Business planning is an essential part of any professional photography studio. This is the first part of a 12 part series on business planning for photographers. Each part includes a helpful template for you to fill out (which can be accessed in our download library).

Don't be scared of writing a business plan. The worst that can happen is you don't quite reach your goal, but that's not all bad. If you aimed for 100% and only achieved 75%, that could be significantly better than the 25% you're doing now.

Think ahead a few years. How will you feel when you find yourself retired in the old folks home, rocking on a chair on the verandah and wishing you had tried something different or been a bit bolder and given it a go!

Don't wait, act now. Business planning will help you optimise your opportunities in life. If you make a plan and follow it through, at least you'll know that you've given it your best shot - and that's all any of us can do.

Personal Vs Business
As self-employed photographers, we're really lucky. If we need to earn more money, we can work harder and/or smarter. We reap the rewards of our extra efforts. Our 'business' life is the key to funding our 'personal' life.

If you're spending 40 hours a week running your business, doesn't it make sense to use those 40 hours as intelligently as you can, so you can optimise your personal time? However, we should separate our professional photography from our personal life. Our photography skills will generate [some of] the income we need to fund our homes, our families, our holidays and our retirement. If we want a more expensive standard of living, then our photography is the key to getting it.

Before you can start work on a business plan, you need to determine what you want from life. Where do you want to live, how much money do you want, how will you spend your years in retirement?

The first five worksheets in this business plan series look at 'personal planning'  what do you (and maybe your partner) want from life? Take the time to create a clear picture in your mind as to where you want to be in the future - whether that's next year, in five years or in 50 years.

Only with a clear vision will you be heading in the right direction. This worksheet asks you to look at retirement. It might be a long way off for some readers, but give it a go. The reason behind this template is to show you how much money you need to save for retirement - and this must become an integral part of your overall business plan.

There are two aspects to this template: your lifestyle in retirement and the money you'll need to pay for it.

Don't spend too much time working out exactly how much everything will cost, just base your calculations on what you spend today. Hopefully, by the time you retire your mortgage will be paid out and so you will have only rates and maintenance to pay, but no rent or mortgage repayments.

Similarly, you won't be supporting your children etc. The funds you require for retirement will need to generate sufficient money to live on for the rest of your life. Naturally, you don't know how long you or your spouse are going to live, so these calculations are going to be an estimate at best.

Although we suggest your total retirement funds should be ten times your annual living expenses, you may require a lot more. Use this as a starting point, or increase it now. Note also that these figures are in current dollars. You will need to increase the dollar amount in line with inflation every year.

Click here to download the templates in the Business Planning Series.