Day 4
Herndon House
Skip To The Key Takeaways & Action Items
The most important days in the 100 Days Of Business are the days when actual business is taking place. Business means money and money means I can run a business. Without the finances, I’d have to jump back into the 9 to 5 working world, and that is NOT an acceptable option.
On Day 4, my company (Fire Toga, LLC) was hired by a local realtor for a real estate marketing job, which means this venture can continue! In this case, because I want to be a part of every aspect of the business, it meant I would be grabbing all the fancy photo & video equipment and heading out into the community.
Ideally, I’d have a whole organization behind me: an army of photographers in the field and an administrative team making sure everything runs smoothly. However, that is NOT how a new small business with limited funding works. So I’ll be getting my hands dirty for the time being.
The specifics of a photo/video shoot are not important at this time (you can watch some of it in one of my experimental videos above), but after multiple visits to the home, I delivered a solid set of photos, a newly designed brochure, and one unique “secret” service that I do not think ANY other companies are offering. (I will get some feedback later this week).
Here are a few of my takeaways from this job:
Key Takeaway #1: Let The Customers Dictate The Services
One of the things I am doing for my clients as I start to build a customer base, is providing them with some free “bonus” services at no extra charge. But while it may sound like a selfless thing, it is actually a way for me to “experiment” with my customers to see what they like and what they don’t like.
Instead of defining these bonus services, I am going to perform them, see how the customer reacts, and then adapt the specifics of each. There is no use spending hours creating marketing, pricing and the procedures of the service if a paying customer doesn’t want them.
I think this is one of the concepts that I’ll be learning more about as I read “The Lean Startup”, the first book in my 100 days (I’ll be blogging about it when I’m finished and tweeting (follow my new twitter account!) about some of the things I learn each day I read).
Action Items:
Continue Reading The Lean Startup
Key Takeaway #2: Continue To Learn The Equipment
When I moved on from my previous job, I left behind all of the equipment I had been using for the last 7 years. Instead of just re-buying all of it, I decided to go with a huge upgrade, and I invested a big chunk of money for the top of the line camera gear. This was NOT the correct business decision, and I knew it at the time. But I wanted the camera for my personal life, and justified it that way.
What’s done is done, but now I have another slight problem. I have all new equipment but I don’t have hundreds of hours experience using it like my previous camera. I say it is a slight problem, because it is still a camera, and it still operates in basically the same way. That being said, I had a few snags during my shoot, and more experience will only help.
Action Items:
Read through all camera’s special features in the manual
Re-watch the GH5 YouTube features video
Book another photo shoot
As I mentioned at the start, the fact that this job is going to give the company some incoming revenue means it was the perfect day for the 100 Days Of Business experiment. I’m excited to book my next photo shoot and continue to master my camera and my services.