How do you know when you’re making progress as a photography entrepreneur? How do you know what to write about? Some practical tips:

Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship

Thanks to Michael Kowalczyk for leaving this review for my ‘Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship” course on Udemy:

Michael: I learned that providing inspiration and education is most profitable these days. Building a 12k email following took Erik 6+ years. Newsletter are still the way to sell products/services. Erik says hustle / publish blog post untill you have true 1000 followers. 12k took him 6 years, 1k will then take 0,5y. Publish preferably on Monday. Wednesday and Friday midday. 3 times a week for half a year = 547 inspiring post about what you consider valuable and inspirational. The course did not mention to research topics in front and concentrate on what might be relevant or missing. Instead it just suggested to follow your own gut, interests and skills, stay positive and get away of naysayers. Erik sounds motivating but is clearly biased towards positive thinking. I would liked the course to be a bit more thoughtful and reflective. Consider adding more info about how/when/where to get usefull milestone like feedback/indicators (trough tech and people) along the steps in becoming an photo entrepreneur. Anyway thanks for putting this basic course together Erik. The best thing I got out of it is that it motivated me to start doing!

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1. How to research topics and to concentrate on what might be relevant or missing

Thanks Michael; here are some practical ideas:

a. Use ‘Google Keyword Tool’ Researcher: Insert certain keywords that you’re interested in researching with photography. For example, if your passion is film photography, and you want to monetize with wedding photography, search: “film wedding photography” to see what others on the internet are searching for (either on Google or YouTube). In the screenshot above, you can see what shows up under ‘street photography’. Maybe I can start doing more blogging on street photography “quotes” and “ideas“.
b. Another tip: I often just Google certain blog post ideas I have, to see if others have blogged about them or not. If not, I write them (figuring out how to find holes in knowledge/information on the internet).

Below is a closer look of what people are searching on Google around street photography:

2. How to get useful milestone indicators

This is a hard one. I believe that entrepreneurship is very philosophical. How do you know when you have a meaningful milestone? Is it by how much money you make? How many followers you have? How many awards or accolades you’ve won? I cannot speak for others, but this is how I track my progress:

a. Covering your monthly expenses through your photography passion: This goes to the concept of “making a living” from your passion in photography. For example if I have calculated that my monthly living expenses in America is around $3,000 USD a month, and I am earning $3,000 USD a month from my passion in photography, I feel this is a huge milestone!
b. Breaking the 1,000+ subscribers on your newsletter: This is a big one — this is the point where you know that you have “1,000 true fans”– and the point where it will be a lot more reasonable to make a living from your passion in photography. I say ignore social media numbers (Facebook likes, Instagram follower numbers, etc) and focus on your newsletter growth above everything else!

Thanks Michael so much for the ideas and feedback.

HUSTLE HARD!

Eric