Zenologue

Pricing our photography services and products causes us more headaches than trying to read in the dark. It sometimes feels as though we’re in the dark, too. To do it properly actually takes a lot of effort, much trial and error, and a degree of personal detachment.

Don’t Lower Your Prices:

Imagine how hard it would be to sell something so expensive that you had to convince not only your client, but yourself too, that it’s worth the asking price. This is the problem a lot of photographers feel they are faced with – and many of them respond by reducing their prices unnecessarily, to a level they themselves might feel more comfortable with. But why does this happen?

Naturally, our own confidence in our pricing is based upon how comfortable we might feel actually paying the prices we ourselves are asking. How many times have you looked at your own prices and caught yourself thinking something like, “I don’t think they will want to pay that much” for a particular product or service? Your inner voice is using the only value system it has – your own experience – in order to evaluate whether a potential client will baulk at the prices you’re proposing. If you couldn’t afford to hire yourself, it can make you feel insecure in your price list. This comes across to the client as a lack of confidence in yourself when you’re trying to communicate the prices to them. Sales can easily be lost that way, and a lot of money can be left on the table.

Price = Value = Sale:

We need to believe in what we’re selling and be confident in the prices we charge as representing good value for money and worth the investment. That doesn’t mean we have to be cheap. Consider someone in car sales as an example. It’s possible that the salesperson trying to sell a brand new Porsche to a client wouldn’t be able to afford to buy the car for themselves. Yet, they can proudly state the price to the client – leaving it to them to decide if the car is worth the asking price based on the intangible values of the purchase as well as the car itself.

The point is: You are not your own market.

If you want to earn a great living from your photography, and you certainly can do, even in this economic climate, then you need to set your prices to provide you with the earnings you need in order to live and make a profit. That means becoming comfortable with prices you might not be able to afford if you were the client.

How Much Did You Say?

One way to do this is to create a top tier price that is so outrageous and so high that no one would invest in it. The client is supposed to think the price is crazy – which takes the pressure off you because you already know what their response is going to be. The price for the next level down suddenly sounds reasonable to both you and the client, and you can more easily talk about your prices with confidence. This is one reason we should never give prices to a prospective client out of context or without the appropriate sales presentation (more on this in a later post).

Some things to bear in mind when creating a price list for your photography services:

• Make sure you know all of your associated costs
• Create tiered pricing with different options (but not too many)
• Packages always outsell a la carte
• Base your prices on how many units you need to sell to earn the living you want
• Don’t be intimidated by your target market
• Be confident in what you’re selling – believe in it and in yourself

Your work is immensely valuable to your client in a sentimental sense – it’s up to you to match that value with a monetary equivalent that both you and the client will be happy with.

If you are still in any doubt, think of it this way, how much would she value a $5 8×10 portrait in 20 years time? Now, what about a $200 8×10?

Which one would you rather sell?

Pricing Pricing, professional photographer, selling

One of the biggest mistakes made by photographers new to the business (myself included) is to literally give their work away for little or no profit. People new to the business often mistakenly believe that to become successful they need to compete only on price. I was once naïve enough myself to think that if I could penetrate the market by offering cheaper products than the competition, I could gain ground and then raise my prices once my name became better known. Unfortunately, that’s probably not the best way to go.

Buy A Porsche Today – 50% Off:

The world economy might be in complete turmoil at the moment, with the news full of doom and gloom, and it’s true that some people are spending less because of it, but that has little to do with the actual prices of things. A Porsche is still an expensive buy, as is a Rolex watch (a real one, that is). Can you imagine how the consumer’s view of these items would change if they were suddenly available at a half or a quarter of the original price? People would be suspicious of them, lose faith in the brand, and consider them a bad investment.

A Porsche car or a Rolex watch is viewed by some as a highly valued status symbol; with its value being quite separate to price. The value lies in what it gives to the person purchasing it, the price being what the purchaser is willing to pay to own the item.

Investment = Value:

I’m assuming that you, as a professional photographer, hold your own work in high value, and are proud of what you do. Now, the only way that your prospective client can assess the fairness of the price you charge is by the value you place on it, and the value it is going to give them in terms of capturing the emotions, personalities and relationships of their family, wedding, graduating senior etc.

Photography, especially portraits and families, is an investment – the value will increase significantly over time because those memories will become more and more precious as time goes by. In addition to the way you present your photography (the way you display it, handle it and talk about it), the price you charge for it definitely communicates something of the value of your photography to your client.

When a client learns the price you charge, they will attach a perceived value to your work. Some clients may not be able to afford you – but that’s okay, you can’t work with everyone (another mistake we sometimes make is trying to book everybody) – but the ones that can afford you will be happy to pay your price as long as the perceived value is worth the investment in their mind.

Too Low To Be True:

On the other hand, if you charge ridiculously low prices for your work, those clients who would otherwise value it and hire you will probably walk away, because you’ve put too low a value on it.

Consider this. Would you buy a $50 bill for $45 off a man in the street? Probably not, even though the $50 bill is perfectly genuine.

I myself have lost at least one wedding booking in the past (and probably more that I didn’t know about) because my prices were too low. That’s right – too low! My fees were not ridiculously low, just somewhat lower than the average. I was able to ask the client which studio they ended up using and what they paid, only to find that it was almost double what I was asking for at the time. I was stunned.

So take a look at your prices in context with other successful studios and see where you fall. Don’t try to compete directly with them on price, but on other other unique factors instead. Give true value to your work and let your clients know that you value it at least as much, if not more, than they do.

Sales Pricing, professional photographer, selling