Idea #7: Shoot the masses

Most photographers would love to get a deal with local little league soccer (football for all you international folks) league to shoot the team pictures, but most leagues already have established relationships with photographers. Shooting local sports groups can be very profitable because you get paid by 20 or 30 parents for doing just one shoot. It's good economics!

So how do you break into this market if all the leagues already have relationships with other photographers? Don't try to take the formal team pictures. Go to the league and offer to pay them $200 or so for the opportunity to shoot action shots during league play. The league will be happy because they get $200 for doing absolutely nothing. All you have to do is go to the game, take thousands of shots of the kids playing sports all day, and pass out little fliers to the parents telling them that they can order pictures of the their kids through your website.

If you set up a Smugmug website with a folder for the soccer games before you go, you'll be able to put the URL right on the flier. The parents log on, buy the prints, and then Smugmug ships the prints and collects the money for you. Dead simple! It could make for a VERY profitable day.

Money you can make by implementing this idea: Depending on the size of the league and how well you sell yourself to the parents during the game, you could easily earn over $1,000 doing this for a morning. The trick is to keep going up to the parents and showing them the pictures on your LCD.