Reply To: Charging Customers!!!

[IHF]

Thomas,

I’m about to give you a little slap of reality here.  Keep in mind that I am not a pro, part time pro, or semi pro.  I’m just someone who has flirted with the idea enough to research and learn as much as possible about the business end of things.  I COULD be completely full of crap over here because I haven’t put any of this into practice (I don’t believe I am, but I have yet to have an established pro but in and tell me I am WAY off.  and some of what I am about to say is just my opinion only) , but here it goes anyway.

If you are serious about making money as a portrait photographer, you have to price yourself for profit, not to be affordable for everyone.  Portraiture is a luxury item whether we want it to be or not.  It is not a necessity.  You are selling a custom portraiture service.  You are not a faceless chain studio, or an under the table faux, and you cannot afford to try to compete with them, or try to attract their clients.  You have to price your services in such a way that you are making what you want/need to make AFTER all of your expenses, and pricing your sessions like you currently are, is NOT going to do it.  Only small business togs who don’t pay taxes, don’t offer full service, not insured, etc can afford to work that way (and even THAT is questionable).  That is unless you do a LOT of quick sessions per day ex: booking 4 or 5 mini sessions (15 minutes to half hour time blocks) at say $50 per (and even that is iffy as to how much profit there is to be made vs work load, but some togs swear it works for them).  Your prices should be service based.  I strongly believe part of that service is providing finished products, but by pricing your sessions to completely cover yourself even if prints are never purchased, is very important for your livelihood.  You will find that customers that pay more for your services, will also value your service and products more, and have a better understanding as to why you don’t give away high res on disc or drive (JMO I think your high res disc is priced too attractively to help you sell what you are actually trying to sell, finished photographs) .  I think it’s very important for people to be able to share their photos.  Offering web sized/web friendly pictures is a must these days, whether included with the sitting fee (which is how I would do it) or not, they should be easy to obtain and share.  It’s what people want, and it’s silly to think you can fight that tooth and nail , and still get referrals and repeat business.  I don’t think these files absolutely need your watermark.  Your clients paid for them, you need to let it go.  So what if they print them at walmart for Grandma Jo.  Especially when they have purchased prints from you (and they will be more likely to, if prints are included as a package with your sessions, and/or your services are priced more legitimately).  Grandma jo’s walmart print will pale in comparison, and it might just help you make another print sell.

I guarantee that these clients only asked for full res after they saw your watermark or after they were told by so and so that they should have gotten high res after so and so saw your watermark on the images they shared.  Believe me when I say word of mouth still is the very best way to promote your business, not facebook likes or potential clients looking you up after seeing a picture that was posted by your current client with your watermark on it, but by people inquiring “Who took these photos for you?  tell me about them.  Can you link me to them?  This is not to say that the photos you share on fb to promote your business shouldn’t be watermarked, I think they should be, and clients should be asked if you can tag them in the photo/photos, asked if they could share the photo of them that you want to use for promotion yadda yadda.  But this is you advertising for yourself, not asking for your clients to wear your banner all over facebook and on their blogs and all over their emails etc and asking them to PAY YOU to be able to do this for you.  (I hope I was able to explain this as clearly as I want it to be)

Reality is… Most togs just starting out on a part time basis (legitimately that is), have to price between $150 to $200 per session + varying print sales just to make an equivalent to minimum wage after everything is said and done, and all business expenses have been figured in.  This is just to start.  Like portfolio building, very new, just starting out prices, that will eventually need to be raised as your business and business expenses grow.

You want your clients to value what you do?  Time to start valuing what you do enough to charge appropriately so you are actually making money.