One of the easiest ways to making extra money is with a camera. More
people own cameras than radios, and photography is the fastest growing hobby in
the world. Yet using a camera as an extra income tool is largely overlooked!
With a little imagination, a flair for
showmanship, and just a hint of showmanship, the average man or woman, or even
teenager, can easily make an extra $300 a week with his camera.
You don't have to have one of the popular,
more expensive cameras either, or a lot of high priced attachments and
equipment. in many instances, a Polaroid or other "off-the-shelf"
camera will suit the purposes perfectly. The only special piece of extra equipment
you may want to invest in would be a tripod for mounting the camera in certain
situations.
One of the easiest ideas is to visit a
children's clothing store in one of the busy shopping centers, or the
children's department in one of the large department stores. Sell the manager
or store owner on the idea of your setting up in a corner of the store or department,
and taking pictures of the shoppers' children. He can promote the fact that
you'll be in the store taking pictures for a special prices during certain
hours---perhaps on Friday evenings and all day Saturdays---in his advertising,
thus drawing more patrons into his store because of you.
You'll need a sheet or plain piece of
material, or some sort of imaginative set for a background. But this can be
easily make or build yourself. You should also have an eye-catching poster that
calls attention to what you're doing and the prices you're charging. Unless
you're a commercial artist, spend the money to have this sign made for you by a
professional. The next and last thing you'll need will be a two-part receipt or
coupon.
This can be a simple piece of paper about
2 inches wide by 5 inches long. On the left side draw lines for your customers
to fill in their name, telephone number and address. You might also want to
include space for additional information such as the child's name and age and
number of children in the family, for future efforts, but keep it brief and
simple.
On the right side of this coupon, have
your business name, address and telephone number, plus a quick outline of the different
kinds of photography work you handle, and perhaps a business slogan such as
"Satisfaction Guaranteed or You Don't Pay."
To add a little bit of class to this
coupon, take the basic outline of this idea over to a instant print shop. Tell
them what you want; show them your outline; and have them typeset everything.
Then put a fancy border around the whole coupon and have it printed on colored
paper. The best color is a "dollar bill" shade of green. If you want
to give it even more class, you could have it printed on green, lightweight
card stock. You'll want to divide the "information" side of this
coupon from the "business card" side with a dotted line and
perforations.
If you layout this coupon properly, you
should be able to get six of them on an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper or card
stock. This means the printer can print and cut 6,000 of them for about the same
cost as printing circulars or flyers.
On your printing, shop around for the best
deal, but in the end, it shouldn't cost more than $60 for all 6,000 coupons
which will come those 1,000 sheets of paper or card stock.
Now, when you take a person's picture,
regardless of whether it's an "in-store" set-up out on the golf
course, or along the street, you give your customer one of your coupon-receipts
and tell them their prints will be ready in a couple of days. They fill in the information
part of the coupon and give it back to you, retaining your "business
card" portion of it.
When the prints are ready, you can phone
the customer and remind him--volunteer to deliver and collect; send them
through the mail with a bill; or make arrangements with a store to take care of
them until the people call for them and pay at that time.
Most stores, golf courses, bowling
centers, and other retail merchants will be glad to handle this part of it for
you, because it brings the customers back into the places of business, and provides
another sales opportunity for them.
By all means, be sure to include an
advertising circular with each set of pictures you deliver. This circular
should explain how the customer can get more prints, how he can get
enlargements of his favorites, and details relating to all the other photography
services you offer
Back to the original "in-store"
picture taking set-up during evening shopping hours and on weekends for
extra income. You can call attention to your "in-store" set-up, and
bring in more business with a few merchandising promotional ideas. In the following
paragraphs we give the highlights of a few ideas that have worked well.
However, you should keep your eyes open to observe additional promotional ideas
that could be adapted to fit your new business.
Dress a helper in a clown suit, and take
pictures of the kids in his lap or with his arm around the kids. Put a sandwich
advertising board on a helper and let him stroll through the shopping center
advertising the fact that you're in a Kiddies Clothing store taking
pictures.
Promote a "Baby of The Year"
contest where you can take pictures of the babies, display the pictures on a
"show board" and offer $100 cash plus a merchandise prize in a big
drawing at the end of the year.
Set up a booth in the mall and promote
"Instant Snapshots." Be a Roving Photographer and take candid shots
of shoppers and promote a "Shopper Of The Year" contest. Work with a
clown and have him "attach himself" to the kids, and ask if they'd
like to have their pictures taken with him. Build and inexpensive and portable
set, such as an airplane, a race car,
bucking bronco, hand-shaking scene with a famous person or "balloon
figures" and take pictures of the people standing in or on these sets.
Get out to the golf course and take
pictures of the golfers teeing off. Get over to the bowling centers and take
candid shots of the bowlers in action. Do the same thing wherever there's a sports
event taking place. Be on the spot and ready whenever there's an opportunity to
take team pictures.
You might follow, or hire someone else to
follow a Little League team through its season, taking candid and action shots.
You then arrange the best pictures in a photo album with the team's name and
year on front. You should be able to sell one of these albums to each member of
the team.
There's also the idea of "just"
strolling through the park" on a Sunday afternoon. You can take candid and
interesting pictures of couples, children and people in general spending time
with their relatives.
Keep tabs on the announcements of new
births. Send advertising literature to the new mothers, and follow up with a
phone call efforts to set up photography sessions.
Keep tabs on the engagement notices in the
weekend papers. Send your sales literature to the brides-to-be, and follow up
with phone call efforts to take the wedding pictures.
Set up a household and business photo
inventory service. With this idea, you contact the insurance companies and
determine if they will approve and endorse photographs you take of their policy
holders' household, personal, and business property in loss claims.
Most will, and from there--working either
with the help of an insurance agent, the agency itself, or on your own--contact
owners of property and sell them on the idea of you taking pictures of the
household goods they have insured. You take the pictures--a pictorial inventory
of everything they're claiming or would like to claim on an insurance
policy--and then identify the pictures, giving one set to the property owner
and the other set to his insurance agent or company.
Picture inventories of household and
personal property is still a new thing, but everywhere it's been introduced,
it's definitely proven to be a super money- maker for the people willing
to get out and hustle.
If this idea arouses your interest, you
might want to check into a going franchise operation that gives you a complete
business manual, operations guidebook, and ongoing consultant services: Photographic
Inventory, PO Box 4046, Morgantown, WV 26505.
Once you decide that using your camera to
generate extra income is what you're going to do, get out and use your camera,
start taking pictures, and allow yourself the opportunity to build. Give
yourself the chance, and you'll quickly begin to think of hundreds of ideas for
taking pictures, merchandising ideas for promoting your services, and sales
angles for increasing your profits.
The important thing is to get started,
regardless of how small your start, and begin cashing in on an idea that's
still in its infancy. This is an idea that can produce new concepts for profit every
day of the week. An idea that can be fun, as well as financially rewarding for
you!
You've got the idea and the plan--the rest
is up to you. You've got the ball; now run with it!
0 comments:
Post a Comment