One of the things that I never considered owning in my life was a photo framing shop, but when the opportunity presented itself, I couldn’t pass it up.  Truth be told I had no idea how to run one at the time, but the income projections were so positive, I had to take it.

Now many years later the shop is doing very well.  While we initially just offered photo framing, we have added other services such as diploma framing and a portrait studio which have added to our bottom line.  In fact, I would like to think that by expanding our services to include complimentary products has made our business the success it is today.

But like any success story, there were failures along the way.  Unlike other places, I will actually mention them here as well, as they were lessons that needed to be learned so that we could be at the point we are today.

One of the most notable mistakes that I made was the pricing scheme that we initially used for the portrait studio.  Originally I had a set percentage markup I decided that would work, and based my prices on that number.  Over the course of that first month, I think we had less than ten bookings a week, and lots of complaints over the price.  Turns out that we were charging nearly double what our competitors charged, and once I realized that (and adjusted our prices accordingly), the portrait studio finally made a profit.

I think that by working on growing our business and listening to our customer’s needs, that we have grown this company into the success it is today.  A good example would be the holiday shopping season – this year is set to be one of the best ones yet.

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