It’s important for every professional photographer to have a written set of guidelines to help define how they run their business. The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) has a blog post with a suggested list of policies.
Policies should be guidelines for your business and not carved-in-stone rules. We’ve all run into companies that hide behind policies that don’t always reflect the situation at hand. Your policies should help customers into your photography business and not push them away.
A company’s policies should also be reasonable and legal.
Some policies may be legally required (e.g. privacy policy) and some may be strongly encouraged (e.g. PCI compliance if you accept credit cards; a refund policy).
Your business policies can be part of, or supplemental to, your Terms and Conditions. Either way, having a clear set of written policies is an absolute must for every photographer.
