Starting Your Own Photo Card Business

Starting your own business, for some people seems to be entirely too complicated to even venture into. In reality, starting the business is not that complicated, it's keeping your name in the know, and keeping your marketing skills honed to a level as to compete with everyone else out there.

Your first task is to be good at something. I mean, really, you can't just throw yourself into something that you are not good at, unless you want to invest time and money into something that is not going to end up paying you in the end anyway.

I think everyone is good at something, whether it's organizing, designing, cleaning, or even good manners. You know, there aren't many business out there that specialize in etiquette. So if that's your forte, go for it.

I started my own photo card business, and I have to say, business is great for me. I have dabbled in graphic design for years now, creating cards just for the fun of it, for my family and friends, and myself, my children, and even neighbors. It occured to me one day that I could actually get paid for what I had been doing for free. I was essentially creating artwork, and giving it away for free. Did Picasso give away his artwork? I don't think so. I had jumped over the first hurdle, which was making up my mind that my concept would sell, and that I could be successful.

My next hurdle would be to decide how to best get my work out there. I knew, that for this day in age, I would need to start with a website. There are so many consumers out there that don't even want to bother with a person, they want to find an easy to navigate website that walks them through each step of the ordering process without confusing the heck out of them. This was my next step, to find a web host that would be cost effective, but would offer me the best package for what I was looking to sell. I settled with Homestead. Try www.homestead.com. I price compared with several different companies, and found that for the business components I was looking for, this company fit the bill pretty much to a t. I figured that starting small would be the best way. You never want to grow a business too fast, or it might bite you in the rear later on....so take your time.

My next step, since I'm good at graphic design, was to attempt to design my own website. The company I chose to host my website has design services, which I paid for, and I highly recommend paying for, if it's for a reasonable price. I may have designed my own webpage, but when I was done doing that, I hit a brick wall. Now what do I do? That is where my designer came in to play. He helped me tweek my design to a point where I was more than satisfied with it, and where it had the professional quality I was looking for, but lacked on my own.

Once my main web page was completed, it was time to add all my custom text, and of course, all my products. I have been making templates for cards for quite awhile now, so this was the easy, and exciting part for me. I was excited for the whole process, excited to see the end result, and excited to say that I had accomplished something that many people dream of doing.

Once I had all my images uploaded to the web hosting site, it was time to organize them in an order that would make sense to my future customers. I started playing around with the order of them, and realized that if all my products were on the same page, it would seem easier to navigate, and my customers would be happier not having to surf through hundreds of pages of designs just to find the right one. I decided that having too many options if often a negative thing, and the one quality that I wanted my website to encompass was simplicity. Web design is a complicated thing, and I don't believe that it has to stay that way. I believe you can create a website that looks professional, that is easy to use, and that feels pleasant while you are surfing it's pages.

The next step, and this was the step I assumed would be so incredibly complicated, but in fact, was very simple. Adding the payment option to my payment page. Technology, it evolves with our minds, and helps us to realize that making things more simple is in fact, what most people are looking for. I added the Paypal button and that was it. With paypal nowadays, you don't even have to have an account, all you have to have to pay through paypal is a major credit card. Now my customers have it easy, they don't have to jump through hoops just to pay, and they don't have to spend 10 extra minutes signing up for a paypal account just to purchase my product.

I think the most difficult thing about having your own business is marketing. Where to do it, how to do it, who is your market base? Who is your competition. A great place to start before you get to this point, is to write a business plan. This helps you organize your thoughts on paper without just blindly jumping into something you are clueless about. In writing a business plan, you project where you want your business to be within a certain timeline. I again, started small. I started with knowing that a business that is primarily ran out of my home, from the computer, and is 95% internet based, was a big obstacle. Home based business are a tough business. No matter what, you have to know what your plan is, hence, a business plan. Marketing is a huge part of this business plan. You need to know ahead of time what your plans are. With mine, I logged onto as many chat rooms as I could, posted online bulletins on websites that allow it. Posted on forums where mothers and wifes hang out. I had to decide who would mostly be purchasing my product. Since I sell photo cards, I think it is safe to assume that most people who purchase them are either mothers, wifes, wife's to be, mothers to be, aunts, etc. This is how I started to sell myself. I made brochures, and posted them in my OBGYN office, pediatrician office, libraries in town, and even at the gym and local yoga studios. I also sent a mass email to all my friends and family letting them know about my business, Life Kisses You, and that if they wanted to help me network, than they could post brochures for me in their own town, where they think it would be most successful. Marketing, as a stay at home mom, for my home based business, had to hugely rely on the kindness of my friends and family. I created baby shower invites for my friends when they were expecting, birth announcements when they had their babies, and on the back of every single card, my web address, www.lifekissesyou.com. This was in immense help!

It was slow going in the beginning, which was only a few months ago, but I am plowing full steam ahead and actually getting business.

Another marketing method for someone starting a business like mine is to hit up all the local vendors whom you think would be interested in partnering with you. Photographers and printing houses are a good place to start.

I needed to find a lab that would print all my cards for me. This was a difficult task, since I wanted my product to be quality, I needed to make sure that the printer cared about the final product in the same way that I would. I chose a smaller print lab, where I was able to meet the lab technicians who would be individually handling my company's orders. I tested them out first, to make sure that my orders would be filled efficiently and with the quality that I would want if I was the one ordering the cards.

I needed to make sure that I had the time in the day to devote specifically to marketing myself. I gathered email addresses from wherever I could find them, sent out mass emails with my information attached, and apologized in that same email for sending a mass email, this way the recipient would understand that I dislike SPAM as much as they do, but felt that it was a great way to network. I monitored my website hits. This is an important tool to make sure that the company you choose to host your website offers. A way to track and monitor each person that hits your website, the pages they visit, and for how long they visit each page. This has been the most handy tool, so that I know that an email I sent out had a good result, or that a blog or bulletin I posted was received well and started resonating business for me.

My name has slowly been circulated through many different states, and for a small, stay at home business, I can say that I have been marginally successful. I love working with my clients directly. You have to have a niche, you have to have something that no one (or almost no one) offers. What I offer to my customers is a card that is incredibly affordable, and a card that is much their own creation. Many of my customers love my designs and don't make a single change to them, than I have others who see something that they like, and instead of uploading two pictures for it, they want me to use six, which greatly changes the overall look of the card. This is what I wanted, I wanted a website where someone who has great pictures that they want to use on a card, doesn't have to choose only one or two, they can choose many of them, and they don't have to pay the designer extra just to use more than the allowed picture per card.

Find your gimmick, if you want to call it that, that will set you apart from the competition. Know your competition, and make sure that you are different from them.

Make sure that you take care of everything legally as well, also, copyright information, a business license, and an EIN (Employer Identification Number) for tax purposes. Different states have different regulations for home based businesses, learn their regulations and make sure you are following the letter of the law.

The fun part, getting your name out there, printing your own business cards. My recommendation is to do most of the work, if not all of it, yourself, at least in the beginning. The more work you do yourself, the less you pay someone else, thus, the more money you take home as profit in the end. I enjoy printing my own business cards, I enjoyed making my own logo, and printing my own brochures. I have a great color printer, why not use it?

In closing, starting your own business should be fun, not stressful. The reason I started mine, was because I have a passion and a talent that I want to share with people looking for that talent out there. I have a child at home that I take care of everyday, and a husband whom I love dearly, they are my priority, and my business comes second. I think it's important to make those priorities in your life, and make them matter. Your family should always come first. I make sure that my daily obligations are met before I take on new business. I take orders that I have time to take, even if I stay up many nights working on proofs for my customers, at least I have devoted my day to my son, and my evening to our family dinner, and family bonding time. I believe it has enhanced my business tenfold, to be in it with my heart, knowing that I am not neglecting anything else in my life. The last, and probably most important aspect of starting your own business, which falls into the same category as family priority does, is the support of your spouse. I think that because my husband has been so supportive of me, it gave me the confidence to begin with, and it has given me the aspiration to use this business to help better the future for our family, for our children. It has helped me to be a better mother, and a better wife. It has shown me that without my husband's support, there is not much I can do, but with it, I can succeed in any endeavor.

Good luck in your endeavors and have fun with it, cherish each moment and keep the important things as priority!