Photography Franchise Case Study - Paul Milsom

I had studied some photography in sixth form and kept up my interest in it, entering camera club competitions, selling a few images through stock agencies and photographing a few friends’ weddings. I worked in Marketing since university but after 10 years of corporate life I really wanted to develop my photography and manage a business of my own.

The Barrett & Coe training offered a route to doing just that. I started the wedding course in January 2005 and completed my first professional wedding six months later. Barrett & Coe training is excellent for providing both the photographic skills, and the knowledge about the photography business that are so essential to getting started.  

I decided to become a franchisee because the marketing and branding support from Barrett & Coe is invaluable. I still spend a lot of my time doing my own local marketing but there’s so much that Barrett & Coe provide that, as a photographer on my own, I would struggle to achieve. For example, Barrett & Coe can partner up with high street chains and media companies that require national coverage. It all helps us to find and keep great customers.

With Barrett & Coe you also get a brilliant support network. The franchisees constantly share ideas so we all benefit from each other. Plus there’s a great team at head office to help you. There’s a vast amount of experience and knowledge available for you to draw upon so you can avoid the pitfalls and achieve success more rapidly.

My family started expanding in 2006 so we decided that Alex, my wife, would manage the admin side of the business whilst looking after our baby. We ran the business on a part-time basis from our spare room. We were doing weddings, portraits in people’s homes and corporate and political events.

My early subjects included Desmond TuTu and Tony Blair. My holiday allowance couldn’t cope with all the days out of the office so in August 2008 I left my job to run our business full-time. To grow the family portrait side of things we opened our studio in June 2009. Our second daughter was born later that year providing us with another model for the baby portraiture!

It’s very satisfying that we continue to develop the photography, and the business. Its great fun and our customers love their pictures which is a wonderful service to provide.