"Financial Risk Management: What is It and Why Is It Important to your Photography Business" with Marlenda Clark

EVENT IS POSTPONED. NEW DATE IS MAY 19. There will be NO meeting on March 17

"Financial Risk Management" is term most often heard in Corporate America. However, information about how to protect one's business from "Risk," or specifically Financial Risk, regardless of if you have just one employee (yourself) or 1,000 employees, the long-term effects of mismanaging certain financial risks could potentially have dire consequences on not only the future of your photography business but your personal financial future as well. This is an area where even if you have plans in place to help you succeed, if those plans do not address the right risk factors, you could still be setting yourself up for financial failure. In order to minimize financial risk or losses in a photography business, some key strategies include: 1) Minimizing/eliminating unnecessary debt, 2) Diversify your services but not to the point of not having a back-up income stream, 3) Invest in the proper types of insurance (General Liability, Professional Liability – also known as errors and omissions insurance, and photography equipment insurance), 4) Redundant backup system for your data and images, 5) Set up a minimum of FIVE bank accounts: a) Pay Me, b) Taxes (sales, property, income or separate accounts can be set up for each of these), c) Operating Expenses, d) Future Equipment Needs, and e) Emergency Slush Fund, and 6) Always seek professional advice from a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Financial Planner, and/or Lawyer when you have questions about your business. It takes sound planning of key objectives to mitigate potential losses, both seen and unseen. So, do not leave your and your business’ financial future up to the Luck of the Irish. Come join me on March 17 as I discuss ways you can protect your business from certain financial risks.

My name is Marlenda Clark, and I am a certified Professional Photographer specializing in motherhood and family heirloom photography, located in Lubbock, TX and serving the Panhandle, South Plains, and Permian Basin of West Texas in addition of Eastern New Mexico. I absolutely LOVE being able to capture special moments in people's lives, especially those moments surrounding the birth of a child. The older I get, the more I realize just how much I have forgotten, especially of the extraordinary events that I never wish to lose, when these memories permeate my mind with such clarity of every nuance from how we felt to what we smelled, simply from seeing images from those events. Heirloom portraiture allows its observers to ride the train to yesterday to relive those celebrations once again. Not only are these images impactful for nostalgia, but they also convey a sense of love, worth, and belonging to the subjects in these images when they see their portraits carefully hung in prominent areas of their homes. There has not been a time where this has been more important than now, that our families know unequivocally that they are second in our lives with God being first chair.

*Meal is an extra fee and optional.

6:30pm - Dinner* and Social Hour

7:15pm - Program Begins

9:00pm - Conclusion

Thank you to our sponsors