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When is it safe to go full time as a real estate photographer?

Four regular agents, and a good month beats my paycheck now. My wife wants a date. When is it safe?Asked by a photographer on A quiz lead in Tampa

Safe isn’t a feeling or a date. It’s two numbers you can put on the fridge, and you measure them on a winter month, not a good one. Pick the date off one good month and the first quiet winter picks it back, and agents don’t call to warn you.

Safe is two numbers

It’s a rule I borrowed from a business book, and it holds up. Number one: six to twelve months of cash in the bank. Number two: the business already covering half your bills.

Hit either one and going full time is a decision. Hit neither and it’s a hope with a resignation letter attached.

Which number you hit first depends on the business. A photographer with a day job and four regulars will usually get to half the bills before six months of cash. Either one counts.

Two gauges on the fridge door. Months of cash, with a line at six. Share of the bills the business paid, with a line at half. Your wife can read them as well as you can, which is the point. Nobody has to argue about a feeling.

Hit either number and it’s a decision. Hit neither and it’s a hope.

Measure it on a winter month, not a good one

Four regulars feels safe. I lost about fifteen agents my first year. Not to a competitor. They just went quiet.

Agents go quiet in winter and don’t tell you. I know because I did it for ten years: my listings dried up every winter, and I never once called my photographer to warn him. It didn’t cross my mind. He wasn’t my problem in January.

My studio does $20 to $30K in a busy month and about $1,500 in a slow Minnesota winter month. Same business, same agents. So run your two numbers on your worst month, not your best. If they hold there, they hold.

My listings dried up every winter for ten years. I never called my photographer to warn him.

Build the machine before you quit

The numbers tell you when. This part is how you go without starting from zero on day one.

Abidur in Riverside County went full time in March. Before he did, the ads, the landing pages and the scraper were already running. He didn’t quit and then build. He built, let it run, and then quit.

By April he was at five to ten bookings a week. That’s his market and his setup, not a promise about yours. The order is the lesson. The thing that fills the calendar has to exist before the paycheck stops.

Your version doesn’t have to be ads and a scraper. It has to be whatever brings the next agent in without you having a free afternoon to go find her. If that’s ten messages a day, then ten messages a day has to already be a habit before the date.

The line

When either number hits the line, we set the date.

The big lesson

You don’t pick the date. The two numbers pick it.

Do this

This week: put two numbers on the fridge: months of cash in the bank, and the share of your slowest month’s bills the business paid.

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Straight answers

How much savings should I have before going full time as a photographer?
Six to twelve months of cash in the bank, or a business already paying half your bills. Either one makes it a decision rather than a hope.
Why do real estate agents go quiet in winter?
Listings dry up, and agents don’t call their vendors to say so. Run your numbers on your slowest month so winter can’t surprise you.
Should I quit my job after one good month of real estate photography?
No. One good month is a sample of one. Measure cash and bills on your worst month and let the two numbers set the date.

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Julian Lundgren sold real estate for ten years before he shot a listing for money. He runs Cineminn, a Minneapolis real estate photography studio, and writes these answers from the agent’s side of the table. Send a question to info@cineminn.com.