It’s been a mad few weeks.

First of all unfortunately my fathers company has gone into liquidation due to viability and greedy landlords, it’s been a bit stressful at home but we’re working through it.

I could talk in great detail about the photographic and electronic retail industry, why and whose fault it was the company closed (not entirely me and families fault ha-ha) but it’s boring and not very productive.

One good thing with the shop going is that I managed to pick up some very nice printers, I have a full event kit now!

Moving onwards, as one door closes another opens as they say, I had the meeting with the PR company I mentioned in my last post.

Well, I was expecting for me to pitch PhotoNOW! as a photographic event service provider, they took me hugely by surprise when the meeting turned into a ‘Dragons Den’ style questioning, then she asked if we could co-venture. Basically, she is happy to help me with my business but she can help me a lot if we join forces.

So after a few days of thinking about it I decided I’ll have another meeting with her about co-venturing.

If the meeting goes to plan and we start moving forward with her ideas and marketing plan, I’ll post a bit more detail about the PR company and the people they deal with, for now I don’t want to get my hopes high.

I’ve done a few events over last few weeks, including a prom and a football award ceremony, both went very well and made some great cash, wish I could do it ever day hopefully soon it will be a reality.

As for the shopping centres I’ll be taking a break from them for the moment to work on the event photography (since I enjoy it more and the money is better), I’ll be focusing back on the centres soon there is a great gap in the market there.

Luck? Sure why not. I’ll take some.

Last two weeks in the shopping centre were poor, I made money, but I won’t be getting rich from these type of takings.

However, how godamn ever, I got a wedding a booking from the two weeks which really helped, so a round applause for me getting my first wedding.

Now for the lucky bit, my neighbours are very well connected and a few days ago they asked for my help on an IT matter. Mac and Networking, great my two weakest subjects, however after 30 minutes I prevailed and managed to fix their problem.

We got talking about business and before I knew it I had a meeting with the owner of Paradise Wildlife Park. Went home in a bit of a daze, the wildlife park holds many, many events from weddings to parties to charity events. Perfect for event photography a great opportunity for both mine and their company to make some good cash.

Then when I got home, I got a phone call from my neighbour saviour asking me to call a lady from a large PR company, long story short , I have a meeting with her on Friday, so fingers crossed everyone please.

I had the meeting with owners of Wildlife Park and it went very, very well and they genuinely seemed very interested, so I hope to get my first job with them soon.

If either my neighbours or the people from Wildlife Park read this, many thanks for the opportunity and I’m certain we can do some great business.

What a great week so far, lets hope Friday is a winner also.

Photonow.biz has been updated – it looks godamn awesome – I love it. Also some really excellent features will be added soon.

Such as a dynamic offer banner which will change depending on how much people spend and what offers they can pick up if they spend a little bit more. And a shared/group accounts which will be perfect for weddings and other large event shoots.

The website itself really looks and acts the part, I really just need to get out there and get more business through it.

So far Easter has been painful, two days in and business hasn’t been great, lots of people looking and asking questions but very little cash being handed over.

I’m not worried, just a little frustrated, I really want to kick start PhotoNOW and get moving, but I need a little bit more cash behind me, my stand is starting to look a bit tatty, though considering it’s costs it has served me exceptionally well and has got me off the ground.

My dream setup would be something like you can see here.

But I think my next major change will be going for a ‘more is less’ configuration, investing in some proper nice pop up banners, simple counters and a slightly different back drop. Making the whole thing smaller, lighter and easier to move and set-up in shopping centres.

All movement is forward and positive, I will win this battle, I will be in the papers.