Entrepreneur

I manage most of it. Yes I've definitely considered this. The hardest part is the detailed knowledge required for even being able to quote a customer on most of our new experiences. There's not a standardized price for a lot of what we do, it all depends on factors like where it's located, what the client is asking for, whether or not we are actually capable of doing it, and then if so what it would cost to build that experience out. So even if I brought in a manager I'd still be responsible for half of the inquiries, customer questions, phone calls etc. All the stuff that can be taken care of gets hired out like design work, taxes, event labor, etc. there are definitely ways I can standardize more of my business and focus on growing those areas and then get a manager into take over that part of it and branch out just a creative side of the business that I manage, but haven't made that change yet.

It depends I've had our bare bones selfie style iPad booth Make $17,000 with under $1,500 cost.

I'd say our most profitable on average per hour would be our glam booth experience, which is not about the booth itself, rather The output and what the client gets. It uses a DSLR camera with external flash, focused on really beautiful photos in full size prints with our special proprietary filter. $1,000 plus an hour with 3-hour minimums.

They enjoy all of it! Never had anyone disappointed with an experience.

It's all little things. Knowing photography and lighting are game changers. Plus my level of dedication to the business and my customers means we don't take shortcuts and we go above and beyond every time.

Answered in another post if you look for that maybe 22 focused hours. At least a lot of time thinking and getting caught up in tangents due to my ADHD

With two booths In a couple employees you should be able to make six figures gross at least. It's all about business strategy how to sell, getting the customers, knowing what they want, and marketing appropriately.

Employees are W-2, out of state contractors 1099.

Yeah you could get away with not working the events hiring right off the bat, just make sure you train up your team well enough and you take the time to learn everything well enough to help them. Make things as simple as possible so anyone with arms and a half brain could potentially make it work. Still I recommend you hiring full-brained employees ;)

Sign up for a listing aggregation service. It'll publish your information across hundreds of listing sites some more valuable than others, but always worth it to have it out there everywhere. Also most of local SEO has to do with site reviews on line that search aggregators can see, and having localized content on your pages that reference the cities you are targeting. Each of my individual locations suffers slightly due to having a nationwide listing on Google now, but because I've optimized my site so well, even though the maps results doesn't come up at the top anymore my site generally does no matter what the city is that we operate in

Using generic software, we have a lot of our own programming inside or on our site but not our own direct software for photo processing. Mostly Breeze or snappic.

Nice, if you ever get back into it or continue to run it, treat it like a business and it can pay you like a business.

First of all I systemized everything early on. We have videos, training, documents, checklists etc to make sure mistakes don't happen. And when they do we have backups and other contingencies.

Our staff are fully trained up on how to do all this before they are sent off on their own, and I'm always available Should they need to call or get assistance remotely. We also allow plenty of time for set up and tear down to ensure that everything could be followed properly and all items can be accounted for, completing the checklist so that the next time the equipment is used everything is ready to go.

Absolutely. I actually personally attended a wedding in South Florida where they had not just flowers but live plants adorning the entire venue. It was beautiful, and I'm sure they spent at least 20K on their plants / flower budget (maybe more). I know people on the floral side and the makeup side and they are absolutely killing it.

Employees are hourly, obviously I have my own costs with payroll, social security Medicare etc, but hourly starts at $20 an hour and goes up over time / experience. Our average 3-hour event, employees will work (including travel which they are paid for along with mileage reimbursement) 7-13 hours. Just depends on where the event takes place. We bake in lots of time for early arrival, traffic, troubleshooting etc even though it's mostly never needed.

The secondary employee used to go along with the first, but now we've replaced them with a contractor who just shows up as a brand ambassador and works for the set hours of the event to assist guests. This way we can spread out our key players and reduce cost per event, without coming to limit it to a single attendant. So our labor costs are probably quite high in the industry in general, Even though our hourly rates are not anything crazy, merely because we want to provide the best and account for every possible thing that could go wrong in order to deliver perfection. But I'd rather invest in good labor because the people are core to the business.

Hey answered on a number of comments here

My staff and my contractors love me. My philosophy is your people are always the most important part of any business. Treat them well, and they will reward you. I would rather offset any cost on the client than force my people to work for less. Often clients tip hundreds of dollars, which I let my people keep. I reimburse them for everything, treat them to bonuses, try to make their jobs as easy as humanly possible so they are excited to work.

This is very true. There is more than meets the eye, and all of this took effort. So I hope no one thinks they can buy a hunk of equipment and make bank. This is not an overnight success, but something every single person/business is capable of.

Nationwide the average is closer to $1200-1500 for an equivalent service in my experience. Truth be told, not every figure is possible within every market - and Arizona has been a bit of a bummer compared to other markets we operate in now. As time goes on and more people enter the industry with low-budget offers, it makes competing harder and makes brand and sales that much more important. Our customers aren't looking on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc, so we aren't competing with every company. But even for those that do compete on our playing field, we are totally cool losing a booking and keeping our brand value in tact.