What does the Recession mean for small business owners?

With so much discussion about the downturn of the economy lately, there has been a lot of talk about how this will effect small business owners and the photography industry.

Some observations and predictions I can contribute:

1. No matter how the economy is doing, people are still going to get married. So if you're a wedding photographer, this means that we're not really going to see too big of a slump.

2. This WILL however mean we need to work smarter, not harder. If 50% of small businesses fail within the first five years, times like these are certainly going to call for us to be even more agile and educated about the way we run our business... so we are the ones left standing.

3. Now is the BEST time to be in business for ourselves!! When people are getting laid off left and right and jobs are disappearing in Corporate America, there is MORE security in being a small business owner.

4. This nation has survived TOO long on a spend-not-save mentality and we're going to see this change when people get turned down for loans. This is both good AND bad. Good because people may start living within their means and should have MORE disposable income to spend on things like photography vs payments for a house they shouldn't be in the first place.

5. We're going to need to make it attractive for clients to buy. Sure, the banks and credit institutions are tightening up, but who says we cannot offer payment plans for our products and services?? I've been doing this for years and LOVE it that my clients can order what they want because they can pay for it in installments. I have to make sure my costs are covered up front, but then we also benefit from having a steady income from these installments.


6. Last, but certainly not least, we're going to have to become FINANCIALLY LITERATE. Yep, I said it. We need to understand how to run our business based on the numbers so we're sure we are charging correctly, not getting loaded down in debt/overhead, and have ample cash flow. I thought that this recession would put a halter on people signing up for the Photo Biz Boot Camp but it's great that people realize that now is THE most important time to focus on these things to make it through this.