Original subtitles

I will be the first to admit that

this is going to be one of the

toughest lessons for me.

And it's going to be one of the

toughest lessons for me is because pricing is

a question that I get asked the most

about, but it is not my forte.

So we're going to get the keynote fired

up because what we're going to do now

is we're going to talk about how to

price your wedding photography services.

Now, I don't pretend to be a financial

guru, or I don't pretend to be this

analytical beast.

I don't think that my pricing system is

the best, but I know that it has

worked well for me, and it has continued

to work well for me for about 10

years.

It has not changed.

What you see me start through hasn't taken

very many detours.

We're going to bring you up to speed

where I started and where I am today.

I like my pricing structure because it is

simple, it is clean, and it's easy to

see the growth potential.

That's my big sell.

If you haven't kind of bought into it

yet, it's going to be uphill from there.

My approach, which rubs a lot of people

the wrong way, is to let the market

dictate your growth.

Let the market dictate how fast you're raising

your prices and where you should be.

And we as artists and creatives don't like

to hear that, right?

Because we want to say, I want to

put value, and then people find value in

that.

And the question then turns into, are people

finding value in that?

And that's a really hard question to grapple

with.

It takes a lot of honesty.

It takes a lot of vulnerability.

Now, I have to start this particular section

by stating the groundwork.

In 2006, in October of 2006, I shot

my first three weddings.

And in the following year, in 2007, J

.D. and I booked 38 weddings.

We did that all without spending a dime

on marketing.

We did that all by word of mouth

and word of mouse.

And as a result, because of that level

of growth, we were able to change our

prices dramatically.

So, if we were to change our prices

so dramatically within a year, I believe that

this structure could work very well for slower

growth.

It works, and you could see it work.

In my situation, it just happened to happen

really fast.

But because it was happening so fast, and

I'm still able to substantiate that almost a

decade later, it proves to me that it

is working and it can work.

And I've seen it applied to other photographers

as they build their business.

So, the weddings that I had booked in

2006 looked very different from the weddings that

I had shot in 2007.

Because as we booked more weddings, our prices

went up and went up and went up.

Why?

Because the market was dictating the value.

We're going to get into specifically what that

looks like.

So, let's bring this around to 2006.

In 2006, I want to talk about how

I booked my first wedding.

Now, throughout 2006, I was second shooting for

other photographers.

I had second shot about 35 weddings before

I shot my own.

So, I was working and shooting with these

other photographers, and I had learned so much

about it.

Now, I became connected with an online photography

group, very similar to the Facebook group for

this class.

And we connected with other photographers, and there

was a photographer who shot weddings for, I

think at the time, $8,000.

And I was thinking, $8,000, that is

so much money to be shooting a wedding.

Well, I got a wedding inquiry, one of

my very first wedding inquiries.

Well, the first wedding inquiry.

And she said, I received your name from

X.

And in my mind, I was like, oh

my God, X shoots weddings for $8,000.

I'm going to shoot my very first wedding

for $7,000.

That's my thought.

Where did I get that?

I don't know.

I mean, we can all dream, right?

This was my thought, as flawed as it

was.

I was like, oh my God, this is

it.

This is the big catch.

I can't believe it.

I'm working so hard as a second shooter.

I've been building my portfolio.

I'm ready for this.

And so I emailed her back, and I

said, so what's your budget?

Obviously, I'm not as savvy as a businesswoman

then as I was now.

I was like, so tell me, what budget

are you working with?

And she had said, we have $1,000.

And I thought, okay, you have $1,000.

So my response, I naturally responded to her,

was like, funny, that's what I charge.

So I literally, in the process of the

day, I went from, I'm going to shoot

weddings for $7,000 or $8,000, to,

whoa, I'm going to shoot weddings for $1

,000.

But then I started thinking about it, and

I said, what if I wanted to create

my first collection?

So what does that look like for me?

Creating my very first collection began for me

in 2006.

Now, I shot the wedding in October of

2006.

But I booked the wedding, if my memory

serves me correctly, in May of 2006.

So she was booking me, and I had

just a few second shooting opportunities under my

belt at that time.

By the time I shot her wedding, I

had 30 or 35.

But she was booking me, so I thought,

here is a person, I don't have a

big portfolio, I don't have a lot of

experience, and she wants to pay me $1

,000 to shoot her wedding.

And I thought, okay, I think I want

to do this.

But I wanted to do this in two

ways.

She had said she wanted 10 hours of

coverage, she wanted an engagement session, and she

wanted the disc of digital negatives.

She wanted that for $1,000.

So then my response to her was, I

will shoot your wedding for $1,000, for

10 hours of coverage, and the engagement session.

But if you would like the disc of

digital negatives.

At the time, I didn't have the wherewithal

or the opportunity to have online galleries, so

I was sending a disc.

I said, if you want the disc of

images, well, that's going to be $1,500.

I just thought, if a bride has $1

,000, there might be a chance that she

has $1,500.

And I didn't want to lose the wedding,

but I also wanted to show her value

in what I was going to provide for

her.

Well, she went back and she talked to

her fiancé and their families, and they agreed

to the $1,500 collection.

That was the start of my business.

Now, what was my plan?

Well, my plan was to shoot as many

weddings as I could, but I understood that

in the spectrum of Southern California, if you're

charging $1,000 or $1,500, you are

baseline.

You are bottom-entry-level photographer getting in.

Now, there might be small towns and cities

in the U.S. where $1,000 is

mid-range, and that's fine.

That's wonderful.

Nothing is wrong with getting...

Should I repeat that again to anybody who's

listening?

Getting $1,000?

That's a lot of money.

Sometimes we become so caught up, like, I

can't believe she's not going to pay me

$5,000.

I am worth it.

Yes, but this is a lot of money

to do something we love.

So my plan was to move out of

the low-end market as quickly as possible.

And how I wanted to do this was

by gradual price increases.

I knew that if the market had dictated,

obviously she looked at my collection and said,

I would pay $1,000 for that.

She probably wouldn't pay any more.

But because she wanted the digital images, she

said $500 seemed like a reasonable thing, and

I said, okay.

So I wanted to increase my prices at

a rate that would not sacrifice my beginning

referral circle.

And I felt that if I could raise

my prices $300 for every three weddings, that

that would be a nice growth rate.

And I substantiated the $300 growth rate by

going to workshops, by attending conferences.

If CreativeLive was online back then and I

was going to online classes, I would substantiate

this as research and development.

I'm not arbitrarily raising my prices because I

can.

I'm investing in my business.

I'm becoming a stronger businesswoman and a photographer

as a result.

That was my rationale.

Now, if I raised my prices and nobody

bought into it, then we would have a

question.

But let's see how slow and gradual this

movement became for me.

So this brings us into 2007.

So in 2006, I booked my first three

weddings, and all three of those weddings paid

the $1,500 rate because they wanted the

digital images.

So for all intents and purposes, I was

shooting weddings for $1,500.

Now, my question was whether or not this

pricing model was going to grow with me

and whether or not it was actually going

to work.

So was the $300 plan enough for me

to transition from the low-end market to

the mid-range market?

Now, I knew that I wanted to leave

my part-time job.

I wanted to leave my part-time job

to become a full-time photographer if my

finances lent itself to it.

So once I did the math, I knew

that my weddings, my wedding work, every month,

or at least an aggregate of it, had

to supersede $2,000 profit in order to

cover the cost of me as a full

-time photographer.

What I was making at my part-time

job was $2,000.

Now, I could not shoot weddings for $2

,000.

I needed to profit $2,000 because there

was a cost associated with me shooting the

wedding.

Now, my intention was grow slowly, bring people

with me, and move into being a full

-time photographer.

Now, in order for me to know what

my profit was, I needed to subtract my

fixed costs.

If I had to profit $2,000, I

needed to take out what fixed costs were.

So what are fixed costs?

Fixed costs are costs associated to you doing

your job.

By you shooting a wedding, you will have

to pay X in order to do that

wedding.

So once I knew my baseline, once I

knew what my fixed costs were, then I

could understand exact profitability.

Because if I was getting paid $1,500

to shoot a wedding, I was not making

$1,500.

Let's talk specifically about what I was making

so you can understand what that transition looked

like for me.

So I want to get into my first

-year costs.

So, my first-year fixed costs.

As a quick review, I charged $1,000

for shoot only.

And I charged $1,500 for the shoot

and the images.

Now, fixed costs for me, I paid $30

for an online gallery.

Every wedding included the disc, but it also

included galleries so clients could order prints.

$200 to outsource my processing.

At the time, I was with a mom

-and-pop company, and she was just charging

me $0.20 per image.

And I would send her about 1,000

images.

800 to 1,000 images.

For math's sake, let's say it was $200.

I had to ship the hard drive to

my post-processor.

And that was $16 both ways.

So that was every wedding I shot, I

had to send the hard drive.

That was $16 both ways.

I hired a bookkeeper.

I outsourced my post-processing, I outsourced my

album design, I outsourced my bookkeeping.

Because I had too many things going on,

and I wanted to make sure that I

was making the wise business decisions, and he

was the one that was keeping me on

track.

An average for that was about $45 per

wedding.

And that was the cost that I put

into it.

An average gast expense, I was shooting just

local.

So for me, back in 2006, it was

about $40.

$20 for the cost of the disc.

I was sending my client the disc, and

then I had to pay for stationery to

go over the disc, like a little case,

and then the postage.

So, total fixed cost.

Anytime I shot a wedding, I knew I

was going to pay $374.

Okay.

Now, this meant, if I got paid $1

,500, and I subtracted the $374, that I

was going to profit $1,128.

Are we on the same page so far?

Because numbers can get boring.

Okay.

This is how much I was profiting per

wedding.

But, I had booked my first three weddings

at $1,500.

And then I booked the first two weddings

in 2007 for $1,500.

Once I had five weddings under my belt

at $1,500, I decided to make my

first jump.

$300 extra.

But what is that?

Does that change my fixed costs?

No.

So what happens is, the minute I raise

my price to $300, my profit per wedding

went from $1,428 to $1,728.

So we started profiting from $1,128, an

extra $300.

$1,428.

Another three weddings, $300.

$1,728.

My fixed costs never changed.

So every time I jumped in my price,

my profit started jumping.

I was able to leave my full-time

job anywhere I think I had booked around

15 to 20 weddings.

And then I could forecast I was making

more than $2,000 a month.

That was fantastic for me.

I was profiting around $3,000 per wedding

less than six months later.

I went from booking weddings at $1,500

to raising $300 to raising $300 to raising

$300 so that I knew what my fixed

costs were and I knew that my profitability

was being driven up.

So what does the model look like for

me today?

Does it make me feel a little bit

weird talking about money, especially if I run

the propensity to have my clients seeing this?

A little bit.

But we don't talk about prices.

It is like anathema in the industry because

we sometimes run the risk of saying, well,

that person charges more and that person charges

less.

And it's all this hush-hush thing.

So what I want to do in creative

life is give me full liberty and encouragement

to say, break down the walls.

Somebody has to start talking about it.

I'm like, but what if I'm doing it

wrong?

And then I think almost a decade into

this and me and my husband are living

and working in Newport Beach, California in one

of the most competitive markets.

I will say something's working.

So I'm going to share about what that

looks like right now.

So my current fixed costs.

Well, for a shoot, so we're going to

go apples to apples.

Shoot and digital images.

I no longer include the disc, so it's

going to be going into next year, $7

,000.

My fixed costs.

It cost me $15 per wedding for Pixie

Set, roughly.

You have to pay a monthly fee, but

if I get the monthly fee and I

divide it out about how many weddings I

book over the year, this is the average

cost in case anybody is wondering.

I outsource my processing.

That runs about $300 for me today.

Average bookkeeping, $55.

My bookkeeping costs went up over the past

10 years, but I also have my bookkeeper

doing more for me on the back end

that his prices went up and substantiated as

such.

My average gas price if I'm shooting local

is $60.

If I'm shooting a destination wedding, the clients

are covering all of those expenses, so it's

going to be a win, but I count

every single wedding as a fixed cost as

such.

$10 for stationery and postage.

Now, remember, I am a strictly digital photographer,

so the only thing that I am sending

to my clients are note cards.

I paid about $4.75 per card, and

postage is just a few cents, or we'll

just say $1.

Now, I've included client gifts in this number.

Client gifts will run me about $200.

So what are my current total fixed costs?

$640 to shoot a wedding.

This year, this is how much it costs

me.

Now, you can see over the past 10

years that number has increased, but not by

much, but I've been raising my prices, so

let's see about what total profitability looks like.

So if we were to subtract our total

fixed costs from the $7,000 shoot-only

studio fee, what we're going to be getting

is going to bring us to a grand

total of $6,360 profit per wedding.

Now, I also profit on my albums, maybe

not to such a large degree, but I

do very little work for them.

So adding on my albums, I know what

my album costs are, and I know how

much I am profiting per album, but I

know at minimum every time I shoot a

wedding, I'm going to make $6,360.

Now, most of my collections, my average booking

rate for collections is around $9,000.

That includes a 12x12 album and an engagement

session.

That is the sweet spot that a lot

of my clients are booking at.

I'm very proud and very happy that that

is the type of lifestyle, that those clients

are funding the type of lifestyle that empowers

my husband and I to work together, to

travel together, and to teach other photographers.

Yes?

I noticed that you didn't include your equipment

or your insurance or anything like that in

your fixed cost.

Is there a reason?

That's great, because it's not a fixed cost.

So my equipment is a variable cost.

If I had to buy the same 50mm

lens every year, that would be a fixed

cost of me doing business.

Once I knew my profitability, then I can

go into variable cost.

Variable cost is insurance.

How much insurance?

My insurance rate changes from year to year,

because the more year I get, the more

insurance I have to pay.

That's a variable cost.

It's a cost that has to be put

into that, but those costs do have to

be put in.

Thank you so much for clarifying.

There's also the cost of buying a new

computer.

But it's not a fixed cost, right?

Because how often are we getting computers?

These are variable costs that come in.

Once I know how much I'm profiting, if

we want to get into the nitty-gritty,

what I try to do the best of

my ability with a bookkeeper is that from

our profit, we take out our cost of

living, how much monthly stipend, which has become

our paycheck.

We take that out.

We take out how much it costs for

our medical and dental insurance.

We take that out from a portion.

We talk about putting a portion of this

money into our 401k or retirement.

We take a portion of that money.

We take a portion of the money and

add it and put it into education.

There are conferences that are not related to

photography.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure and

the honor of being a student at CreativeLive.

There is a podcaster by the name of

Alex Bloomberg, and he came to CreativeLive to

talk about his new podcast partnering with Gimlet

Media, and I had been following his podcast,

and I totally geeked out.

I was first row and center.

I was camping out.

I was that person with the chair in

the front row.

Okay, like that was me.

But because we had money put aside for

educational things, I believe I am not a

podcaster.

Do I think I'll get into podcasting?

Probably not.

But I believe that his ideas of how

to tell a story, what an arc works,

how to create emotionality as we hear things

audibly, how can we do that visually?

So because we had this money set in

for education and for trips, we were at

full liberty to fly up to San Francisco

and experience a class the way that you

guys are today.

So thank you for bringing up those questions,

but that is not a fixed cost.

It's a variable cost.

So once I have my profit, I take

10% for this and 8% for

that.

So great stinking question.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So let's cruise on into one thing I

really want to clarify tenfold is that when

we hear other photographers talk about their prices,

it's sticker shock.

You get paid how much, right?

The one thing I want to talk about

is I put out my fixed cost because

I want you to see how I run

my business as a service-based model.

I am not complicating my collections by way

of product.

And I say I should carefully use my

words.

It is not a complication to have product.

It is a complication for me and my

skill set because I am not very good

at sales.

It makes me uncomfortable.

I'm not articulate and effective when it comes

to selling upgrades here and there.

If a client wants it, I will service

them.

But because they already know they want it,

it's not a sale.

It's me fulfilling something on that part in

the end.

My goal for you is to get a

detailed grasp of what your fixed costs are

because then you can figure out what your

profitability is.

Once you know your profitability, then you can

divide out what it takes for your variable

cost.

You want a new lens?

Great.

How many weddings are you going to have

to shoot at?

And taking 10% from every wedding and

putting it into a savings account for that

lens, how many weddings do you need to

book?

Five?

Seven?

Good.

Know that number.

Set your intention on that number.

So that when you hit that number and

you walk in and you order a lens

online, when you walk into the store and

you walk out with your $1,500 lens,

you hustled for that lens.

You earned that lens.

You're not making unwise financial decisions in regards

to your business.

Now, my goal for you is to understand

what this means because if you are a

photographer and you're charging $2,000 and you

are talking to another photographer and they charge

$4,000 and you immediately start second-guessing

yourself, you don't know what's under the hood.

You don't know if $4,000 includes two

albums, 12 hours, a mix of prints.

You don't know if it's labor-intensive qualities.

You don't know if they include an Afghan

rug in that $4,000 model, right?

Because we don't talk about those things.

Do not let sticker shock get to you.

I'm showing you what my numbers are because

are they groundbreaking?

No.

But are they profitable?

Are they empowering me to live a life

that I love?

Yes.

That's the takeaway.

That's what I want everybody to stop measuring

your success on somebody else's totem pole.

Moving on from here, I began this lesson

by talking about letting the market dictate how

to grow your business because it's easy to

set your prices at what you think you're

worth, but I think you need to set

your prices by what somebody is willing to

pay you.

Do I think you're worth the price you're

stated?

Sure.

Do you think you're worth the price you're

stated?

Sure.

But will somebody pay you for it?

That's the question.

That's the hard, jagged pill that a lot

of us have to swallow.

Now, when I first started, I thought, honestly,

after I had second shot over 30 weddings,

I thought that $3,000 was a great

place to start.

Where did I get the number 3,000?

No idea.

Just pulled it out.

It sounded right.

It sounded right.

About 10 hours of coverage, $3,000.

I was worth it.

Who was going to pay me $3,000?

Nobody was locking my door to pay me

$3,000.

I got this idea that I would rather

shoot three weddings for $1,000 instead of

one wedding for $3,000 because there is

power in having people talk about you.

Did I want my bride?

Did I want three brides talking about me

or did I want one?

During my first year of business, what do

I want more of?

I want more mouths and mouses pointing back

to me.

So I wanted the market to dictate my

worth and then for me to prove it.

That's where I was, and a lot of

people want to just bypass that part.

Now, there are photographers who disagree with this

approach, but I think it's more instinctual to

follow where the market leads you.

Now, I got this email from a photographer,

and I want to read it because I

see this again and again.

He writes, After having what I thought was

a good meeting with the wedding planner, I

know well, and her client, and then hearing

nothing but the sound of crickets afterward, I

have started to question my pricing.

I have heard you and other wedding pros

talk about how they started at $1,000

and worked up from there.

I live in a pretty affluent area.

I have seen other photographers charge quite a

bit in this area for work that is

less than par.

So given that I came out of the

gate charging $2,950 for a basic package,

including two photographers, eight hours of coverage, does

that number $2,950 sound familiar whatsoever to

you guys at all?

Like maybe 30 seconds ago I mentioned a

number like $3,000.

$3,000 just sounds nice.

Then I realized I'm not alone.

I was speaking to a photographer less than

two weeks ago, and she said she was

charging $3,000 because in her market if

she didn't charge at least $3,000, she

would be considered the cheap photographer.

And my question is how many people have

booked you at $3,000?

If it's one, lower it.

Get more people talking about you.

There is value in that.

So let's get back.

I throw in the engagement session for free,

et cetera.

I shot my first wedding on my own

this past summer.

I have since booked a couple more.

I feel like I deliver great service and

have happy clients.

I go above and beyond to make sure

my client's experience is awesome from start to

finish.

Given that and the work I put out,

I feel like what I charge is a

good deal in this area.

$1,000 just seems too little for me

to start at.

I don't want to throw away weddings either

by starting too high.

I'm wondering if I may need to bite

the bullet and drop my prices to get

more action rolling out of the gate.

And also the fact that you should charge

what you feel you are worth.

Sincerely, shooting for the moon.

I don't want to focus so much on

his pricing model or her.

I want to focus on his or her

perspective of pricing.

There are two things that jumped out at

me at that email that I see again

and again and again with photographers.

So first is this quote.

I have seen other photographers charge quite a

bit in my affluent area for work that

is less than par.

Caution.

Do not measure your worth or your worth

based on what somebody else is paying somebody

else.

You will be sorely misled.

Now we like to establish our work on

an artistic totem pole.

But we are biased viewers.

We think that the work we are producing,

I'm going to be honest, is better than

what it actually is.

Because we are too close to the subject.

Every mom thinks that her baby is the

cutest baby.

Right?

Our businesses are the cutest baby.

Why?

Because we are blinded by love.

That is it.

So if you are saying that that work

is subpar and yet they are booking.

Guess what boo?

If that is subpar, I don't know if

you are above it.

That is hard.

And I'm dealing it straight.

So, secondly, this photographer writes, Given these factors

and the work I put out, I feel

like what I charge is a good deal

in this area.

I hate to break it to you.

But if what you are charging is a

good deal, you would be booking.

That is the nature of how deals work.

If it is a good deal, it flies

off the shelf.

If it is a bonafide deal, you will

be busy.

I can say that at $1,000, I

was a bonafide deal.

Because I got busy.

People saw me and said, that is worth

$1,000.

If I had charged $3,000, guess what?

Nobody was hiring me.

So, the thing that you need to do

to calibrate where you should be is demand.

Build the demand, then offer the supply at

the price that you want it.

Is this uncomfortable to hear?

Yes.

Absolutely.

You don't want to be the bargain barrel

photographer.

But guess what?

It is far better to have more people

talking about you who are happy.

Who will do more for your business.

I heard a person tell me that they

would rather have two brides who are ecstatic

about their wedding photographs, than 20 brides who

feel like you delivered on what you said

you were going to deliver.

That is what you can do.

Their expectations for you are here.

Then you do this, they are raving about

you.

So, the deal, I mean, what I want

to say is too, as a note, is

that the idea isn't to be the best

deal in the town.

Do not leave this course thinking that you

should be like the Craigslist photographer, at all.

But what I'm saying is, if you're having

a hard time booking, you're just too high.

That's it.

If you're watching this course and you've been

with us for 30 days, chances are you're

a solid photographer.

Chances are you have a decent camera and

one or two decent lenses.

Those are, at minimum, what the chances are.

If you're not booking, you're too high.

That is it.

When you raise your prices and all inquiries

stop, you're too high.

The market is dictating your demand.

If you raise your prices and half your

clients fall off, good job.

That's the nature of how things work.

You raise your prices, you lose some.

You raise your prices, you lose them all,

you did it wrong.

Bring it on back.

Start it over again.

Get the engines going.

It is not a shot to your pride.

It is you staying in the game.

Change that perspective.

Be kind to yourself.

Say, I missed the mark this time around,

but I'm going to hustle a little bit

more and I'm going to get to ultimately

where I want to be.

Next.

One thing that I have to say as

we come into the close of this section

is that you may or you may not

have to change your prices.

You might be at a point where people

are booking you.

Maybe they're not booking you all that fast,

but they're booking you.

Great.

Maybe you shouldn't raise your prices $300 every

three weddings.

Maybe you should raise your prices $100 every

three weddings.

I don't know what that is.

I don't know your number and your neck

of the woods.

But you slowly eke your prices forward and

you keep that pace up.

Now, if we apply the theory of supply

and demand, if people are supplying, if you

are supplying for the demand, good for you.

What I will say is that the thing

that I learned in retrospect that I want

to share with as many people as possible

today is that, sure, I might not have

been all that profitable my first few weddings.

But I will say that me getting out

and getting experience on my own, me building

my portfolio, me meeting three, four different florists

in a month, me meeting three or four

different DJs, three or four different wedding coordinators,

working at four different venues, all for $1

,000 or $1,500.

That was worth something to me because I

was building relationships and somebody was paying me

to pursue my dream.

And my dream wasn't to be shooting the

bargain barrel for weddings for the rest of

my career.

My dream was get me started and let

me see if I can fly.

And what I want you to do is

give yourself the opportunity, give yourself the grace

to say, I am good enough.

And one day I'm going to charge exactly

what I want.

But until I get there, I'm going to

charge what's going to keep me busy, be

busy, be hungry.

And that's the thing that's really going to

direct you forward.

Now, when you meet people, when you take

care of clients, when you have people talking

about you, that is worth their weight in

gold.

That is exactly where you want to be.

That is all that I have for this

particular pricing section.

Is it simple?

Is it too easy?

Is it not complex enough?

Probably.

But it's all that I have and I

know that it's working.

And I believe that it will work for

you guys.

On that note, let's open it up to

Q&A if you guys have it.

Great.

Thanks.

We're going to pass that mic on back.

It happened to me recently, and this is

only my second year in weddings.

I have a friend who her and her

husband, I think you've met them actually, Amber

and Luke Grover, I don't know.

Anyway, in my area, they're a big deal.

And they charge probably the most in our

area.

And she's been my mentor and advised me

to, like, you're too low, you're too low,

you need to go up to at least

X amount.

It was $2,800 for me.

So you need to at least go up

to $2,800.

So I did.

And then I just felt like crickets.

Total crickets.

So then I'm like, oh, my gosh, like.

Since we're being real and I opened my

kimono.

You went from $2,800?

So it was $2,450, which I do

like how you do.

I just do the shooting of the day.

And then I use Pass Gallery.

And then that's it.

I offer albums separately.

Let's make a decision industry-wide to say

I call it a studio fee.

Instead of, like, I shoot only.

No, no, we do a lot.

So your studio fee was $2,450.

And you went to $2,800.

Yes.

And I got a few.

I booked two weddings, actually.

And they were both really good weddings.

But then I just felt like nothing at

all.

Were you booking a lot at $2,400?

Much more.

I mean, for me, you know, a lot

more.

I felt like I got a lot more

inquiries, at least.

And then I just fell silent.

So now recently, and I'm already really hard

on myself.

And I'm, like, super self-deprecating with my

work.

So I'm like, oh, my gosh, I've got

to go back down.

So now I've gone back down to $2

,450.

But I took it off my blog site

because I'm like, you can't, like, be posting

$2,800 and then go down to $2

,400 on your.

That's funny because I didn't know the price

police read your blog every day.

They might.

What if they do?

I don't know.

I'm being sarcastic.

I'm being sarcastic.

But give yourself grace.

I don't know.

So I don't know.

Do I, like, post it?

If you do decide, like, okay, maybe I

need to baby steps.

Yes.

Yes, post it.

Post it.

Post it.

Okay.

Because now that I don't, I get, like,

people that are inquiring for lesser amount.

I get more inquiries, too, that are, like.

So you're spending more time dealing with clients

who were never your clients to begin with.

Yes.

Okay.

Here's the thing.

The caveat.

Post it.

Stand behind it.

Okay.

We all make mistakes.

The hardest person to forgive us of our

mistakes.

And not saying that the price increase was

a mistake.

Maybe it was just, like, a detour.

So if you took a detour for, like,

get back on track.

Not a big deal.

Yeah.

I guarantee you, maybe two people will see

that you fluctuated in price, but they're not

hiring you anyway.

But the caveat is if you booked clients

for $2,850, you have to find an

increase in value to substantiate that price difference

when you drop down.

Because if they happen to see those prices

and they paid more, then you will have

to say, I did own it.

Own it.

Be honest when it hurts.

And you just say, I did drop my

prices.

I grew a little too fast.

For the clients, you don't have to say

how many.

For the clients I booked at a higher

rate, what I want to do is add

a few more pages to your album.

Or what I would love to do is

send you a canvas.

Or what I would love to do is

to create an engagement album completely at cost.

And if they're like, no, we don't want

it, honor it.

Send them the money back.

OK.

Well, the two that I did book, I

did include an album.

OK.

Oh.

And now I don't include an album.

It's just the gap.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

You went.

I'm going to call you out real quick.

I know.

I'm so bad with my numbers.

I'm like the worst business owner with my

numbers.

You went from $2,450, no album, to

$2,850 album?

Mm-hmm.

$2,800 with an album.

You're making less money for doing more work?

Mm-hmm.

Drop your prices.

Get back.

No.

OK.

Because here's the thing.

What's the album?

What's the album?

Let's do some numbers.

This is good.

So I use Milk Books, and they're $200.

And I would only charge $400.

And you're not including shipping.

You're not including tax.

And you're not including the time that it

takes for you to design the album.

Oh, yeah.

No, I know.

What if it took you 15 hours?

You're making as much as a Starbucks barista.

No, we have to think about this in

these terms.

No, I know.

And I'm so bad.

So again, this is a sticker price.

Your friends say you should be charging more.

OK, I don't disagree.

But for you to charge more and make

less, maybe it takes you eight hours.

I don't know.

But what if you book a client, and

I've had amazing, wonderful, beautiful clients, and then

they become so picky when it comes to

their album, that all of a sudden, because

your album design is not a fixed cost,

my album design with Amy of Elmest is

a fixed cost.

No matter how many revisions my clients take

in those three drafts, it is still a

price per page that she charges me.

But for you, if they come back to

you, draft one, we want four changes.

Draft two, we want six changes.

Draft three, you know what?

Let's just flip around the whole thing.

How many hours are you spending on that

album?

Too many.

So you learn from that.

That was a detour.

We're getting you back on track.

Go to 2450.

Do a studio fee.

You're profitable.

Life is easier and better if they want

to add the album.

What you are going to do is you're

going to get the fixed cost of the

album if you're still using milk.

That's $200 at cost.

Then you need to say, how many hours

am I going to spend making this album?

Then we'll say, let's just say for math's

sake, you'll pay yourself $20 for making the

album.

Well, at minimum, if it's 10 hours to

make the book and $20 an hour, you

need to be charging an extra $200 at

minimum on top of that.

Then you need to make a profit on

the album.

What you should be charging, including shipping and

including tax, for that album should be a

minimum $700.

That is it.

That is it.

I feel like I'm preaching.

I'm going to give you a sweat rag.

No, but you need to be making money

on this product because it's not enough to

give your clients a discount for the amount

of work that you're doing.

Own it.

It is not the sticker price.

That was a great question.

Thank you for opening up those difficult stuff

to talk about.

Are there any other questions?

Great, we have.

I have had a couple wedding planners say

to go by the philosophy, well, if it's

more expensive, it must be better.

So they encouraged me to raise my prices

based on that.

We're in a small rural area.

I don't know if you have any thoughts

about that.

I do.

Are the wedding coordinators paying your mortgage?

Right.

No.

Right.

Okay, so that's the snarky.

That's the snarky.

I appreciate that.

Let's bring it back.

People have told me the same thing.

There was a time that I was higher

than what I am now.

Two years ago, I started at $7,500.

I have lowered my price to $500.

Why?

There was a fluctuation.

I'll be honest.

The market took a dip.

The influx of new photographers skyrised because it

was such a profitable industry.

And then the economy dipped.

I was caught in a crossfire of epic

proportions.

I was a high-end photographer when high

-end photographers were not in demand.

So what did I do?

I dropped my prices $1,000.

It was time for me to hustle.

What am I going to do?

Sit there and defend my prices for what?

My pride?

Bump that.

I don't want to go.

I want to go on vacation with my

husband.

We get paid good.

We get paid good.

So I work my prices back another $500.

That's what I've done in the past year.

Great.

I'm going to get back up to $7

,500 next year.

I know this.

I believe that's my intention.

So if those coordinators can guarantee sending you

work at a higher rate, then you can

develop a relationship with that.

If you feel it, by faith, they're going

to feed you.

They're going to take care of you.

Step out.

Do it.

If it's a detour, get back on the

path.

But if they're just saying that for a

saying's sake, because I can tell you that

too.

I can tell you that the cashmere sweater

that somebody buys at Nordstrom is better than

the cashmere sweater at TJ Maxx.

And emotionally, it is.

But you don't know if they're going to

buy the cashmere sweater at Nordstrom.

I believe in that high end value.

I absolutely do.

But only if you're in a market that

can substantiate it at a rate that you

can grow it, at a rate that's sustainable.

Those are three very pivotal things to take

into consideration.

If they have your back and they will

feed you, then yes, do it.

But not do it simply by the sake

of saying, you know what, okay.

Because she said so.

If she wants to send you clients at

a rate that she's charging those clients and

then you give her a kickback, great.

Arrange that if you're comfortable with it.

If not, it's just words.

Cool.

Are there any other questions?

Wow, that was kind of heavy.

Okay, so I started this section by saying

pricing was not my forte.

I have spoken about what my experience is.

I hope that how you guys apply to

your business is a rate where you feel,

give yourself grace, give yourself the room to

grow, but also give yourself room to sustain

that pricing and that structure.

Thank you guys so much.

I appreciate it.