One of the many reasons why I dont list packages or prices Sure it puts some folks off but it got me speaking with plenty more which is what I wanted, to speak to them and get a rapport.
I haven't had a price list for years.
It is a completely self sabotaging initiative for the market I aim for.
Price lists are great for attracting price shoppers that will compare and anylise your products and services on a numbers only basis and a published price list gives them the opportunity to avoid talking to you all together and building some rapport and doing a proper presentation.
What 99% of photographers just don't understand is that people buy the person, the product and the price IN THAT ORDER. Of Course most put it the other way around and put the most emphasis on the least important factor.
Even back in the days i did publish price lists, people would ring and almost without exception, the first question would be, " How much do you charge for a wedding?"
The reason they say this is because they have seen and are interested in your work but simply don't know what else to ask?
Just when a guy goes up to a pretty girl in a bar and asks if she comes there often or whatever line he uses, the question verbalised is different to what he's really wanting to know.
If interested clients are going to ring me and ask prices, what's the point of publishing them and blowing off opportunities to do a proper sell on people that you may be able to impress and get over the line on other factors?
I couldn't count how many people have told me at the end of our dealings how they spent much more than they initially budgeted but were happy they did and/ or made cutbacks in other areas.
There is no way i would have hooked these good clients on price alone.
I can also relate to the underpricing being a turn off.
Years ago I worked on a wedding with a Video guy. Having done vid myself i could see he was doing a great job and every thing about the guy and his attitude was brilliant. over dinner at the reception he lamented to me how little work he was getting despite the amount of calls he got.
I nearly died when he told me what he did and the prices he charged as they were so detrimentally low.
For the rest of the night I hounded the guy to put his prices up. He was booking 1-2 jobs a month so i convinced him to try my suggested pricing structure for just one week and see what happened.
I forget what i told him now but that was too much and he knocked about 25% off it simply because it just seemed to unrealistic to him.
On the tuesday evening, he rang me more excited than a little kid with a new puppy telling me in the last 3 days he had booked 3 of the 5 enquiriys he had over the phone and got CC deposits.
He admitted he had booked them at the lower price and it didn't take much to convince him to go the full thing I said now that he had his normal months booking anyway.
I got another call a week later from his wife also thanking me profusely and she told me they were now up to 7 bookings. She also told me that they were charging MORE than I suggested. Apprently she misunderstood what her husband said about the amount I suggested and booked 2 at $500 Over my figure before she and the husband realised the " mistake".
She was more confident than ever and said If i can do 2 at that price I can do them all. And she did.
They guy would ring me about every month for some time letting me know how well they were doing and saying it was like a dream that he thought must stop soon but kept on going. In a few months he left his day job and was making a lot more doing his wedding videos.
Low pricing had been killing this guy for years but when he ended up matching the marketing and price to the product, he went ballistic.
As I recall, the final price he was charging was nearly 5 times what he had been charging ( and still lowering) initially when he was getting no work.
People have a price expectation of what they think something is worth. If your after a used car and they are all around the $10K mark and you find a good one for 9, it's a bargain. When you find one for 2, you instantly think it must have major problems or its a trap and you avoid it.
Same with pricing photography in the real, unbastardised market.
Having sold more than I ever thought in the past year I have been enlightened by the buyers. Most wanted to pay less (human nature) than what I or the gallery was asking, but after explaining to them (in a professional way) there was no negotiation, they all ended up buying the prints. My pricing was determined by 1. Gallery 2. My time 3. My costs 4. Number of prints run 5. Wanting people to be able to afford my work. I consider it an honor for someone to actually want my work, but I'm not going to sell it for cheap. I would rather give it away than sell cheaply. I have a neighbor who showed me some prints he bought and he gloated about how little he paid for them. I really didn't even look at them after he told me the price! Would you rather be know as the person who sold 1000 prints for a $1 or 1 print for $1000? People rushed out and bought Yugo's when they came out but you will never hear anyone bragging about buying one now.
Enough of the lectures on economics. Now for a little humor
What do you call a Yugo with a flat tire? Totaled.
What's included in every Yugo owner's manual? A bus schedule.
What do you call a Yugo that breaks down after 100 miles? An overachiever.
Why does a Yugo have a rear window defroster? To keep your hands warm while you push it.
How do you make a Yugo go faster? A towtruck
Two guys in a Yugo were arrested last night in Oakland following a push-by shooting incident.
The new Yugo has an air bag. When you sense an impending accident, start pumping real fast.
A friend went to a dealer the other day and said, "I'd like a gas cap for my Yugo." The dealer replied, "Okay. Sounds like a fair trade."
How can you get a Yugo to do 60 miles an hour? Push it over a cliff.
One thing that makes me roll my eyes with many people is when you advise people to raise their prices and they come back with something to the effect that they won't make any sales if they do that. In many cases that is an opinion rather than a tested fact. Secondly, if your prices are so low you making nothing now, what the hell is the difference if you try something different and still make nothing?
Everyone seems to have issue pricing their work though. Understanding that your work is worth money only seems difficult in photography. I'm sure no one feels that way about their day job. lol.
I think this is true in any artistic endeavor. Resolving your Passion and desire to share you art but trying to determine a fair price can be challenging for those that don't think of it as a business endeavor.
One thing that makes me roll my eyes with many people is when you advise people to raise their prices and they come back with something to the effect that they won't make any sales if they do that. In many cases that is an opinion rather than a tested fact. Secondly, if your prices are so low you making nothing now, what the hell is the difference if you try something different and still make nothing?
Over 30 yrs ago I was very inexpensive on my prices.....but I had no real clients, except for a couple of wedding mills...worked my butt of for free nearly....so I raised my prices and the wedding mills dropped me, but I gained a few clietns that made up for it with less work.....over a 2 yr period I raised my prices every 6 months and kept gaining real paying clients ....I raised prices until I was very near the standard for my area....1.5 yrs later I took a risk...I raised my prices again, I was now well above the norm and my phone started ringing off the hook......
This will not be the norm for everyone....... but I did this on the advice of a very popular country star at the time whom I had done a few portraits for when he and his wife came to Wichita......
but as stated in the above quote if you're not making money now what can it hurt......being in business is a gamble in the 1st place, so you might as well take the gamble raise prices...if your work diminishes over the next year you can always lower your prices...."NEW LOWER PRICES" or "WE"RE HAVING A PRICE ROLLBACK"!!!
I found having higher prices also brings in better clients....the ones that tell you what they want but do not ask "What is this going to COST me??"..........
I found having higher prices also brings in better clients....the ones that tell you what they want but do not ask "What is this going to COST me??"..........
Exactly the same as I found.
The cheap a$$ clients want the world and whine and complain about any price over .02C
The better clients pay much more without complaint, in fact you actually get a great deal of thanks from them when the Job was easier, far less stressful and the people were a pleasure to deal with.
heh try going higher in price. The rich do not stay rich by spending freely My worst experiences with clients have been at the extreme ends of the pricing structure, but I am acutely aware of the risks of generalising so I doubt it is true in all situations. One of the worst brides that I walked away from before signing was minted to the nth degree but tried to nickle and dime all the vendors and repeatedly demanding more for less (she tried for a free album at the last minute with me, like all her requests for discounts etc it was declined, I lost patience trying to think of ways to say the invoice is X, it will not be A, B or Z). I declined and she turned out to be crazier than a box of monkeys according to those she ended up going with. Personally I found the upper middle range to be a sweet spot.
I totally agree with this too.
I also had a dabble in the very upper end of the market and found it to be a night mare. It just seemed that no matter what you did it wasn't good enough and unless you kissed their a$$es non stop. Because you were the hired help they always looked down on you and often made veiled derogarory comments.
I also found they had the most boring weddings on the face of the earth!
At one job I did at this exclusive estate at the foot of the mountains, the speeches went just on 2 hours. They basicaly came in, had the meal, did the speeches, the bridal waltz, one dance and it was over.
I remember a MOB coming back with the bride and complaining bitterly and repeatedly that I didn't get a shot with her and her sister ( brides mum and aunt) together. I said I didn't recall being asked to do one. MOB siad she didn't ask me, she just thought I would do it because the photographer at her son's wedding 8 months beforehand did one. I said well she had a fairly recent one, when would be the next time she saw here? She said sister lived 10 min away and they saw each otehr every week but they were dissapointed they didn't get a photo when there was a photographer around.
I got a referal from that couple and when they came in the bride told me, " Don't worry, My mum dosent have a sister you have to get a photo with. "
I can't say I ever had much trouble getting money out of them, it was just the constant whineing about the most ridicilous things and the looking down their nose attitude that made me pull back in the market I was chasing.
I also afree upper middle is the place to be and that's the market I have chased for years. Like any markethowever, you have to make sure all your marketing, including pricing , is in line with the people you want to win because too low makes them think there is something they are are missing and they don't want to get tricked and too high makes you look like a rip off.
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Man you sound just like me when it comes to this subject. I could not have said this better.
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I haven't had a price list for years.
It is a completely self sabotaging initiative for the market I aim for.
Price lists are great for attracting price shoppers that will compare and anylise your products and services on a numbers only basis and a published price list gives them the opportunity to avoid talking to you all together and building some rapport and doing a proper presentation.
What 99% of photographers just don't understand is that people buy the person, the product and the price IN THAT ORDER. Of Course most put it the other way around and put the most emphasis on the least important factor.
Even back in the days i did publish price lists, people would ring and almost without exception, the first question would be, " How much do you charge for a wedding?"
The reason they say this is because they have seen and are interested in your work but simply don't know what else to ask?
Just when a guy goes up to a pretty girl in a bar and asks if she comes there often or whatever line he uses, the question verbalised is different to what he's really wanting to know.
If interested clients are going to ring me and ask prices, what's the point of publishing them and blowing off opportunities to do a proper sell on people that you may be able to impress and get over the line on other factors?
I couldn't count how many people have told me at the end of our dealings how they spent much more than they initially budgeted but were happy they did and/ or made cutbacks in other areas.
There is no way i would have hooked these good clients on price alone.
I can also relate to the underpricing being a turn off.
Years ago I worked on a wedding with a Video guy. Having done vid myself i could see he was doing a great job and every thing about the guy and his attitude was brilliant. over dinner at the reception he lamented to me how little work he was getting despite the amount of calls he got.
I nearly died when he told me what he did and the prices he charged as they were so detrimentally low.
For the rest of the night I hounded the guy to put his prices up. He was booking 1-2 jobs a month so i convinced him to try my suggested pricing structure for just one week and see what happened.
I forget what i told him now but that was too much and he knocked about 25% off it simply because it just seemed to unrealistic to him.
On the tuesday evening, he rang me more excited than a little kid with a new puppy telling me in the last 3 days he had booked 3 of the 5 enquiriys he had over the phone and got CC deposits.
He admitted he had booked them at the lower price and it didn't take much to convince him to go the full thing I said now that he had his normal months booking anyway.
I got another call a week later from his wife also thanking me profusely and she told me they were now up to 7 bookings. She also told me that they were charging MORE than I suggested. Apprently she misunderstood what her husband said about the amount I suggested and booked 2 at $500 Over my figure before she and the husband realised the " mistake".
She was more confident than ever and said If i can do 2 at that price I can do them all. And she did.
They guy would ring me about every month for some time letting me know how well they were doing and saying it was like a dream that he thought must stop soon but kept on going. In a few months he left his day job and was making a lot more doing his wedding videos.
Low pricing had been killing this guy for years but when he ended up matching the marketing and price to the product, he went ballistic.
As I recall, the final price he was charging was nearly 5 times what he had been charging ( and still lowering) initially when he was getting no work.
People have a price expectation of what they think something is worth. If your after a used car and they are all around the $10K mark and you find a good one for 9, it's a bargain. When you find one for 2, you instantly think it must have major problems or its a trap and you avoid it.
Same with pricing photography in the real, unbastardised market.
Thank you all very much!
What do you call a Yugo with a flat tire? Totaled.
What's included in every Yugo owner's manual? A bus schedule.
What do you call a Yugo that breaks down after 100 miles? An overachiever.
Why does a Yugo have a rear window defroster? To keep your hands warm while you push it.
How do you make a Yugo go faster? A towtruck
Two guys in a Yugo were arrested last night in Oakland following a push-by shooting incident.
The new Yugo has an air bag. When you sense an impending accident, start pumping real fast.
A friend went to a dealer the other day and said, "I'd like a gas cap for my Yugo." The dealer replied, "Okay. Sounds like a fair trade."
How can you get a Yugo to do 60 miles an hour? Push it over a cliff.
I'm surprised any car that didn't weigh 3 tons and had anything less that 500 Cubic inch engine and got better than 15 Mpg was ever sold in the US !
We had a similar Iron Curtain built Vehicle around the mid 80's here called the Lada.
I believe they are quite valuable now.
Any vehicle with just a handfull or less remaining specimens always is!
A: A wheelbarrow
Hi! I'm Wally: website | blog | facebook | IG | scotchNsniff
Nikon addict. D610, Tok 11-16, Sig 24-35, Nik 24-70/70-200vr
I think this is true in any artistic endeavor. Resolving your Passion and desire to share you art but trying to determine a fair price can be challenging for those that don't think of it as a business endeavor.
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Over 30 yrs ago I was very inexpensive on my prices.....but I had no real clients, except for a couple of wedding mills...worked my butt of for free nearly....so I raised my prices and the wedding mills dropped me, but I gained a few clietns that made up for it with less work.....over a 2 yr period I raised my prices every 6 months and kept gaining real paying clients ....I raised prices until I was very near the standard for my area....1.5 yrs later I took a risk...I raised my prices again, I was now well above the norm and my phone started ringing off the hook......
This will not be the norm for everyone....... but I did this on the advice of a very popular country star at the time whom I had done a few portraits for when he and his wife came to Wichita......
but as stated in the above quote if you're not making money now what can it hurt......being in business is a gamble in the 1st place, so you might as well take the gamble raise prices...if your work diminishes over the next year you can always lower your prices...."NEW LOWER PRICES" or "WE"RE HAVING A PRICE ROLLBACK"!!!
I found having higher prices also brings in better clients....the ones that tell you what they want but do not ask "What is this going to COST me??"..........
Exactly the same as I found.
The cheap a$$ clients want the world and whine and complain about any price over .02C
The better clients pay much more without complaint, in fact you actually get a great deal of thanks from them when the Job was easier, far less stressful and the people were a pleasure to deal with.
I totally agree with this too.
I also had a dabble in the very upper end of the market and found it to be a night mare. It just seemed that no matter what you did it wasn't good enough and unless you kissed their a$$es non stop. Because you were the hired help they always looked down on you and often made veiled derogarory comments.
I also found they had the most boring weddings on the face of the earth!
At one job I did at this exclusive estate at the foot of the mountains, the speeches went just on 2 hours. They basicaly came in, had the meal, did the speeches, the bridal waltz, one dance and it was over.
I remember a MOB coming back with the bride and complaining bitterly and repeatedly that I didn't get a shot with her and her sister ( brides mum and aunt) together. I said I didn't recall being asked to do one. MOB siad she didn't ask me, she just thought I would do it because the photographer at her son's wedding 8 months beforehand did one. I said well she had a fairly recent one, when would be the next time she saw here? She said sister lived 10 min away and they saw each otehr every week but they were dissapointed they didn't get a photo when there was a photographer around.
I got a referal from that couple and when they came in the bride told me, " Don't worry, My mum dosent have a sister you have to get a photo with. "
I can't say I ever had much trouble getting money out of them, it was just the constant whineing about the most ridicilous things and the looking down their nose attitude that made me pull back in the market I was chasing.
I also afree upper middle is the place to be and that's the market I have chased for years. Like any markethowever, you have to make sure all your marketing, including pricing , is in line with the people you want to win because too low makes them think there is something they are are missing and they don't want to get tricked and too high makes you look like a rip off.