Financial stresses in the modelling industry

At the start of your modelling career you will need to do a lot of TFP work, which stands for Time For Print. This means that all the people involved and working on the shoot, are all doing this free of charge, for the sole purpose of growing their folio. Not just models need a folio, but also the creatives. These TFP shoots are also a great opportunity to network with other professionals in the industry and to build your contacts.

The more established you become as a model, the more you can charge for your time on shoots and runway jobs. However, at the start your income will be unstable and your rates will vary too. Due to this you may want to get a second job that has more of a stable and consistent income. Try to get something with flexible hours, so you can still be available for castings and interviews when those opportunities arise.

In a way, these stresses can be an advantage to you, as you will be pushed to be more committed, more motivated, work harder, up-skill yourself, be innovative and create work.

When you start to book paid jobs, you will need to send out invoices in order to receive your payment. You need to know how to prepare your invoices and send them to your booker or a client in order to get paid. We also highly recommend being organised with your business administration and keep records of all the invoices sent and received.

It is important to fill out the invoice properly, include your ABN on it, put as much information about the job as possible and have your banking details and paying terms at the bottom. Missing information on the invoice can result in delayed payments.

To help you with your modelling business journey, we have provided an example of an invoice template, a page from our AAM Model Manual book. Our Comprehensive Model Course students have access to the soft copy of the invoice template, as well as other financial tools which can download it on their Study Centre of our AAM website.