Photography
Case Study For Service Businesses

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"The first thing I do every morning
is turn on my PC to see how much
I have earned in the night."

Wow! Where do I start?

Right now I am sitting at home in the middle of a "working day" writing this, while my wife is playing with our young children in the next room.

Just writing that sentence makes me realise how lucky I am!

I am 40 this year, and since the age of 12, I have had an incredible passion for photography and everything it stands for.

However, the pressure of parental expectations in the 1980's, coupled with very little communication and real opportunities in my small village location, pushed me take the "usual" route. I ended up choosing a career that I felt would gain approval and be safe.

Ten Years In An Office...
There Had To Be More To Life

I spent 4 years at Business College, moved to London, studied accountancy, and worked for 10 years in an office... really not me at all.

During that time, I kept my passion for photography alive. I ran a wedding photography business part time, while studying new techniques and the latest technologies. I even got a finance job at Nikon to keep the fires burning as it were.

But I always knew there had to be more to life than an office. I went from job to job looking for something that wasn't really there. I tried all manner of part time schemes and scams that would free up my time.

I didn't want money so much... I just wanted time.

Some employment options worked for a while, some didn't, and in the end I moved abroad to Spain to continue my search. It was there that I got married.

Spain was also where my new wife and I discovered the internet and bought our first computer. In all honesty, it was the photo editing software that reeled me in as I "went digital" with my photography!

My search for the ideal job, what I called "THE thing," went cyber. Unfortunately, what I found was the opposite. I got roped into "buying" an online store for $200 that absolutely and categorically didn't work, no matter how much I wanted it to happen. As a result, I went "offline" again for a few more years.

Then by chance, about 3 years ago, I bumped into a friend who excitedly told me about something he was doing. I half listened (like I had done so many times before), but soon my eyes and mind glazed over.

His enthusiasm was amazing, but I had kind of heard it all before. So I let his suggestion go.

A whole year later, he once again gave me an update. Now he was doing his "thing" full time from home, his wife was helping him, and he was earning some really good money.

I dragged him to a coffee house and listened this time.

I Can Do It, Too!

Finally, his solution seemed like something I could possibly do. I could build a website about photography, the one thing that has been with me consistently throughout my life. It was a chance to get all that information and passion out of my head.

The only catch was that I knew nothing about the internet. How could I build a website and earn money from it?

Then it hit me. If my friend who couldn't even switch on his laptop when he first bought it can be a success, I was sure I stood half a chance.

At that time, I was working as a property photographer in southern Spain. It was a good job that gave me a few hours each day to pursue this new and exciting business. Suddenly things were looking up...

Until disaster struck for us. It was just before Christmas. There I was with a 1 year old son, and a "very newly pregnant" wife who wasn't working. We were six weeks from signing for a huge mortgage. And then the worst case scenario happened. I received the news that my position at work was made redundant.

The Pressure Was On Me To Succeed

Being in Spain, jobs are fairly hard to come by, especially with photography or accountancy. It was kind of "sink or swim" time.

In January we signed for the mortgage, and moved in.

I remember saying to my wife... "Give me one year to set this website up. If it doesn't work, we will have to either get jobs selling real estate, or move back to the UK."

Both of those options were enough to get me motivated, so I sat at my PC and just typed and typed. I knew absolutely nothing about the internet, websites, HTML, or anything... I just typed.

The great thing about SBI is that they do all of the hard (and necessary) work for me. That frees up my time to do what I do best and love the most... write, teach, play, and learn.

After just one year, my site started to take off. Any page that I built using SBI's simple 10 step Action Guide got ranked well with the search engines, and traffic started coming my way.

I even tried a little test. I built a single, simple page for myself as a wedding photographer in Spain and the Costa del Sol. This experimental page went straight to number one (google "wedding photographer Costa del Sol" and see what I mean).

The result? Wedding contracts started rolling in.

The rest, as they say, is history. By the way, that page needs updating, but I dare not touch it :-)

Work Is Getting In The Way Of Work!

Two years on, and it is now February 2007. My entire upcoming year is packed with weddings, commercial work, property photography, and even fashion shoots. I have weddings booked in the Park Lane Hotel in London, the Ritz Carlton in Spain, and one in Tuscany in Italy. I am even currently dealing with an enquiry for a wedding in Mauritius later this year.

The funny and ironic thing is, I am hoping to do a major shuffle next year!

My photography website is producing so much work offline it is stopping me from building more sites (which is what I want to do). I have started another which is also starting to take off, and now "work is really getting in the way of work." What a great position to be in and a huge contrast to two years ago!

Life Couldn't Be Better

To finish off my ramblings, here are some quick facts as of now:

As I said at the beginning, I am sitting here at home on a Thursday with no boss, no worries (apart from the kids tearing up the living room), and a really exciting future.

I finally have what I wanted... time!

The beauty about everything I am currently doing, and plan to do for the next few years, is that my efforts will create passive and residual income. I am creating a pension that I can actually pass down to my kids. How many people have one of those?

Some days I really have to take a step back to realise how lucky I am... especially when I think of my "previous" life in London.

I definitely want to give SBI a massive "Thank You."

Nick Stubbs
http://www.all-things-photography.com/