The business side of photography
Why not give a customer a price over the phone?
If a photographer simply tells a potential customer, “The price for your photography project will be $4,000,” then the customer may be left wondering about things like:
Does that include expenses and sales tax?
Does that price include post-processing?
When and how do we have to pay?
Exactly what are we getting for our money?
After we pay, we own the pictures, right?
Just a fun video:
A photographer can’t discount their way to success. If it was possible, don’t you think every photographer would be doing it?
When you discount, you penalize customers who pay your normal price. For example, after buying a $400 winter coat, do you feel cheated the following week when the same coat is discounted 50%?
When you discount, it means you have no other value to offer the customer.
Discounting attracts price shoppers. Is that what you want? If you offer a discounted price of, say, $99 for a business headshot, then you’ll attract $99 customers. If they like your work, they’ll tell all their $99 friends and you’ll get more $99 customers.
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There’s a ninety-nine percent chance that the next potential customer who phones will ask, “How much?”
So how are you going to respond? Just hem and haw? Mumble something like, “It depends”?
Ideally a price should not be given over the phone. It’s always better to use e-mail. When you give a price over the phone, the customer will remember only the price and nothing else you said.
A customer asks “how much” usually because they don’t know what else to ask. While price may be important to them, the true reason they call is that they’re trying to figure out if you’re the right photographer for them. Do you understand their needs? Can you do the work properly? Do they feel reassured by you?
When that inevitable question is asked, you have to be ready without missing a beat. The way to do this is to have a prepared script or checklist which includes a number of questions for the customer, for example:
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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.
If you’re a photographer who shoots corporate events like conferences and conventions, you may have noticed there are some online businesses that offer to connect you with customers. How nice of them.
Right now, one such European company is sending emails to photographers in Toronto, and apparently also in many other cities around the world, claiming that it has a customer with an urgent need for photo services in the photographer’s area.
If you ignore this email because of its generic nature or because it looks like spam, you’ll get more similar emails in the following weeks and months. The emails have a fake “unsubscribe” link that does nothing.
All these emails claim that this company has yet another customer with an immediate need for photography in your area. Of course, there is no customer. The oddly worded emails are often the same with maybe the name or date of the unidentified event changed.
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If you’re planning a corporate event or any other type of event that you hope will attract the news media, then you may need some tips on how to work with the news or press photographers who will attend.
While the six media relations tips provided in that linked article may sound obvious, many companies, both big and small, can get it very wrong. It was no secret that Canada’s previous federal Conservative government was horrendously bad at running press conferences and photo ops.
“Photojournalists are not there to make your client look bad or good. We are there to represent the truth to the best of our ability and strive to maintain objectivity at all costs,” advised [Amber] Bracken [President of the News Photographers Association of Canada]. “At the same time, we also strive to capture the world beautifully, your client included.”
You need non-partisan press photographers to cover your event or photo opportunity so your company might earn the media blessing. Editorial photography published by news outlets is the most credible type of information. People trust what they see in a newspaper or magazine.
Similarly, most public relations photography and press release photography should also be editorial in nature and contain human interest. The best way to achieve this is to hire a photographer who has a journalism background and who has worked for a news publication.
