SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is completely new to me. Before Annabeth mentioned it to us I didn't have a clue what it was, infact I thought it was going to be something else that I wouldn't look further into. BUT, I found it a brilliant way to look at yourself as a person and a practitioner, and analyse they way things currently are. With me being at the stage of wanting to take my freelance work much further and 'more professional' it was perfect timing to come across the SWOT analysis. I really wanted to just focus on the jobs that earn me money and what helps towards them instead of talking about the uni side of things. I would like to get one done for uni work also sometime soon. 

I really found it easy to come up with a few weaknesses for my analysis. They are things that are key when working as a freelancer. Fortunately back in leicester I have got away with getting lifts off friends/family when it came to work but Im not always going to get away with this in the future. If I wasn't getting lifts it was a case of trying to get the customer to pay travel expenses which today, can work out to be very expensive. So a lot of the time I get a lot of work turned down because the total price for the job is just too much with travel expenses included. This leads onto another weakness of mine that I included which was letting customers get things for a smaller price to easy or another way to put it would be letting customers walk all over me. Now I have quite a bit of experience in each of the areas I work, I should have my set rates that I charge and the only way them prices would change would be because of hiring equipment which leads me onto my next point. The last two weddings I have shot, both times, the customer has mentioned to let them know if anything needs hiring. Me as a person when it came back to thinking about going to hire some equipment for the job, didn't have the guts to turn around and say this is what I'm going to hire and this is what it is going to cost me. Annabeth mentioned a good way to deal with those situation which was sit the customer down and say if you your work looking like this, then I would need to hire this piece of equipment which will cost you x amount. If you want it like this, their is no need for any hire anything so the price with be this x amount. Just making sure this is clear before any more discussion about money takes place ensures that your customer, 1, gets the impression you are a professional service and not a beginner who doesn't know much about my own work and prices. Again this leads onto a couple of points I have noted down for opportunities. With being at Leeds College of Art, the equipment that we are able to use, is real high end industry standard so is their any need for me to be paying for hire from hire companies when I can have things free to use from the AV resource. Obviously this isn't going to be available forever but whilst its their for me to use I don't see why I cant think more about my rates by looking at what we have to offer and looking around at local hire companies and seeing how much it would have cost me to hire from them.

I think its good for me to keep up with what other local freelancers are doing for work and what sort of money they are charging for their services. Its a tricky one because no freelancers feel its a good idea to let other freelancers know how much they are charging. This is because freelance work can get very competitive and undercutting can happen which I don't think is very professional at all.