This is Business

How to choose the right photography products to sell

With all the Internet's photography product vendors at your fingertips, which prints and wraps and wall clings are the right ones for you to sell?

All of them!

And none of them!

Okay, okay, I swear I'm not trying to cheat here.

PTP reader Chase G. told me he was having trouble deciding what of the plethora of photography products he should offer to his clients. Between just the big boys - Miller's, White House Custom Color, and the dozen other labs that advertise in photography magazines - there has to be hundreds of product options for photographers to sell to their clients.

When we talk about products like this - print sizes, coatings, frames - my mind immediately goes to the laminated price sheet so many photographers hand their clients during a sales session and then say, "What do you want?"

"What do you want?" is a great question to ask.

But you should have asked it two weeks ago.

You should have asked it as part of your very first discussion with your client.

It can be hard to steer the conversation that way initially - almost always, the first words out of a potential client's mouth are, "What do you charge?" Or even more fun, "What do you charge for an 8x10?"

Bless their hearts, the vast majority of your market has no idea what they want. They have an inkling of what they think they're supposed to want, but as my friend and fellow photographer Jessica says, they don't know what they don't know.

No more than I knew what I really wanted or the questions I should have asked the first time I walked into an Indian restaurant, a bubble tea lounge, a car dealership, or a swinger's club.

Okay, I've never been to a swinger's club, but I've drifted into some bars that surely left me wondering about the patronage.

But I digress!

When a client asks, "What do you charge for an 8x10?", they aren't really asking what you charge for an 8x10. They are, in the most ego-protecting way they know how, telling you they are lost souls in need of a gentle guiding hand.

And honestly, that's your job. That's why they're willing to pay you - not just for your talents behind the camera, but to be their go-to expert for all things photography.

You need to be a photographer. You need to be a consultant. You need to be a social media guru. You need to be an interior decorator. You need to be a tech support dude or dudette. You need to be a psychologist. You need to be a teacher.

Want to earn clients for life?

You need to be a friend.

You need to be that friend who is better versed in photography than anyone they know, and always gives the best advice - who to work with, what kind of wardrobe to wear, what the photos should look like, what to buy, where to hang it or upload it, how to get the most out of their professional photography experience.

How do you do that?

Throw out your price sheet

There are three levels of sales experience:

1. Purely passive. You let the client lead the whole experience, ask all the questions, and make all the decisions.
2. Passive aggressive. You hand the client a price sheet and say, effectively, "Here, I'll give you this much - now you do all the work. I have very little confidence in my own understanding of what I sell, I've never even seen most of these products in person, and I'm nervous, and oh gosh why didn't I just upload the photos to SmugMug and let you order from there?"
3. Compassionate. You start with, "What do you want?", and you take the time to listen, ask more questions, understand, and apply your expertise to help your client get the most out of their experience with you.

It’s the difference between the McDonald’s clerk who asks, “Do you want fries with that?”, and the waiter who can ask you three questions to give you a perfectly suggested meal from the menu, down to the sides and specific preparation. And when you take that first bite, you never could have dreamed how much you’d love queso on your chicken fried steak (a revelation I experienced just last week at Lulu's in San Antonio).

Guess which level I'd suggest you aspire to?

It's hard, I understand - especially if you haven't done it several times before, it's hard to sit down with a client, show them your art, and then rely wholly on your compassion to guide them down the path to the perfect photography order.

That order can look like anything. Some clients will want a lot of small prints. Some will want big wall hangings. Some will want frames, some will want wraps. A whole lot will want digital. And even then, what can they do with those files on CD after you hand it to them?

What would a friend do?

What would a part time professional photographer do?

Know your products.

Don't talk out your arse.

If you're able, experience a given product first-hand before you try to sell it (have you ever seen a Wall Cling in the wild?).

Barring this, at the least call your lab and visit with them about the products you want to know more about - most pro labs are exceptional at this, because it's in their best interest for you to be better able to sell their products. Ask if they can send you a sample package, or offer a studio sample discount. Ask if they will be at any trade shows in your state this year.

Be an advocate on behalf of your clients - do the research before you try to sell them something you have no experience with.

Picking your products to sell

The first step is to know what products are out there.

The second is to research, experience, and ask lots of questions about those products, so that you're best able to match your clients' needs with the options out there.

The third step is to introspect.

What do you like?

How do you experience photography?

What's hanging on your walls?

What's your computer desktop wallpaper?

What photos of your family are you sharing on Facebook?

Do you like digital or prints? Framed wall hangings or gallery wraps?

It's important to understand that, as an artist and a business owner, you're going to mostly draw in clients who are a lot like you (if you're marketing yourself authentically).

When a client asks me, "What do you charge?", I surely tell them - and then I ask, "What kind of shoot are you looking for?" ... "What kind of look are you going for?" ... "What do you want to end up with after the shoot - files to share on Facebook? Prints to send to relatives? Prints to hang on the walls?"

Over half my "selling" is done before the end of my first conversation with a client. If I'm doing my job, I should have a very good idea of what my client wants to end up with, both artistically and tangibly.

I'm a big digital fan - I love sharing photos on Facebook. I love the Likes and the comments from friends and family when I post a new photo of my kids or wife. I love flipping back through all the photos I've posted and seeing how much the kids have grown, and remembering our great life experiences together.

In my home, I love big gallery wraps. I love the pride and joy I feel when I look at the beautiful faces of my kids on those wraps. I love how often I look up from the living room couch, see those wraps, ever present, and smile. I'll often stop in the hallway to study the wraps hanging there, just admiring my family, and being grateful for them.

For me, for James Taylor, these are the two primary ways I experience and enjoy professional photography. I would never buy an 8x10 - too awkward, takes up table space, too small to hang for me. I would never buy a framed portrait - too stuffy, too expensive; get that ornate carved wood pretentiousness out of here. I would never buy a coffee mug or mouse pad with my kids' faces on it - that's just silly.

But that's just me.

I can't tell you how many 8x10's, framed portraits, coffee mugs and mouse pads I've sold over the last 14 years.

But those don't make up the majority of my sales - not even close.

Know what does?

Digital files, mostly for sharing on Facebook.

And gallery wraps for the home.

Your personality shows in your art. It shows in how you conduct your business. It shows in your marketing, in your smile and handshake, in your business card, and how you carry yourself with a camera. It shows in every decision you make about your camera, your post processing, your sales session, all of it.

It makes sense then that the people you shoot are quite often going to be a lot like you. Not all of them, not even close, but the majority will have the same sensibilities you do.

Sell products that you love.

Sell products that excite you.

Be well-researched about as many other photography products as you can be, even if you would never buy them yourself.

Know what you charge for the products you offer, especially the ones you plan to recommend to a given client. You should have a good understanding of what your favorite vendors charge for most common products, so you can make up a price on the spot if a client throws you a curve ball. Don't worry about getting it wrong - you can't get it wrong, you are in charge!

Your job as a salesperson - as a friend - is to connect the dots between what your clients want, what their budget is to that end, and which products will give them the most long-term enjoyment of the art you've created for them.

This is another one of those ways to out-do your competition without spending a dime. It's another way to create value for your clients out of thin air, and give them a great experience they can't find elsewhere.

Next Steps

• Do your research. Visit your preferred lab(s) online or in person and study their product offerings. Recognize that what they're pushing may not be what your clients want, or what you want to sell. Find products you love, study them, call the lab and ask questions about them. Request samples. Study the costs. Get an idea in your head of what you feel you should charge (4x to 5x cost for most products, excluding inexpensive prints). Learn everything you can about a variety of photography products so you can be an educated advocate on behalf of your clients.
• Put a shout-out on Facebook to your friends and ask them to tell you what their professional photography experiences have been, and what they ended up buying. If you have a nice following of fans for your business, post a contest asking folks to upload and tag you in a photo of how they enjoy their family portraits - as wall hangings, desk frames, wallets, even a picture of their Facebook photo album. Pick a random winner for a free photo shoot, and enjoy the fruits of both good market research and a new family to add to your portfolio.
• Brainstorm session: Get out your pen and paper, and make a Pro-Con sheet for all the photography products you can think of off the top of your head. Write down every Pro and Con you can think of for every product you can remember. Be extensive. Think realistically how people view, interact with, and enjoy (or don't enjoy) every product on your list, and write those thoughts down. This will let you really put into words what you like and don't like about all the products your clients could want, and it gives you an easy list of talking points for those products. File this away in your Brainstorms folder.
• My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I'd love to hear how you use these ideas to better your part time photography business!

by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor

How to multiply the value of your donated dollars

If you're only donating money to your chosen cause, neither you nor they are getting your money's worth.

I'm a proponent of tendering 10-percent of your business income to local non-profits, assuming you've reached the point of profitability in your part time photography business. Even just a few dollars here and there make a difference in your community, and non-profits are purpose-built for multiplying the value of donated dollars.

But as a small business in need of more clients, just writing a check every month to your favored cause is a limited investment and will show limited return. Minor donors rarely get enough recognition for their contributions to make the giving worthwhile for their business.

Don't think me a bloodthirsty robber baron - I don't mean to suggest that charitable donations should only be valued at the new business they bring in. But as a small business owner, you can't afford to hide your light under a basket, nor to let the left hand (your market) ignore what good the right hand (your business) is doing.

This was a big leap for me in understanding how the success of my business was good for my community: I cannot afford the time freedom or monetary generosity needed to make a difference in my community if I don't build a successful business.

Sometimes that means taking a grip-and-grin photo of yourself handing over a check to the local animal shelter and sending it to your local newspapers and news blogs for publication. Sometimes that means blogging about the photo package you donated to the high school senior class auction.

There are myriad creative ways to multiply the value of your donations of time and money, for both the giver and the receiver.

Be A Crusader

The most effective path is to become a crusader for the cause.

Pick a local non-profit that serves a specific cause that you are really, truly passionate about. Children, animals, poverty, hunger, whatever it may be. Adopt this cause in full and become a champion for it in your community - for a month, for a quarter, for a year.

Let's say you throw your support in for the local animal shelter. Here are some ways you can go beyond the checkbook to benefit both your chosen non-profit and your business:

• Animal Photos - This is a no-brainer. Most shelters I've seen take snap shots of their animals with their cell phone cameras. When photographer Teresa Berg began doing pro bono pet portraits for the Dallas-Fort Worth Dachshund Rescue group, adoption rates doubled. I'll say that again: doubled! You can help create a 100-percent increase in animals placed in good homes, saved from the euthanasia table or life in a cage. And that's a story worth telling on your blog and to the community.
• Staff Photos - If you look like a professional, folks perceive you're a professional. Professional staff portraits can improve and solidify that image in the community, and the community responds best to the businesses or organizations that they Know, Like and Trust. Your portraits can improve all three of these metrics for the shelter.
• Event Photos - Shelters often hold public adoptions at local events and businesses, free spay/neutering clinics, sponsor pet parades, host dog walks, and other events to grow awareness in the community. Your photos of these events make for a great record of the shelter's work, and help tell the story of the shelter in the community. Your photos can also help the shelter attain grants from philanthropic foundations.
• Press Releases - Working at a community newspaper for 13 years, it's always stunned me how few organizations make use of press releases. The small weekly paper I work at has over 10,000 weekly readers in a community of just over 20,000 people. That's the equivalent of 10,000 people paying to read what you have to say. It's a powerful venue. You can use your photography for the animal shelter to help craft press releases and photo stories to submit to your local papers and blogs, and to share on Facebook. And don't forget the grip-and-grin photo handing over a check - it's good press for you and the shelter both. Whether you realize it or not, as a business owner, you are a leader and influencer in your community. Folks who see you doing good in the community will be inspired to walk the same path.
• Photo Stories - Photojournalism can powerfully tell a story in a way that is often lost in the written word. You could do a photo story on a specific dog, from the day he was brought in injured and mangy, through his recovery, and to the day he found a loving home. You could do a photo story on the love between an adopted animal and their new owners, photos that show how much joy an adopted animal has brought to a family's home. These photos can be a powerful tool for the shelter, and a tour de force of your talents as a professional portrait artist. Local newspapers and blogs, even television news shows, love this kind of content.
• Your Blog & Facebook - You can promote the shelter through your own venues as well. Regardless of how many Likes you have, or how many people visit your blog each week, you do have an audience. Sharing the photography work you've done with the shelter, and helping to promote adoptions and shelter events, you can really build a relationship with the non-profit and members of your community who also support the cause. You can even create a Facebook group for like-minded folks to work together to benefit the shelter and other animal-related entities.
• Co-op Marketing - While promoting the shelter, the shelter can also promote you. Such as if you put together a special Pet Portrait package with a portion of proceeds benefiting the shelter. Or donating a portion of proceeds from a given month to the shelter (perhaps in concert with a pet-related holiday). Or offering a free mini-shoot to anyone who adopts an animal from the shelter. You grow your client base, and the shelter adds even more value to adopters.
• Co-op Events - How about hosting Pet Portraits In The Park day with the shelter? They could set up on location with some of their featured pets and take donations, and you could offer free pet portraits to attendees. You and the shelter could cross-promote the event, and share it with your local newspapers and blogs to build buzz leading up to the event. Add in 'door prizes' and a drawing to win a full pet portrait package, and you have a great co-op event. Don't forget to share photos from the event with your local news venues.
• Contests and Drawings - Speaking of drawings, you can host a contest for folks to win a pet portrait package via your web site and Facebook. You can promote that anyone who likes both your Facebook page and the shelter's page will be entered in the drawing. Or folks who sign up to receive both of your e-newsletters. Or folks who make a donation of any size during a certain month to the shelter. Or for every client who purchases a pet portrait gift certificate during a given month. Or you can have your Facebook fans tag you with funny photos of their pets to enter the contest. Keep in mind, you can award a grand prize, then a 'consolation' prize to everyone who enters, such as a free mini pet portrait shoot, or an exclusive invitation to a private pet portrait party - again, getting face time with good potential clients and growing your client base.

I've written before about how co-op marketing can instantly build your client list and partnering with non-profits, as I've found they are the quickest ways to build a name for yourself in an influential market.

There are many ways you can work with your chosen non-profit to both grow your client base and benefit the community. As always, the best way to start is to start right now.

Next Steps

• Brainstorm session: Whip out your pen and paper and list the problems in your community that you most dearly want to see addressed - from playgrounds to classrooms to women's shelters to animal shelters and everything between. What pain in your community do you most want to help alleviate? Narrow your list down to 1-4 causes that you are truly passionate about. Now, write down the whys - why are these causes important to you, personally? File this away in your Brainstorms folder.
• Choose one of your favored causes, and seek out a local non-profit that serves that need. Study their web site and marketing materials, then brainstorm a list of ways you can help them through promotion and fundraising. Flesh out these ideas, look at your calendar, and consider when and how you can help make these ideas happen. Non-profits have plenty to do before you walk in the door with great ideas and no manpower to make them happen. Don't over-extend yourself - refine your ideas into specific projects that you have the time and inclination to take the lead on.
• Contact your chosen non-profit and ask if you can attend a board meeting or visit with a volunteer or public relations coordinator. Bring your ideas and an open mind, and talk through what you have to offer to the non-profit. Then ask for their feedback, and what they feel you could best do to help them. Don't make any immediate commitments - take the time to consider new ideas and feedback, then determine what projects excite you the most. This is where you want to focus.
• Do not, under any circumstance, work with a non-profit whose people give you bad vibes. Where there's smoke, there's fire - you have to believe in whatever group you choose to work with. If you don't like the people, your passion will disappear, and you'll burn out fast. It's okay to walk away from any group or project you don't feel good about - in fact, it's far better to walk away then lose steam and do half-ass work. Be discerning. When you get with right people, your excitement and commitment will only multiply.
• When you make the commitment to a project, to become a crusader for a cause, you need to be all-in. You can't allow yourself to become distracted halfway through and let the fruit die on the vine. Whatever project you take on, stay enthusiastic about it and see it through to the end. Beyond being healthy for your character, you'll only build momentum with consistent progress - just as true for a crusader as for an artist or a business owner.
• My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I'd love to hear how you use these ideas to better your part time photography business!

by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor

What Marketing Ain't

Now don't let me come off as cynical.

But one of the biggest mistakes I see my fellow part time photographers make early on is to desperately focus on what won't grow their business, to the exclusion of what will.

It's easy to fall into the trap where you obsess over minutiae, and oversimplify marketing to just advertising.

Advertising is certainly a piece of the puzzle that forms the marketing for your business, but it is only one piece.

What is "Marketing" for a part time photographer?

Marketing is:

- Your art

- Your smile

- Your wardrobe

- Your community involvement

- Your reputation

- Your confidence

- Your preparation

- Your business card

- Your web site

- Your e-mail newsletter

- Your Facebook page

- Your Google search listing

- Your knowledge of photography

- Your knowledge of your business

- Your ability to help folks look good

- Your way of making kids laugh

- Your turnaround time for orders

- Your flexibility

- Your patience

- Your kindness

- Your generosity

- Your portfolio

- Your sales method

- Your customer experience

- Your referral program

- Your photo events

- Your co-op projects

- Your volunteer work

- Your sense of humor

- Your sense of gravitas

- Your showmanship

- Your honesty

- Your compassion

- Your passion

And this is not an exhaustive list.

But you notice what's not on there?

- Your name

Yet these three topics exhaust the vast majority of a new professional photographer's time, concern, and mental energy.

Why?

Because it's what everyone else is talking about.

"What should I charge for a 3.02-inch by 10.17-inch glossy lustre coated archival quality print on acid-free Peruvian yak paper with gold flake, a textured custard mat and cherry wooden heirloom antique classic frame?

Yak, indeed - I want to yak every time I see the grognards lay into these questions with the ambiguity and hatefulness of partisan political pundits.

The same goes for what equipment you "should" use and what the name of your business "should" be.

Yet these three choices have next to no influence on your success. Surely, they are choices that have to be made - but for the sake of your sanity and momentum, make them swiftly.

Here's what you need to know to wrangle these three progress-killers:

Pricing

The better you communicate your value, the more you can charge.

If your art and marketing are weak (as they are for all of us in the beginning), ask a very humble price for your work. Even with my aggressive suggested pricing for new professionals, you'll be surprised at how much money you earn per shoot. This number only gets better as you get better - at art, at marketing, at business.

When your focus is on communicating your value through good marketing, pricing becomes a tool for increasing, steadying, or decreasing your total number of bookings. You'll raise your prices for a season when you want to slow down your bookings, and you'll lower your prices or offer sales or specials when you want to grow your customer base.

This is a completely different discussion than the grognards have about their pricing - their solitary goal is to maximize profits by squeezing the customer for every last dime they can get. Upsell the coating! Upsell the frame! Upsell the paper! Upsell the black and white "treatment"!

They all but foam at the mouth.

If you're stymied by pricing, just roll with my suggestion of no session fee, no minimum order, buy what you love - prints and files starting at just $10.

It takes pricing off the table as a reason to stress, and it eliminates price as a potential reason why you're not booking as many shoots as you want. This lets you focus on the many other pieces of your marketing puzzle that will actually make a difference in your success.

Camera Gear

The truth will set you free:

• 1. What you have is more than good enough.
• 2. Don't buy a single piece of kit until you can pay for it with your photography earnings.
• 3. Don't buy that piece of kit unless it is guaranteed to make you more money than you're making now.

It's too easy to let yourself fall in the trap of lens-lust - just about every photographer has it. I won't even lie, I love ogling and fondling camera gear better than mine, and then I pine and ache for it. I read professional and buyer reviews from other photogs. I read blogs about it. I put it in my online shopping cart at bhphotovideo.com, just to see what the total price comes to.

But truthfully, it's all just window shopping - indulgence in an overpriced fantasy.

Not to sound like Grandpa, but I've been shooting with the same camera body and lens for five years. Most of the photographers I mentor have newer, better gear than I do. And if they don't, it doesn't matter:

What kit you have that has lit the flame in your soul to become a professional photographer is more than good enough to be that professional photographer.

Start your journey as a natural light location photographer. It requires the least amount of monetary commitment, which translates to maximum profit for minimal investment.

Buy books on natural light portraiture, on basic portrait photo editing, and practice - practice - practice. This is what will make a difference in your art, not This Lens or That Camera Body.

By the time that you have so well mastered natural light location portraiture that you would truly and tangibly benefit from better gear, your art and business should be at such a level that you can pay cash and not sweat a penny of the cost.

If you do 52 shoots in 52 weeks averaging $100 per client, you will have earned enough money to buy just about any kit you could possibly want. In just one year.

But what if I'm not booking that many clients? What if my average per client isn't that high?

Patience.

You have to have patience.

Nobody (including me) ever, ever wants to hear it, but - you just have to wait.

However, while you're waiting, you should be working - working on improving your art, working on a better understanding of marketing and how to use it in your business.

Success is a byproduct of progress.

When success does present you the financial opportunity to buy better gear, you have to ask a simple but serious question:

Will buying this gear help me be a better professional photographer?

Don't get me wrong - if you want to buy that thousand-dollar lens because it has a more buttery bokeh than what you're using, that is a completely valid reason. Better art does translate to better pay.

Better gear should provide the solution to a specific and tangible artistic or practical problem. It should be a problem you're running into over and over again where your art or your ability to do your best work are being hindered.

And for each photographer, it can be different: I may want better low-light capabilities with less noise, whereas you may want access to a shorter, creamier depth of field.

Don't buy gear just because a Grognard, a Friend, a Peer, a Vendor, or a Reviewer told you you should. Only buy gear because you see it making an important and valuable difference in how you work and the results you produce from that work.

Your Business Name

I've written about naming your business and how easy it is to get paralyzed at this point, but the questions about it keep coming, so I'll say it again clearly:

You are doing more damage than good for your business by obsessing over its name.

Three facts that will help you move on:

• 1. Your business name will have no effect whatsoever on your art or your income.
• 2. As an independent professional photographer, people are going to remember you, your art, and the experience you provide them, not the catchy name of your business.
• 3. You can always, always change your business name later.

At best, your business name will provide you an easy theme to tie all of your marketing pieces together.

If you're in doubt, or if you've caught yourself stuck at this juncture, use this method:

• Your Name Photography. Perfectly simple, perfectly brands you as an artist, and (at least in my state) you don't have to register a Doing Business As name. Class it up by doubling down on your last name. Such as, Taylor & Taylor Photography.
• If your name is particularly hard to pronounce, consider using your initials, your middle name, or the meaning of your name (for myself, James Michael Taylor, my business name would literally be Supplanting Tailor Who Is Like God Photography - some artistic license may be warranted if you go this route!).
• If it isn't taken and wouldn't cause confusion in your market, consider naming your business by your town, community, or neighborhood. I could easily have named my business Bandera Photography. This leaves no doubt as to the area or target market you serve. And don't worry, just like saying you serve a specific niche like babies or seniors, you'll still get business from other areas.

Where you'll suffer the most indecision is if you try to name your business "something catchy," or worse, something introspective. This is perfectly fine if you can efficiently come up with a name that you can hang your hat on, but if it takes more than a Sunday's worth of brainstorming and discussion, settle for something simple to start with. Once you have a better grasp on your artistic talents, inspirations, and ideal clientele, you can revisit your business name.

Next Steps

Once you can fling yourself over these three hurdles on your path to becoming a successful part time professional photographer, you'll experience a great feeling of relief and real progress.

• Grab a pen and paper. Work out your pricing, right here, right now. If you don't know what to do, do this: no session fee, no minimum order, you just buy what you love. Prints and files start at just $10.
• Keep the pen and paper. Write down the three pieces of kit that would most improve your salability (through your art, through your experience as a photographer, or through the experience you create for your clients) - and most importantly, why. Write down the prices for those pieces of kit. Stick it on your monitor, and set a financial goal to earn through your business what you need to buy these tools to improve your business.
• More pen and paper. Brainstorm business names. Pick one. Done. Move on.
• Breathe a sigh of relief, and acknowledge that you just cleared three of the biggest hurdles new professional photographers face. While everyone else is mired in the muck, you are now free to do the real work on your business that leads to success.
• Brainstorm session: Now that you've gotten past what marketing isn't, what are you going to work on that is good marketing? Take a look at the long list at the top of this article, see what inspires you, and write down all the ways you can improve your marketing starting today. Pick your Top 3, and write down step-by-step how you plan to improve on that aspect of your business. File this away in your Brainstorms folder.
• My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I'd love to hear how you use the ideas here to better your part time photography business!

by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor

Pricing for growth versus pricing for profit

Just as your art and business acumen grow over time, so should your prices, and your profits.

Although I encourage photographers to work closely with and support their local chartiable organizations, we as small business owners aren't non-profits ourselves. I believe you should charge according to the value of the art and experience you provide to your clients, which almost always means less in the beginning and more later on.

Easily half the e-mails I get from the super-awesome readers of PTP have to do with pricing.

Reader R.G. from Georgia wrote this week to ask about package pricing for senior portrait clients:

Mr. Taylor, I discovered your website a few days ago and found it to be very helpful. I am having a very difficult time with pricing my services to the point I am not able to go out and do what I love to do. I have been making some money with my photography and I would like to make more.

For example right now I am struggling with pricing for Senior portraits and I live near some very large high schools. In the Atlanta area I am seeing prices for a basic package starting at $300.00 along with a setup or session fee. What should a photographer just starting out charge clients for Senior portraits?

What package options should I offer for a Senior portrait?

Here is my response, for your perusal:

R.G.,

Happy Saturday to you, and thank you for your e-mail and kind words!

I am an extremely customer-friendly business owner - within reason, I try to always err on the side of trusting and supporting my clients. Over the last 13 years, I've experimented with different packages, session fees, minimum orders, etc. What I settled on as the most successful structure for me, I write about at:

What should I charge for my part time photography? – Your First Customer Series, Part 3

I write about some of the potential risks of going session-fee-free, and the rewards, here as well:

You’re going to get screwed doing part time photography

I'm a big advocate for putting the onus of responsibility on us, the photographers, instead of making clients make a big up-front commitment before the photographer has done any kind of work for them.

I suggest starting out to go with no session fee, no minimum order, and charge as little as $10 for your small prints or digital files. This makes a heck of an elevator pitch when selling potential clients on your value. "You just buy what you love." It is now extremely rare that I don't score the business of an interested potential client, and also rare that I get taken advantage of or don't make at least a modest income for my time invested even from my 'cheapest' customers. I used this exact pricing model for years to build clientele, then just doubled my price - prints and files start at just $20 now.

I also became much more consistent with offering full CD packages of all processed images for $XXX - either $295, $395, or $495, depending on the client and the number of salable images I produced from their shoot. I'd say around half of my clients nowadays buy the full CD.

Honestly, the secret is trial and error over a long period of time. If you're wanting to build client base, lower your prices - make them very attractive. If you want to start maximizing profits from a solid existing client base, raise your prices. Over the course of six months, a year, two years, your art is going to grow commensurate with your experience and your business, you'll become better at everything from booking to shooting to eliciting expressions and personality to sales, so it's not unusual or untoward for your pricing to go up commensurate.

I don't offer any kinds of packages - I just try to introduce my pricing so simply and inexpensively ("Wow, just $20? I would have thought you charged a lot more - can I book right now?") and then let the quality of my work earn my actual wages after the shoot ("James, these photos are amazing, we have to have them all. How much for the CD again?").

It's a learning and earning process - early on, unless your art is already out of this world good (and your marketing equally so), you have to do reasonable work for reasonable pay. As you grow, progress, learn, and improve, the per-hour return on your time improves accordingly. As I state on my blog, I now earn more in pocket from four hours a week of photography than I do in 40 hours a week at my day job as a journalist (not a big number to start with, but a milestone I'm proud of).

I hope this helps answer your question R.G.! I enjoyed looking at your portfolio, especially the images from San Francisco. You do great work - there's no reason you can't achieve your goal of earning a professional and proper income from your work. If there's anything more I can do to help, please don't hesitate to let me know. And please do keep me posted on your progress! I'd love to hear of your successes and adventures.

James Taylor
The Outlaw Photographer
OutlawPhotography.net
PartTimePhoto.com
830-688-1564

Learn, then earn

As I share with R.G. above, the more you learn, the more you earn.

Pricing in the early stages of your business should give you just enough profit in pocket to make you feel good about the time you're investing into your client. Keep in mind you're getting the added value of live guinea pigs to experiment on; gaining invaluable experience in marketing, photographing real clients, sales, follow-up, customer retention, business in general; building a great base of potential repeat clientele; and you're refining and improving your art throughout.

However, as you grow, so should your profits.

You'll get a feel for when it's time to raise your prices. You'll be booking more clients than you have time to shoot, and begin turning away a few. You'll start to feel disappointed in the amount of time you're investing in your clients and how seemingly little you're getting back in profits. You'll grow beyond your tools (camera, lenses, marketing materials, web site, portfolio) and begin to see real, tangible reasons why upgrading your equipment would create opportunities for you (this is far and away different from tech lust).

It's at this time that you'll raise your prices, book fewer prospects, but see much better dollars-per-hour numbers. Then the clientele will grow again. As in all things, there's a balance to be achieved, and your center of balance will shift as your photography and business mature. You'll start marketing to a different crowd, you'll shift your attention to your favorite categories of clients (families versus seniors, for example), and you'll find yourself making more money shooting subjects you love working with.

Never suffer paralysis by analysis - throw a dart and make your best educated guess as to where you should set your prices today, and commit to it. Keep track of your numbers (expenses, hours invested per client, average sale per client, total revenue, total expenses, thus total profit) and within a few months, you can reevaluate and change your prices if you see an opportunity or trend.

The more you shoot, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you earn.

Next Steps

• Grab your business card. Flip it over. Write "Prices" at the top, and fill out your entire price schedule on the back of that business card. If you can't 'explain' your pricing on the back of that card, you're probably overcomplicated things. Once you've got your pricing written out on this card, that's it - put the pen down and stop obsessing over minutiae. It's time to hang your shingle, commit to your pricing, and start shooting paying clients. You can always change it later, but you need to put a stake in the ground right here, right now, and get back to what's important: earning clients and making portraits.
• Now that you've set your prices, go take a look at your local competition (independent photographers and chain studios alike) and see how they price themselves, and how they present those prices (this is completely opposite to what most photogs do, in checking out the competition, then building their price list). Try to evaluate the "Why" behind their choices. Do certain pricing or presentation choices better communicate value or excite potential clients? Does their pricing encourage ever-larger purchases? Do they primarily advertise their lowest price package or their largest? Which comes first on the price list? Again: Why?
• Brainstorm session: Think about how you've set your prices, and what your selling points are if someone wants to compare you to these other photographers. Are your prices better? More simple? No hidden fees? No confusing packages? No session fees or minimum orders? Is your art unique and custom to each client? Do you provide more value via the experience you provide, the personalized attention you give to clients, your flexibility in scheduling, your access to beautiful private property locations, your digital-friendly products, and then some? All of the above? Of course. Commit this knowledge to heart. You never want to talk down the competition, but you do need to know why what you offer is more valuable - no matter how you price your products. Write this down and file away in your Brainstorms folder.
• My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
• If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I’d love to hear how you use the ideas here to better your part time photography business!

by Outlaw Photographer James Michael Taylor