Whoo Hooo!!!! - First professional sale!

Scott_Quier · December 1, 2006

For some this may not be a big deal.

For me - well, it's my first real sale!!:clap:ivar:clap I shot a portrait session for a lady and her three wonderful children last Saturday. Got the shots (the keepers, that is) on-line a couple of days later and informed the client. In tracking the action on the gallery, didn't see much in the way of hits. Checked the pro sales this morning - the client bought copies of various poses, a total of 56 prints.:barb And what really gets me stoked, she managed to use the SmugMug shopping cart and cropping tool most effectively to get the crops SHE wanted!

This is just soo cool! It really made my day 'cause I wasn't at all sure she would like any of the shots as I didn't get much in way of feedback either during the session, afterwards while concluding business, or later when I contacted her to let her know the shots were on-line.

anwmn1 · December 1, 2006

Congrats Scott!

I had you pegged as a high seller, with your site and the fedback you provide.

Question for you- On your site your prices include a digital copy of all the photos you take, but then you also have prints available to purchase through smugmug. I have heard about photographers doing it one way or the other but not both. Are your digital copies lo res- why do you offer both?

Aaron

Scott_Quier · December 1, 2006

anwmn1 wrote:

Congrats Scott!

I had you pegged as a high seller, with your site and the fedback you provide.

Question for you- On your site your prices include a digital copy of all the photos you take, but then you also have prints available to purchase through smugmug. I have heard about photographers doing it one way or the other but not both. Are your digital copies lo res- why do you offer both?

Aaron

My pricing structure is such that I get what I need to cover expenses and profit from the session fees. My clients know this going in as I explain that the session fee "may be a little high" but that the print prices are quite low, especially for this area. Then, I "sell" the client on getting their prints from a professional lab (SmugMug) by going to my site and ordering there. So, if they order through the site, great - that's gravy. They will know about the SmugMug guarantee - if they don't like the prints, they can get them re-done (in that same vein, if they don't like the images, I will offer to do a re-shoot, but only once, or they can have their $$ back).

As for the CD, I give them a CD with the full-resolution JPG files and a limited license to print for personal use (they can't legally sell the prints/files without first compensating me). If they take the CD and get prints from another source, they know they are on their own if the prints they get don't meet their standards/expectations ("I'm so sorry the prints didn't turn out for you. Order from my site and if you still don't like them, you get your $$ back. How can you loose?"). But, I delay getting the CD to them for a couple of weeks - production time is an issue, right. My thinking is that the images have a limited shelf-life; after a time, there will be very few if any prints ordered, so I might as well give them to the client. They perceive this as extra value and it costs me little, if anything, in revenue and almost nothing in terms of time and materials. This limits the amount of data that I have to backup (I do the backups, but if they fail - oh well no issues).

BTW - Thanks for the very kind words, bu they make me curious; What about my site and/or my "feedback" led you to think that I would be a "high seller"? Thanks again.

saurora · December 1, 2006

Congratulations, Scott....you're on your way!!! I like your approach (sitting fee to cover costs, low-priced printing with options, and giving the images to the client after prints are ordered). This makes the most sense to me.

Scott_Quier · December 1, 2006

saurora wrote:

Congratulations, Scott....you're on your way!!! I like your approach (sitting fee to cover costs, low-priced printing with options, and giving the images to the client after prints are ordered). This makes the most sense to me.

Thanks. It's taken some time to come to grips with how I wanted to price things (never mind how much I wanted to charge for things - what a headache!). After a lot of discussion with my best friend (my wife!! - she has a lot more common sense than I do) I arrived at the above concept.

I do pretty much the same thing with my wedding package (note the singular) as well (you can see it here). When you buy me, you get all of me and you get the digital when it's all over. You are buying the experience and skill (yeah, we'll go with that). The prints are extra and inexpensive.

Sometime in the fairly near future, I'll add the ability for the wedding client (or any others, if they wish) to purchase a custom wedding album. But, first I need to research sources, prices, supporting software, etc. What a lot of work for a part-time business. But, I'm loving it.

JimM · December 1, 2006

Congrats! Great news. Interesting way of pricing.

ChrisN · December 1, 2006

Just wanted to say I like your pricing structure. I think the whole industry will eventually go that way. I am still struggling the best pricing structure/strategy for my work but right now I am doing a lot of daycares so I can't really charge a large upfront fee but I definetly see it as a great idea for portrait/wedding work.

Chris

Awais Yaqub · December 1, 2006

great news

JenGrace · December 1, 2006

Congratulations, Scott!

devbobo · December 4, 2006

Hey Scott,

Congrats on your first sale mate

This prompted me to check out your site. One question, it seems you are providing a heck of a lot of stuff for $1500.

Is that really financially viable ?

Cheers,

David

Nikolai · December 4, 2006

Congrats, Scott!
It's soo cool when something like this happens

Scott_Quier · December 4, 2006

devbobo wrote:

Hey Scott,

Congrats on your first sale mate

This prompted me to check out your site. One question, it seems you are providing a heck of a lot of stuff for $1500.

Is that really financially viable ?

Cheers,

David

For me, yes as I'm not using the photography to put food on the table. It just has to cover costs and provide profit enough to support my habit. After the investment in gear, if I break even by the end of 2007, I'm in gravy city.

Does it undercut others in the area. Maybe, but the clients are getting what they are paying for - I've not got the years of experience in this sort of photography that many in the area have and I let my clients know this up front. They get good value for their money, but it's not the steal it sounds like.

After I have a good season under my belt, I will begin the process of raising my rates a bit to bring my prices more in line with my experience that I will have by that time. The process of actually getting paid the new rate will take some time as the wedding engagements are scheduled months in advance.

Scott_Quier · December 4, 2006

Thanks all for the kind words
It really does my heart good to get all the

ivar that y'all have posted. Thanks.

Whoo Hooo!!!! - First professional sale!

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