Zenologue

Pricing… you can’t be a professional photographer for very long without becoming embroiled in the subject of how to price your work (well, you could, I suppose, but you would never make any money). Then there is the question of, not only what prices to charge, but also how to make your clients aware of your price list without them either running away or thinking you are trying to pressure-sell them.

Price Lists! Get ‘em Here!

In the time that I’ve been working as a professional photographer, I’ve personally tried different methods of communicating my prices to clients and potential clients, with varying degrees of success. These include the usual suspects:

• Printed pamphlet
• Combined price list and brochure
• Web site page
• By email

However, the problem I found with these methods was that sales just didn’t seem to be where I wanted them to be. I would hand out price lists to prospects who requested them, count the number of web hits to my price list page, or email my list to anyone who asked for it – yet the prospects disappeared as quickly as they came, like ghosts. Unless these people were simply professional price list collectors, it was a complete mystery to me, and it doesn’t take too much of that to think to yourself, “my prices must be too high.“ 

The (Second) Guessing Game:

Looking at my price list, and thinking about the lack of returning prospects, I really did start to imagine that my prices were too high – so I made the terrible mistake of lowering them and trying again. Yes, you guessed it – I got just the same result. So, we get caught up in a terrible cycle of continually fiddling with the prices. Up and down like yo-yo’s they go!

Does any of this sound familiar to you? Are you stuck in that no-man’s land of trying to second-guess your prospects to discover what you think they would pay, rather than what you think they should pay?

Well, you’re not alone – just about every photographer I know has been through this painful process. But, there is an answer:

Shhh… Don’t Tell – Show:

The answer to this problem really requires three separate things. Firstly, you need to decide what your services and products are going to be (i.e. what it is that you are selling). Secondly, you should decide on your prices, based on your costs, competition and income needs. Finally, produce one price list that is yours, and yours alone.

That’s right, just ONE – no one sees your full price list unless you personally show it to them - together with a full and complete sales presentation and explanation of everything you offer.

Now, I can hear you saying, “that’s the craziest thing I’ve heard!” but bear with me here for just a moment.

There is a perfectly good reason why the other methods don’t work effectively. When a prospect looks at a web site and finds a price list, they can see how much an 8×10 or a wedding package is, right? But how are they going to compare that with something they’ve seen elsewhere, except by the price, print size or package contents? Suddenly, your prospect has been magically transformed from someone looking for sensitive, great photography into a robotic price comparison shopper! In the mind of most prospects, all 8x10s are printed equal – but we know that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s what is on the paper that’s important, not the paper itself. But how can we possibly intervene and explain this to the prospect when they are an anonymous web surfer or someone just sitting at home reading a price list?

Wedding packages are an even more extreme example. Displaying a price for a package on a web site or in a brochure they can take away is only going to make the prospect think, “well, I get such and such for this price, but that other photographer over there will give me x and y for less money.” Now, you and I both know that the “other” photographer isn’t going to put as much effort into the wedding day as you are, doesn’t have the experience you have, won’t deliver as quickly, or simply isn’t artistic. But the prospect isn’t thinking like that anymore – they are only comparing prices.

The same thing goes when the prospect calls you on the telephone. The first question they ask is, “how much?” If you answer that question straight away, they’re gone, and we never hear from them again. Instead, we have to divert the conversation away from the price (at least at the beginning of the call) and on to the emotional reasons for the photography they’re looking for. Once we’ve had a chance to educate them about what makes us unique, then we can gently introduce them to pricing, after which we arrange to meet them personally for a more in-depth chat if the price happens to fall within their budget.

This means that, by the time the client meets with you for a chat, they already know that your prices are affordable to them.

The Personal Touch:

As you might expect, I meet with every client I work with before I allow them to book a session or wedding. Apart from being able to meet them face to face, this is an opportunity to give my full sales presentation before introducing them to my full price list. As a professional salesperson, it is my responsibility to ensure that understand as much about their needs as possible before trying to sell them anything – they don’t care what I know until they know I care about them, and I genuinely do care about them. If money is the only motivator to you as a professional photographer then you are in the wrong business.

There is one copy of my price list, and I keep it in a leather binder, printed on fine parchment paper. To the prospect, it really looks like an official copy, which it is, and no one has ever asked me if they can take it home or borrow it. They simply take notes as we go through it, but they don’t get my actual price list under any circumstances.

If I’m meeting with a prospect to discuss a wedding, for example, it may be 45 minutes to an hour before we ever get to the subject of price. They can see the price list there on the table, they probably know what it is, but I don’t open it until I’m ready to show it to them. If they ask about the price list, and I don’t feel ready for them to see it yet, I simply say, “I’m glad you brought that up, and I’ll be happy to go over my price list shortly. But first…” and then I ask them another question about the wedding.

By the time we do get to the price list, we’ve talked about the wedding day, how the couple met, what they like to do together, what’s important about the wedding, how many bridesmaids & groomsmen they have, the color scheme etc. At that point, they know that I really care about them and their wedding plans, and now the price is no longer a primary driving force. Obviously, they will have a budget in mind, and there should be a package that falls within that range, but their minds are no longer simply crunching numbers and comparing our prices to someone else’s. They are making a comparison – but it’s to do with things like service, quality, attention to detail, personality and so on.

“Selling” – Going Down!

When I guide them through the price list I start with the most expensive option first, no matter if they’ve already indicated a budget to me. This way, I only have to sell down and not up. Selling up is as hard as trying to climb a mountain from the bottom – it’s usually much easier going down than up.

Don’t make the terrible mistake of confusing this process for pressure-selling, because it isn’t – far from it. The purpose of selling down is to help them become involved with a package that’s appropriate for them, even if it does happen to be the least expensive one you offer.

For example, if they had a budget of, say $2,500, and I were to only show them a package for that amount, they will automatically see that as “expensive” and will be more likely to choose the one below it, which may not suit their needs as well. However, if I start at the top and work down, then they’re more likely to choose a more appropriate package.

Marry Me & Get A Birthday Gift!

If you’re still in any doubt about the value to be gained from not allowing your clients to see your price list until you are ready, try this hypothetical example:

Imagine you’re looking for a romantic partner, so you register on a dating web site to try to find the ideal person. The site is unusual in that there are no photographs and no information about any of the people on there. The only clue you have about anyone is how much he or she would expect you to spend on their birthday present. How would that affect your choice? Wouldn’t you be more interested in finding out about their personality, character, age and looks than something that could only be described as a price? Hopefully, you answered yes to that question…

The same principle applies to selling photography. The prospect or client doesn’t understand as much about creative professional photography as we do, so they may not realize which factors they really ought to be concerned about the most. So, they get hung up on the only thing they can relate to, which is the price. At the end of the day, it’s our job, as sellers of photography, to unhook them from the price, and re-connect them with the real elements of what we do.

Summary:

Just to make sure that I do underline this point: I have only one printed price list that I show to prospective clients – there are no prices on my web site, no prices emailed out to those who request them, no detailed prices given over the phone and no brochure with a few photographs and my prices for them to take away.

I am not hiding anything from my clients or trying to decieve them in any way – that’s no way to run an ethical business. But, it does demonstrate to my clients that I value them personally, and their individual needs, above the prices for my services. It also helps to screen out the types of clients who I don’t want to work with – the ones to whom price is the only important factor and to whom values of family, relationships, emotions and memories are not as important.

So far, not one single person has complained about this procedure, or made any negative comment on it. My clients now treat my prices with respect and they understand the context in which they are given, leading to better sales and, in my opinion, an overall better experience for the client.

Pricing Pricing, professional photographer, selling

Take a closer look at the question above and see if you can spot one of selling’s most amazing secrets. I hear this question a lot from my prospects during my sales presentations when they are unsure of the investment needed for a portrait of wedding collection. One of the biggest keys to earning a great living from your photography is locked up inside that little question. Until recently, I might have missed it myself, but when you know it’s there, you really can’t miss it!

Did you find it yet? If you did, then you should be congratulated on your perception. If not, here’s the answer: It’s actually two questions all rolled up into one. Even the people who ask me the question are usually unaware that they’re in fact asking about two distinctly different things. The two questions contained inside are:

• What is the price?
• What is the cost?

There’s more than a good chance that going through your mind right now is an objection: But those are the same thing!

Cost versus Price:

Not so at all! The great Zig Ziglar, in his book “Secrets of Closing The Sale” originally pointed this concept out to me. If you haven’t read this book, then I strongly recommend that you do – it’s an essential read to anyone involved in selling anything, and there’s a direct link to it on Amazon at the bottom of this page.

I can illustrate the difference between price and cost with the example of a simple family portrait sale. While presenting the client with the beautiful photographs I created of their family, the question of wall portraits and prices will naturally arise. The client is sitting there wondering about prices at the same time as trying to decide on the final size etc.

So, if I haven’t yet reached the point in my presentation where I talk about the investment, she might interrupt me and ask, “How much is this going to cost?”

If I wasn’t thinking straight, I could simply respond with a price: “Thank you for asking, this size right here is $1,200 printed on canvas.”

So, now she knows the answer to one of the questions – the price. But what about the cost? She knows nothing about that, and probably doesn’t even realize that she doesn’t know. As a salesperson, this leaves me a little stuck with her objection to the price.

Getting Out Of The Corner And Back Into The Ring:

What I should have said is something like this: “Thank you for asking, but so that we’re on the same page, are you asking about the price or the cost?”

Most of the time, they say, “What’s the difference, they’re the same thing?”

“Not at all,” I reply. “In fact, they’re quite different. You see, you could buy the same photograph in a smaller size, or a different finish and the price would be lower, of course.” She nods in agreement. “However, the cost in the long term would be quite different, not in monetary terms, but in the way you enjoy this beautiful portrait. Let’s say you purchased an 8×10 print instead of the wall portrait. To begin with, you might place it in a family album. Once the newness has worn off, you probably won’t really look at it more than two or three times a year. The wall portrait, on the other hand, will be proudly displayed for you and your family to enjoy every day for many years to come. Every time you walk past it, you will be reminded of how blessed you are to have such a wonderful family.”

You see, price is a one-time fee; the money you paid for the photography at the time the purchase is made. The cost is an on-going thing, spread out over the whole time you own the portraits. In this case, the cost of each choice might be seen as the original price divided by the number of times it’s enjoyed. In the case of the wall portrait the “cost” over the life of the portrait is very low, but the 8×10, perhaps kept in a drawer somewhere, has a more substantial “cost” per unit of enjoyment! Which of the two options do you think represents the best value to the client?

Is That Economy Real?

One of the excuses often given for investing less at the outset is to save money at the time, but when the cost of the product is high even though the initial price might be low, we are often led into what is commonly known as a false economy situation.

When we educate our portrait clients or wedding couples about the concept of price versus cost, they inevitably win, because they can then make the right choice in terms of the products we help them invest in.

A very important note here: This isn’t an exercise in trying to extract the most amount of money from the client. If you believe that, then you’ve either missed the point or shouldn’t be in sales. I believe wholeheartedly in the products and services I help my clients become involved with, and photography is a business primarily concerned with selling emotions and relationships. If I sell a family an 8×10 print to be stuffed in a drawer instead of a 20×30 wall portrait, then who is the real loser? The answer is: the client, because they’ve been deprived of the enjoyment they would otherwise receive from the product.

Imagine we could travel 20 years into the future to visit our client and ask them about the portrait they bought from us, and how much it “cost” them per day, week or whatever in terms of the enjoyment and pleasure they’d gained from it. I am 100% convinced that the wall portrait, though more expensive at the outset, would win every time.

Summary:

So, the next time one of your prospects or clients asks that simple question, “How much is that going to cost?” think about explaining the real cost before really talking about the price. Not only will your clients be happier, you’ll see a definite improvement in your own bottom line.

Sales Pricing, professional photographer, selling

Stock photography, for those unfamiliar with the term, refers to an industry that licenses images for specified uses. Agencies (or individual photographers) act rather like a library, where photographs can essentially be checked out for a fee depending on the type of use. Like a library book, there’s no limit to the number of times a photograph can be used, providing the photographer with a potentially lucrative income from their portfolio.

We’ve all seen stock photography, whether we realize it or not – in magazine articles, print ads, brochures, on web sites. Stock photographs are almost everywhere, and professional photographers have made a good living off the business of producing stock for many years.

But, like other areas of the photography industry, the business of stock photography has undergone a major upheaval over the last few years or so, especially so since the introduction of digital photography.

What is Stock Photography?

Some of the questions asked frequently on photography forums deal with how photographers can get into the stock photography business, what the industry is like, what can they expect to make from it etc. so I thought I would write this short article to examine some of these issues in the light of the current situation.

Commercial stock photography used to be a very specialized business with a relatively small number of participating photographers. Various agencies would hold copies of slides in their archives and supply the needs of companies or individuals that required images of specific things. The license fees to use the images were often several hundred dollars to thousands of dollars or more per use, and the photographers could make a steady income from this business.

But then digital came along, together with the rise of the Internet, and everything began to change. Now, with the prevalence of digital cameras, anyone who enjoys photography can theoretically become a stock photographer. Some people have made a lot of money at selling their images, there’s no doubt of that at all, but the vast majority have not. The forums at the stock photography sites are packed with messages from disgruntled and disillusioned photographers who are selling little or nothing and looking for someone to blame.

When microstock arrived the simple law of supply and demand showed up and really started to turn the world of stock photography upside down and inside out. All of a sudden, the supply of stock photographs ballooned to tremendous proportions – but the individual value of each photograph plummeted in response. The sub-industry of microstock photography was officially born when Bruce Livingstone started iStockPhoto – a free stock photography web site. He sold the site to Getty Images in 2006 for a reported $50 million. Today, iStockPhoto and a host of other microstock sites sell images for very small amounts each (from 20 cents to $10). Moreover, the images are sold “royalty-free”, which means that the buyer can use the image almost as many times as they like without ever paying another fee.

It’s clear that photographers selling through these microstock sites have to sell a LOT of images to make anything like a reasonable amount of money.

Who’s Watching The Farm?

Common sense and logic might suggest that photographers would be very unhappy with this kind of arrangement. After all, there’s the investment in camera & computer equipment, travel expenses, time in the field, processing time, storage space, backup costs, time spent uploading, adding keywords etc.  Not to mention the creative skills needed to produce quality work. Surely, the photographer should expect a reasonable return on this kind of investment?

This is the point where common sense and logic pack their cases and go on vacation, leaving insanity home alone.

Surprisingly, many photographers are quite happy with this arrangement – to rely on selling hundreds or thousands of copies of each image in order to garner any kind of return on their investment. I fail to think of any other profession where people are prepared to work for such a low return voluntarily and in such large numbers – and to do so enthusiastically! It boggles the mind to think about it.

How in the world did this happen?

As I see it, there are two main reasons at the core of it all:

· The vast majority are not professional photographers
· There is a subtle, but effective psychological effect at work

Firstly, the participants are mostly not professional photographers. Perhaps some of the really successful ones at the top might be, but the rest are mostly enthusiastic and often very talented amateur photographers. Professional photographers who are serious about making a good living from their photography and value their own work will have nothing to do with the microstock industry – to the point where there’s actually an unseen war raging between those who do and those who won’t! There’s a lot of name-calling and mud-slinging on various forums about this whole issue, and I’m sure my own mail box will fill up with hate mail as a result of daring to write this article!

I am no psychologist, but I believe the second reason for the success of microstock against all logical sense is a psychological one, and a clever one at that. Photographers are, at heart, artists – people who want to have their work accepted and admired. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, it’s human nature. The microstock agencies, such as iStockPhoto, have come up with a clever way of feeding that need in the amateur photographer – almost an analogue of the fifteen minutes of fame we’re all supposed to get at some point in our lives (I’m still waiting for mine).

You Too Can Become One of Us!

To begin with, the microstock agencies created a strict selection process for images submitted to their collection. With some, you even have to pass a test before you can start. The guidelines for submission on some sites are tough to understand, let alone adhere to. This gives the false impression that the accepted photographer is somehow special, and that the accepted photographs must be of super-high quality. Already, the photographer is being emotionally set-up – they feel part of an elite group.

Next comes the real trick. When an image is sold, the sale itself creates a warm mental buzz that’s totally unrelated to the amount the image sold for. Someone liked the photograph enough to actually BUY it (even if it was only for a dollar or two). It doesn’t even matter that the photographer probably has no idea who bought the photograph, or for what purpose, the fact is it SOLD!! That in itself is often enough to satisfy the photographer’s need. If they’re lucky, there’s an even greater thrill in store if the photographer happens to find the image in print or on a web site somewhere.

Yeah! I Sold One!

I recall one particular message on the iStockPhoto forum where a photographer proudly announced that he’d found one of his images in print – a whoop of joy at having a photograph considered good enough to actually use in the real world, where other people could see his work! He was ecstatic over it, and received many responses patting him on the back and congratulating him for his achievement.

I have to admit I was left scratching my head on this one – why, I thought, would someone jump for joy at being so blatantly robbed? Yes, robbed! This poor man had sold a photograph for about $1 to Wal-Mart, who had used it as the background on a flier of some sort for their stores. That’s right – Wal-Mart – the largest retailer on Planet Earth, had effectively paid this guy $1 to use an image who knows how many times. How can anyone be HAPPY at that? No one can really blame Wal-Mart or the countless other companies that buy microstock – they are just buying the resource as cheaply as they can. The problem for me is that it shouldn’t be available at that price at all.

No wonder real professional photographers all over the place are sick and tired of the microstock industry – it’s like imagining a world chock full of amateur lawyers selling their time on the street at 50 cents an hour. The real lawyers would get a bit upset at that – at the very least, they’d probably find some way to sue the amateurs!

At the end of 2007, PhotoShelter made a valiant attempt to try to combat this by setting up a new stock agency that would negotiate fair rates to photographers for their images. Despite making good inroads and having some success they were forced to close the service by the end of 2008.

Currently, PhotographersDirect.Com is one of the few major players left in this market – providing a great gateway between professional photographers and those clients seeking unusual images for a fair price. They are so anti-microstock that they don’t allow photographers to even register if they have images for sale on microstock sites.

A Peek Into The Future:

Will microstock ever go away completely? No, I don’t think so. Is the professional photographer doomed when it comes to selling their professional commercial work? I hope and believe not.

Microstock is very successful at the moment, but I believe there’s a demon lurking in their future – one of their own making. When I last looked, iStockPhoto had over 4 million images on file. Alamy has more than 14.5 million as of today. That’s a lot of photographs. Eventually, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, I think these organizations will simply become a victim of their own size. What happens when they reach 100 million, 1 billion or 10 billion images? The consumer will become overwhelmed in trying to sort through too many search results trying to find just the right image that they may in fact prefer to go to a more traditional stock agency to experience a better quality of service. For commercial consumers, time is money, and it might be more economical to search in places that give faster results.

I don’t have a crystal ball into the future but maybe the microstock agencies will be forced to expunge their databases or limit the number of images. But, if they do, the photographers (they are artists with a need, remember) might simply quit submitting their images and follow the consumer on the more traditional route.

In the end, I suspect that an equilibrium will eventually be reached that satisfies both professional stock and the amateur microstock industry – a situation where an uneasy co-existence is in place and where the boundaries become smudged and fuzzy.

Photography Pricing, professional photographer, selling, stock photography