Say you are a good photographer. You enjoy photography, you are good at it, and you decide to persue wedding photography as a freelance business. But you don’t realize – or underestimate – how much other stuff is involved in running a business; marketing, sales, business contracts, client relationships, and countless other details you never thought of. You may be good at photography, but eventually it may not matter how good you are at photography if you can’t get clients or if you can’t get bills paid on time.
This is why, I believe, a lot of businesses and freelancers fail: they just don’t realize the amount of work actually required in running a business.
I came across this article in today’s Asbury Park Press: Working Vacation. It is about a company that allows you to work alongside someone in a career or profession that you are interested in. From the article:
Skye Forbes, a contract administrator from Durham, N.C., recently took a little vacation at the Jersey Shore.
But she wasn’t here to check out the beaches or boardwalks. Instead, she spent two days at Ballroom Etc. in Wall, learning what it takes to open up a dance studio.
“It was only for two days, but there was a lot of information to be packed into two days,” said Forbes, 24.
The company, Vocation Vacations, lists a range of jobs that they offer this package for: from Dog Daycare Owner to Retail Buyer to Sword Maker. There are dozens of careers that you can look into and learn about. Although it is pricey (some of the packages run up to $1000 for two days), the article makes it sound very informative.
I think that this kind of information and training is great for someone who wants to make their hobby into a full time gig, leaving behind a career that they are no longer interested in. There are a lot of pitfalls to doing something like this, so the more information you have, the better idea you have of what you are getting in to. This allows you to make a more informed decision.
Say you are that photography who wants to quit their job and persue photography. Now you can work alongside a professional photographer for two days and they’ll show you not only how to take a photo, but maybe they will also show you a sample contract and tell you how to find clients and keep them. Now you are really aware of what goes into running a business and you can make a more informed decision about whether or not you want to quit your full time job and switch careers.
Of course, you’re not going to learn everything you need to know about a new field, but again, this gives you a great chance to learn something. Every bit counts, and before you invest a lot more money in additional schooling or training, maybe this counts as a minimal investment.
This is the kind of working vacation I can get behind.