1) How much would you pay me to take a photo of you?
2) How much would I have to pay you to model for a photo?
Are your two answers the same? Shouldn’t they be the same since the outcome – a photo of you – is the same?
I bet your answer to the second question is much higher than the first.
The first question was about me, the second question was about you. Everyone values their own time more than someone else’s. This applies not only to individuals but also to businesses.
A photographer has to understand that many corporate clients tend to value their time more than their money. These clients know that any money spent on photography will be earned back but any time that might be wasted (on a photo project) is gone forever.
This means that marketing low price is the wrong approach for a corporate photographer. Instead the photographer should be showing that they value the client’s time as much as the client does. How will the photographer save the client time and effort?
For many corporate clients, it’s about the results. This means that a photographer gets paid for bringing value, not low price, to the client. It’s not usually about price unless the photographer makes it about price.
And when a photographer makes it about price, they shoot themselves in the wallet.
People in high level of a corporate will value their time more than their Corporate Com / PR staffs, and those PR staffs they actually know nothing but money (no budget ba ba ba).
I have couple of times the CEO / COO hire me directly for their portrait (good paid)… because they feel the last photog / photograph arranged by their staffs is bad.
But most of the project I am doing is dealing with the Corporate Com. staffs, and they most mess up in between… it’s the sad fact.