In order to make any money at all in the photography business, we have to engage in the act of selling to our clients, which inevitably leads to the subject of how to present our prices to the client in such a way that sales are maximized and the client is satisfied with their purchase.
In other words, we’re aiming to ensure that the value meets or exceeds the price in the mind of the client.
This is often easier said than done, and I know that many of us struggle constantly over pricing. Are our prices too high? Are they too low? Why is it so hard to talk about prices with our clients?
Here are 5 tips for dealing with this subject a little more easily…
Sales & Marketing
photography price list, pricing, pricing photography
Do you guarantee your work as a professional photographer? This question comes up quite frequently, and can generate some interesting and polarized opinions on the subject of offering refunds to dissatisfied clients.
Who Dares To Bear The Risk?
Cruise around the web and take a look at all the photographer web sites out there, and keep a count of all those who offer a written 100% money-back guarantee. I think you’ll find the list is quite short.
Why is this? After all, we expect everything else we buy to come with some kind of guarantee. Not just products like TVs, but services as well. If my lawn care company kills my lawn off through some fault of theirs or the chemicals they use, and they can’t put it right, I think I would be entitled to at least a refund, don’t you?
So why should photographers be any different? Why is it that so many of us don’t offer our clients a strong guarantee?
Who amongst us will dare to bear the weight of the risk on behalf of the client?
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Photography Business Ideas
client satisfaction, dissatisfied client, guarantee, professional photography
I need to set the scene a little for this particular post, which I hope will leave you thinking a little differently. You are taking part in a social or networking gathering and you meet someone new for the first time.
Because they don’t know what else to say, they ask you a very simple question; one that you’ve probably heard many times over the course of your life:
“What do you do for a living?”
Take a moment to think about how you might answer this seemingly innocent question.
I’m willing to bet that the most popular answer from professional photographers would be (not surprisingly), “I am a photographer…”
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How To Be A Professional Photographer
charles lewis, professional photography
How many package or print options do you offer your clients? Three? Five? Ten? Fifty? Does it really matter? Apparently it does! Sometimes, less really can be more. If we provide too many options in a misguided attempt at helping our client with more possibilities, we could actually send them into option shock, resulting in them not choosing anything at all.
Wheat, Rye or White?
I’m sure many of us have encountered this problem in the past through the simple task of trying to order a sandwich. What could possibly be difficult about ordering two slices of bread with something in between?
If the oversize menu behind the counter isn’t enough to put one in shock, the barrage of questions from the server certainly can. Wheat, Rye or White? Mayonnaise or mustard, or both? Oil and vinegar? Which meats would you like? Cheese? Sure. American, Swiss, Provolone, Cheddar, Colby Jack, Monterey Jack? Oh forget it, I don’t feel hungry any more!
It can be difficult to truly enjoy a sandwich that was this much effort to order.
When our food finally arrives, how many of us look first to see what everyone else got, and secretly wish we’d ordered what they have? The pain of the decision makes us wonder if we made the correct choice and can have us second-guessing.
Sales & Marketing
Barry Schwartz, option paralysis, option shock, photography sales, the paradox of choice
Welcome to part 3 of this series on blogging for photographers. Once you have a blog going, it’s important to keep posting on a regular basis. Too many blogs are started with the best intentions in the world and then left to stagnate because the blog owner ran out of ideas or enthusiasm.
Don’t’ Let That Happen To You
It is quite probable that the search engines will take post frequency into account when indexing your site, so it’s a great idea to make sure that your blog is updated on a regular basis, whether it’s every day or just once a week. It takes time and effort to write posts, which is one of the reasons many blogs languish not long after they’re started.
For a photography business, having a blog that hasn’t been updated in 3 months can be a clear signal to prospective clients that the photographer might not be very busy, even if (ironically) the photographer is so busy that they don’t have time to keep their blog up to date! Prospects are less keen to work with someone they think isn’t busy; it’s a little like looking into a restaurant with mostly empty tables – it just doesn’t look inviting.
So, take the time to write a post, even if it’s just a short message to let people know how busy you are and that you’ll post something significant soon.
Photography Website SEO
blog, blogging, photography blog, photography business
Do you have a job description for your role as a professional photographer? Do you think you need one? If you did, what tasks and responsibilities would it include? Are there some tasks on the list that are more important than others? What actual use is a job description anyway? Can a job description hinder your goals?
I Know What I Have To Do
Or do you? Really. I sat down this morning to write a post for the blog, trying to come up with a good idea, and an interesting thought crossed my mind:
When I worked in a corporate environment as a project manager I was given a job description to follow that was pretty well defined. There was little room in it for moral judgment or creativity in the way I did my work. But what about now? What might my job description look like now that I run my own business? How do I know if I’m doing my job properly?
So, I set out to compile a list of my duties and responsibilities just to see what it is that I actually do on a day-to-day basis and how it impacts the most important person in my business – the client.
Here’s a list of what I came up with (in no particular order for now)…
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Photography Business Ideas
job description, morality of work, photography business, professional photographer
I know what you’re thinking, “What in the world does this have to do with being a professional photographer?” Or, perhaps even, “What in the world does it mean? Is it something to do with politics?” The answer to the second question is a resounding “No!”
What Is A Left-Sider?
I’ll state right off the bat that this isn’t my own original concept, but I am so in love with it that I just have to share this with my readers. You can find the original post that inspired this one at the link below, and full credit must go to Simon Sinek, the author. Go read it, and then come back to read the rest of this (although mine is not as well-written)…
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Personal Zen
inspiration, left-sider, motivation, Simon Sinek, Start With Why
Welcome to part 2 of my mini-series on pricing for the photography business owner. I don’t claim to know everything (far from it!), and there are many ways for photographers to price their products, so what I present here is just one way of doing things. You may not agree 100% with it, but at least it’s a starting point. However, the principles outlined here are generally accepted by professional bodies such as the PPA as being sound business practice.
This week I want to focus on where to start when developing a pricing strategy. Notice that I don’t use the words “price list” here, for a reason. The way you price your services and products should be part of your strategic business development. It’s a system for generating business revenue, and for providing your photography business with the fuel it needs to operate effectively, as well as leave some left over for you, the owner, as profit.
Know Your Cost Of Sales
How do you decide what you should be charging for a specific product, such as a print or a canvas wall portrait?
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Photography Business Ideas
photography business, pricing, pricing photography
Last week (see part 1), I began a series of short articles on the benefits of blogging for photographers. This week, I want to take a look at what is probably the most obvious way for a photographer to use their blog – Showcasing New Work – but with a couple of extra things that may not be quite so clear cut.
Your Blog Is Your Own Gallery
Posting your photographs and portraits is a pretty obvious way of using your blog – essentially, this is now your own gallery, and it’s a great way to generate buzz about you and your business.
But, how do you feel about “sneak peek” posts? This is where we post images online before the client has had a chance to see them during a projection sales session. There’s some debate on whether or not this is really the best idea.
On one hand, it creates some excitement for the client, and a sense of anticipation; at least, that’s the intention.
On the other hand, it could cannibalize the portrait sale by fixing in their mind a “small” version of their images, thereby creating a mind set where a “small” finished portrait is all they might buy. From that point, it makes the investment in a larger wall portrait more difficult, since we’re now trying to sell “up” rather than “down”.
Photography Website SEO
blog, blogging, photography blog, photography marketing
The other day a photographer said, “I just knew before they came that the client I saw yesterday wasn’t going to buy anything more than a simple 8 x 10…” How so? I began to wonder if the photographer had some way of telling the future.
“She told me over and over again; on the phone, at the consultation and during the photography session that all she wanted was an 8 x 10 and two 5 x 7 prints.”
I asked how they handled this issue during the projection appointment.
“Well, I didn’t see the point in trying to convince her otherwise, she seemed quite adamant about what she wanted, and I didn’t want to pressurize her.”
And, just like that, the photographer became the one being sold to.
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Sales & Marketing
photography sales, professional photographer
This week, I talked to several prospective brides on the telephone about their forthcoming weddings in 2011, either in response to emails from them, or as a result of them calling the studio directly.
None of those calls ended well, and I wasn’t able to book a consultation from any of them. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how frustrating that can be in the current economic climate! The problem didn’t appear to be the cost of my wedding collections, as they all agreed that the price was reasonable for what was included.
Even so, I was unable to convince any of them to take the time to visit with me to look at sample books, chat in more detail, and consider taking the next step towards hiring me to photograph their wedding.
Sales & Marketing
sales call, unenthusiastic bride, wedding photographer
Do you struggle with formulating your price lists? Are you having difficulty coming up with prices for your products and services that you are confident with? Are you constantly changing your prices because your prospects aren’t booking or your clients won’t buy?
If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions then you’re in good company! I suspect that pricing is close to the top of the list of issues that photographers struggle with on a daily basis, and I’ll bet it’s one of the greatest sources of frustration in the business today. I know that I’ve personally burned many hours of midnight oil on this very problem with varying degrees of failure!
This is the first in a planned seven-part series on pricing photography, aimed at helping photographers price their products better and give them more confidence in the prices they charge for their services, myself included…
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Photography Business Ideas
photography business, pricing photography, professional photography
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