CAMERA PROFITS
USING YOUR CAMERA FOR EXTRA MONEY


One of the easiest ways of 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 salesmanship, 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 loot of high priced attachments and
equipment. In many instances, a Polaroid or other "off-the-wall"
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 your busy shopping centers, or the children's
department in one of your 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 special prices during certain hours - perhaps
on Friday evenings and all day Saturdays - in his advertising,
thus drawing patrons into his store because of you.

You'll need a sheet or a plain piece of material, or some sort
of imaginative set for a background. But this you can 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 your 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 2-part receipt or coupon.

This can be a simple piece of paper about 2" wide by 5" 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 the number of children in the family, for future
efforts, but keep it brief and simple.

On the right hand 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 an 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 coup on and
have it printed on colored paper. The best color of paper 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 o f 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 x 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 1,000 circulars or flyers.

On your printing, shop around for the best deal, but in the
end, it shouldn't cost you more than about $60 for all 6,000
coupons which will come from 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
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, how ever, 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
on 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 Kiddies
Clothing store taking pictures.

Promote a "Baby of the Year" contest where you take pictures
of 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 an inexpensive and
portable set, such as an air plane, a race car, bucking bronco,
hand-shaking scene with a famous person or "balloon figures" and
take pictures of 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, take candid and action shots. You
then arrange the best of these pictures in a photo album with the
teams name and year on the 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 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
phone calls 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 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 your taking
pictures of the household goods they have insured. You take p
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 consultation
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 beg in 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 chasing 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 weak. 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!


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