell. Now I’ve got a business plan to revise and another one to create. 2011 is going to be the best year ever!