Eli Jones ditched his dream of becoming a doctor and became a millionaire photographer instead. He owns a twenty employee photography company called Norman and Young, which serves the Dallas-Fort Worth area. His speciality is real estate photography. Like anyone, when he first started, it was a struggle. He followed a lot of bad advice he had found online. Sure, he’d earn five hundred bucks here, a thousand there. But to really break through, he had to pave his own path. Scroll down for my Real Estate Photographer Pro course review.
Reflecting on his journey, Eli says there are three things you have to do to earn seven figures as a photographer. Step one is budgeting and allocating your money well so that you have the ability to save no matter what month it is. Since your income as a photographer will go up and down depending on the time of year, Eli suggests budgeting off of last year’s slowest month. If that was six grand, then assume you have to live off six grand this entire year.
Step number two in becoming a millionaire photographer is to avoid racking up stupid debt. Some debt is beneficial to your business. Eli’s not talking about investments in people and tools and equipment and skill acquisition. But, you know, financing a Cadillac Escalade, for example. Paying interest on something that’s going nothing but down in value. That’s what he means by stupid debt. Which, Eli admits, was a mistake he made early in his career.
It should go without saying, but paying twenty-eight percent interest on a maxed out Mastercard would also fall into the stupid debt category. Step three, now that you’re living below your means and creating a surplus each month, is to put your money to work for you. If you start with just a hundred dollars, and contribute about a hundred a week (or four hundred and twenty-five bucks a month), assuming an eight percent return, you’d have one-point-five million in forty years.
No, it’s not sexy getting rich slow, but it’s certainly doable. Even for the average photographer. Now if you want that number bigger, or you want to hit it quicker, just work backwards. Eight hundred and fifty bucks a month invested means you’d get there in half the time. Twenty years. That’s a little more like it, right? Another trick Eli shows is to run your everyday purchases through a compound interest calculator. See how much that five dollar coffee really costs you over time.
Or, better yet, that Toyota Camry you’re thinking about buying. Say it’s thirty-five grand. Had you invested that same amount, again, with an eight percent average return, that would have turned into eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars over forty years. That’s insane. “I’m simply showing you that it is probably a good idea to consider being smart with your money. Reduce your expenses. Get off that hedonic treadmill. Money can be powerful if you don’t burn through it,” Eli explains.
The other part of this is focusing on increasing your income. Eli has a course for that. It’s called Real Estate Photographer Pro. A business in a box, teaching you everything Eli has learned scaling his own multiple seven figure real estate photography company. The cost is four hundred and ninety-seven dollars or six monthly payments of ninety-seven dollars. Comes with a thirty day money back guarantee. Add a half hour startup call with Eli for another two hundred bucks, if you so choose.
