11 Simple Steps To Kickstart Your Pet Photography Business

Are you thinking about starting a Pet Photography business or have you started your business, but feel overwhelmed and don’t know what to do next?

Today, we are going to simplify the eleven simple steps to kickstart your successful Pet Photography business.

Stick around until the end, because not only do I have a bonus tip for you, but a video to help you do just that! If you prefer, you can watch the accompanying video to this blog post instead.

PS. Looking to start your pet photography business or set it up from the legal standpoint? Click here to get get my free Start Your Pet Photography Checklist and kickstart your pet photography business today!

Pssst…love this post? Be sure to pin it for later!

Build Your Portfolio

Before you do anything, I always recommend to start building your portfolio. Why?

Because it gets you comfortable working with clients—even if they are your family and friends. It also helps you in building a comprehensive portfolio with all types of dogs including various ages, sizes, breeds, colors, etc.

Building your portfolio at the start showcases that you can work in different locations with all types of lighting scenarios, at any time in the day, and showcases your overall abilities and skill set to potential clients.

This way by the time you launch your business officially you have amassed a good amount of content to share across social media and on your website.

The last reason why you start here?

To make sure you actually enjoy pet photography and working with dogs!

I’ve seen a few photographers who say they love pet photography simply from having photographed their own dog, but when they get into it for real working with clients, it’s a completely different story.

If after you’ve been building your portfolio for a few months and you still enjoy working with dogs along with the challenge of working as a pet photographer, then this might be just the thing for you!

Decide On A Name

Next up, it’s time to figure out what your business name is going to be. But, before you go and make your final decision, here are a few things to consider:

It’s helpful if your name is relevant to Pet Photography to help with Google search or so it is immediately identifiable to potential customers or clients of what you do. For example, Cute Paws Photography, Floofy Studio, Dogtographer LA, Dog Breath Photography, Furtography NZ, etc.
You can use your personal name, if you prefer, especially if you photograph other things, unless your name is super common like Jane Smith Photography. If your name is especially common you might be competing with another photographer or business with the exact same or similar name, which can cause market confusion.
Be sure to do a search in your area prior to choosing a name, because not only do you not want to cause market confusion, but you also don’t want to upset another working photographer in your market who has the same or similar name. It could also potentially cause legal issues for you down the road.
You can search a name to ensure the name isn’t trademarked. It’s super simple and takes just a minute at the USPTO.
To recap, shoot for a name that is immediately identifiable and tells clients at a glance what you do. This will also help you with SEO. Aim for a name that is not super common name or that isn’t trademarked or copyrighted. Lastly, avoid names that are the same or extremely similar to other businesses and photographers in your market .
Determine Your Business Structure
Now that you have a name, it’s time to figure out how we are going to structure our business. As I am not a tax professional, lawyer, or business consultant, so take this information with a grain of salt. It may vary depending on where you are in the world also. I am located in the United States, so if you are US based, this information will be more relevant to you.
Usually, when you are a solopreneur or single individual, likely you are going to start your Pet Photography business set up as a “Sole Proprietorship.” It is the most common business structure and easiest to start with, because there isn’t a lot of complicated paperwork, excessive fees to pay, or other barriers to contend with to start as a Sole Proprietor.
In fact, usually, all you have to do is register with your county or submit a business license with your municipality in order to set up as a sole proprietor. There may be a small fee as well, but it won’t be very much. For more information on getting started as a small business, I highly recommend you check out the Small Business Administration, which has a ton of free resources all about this topic and more.
While this is a great place to start, I wouldn’t recommend staying as a Sole Proprietor. As you grow, gain liability in the form of employees, a brick and mortar location, or financial assets, being a SP does not shelter you personal assets (cars, home, investments, liquid assets, etc) from liability.
Say if a client were to sue you as a SP, then they can come after your personal assets, because there is no umbrella over your personal assets. In other words, your personal and business assets aren’t separate.
So, that brings us into the second type of structure you may consider as a Pet Photography and that’s an LLC, or Limited Liability Corporation. While the paperwork and fees to set up an LLC are a bit more arduous, there are tons of benefits to structuring your business an LLC.
For starters, there are more tax benefits for small business owners with LLCs. Being a SP, you are paying much, much higher taxes in the form of self employment tax.
The other huge benefit of becoming an LLC is that it shelters your business assets separate from your personal assets. Again, if a client were to sue, your personal assets would be off the table, because they are entirely separate from your LLC.
I’m sure there are other benefits of becoming an LLC versus a SP, but those are two of the major ones you’ll hear business owners talk about.
Now, there are other business types, but when you are a much smaller company, with limited employees, SP and LLC are generally one of structures that you will fall under.
I recommend you talk with a Certified Public Accountant, or CPA, to determine which business structure is right for you.

License Your Business Where Necessary

Depending on where in the world you live, you may have to submit a business license in your county or state. I mentioned this a moment ago, but that will likely look a bit different depending on your city, state, or municipality.

Just do a simple Google search and your local business administration will likely provide the necessary information and how to apply for your area.

For example, I do not have to have an official license, but I do have to register my business with my county's register of deeds. It’s a simple form I print out, mail in, and then pay a fee of $30 to let them know that I am operating as a business in my specific county.

Again, the Small Business Administration is a helpful resource or even looking at your local area’s business information to see what you need to do.

Apply For Tax ID Number

Here in the United States, we are required to apply for a Tax ID number with the federal government, which is used for a multitude of things such as paying taxes. This number is also known as an EIN or employee identification number.

However, sole proprietors are not required to have an EIN, but rather because of tax liability I mentioned before, SPs use their social security number.

But, if you plan on become an LLC, you must apply for an EIN for paying taxes, having employees, etc. It’s totally free and super easy to do online once you are incorporated as an LLC. You can apply for an EIN here.

Apply For Sales & Use Tax ID

Speaking of taxes, paying federal taxes isn’t the only kind of tax you have to worry about paying! In fact, depending on the state you live in, you may also have to charge your customers sales tax on your products and services that you’ll have to remit quarterly.

Yes, you heard that right, services, at least in the state of North Carolina, are taxable.

This means you’ll need to head to your county’s Department Of Revenue and register for a Sales & Use Tax ID number that will be your business’ unique identifying number when you files sales tax.

If your state does not have sales tax, it’s likely you don’t have to worry about this, but it’s important to check!

Also, if you haven’t made any money in your business yet, I wouldn’t worry about this too much to start, but if you start making a little bit of money, you will need to do this and start paying sales tax, otherwise, you could get hit with huge tax bill later on, which nobody wants!

Open Separate Business Bank Accounts

Do not skip this next step; this is one of the most important parts of your new business!

Now that we’ve got our EIN, the next step is to open separate business accounts, a business checking and savings, which is why you also need an EIN!

Even though, as a sole proprietor, you might think it's totally okay to keep your business and personal accounts the same, when it comes to tax time, it’s going to be a nightmare. Trust me, I’ve had friends who have made this mistake and it was one of the most stressful things they had to go through in their business.

My advice? Open separate accounts, one savings and one checking, that you manage all of your business transactions through.

Plus, you can link an accounting software, like Quickbooks, with your bank accounts to help you manage it on the go. I use Quickbooks for my own business and I can manage all of my expenses and mileage on the go - it’s super simple even if you are someone who doesn’t love numbers!

Moral of the story is: your business and personal finances will be better off in the long run if you start it by having your personal and business finances separate, I promise!

Last thing I’ll say, if you want to open a new checking and savings account for your business, I highly recommend Chime, which is an online bank and app that I use for my business.

I love it, it’s so easy to use, and banking with them has been great. If you want to check out more about Chime for your business accounts and if you sign up with them under my link, you could also receive a $100 for joining.

The last thing I will say about separating your business and personal accounts is that depending on the structure of your business, if you open an official business bank account, usually you get access to higher yield savings, business lines of credit, and other benefits outside of a standard bank account.

Invest In Business Insurance

Another very important and often overlooked step to becoming legal in your business is getting insurance!

I’m not going to lie, I knew I needed insurance, but I couldn’t afford it in my business until about a year in.

So, while I don’t recommend going without it like I did, I understand that there will be times where you just can’t afford it especially early on.

But, when you are able to afford the $30-$50 a month to get liability insurance for your business, do it!

Not only will this be great to show clients as something that sets you apart in your business, offers them reassurance in case anything happens on their property or the property you are shooting on, but it also covers equipment theft or loss (that I’ll talk about more in a moment).

Generally, $1 Million in liability is more than enough for Pet Photographers, but you get to decide what terms are best for you; talk to your insurance agent and they can guide you in the right direction.

In terms of equipment coverage, I will mention this as it was taught to me, you want to make sure to ask for equipment replacement coverage on your policy–not cash value based on equipment's depreciation.

This is so, if something happens to your eight year old camera, they don’t write you a check for the depreciated cash value of that item and offer you $800 for an $8000 camera you purchased eight years ago.

Because what is $800 really going to buy you when it comes to replacing your camera, especially one that is making you money in your business? That’s just an example I am using, but you get the idea.

I can’t stress enough the importance of insurance in your business.

In every business I have owned, I have had insurance! Fortunately, I’ve never had to file a claim or use the policy, but it gave me great peace of mind in my business in the event that something happened. It will gives you clients peace of mind, too!

Determine Your Offerings & Pricing

We are so close to being up and running as a Pet Photography business.

Now that you have all of the legal stuff out of the way and you’ve been working on building your portfolio, we can talk about your offerings and pricing.

So, what do you want to offer?

One session type with products included?
Multiple packages for the one session you offer with products included?
Mini sessions?
Or a full standard session to every client where they can buy a la carte items like me?
Before you can figure out your pricing, you do have to figure out what you want to offer.
Remember, a confused mind says no, so try to make your offerings as streamlined and simple for your client as possible.
Once you’ve figured out what you want to offer, I recommend you also check out my pricing video here to help you out a bit more before you determine your prices. There are some good insights in that video to help you ensure that you are pricing according to your unique business and not just the standard market rate.
To give you an example from my own business, I offer two kinds of sessions, Pet Portrait Sessions and Forget Me Not Sessions.
That’s it.
The Pet Portrait Session is my standard session for all clients that clients can order a la carte what they want from that session.
The Forget Me Not Session is similar, but it’s a slightly reduced rate for my End Of Life session clients and the sessions are generally shorter. They also include digital files and I approach how I shoot these sessions differently.
You can certainly choose how you want to structure your business today and then tweak and adjust as needed. Your offerings and pricing are concrete. As you continue to grow and learn, you can make changes as needed.
Set Up Your Online Presence
From here, I recommend setting up your online presence. We are talking about getting your website up, social media channels, business pages on Google, Yelp, etc, other search engines, online directories, and anywhere else your business will exist in the online space.
The reason I put this down the list on the steps to starting your business is because there is so much that happens before you even set up your website and social media, but often people do this first!
It’s fine to have these things set up and building momentum, but until you have a name, logo, offerings and pricing, along with a portfolio, it doesn’t make sense to do your digital marketing stuff first and it detracts from what you actually should be doing to kickstart your Pet Photography business.
Put All Your Efforts Into Marketing Yourself
At this point, your business is ready to rock and roll.
You’ve got your legal and financial ducks in a row, you’ve got your portfolio built, you know your pricing and offerings, and you’ve got your online presence ready to go.
My last and best tip? Put all of your efforts into marketing yourself!
Without marketing, there will be ZERO clients. And I’m not talking about just posting on social media, because can I let you in on a little secret?
I’ve never booked a single client from social media…
Marketing is the number one thing that will drive and propel your business forward.
You should be marketing your business on multiple channels at one time including in person and online. Some examples include hosting model calls, social media, vendor events, networking events, blogging, search engine optimization, and more.
If you want to learn Five Smart Ways To Market Your Pet Photography Business from a Pet Photography, check out this video here.

By now, with this comprehensive list, I hope you feel empowered and excited to kickstart your Pet Photography business. If you ever need additional help, I am always here as a resource to help you succeed in your business. Don’t forget to check out more complimentary education on YouTube or reach out to about a 1:1 coaching session!