Is your market driven by quality or by network?

Networking can  help drive prospective clients to your business, but it will be you  who can convert that traffic into sales. Your brand, personality and consistent quality will help create  and drive sales.

What is your brand? Trust me most people in business big and small including especially photographers do not  really know their brand  and or have a confusing brand.

Define your brand, focus on offering and selling only the   stuff YOU  want to sell. Do not do any  photography that you  have little to no interest in. Yes, you have to expand outside your initial  comfort range but   do so in the confines of  photography you  like and or enjoy. Once you have  that all down pat you can  try  other areas to see if a passion for such can  come about.

Most photographers are individual based entities, as such YOU  are your brand. Figure out  who you are and  build a brand around  such. Then and only then can  you begin to build a  business model that may work.

Networking is important to  get people to see and find you, never be afraid to network.

Selling, selling, selling. "If you ain't selling as a business  you ain't making money." If you can't make money you WILL NOT SURVIVE AS A BUSINESS! If this is too hard on you then DO NOT PURSUE PHOTOGRAPHY AS A BUSINESS!  It is ok to keep it as a hobby if you are not business orientated. If you accept that  you are selling ALL THE TIME, yourself, your  brand and  ultimately  your products then you can begin to walk.

Sell on VALUE and not on PRICE!

Contrary to what most in businesses may initially feel and think  most every business that  failed  or fails will be for ONE REASON! No not taxes, no not the damn govt.  including their regs, no not  lousy or seemingly uncaring  suppliers, no not a soft local market, no not your customers, no not any employees you  may have. IT FAILED BECAUSE OF YOU! ACCEPT IT  AND TRUST IT! If you can accept that failure of a business is mostly likely  going to be because of you then you now have the ability to  build a business model  that better  makes sure yours WILL NOT FAIL! Yes, there can always be an exception to this point made  but the exception  is very rare. Blaming others for your ultimate failure is just an EXCUSE!