Quotable Stress

A photographer wrote to say:

“I don’t know why sending out job quotes still stresses me out too much after all these years. I tie too much emotion to my business at times.”

She went on to say that she wanted to learn to separate her business from her emotions because, she said, it’s not personal, it’s just business.

If you view your photography as art then perhaps you should also view your business as an art. And art tends to be emotional.

Business or Practice

A one-person photography business tends to be personal because the business is the person and the person is the business. When a photographer promotes their business, it’s usually called “self promotion” not “business promotion.” This means that you’re really running a photography practice not a photography business.

In a photography practice, when the owner-photographer isn’t working, no money comes in. The owner-photographer usually sells a service that they themselves provide. A photography practice isn’t scalable because there are only 24 hours in a day and the owner-photographer can’t work all the time. So each quote and each job becomes more important.

In a photography business, the business can usually function with or without the owner. Perhaps there are other partners or employees who can do the work. A photography business can be scalable because the owner can hire more staff to do the product selling or provide the services.

For many business owners, the goal is to create a business not a practice. They want a business that can function without them being present. But for most photographers, creating a business is not their goal. Few, if any, photographers go into professional photography because they love business and marketing. Instead they want to provide a photography service that is about their style, their skill and their creativity.

If, or probably when, you get stressed doing a quote, that’s an indication of how much your practice depends on that quote being accepted. If you had many jobs lined up or you had other revenue sources, you’d be much less worried about any one quote.

Stress is also a sign that you’re living in the future, you’re surrounded by “what if’s.” What if my price is too high? What if my price is too low? What if I made a mistake? What if they reject my quote? What if they accept my quote?

A quote isn’t personal

A quote is not your life story. When a customer rejects your quote, they aren’t rejecting you. How often do you go into a store, look around and then leave without buying anything? Are you rejecting the store owner or the sales clerks? Did they look worried when you left without buying anything?

When you create a quote, you’re not making a take-it-or-leave-it offer, it’s not an ultimatum. You’re not playing The Price is Right where you’re trying to guess the customer’s secret price.

A quote is your effort to help a customer get the photography services they want. Your quote sets the parameters of your photography offer.

A photo quote is the same as a restaurant menu which is really a quote that sets the parameters of the restaurant’s food offers. If you reject the $85 steak offer and choose the $15 soup-and-salad offer, the restaurant doesn’t stress or get emotionally involved. You didn’t reject the chef or the wait staff who are there to help you get the food services you want.

As much as you want to be successful, you really don’t want all your quotes to be accepted right away. If every quote is immediately accepted, that’s an indication you’re either too cheap or you’ve made a mistake. If more than half of your quotes are accepted right away, that suggests you’re either an in-demand photographer (congratulations) or you’re still too cheap. But if your acceptance rate is around 30% to 50%, then you’re doing okay.

If all your quotes get rejected then you’re too expensive.

Lower your stress

To help minimize stress when creating a quote:

1) You really need to to have some numbers written down based on previous jobs or what other photographers in your area charge. But it’s extremely important to remember that other photographers’ prices don’t necessarily apply to you. Each person has different overhead costs, different business goals and different experience.

2) Build self-confidence in your work and your prices. This can be a Catch-22 since confidence comes from experience and you might not gain experience without first having some self-confidence.

3) You may feel guilty for getting paid to do what you love. This can make you feel more guilty about your pricing so you compensate by charging less than you’re worth.

A book isn’t sold as a pound of paper worth only a few dollars. Instead it’s the value of the information on those pages that’s being sold at a much higher price.

Similarly photographers don’t sell intrinsic value. Otherwise an 8×10 photo is just a piece of paper worth pennies and a 20MB image file is just a collection of 1’s and 0’s worth nothing.

Price for the value of your photos. Never charge for what you do (click a camera button). Instead you charge for what you know (how to light a picture, how to pose people, how to make the best photo).

A popular online parable:

Picasso is sketching in a park. A nearby woman immediately recognizes him, runs over and begs him to draw her portrait. Picasso agrees and starts drawing.

After a couple minutes, he hands her the finished portrait. The woman is thrilled. She gushes about how it captures the very essence of her soul. She asks how much she owes him.

“$5,000,” says Picasso.

The woman is shocked and outraged. “But it only took you two minutes!”

Picasso replies, “No, madam, it took my entire life.”

4) If you had to hire someone to do all your editing, how much would you pay them? Minimum wage?

If I wanted to hire you to do my editing, how much would I have to pay you? I bet it’s a lot more than minimum wage because you understand the value of your time and effort.

The point is that if you do your own editing, you must charge for that. Post-processing is a very real, additional expense that must be covered. Never feel guilty about charging for real work that costs you time, effort and skill.

5) Everyone is not your customer. Expect to have lots of quotes turned down. This is normal and it’s a good thing.

Your $1,000 quotes are for $1,000 customers. Your $8,000 quotes are for $8,000 customers. If a $1,000 customer expects $8,000 worth of your photography, there’s a very good chance this customer will refuse your $8,000 quote. It’s not your fault. The $1,000 customer just wandered into the wrong store.

How often have you gone into a store, looked at a few price tags and thought, “Holy cow! I’m in the wrong store,” and then left without buying anything? You’re simply not that store’s target customer.

You can’t afford to work for customers who can’t afford you.

6) If you stress about quotes then you’ll hate doing them which will make quoting even more stressful.

While some might think making a quote is an exercise in creative writing, think of quoting as having to eat your vegetables. It’s just a minor pain toward a chance of a bigger gain.