I know I’m a little late to the party, but a few days after the craziness of the holiday season is exactly what I needed to get me back on track. Happy New Year friends! Hope you’re 2015 is off to a positive start! I’m hoping that this new year is a little easier for me on the personal front than last. Let’s revisit my 2014 goals to see how well I fared in keeping my resolutions.
• Take more personal pictures: I’m sad to say I didn’t do as good with this resolution as I hoped, so it’s back on the list again for this year.
• OCF (Off-Camera Flash): I actually feel proud to say that I stuck with this goal in 2014 and even though I’m not an OCF expert, I’m much more comfortable with it and having been incorporating it into my events and session work. I love the flexibility it’s given me to shoot in all sorts of environments and conditions.
• Add traditional portraiture to my portfolio: I played around with a more “fine art” approach to my sessions last year and I was very pleased with the results! I didn’t delve into it as much as I’d hope, but I plan to continue exploring this approach in the new year as well.
• Rebrand my business: I did this early on in the year and I’m still pleased with the look and feel of my new brand. It feels more like “me” than any of the other makeovers and I will be sticking with this for a while.
I can comfortably say that I accomplished 3 out of my 4 business goals for last year – not bad at all! That’s why year after year, I love doing this exercise. Now onto the goals for the new year!
• Take more personal pictures: As I mentioned above, I did not fair well with this resolution at all. Being a professional photographer and a perfectionist, I find myself to be the biggest obstacle in getting this accomplished. That’s why I decided to splurge on a new point and shoot camera for Christmas. I didn’t like the quality of my iPhone photos, but I didn’t always want to carry my big camera and lenses with me everywhere I go. Hoping the point and shoot will make things simpler and much easier for me to stick to this goal in 2015!
• Create a more efficient workflow: Let me start by saying that my editing workflow is so much better than when I first started! Thanks to a few new tools that I’ve incorporated, my session turnaround time has been cut by half! However, what I would like to work on this year is creating a workflow for the communication aspect of my service. I would like to organize how I send information to potential new clients, receive information back from clients/prospects, including properly keeping track of invoices, contracts and surveys. I subscribed to 17HATS at the tail end of last year and that may just be the solution for me! But I want to try it out a little longer before I share my official thoughts on it.
• Proactive Marketing: I know I wouldn’t be here without the awesome word of mouth and referrals from existing clients, but there’s a big world out there of potential client that I have yet to tap into! This year I want to see how I can ramp up my advertising/marketing efforts to expand my current network. Some ways I plan to do this is by advertising locally and online and by partnering up with other professionals in the field: hairstylists, makeup artists, designers, florists, event planners, etc… Collaborating on some projects that will introduce me to new people in the industry. This will probably be my toughest challenge, since I don’t like to put myself out there, but if I don’t advocate and campaign for my business, then who will?
• Shoot more stylized sessions: I think shooting personal work is soooo important to keep the creative spark burning! For example, I didn’t feel comfortable enough using OCF (off camera flash) on client work until I experimented with it a bit during a stylized session. After using it there, I was finally confident enough to use it with paying clients. I want to continue exploring my artistic voice and raising the bar, that’s why I wish to dedicate more time for shooting special projects/sessions with other creatives.
So there you have it….my business goals for 2015! Can’t wait to see what this year has in store for me and Mad Hearts Photography!
Life with Kaishon - You make me so proud.