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OK, A break down of the first week.

Monday - I was a little nervous, not due to the work involved but more due to the fact of not making enough money, even though I done all my research, It’s always different ‘in the field’

Target: £100 Turnover: £140

Though my original workings I estimated I wanted to serve 10 customers a day, it doesn’t actually work like that mainly because people don’t really know you’re there. So the first day is basically advertising.

Tuesday - Still felt uneasy, the photography is fine, but the work flow isn’t, the process of editing and printing was far too long, today we worked on it and made it better, though still needs to be better still.

Target: £200 Turnover: £250

Again, it takes time to build the business up, more people notice you are there, most of them want to come back once they have dressed their kids up nicely. I was very happy with the day, it was fairly smooth, until the end, where we had a huge rush of about 4-5 customers and the work flow buckled slightly and people had to wait about an hour for their photos.

Wednesday – I felt better, things were going to plan, everything seemed smoother. Today I made a long  long list of things that I need to look at, fix and services that I was going to have to offer if I’m going to turn this into a profit power house,

Target: £300 Turnover: £237.50

Though missing my target by quite a way, we still done very well. Above the break even amount, but I will need to keep this up or it will be tight.

Thursday – Disaster day, WX shopping centre became a ghost town, passing trade was almost nil. One of the main things I’ve learnt is the importance of getting customers back after doing the sales pitch. I’ve thought of a few ideas to increase returns, but I’ll play out the next week before changing anything. Though I’ve had reasonable success of passing trade, the money lies on people coming back, the few that have, always spend more money.

Target: £300 Turnover: £70

A slight kick in the teeth for this day, though it was a fun day, we only served two customers. We had to take a slight pay cut to make the week profitable. Though I want each week to pay for themselves out right, it is all about a bi-weekly (Many customers will return next week)

Friday – Again, quite a slow day compared to the earlier days in the week. A lot of the stores closed early or weren’t open at all, the public holiday wasn’t helping us. I think a lot of people may have gone away for a long weekend.

Had a photographer friend come down and work for a little bit, she enjoyed it and is very good at selling, she also booked a huge family to come on Saturday. I’m hoping she’ll work with me more soon, maybe taking over from me as the photographer.

Target: £300 Turnover: £118

Slight pay cut again, handed out even more leaflets (we’ve now handed out over a few hundred!) so the day wasn’t a complete failure.

Saturday – Our best day so far, all our booked appointments turned up on time and spent good money.
Work flow wasn’t that bad and we had no printer problems. Today’s success makes me very excited, the potential of my idea was really shown. First time I felt like things are coming together.

Target: £300 Turnover: £325

Half of Saturdays customers were people who had seen us earlier in the week. This is fantastic! If the passing trade is this strong and I can increase our overall business via more services, products and customer return rate. My goals will come with ease.

The Weeks Target: £1500 Turnover: £1145.50

So how much did I make?

Though I missed my overall  target by a huge amount, we still made a profit.

Wages: £520 (2X £260) Rent: £517.50 Consumables: <£100 (I spent less than £70 on paper and I sold a few frames etc (I still have lots of paper left @ certain sizes as well))

Total Approx Net Profit: £8.00

Ok, I won’t be making a million pounds in five years like this, but I’m exceptionally confindent that, with tweaks and a few changes, I’ll be driving my Ford GT soon enough.

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Quick update to show the reprint order form I designed, I plan to scrap it pretty fast, I have a considerable better idea for dealing with reprints, however needs a little of money to do.

We’ll see how my trial run goes. The PDF can be seen here.

And here is a screen shot.

Made in adobe Indesign with Photoshop for the speech bubbles, took me a few hours to get happy with it.

Today I have another test photo shoot with some more relatives, also I have my third light back, so tomorrow hopefully I’ll have some awesome pictures to show all.

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Phase 1.9 – Method Preparation

Need to be done before 6th
Setup lights + back drop, take photos
Print photos, frame them on studio walls
Finish off ‘Coming Soon!’ poster – put up in shopping centre
Print up hand out price lists
Contact local paper, try and get them to run a story on ‘PhotoNOW!’

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