pricing

Are your customers wide and flat or narrow and deep?

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If you chase every type of customer, you can end up not knowing which way to turn. Wedding customers, family portrait customers, high-school seniors, social event organizers, business headshots, real estate customers, retail web sites, consumer publications, corporate customers, commercial customers, academic institutions, etc. Who gets your attention? Everyone?

Of course you want as many customers as possible but do you want your customers to be wide and flat or narrow and deep?

Having a wide and flat customer base means that you do many different types of photography to appeal to anyone and everyone. This type of customer tends to make only occasional or relatively small purchases.

A narrow and deep customer base means that you do certain types of photography that appeal to a specific type of customer. Customers in this category tend to make more frequent or higher-priced purchases.
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Value is a two-way street

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Over the past month, I lost photo jobs to:

1) A photographer who quoted $1,200 for a two-day shoot, in two cities 100km apart, consisting of 22 business portraits, 11 environmental portraits and up to 66 finished images delivered.

2) Someone who quoted $1,500 to photograph a four-day business conference.

3) The “best professional headshot photographer in Toronto” who, according to the customer, quoted $3,000 for 120 business headshots. That’s $25 per headshot.

(When you have a quote turned down, try to ask the customer what the other photographer quoted. Sometimes the customer will refuse to divulge what they’re paying but tell them that you’d like to know where your price stands.)

Was I disappointed not to get these jobs? Yes.

Am I upset? No.

I am wondering how these photographers make any money.
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Give Yourself a Hand

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Ontario’s minimum wage will rise 31.6% from today’s $11.40/hour on January 1, 2019. How much of a raise are you going to give yourself at that time?

The average full-time, hourly-paid, Canadian employee makes $58,136/year, assuming a 40-hour week.

You should be earning the same $58,000 if you consider yourself average, *plus* enough to cover your overhead expenses. For example, if your annual overhead is $25,000, then you need to earn about $83,000 per year. Job expenses are not included in that sum.

Using the same example as above, if you do 100 jobs per year, then your average invoice should be at least $830 plus expenses. If you do 50 jobs per year, then your average invoice should be at least $1,660 plus job expenses. I said “at least” because (a) your fee should be based on the value of your work and not on time or a flat rate, and (b) employees get paid benefits and you don’t.
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Splitting a Photographer

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Splitting Time

Sometimes a photographer might be asked to split up a work day into non-consecutive hours. This can happen with weddings, business conferences and other full-day events where the customer wants the photographer to cover only certain parts of the event. The customer usually expects the photographer not to charge for any downtime.

For example:

• A bride might want the photographer to cover her afternoon wedding ceremony from 1:00pm to 2:30pm and the evening dinner from 6:00pm to 10:00pm. The photographer would then have a 3-1/2 hour split in their day.

• A business conference organizer might want the photographer to cover the opening speeches from 9:00am to 10:30am, a keynote presentation from 1:00pm to 2:00pm and an evening reception from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. In this case, the photographer has two blocks of downtime.

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Worth Every Cent

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When someone asks you to work for free, they want photography that’s good enough, pictures that are better than nothing, photos that are worth what they’re paying.

When someone hires you to work for pay, they want photography that’s good, pictures that are better than anything, photos that are worth what they’re paying.

 

 

 

Photo Pricing Software

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Let’s say you want to buy a box of breakfast cereal. You can go to any number of grocery stores and see the same boxes of cereal on each store’s shelves. You might choose what cereal you want based on which box of cereal looks best and its price.

This is exactly like buying stock photography but instead of grocery stores, you visit web sites. You choose a photo based on which stock picture looks best and its price. You’re still choosing a product (a photo) from a store shelf (a web site).

Let’s say you want breakfast. You can go to any number of restaurants that serve a wide variety of breakfasts. What should this breakfast cost you? Well, you can’t answer without knowing what you want for breakfast, who will prepare it for you, how it will be served and where all of this will happen. Is it a fast-food breakfast at a takeout store or a more elegant breakfast at a five-star hotel?

This is exactly like buying assignment photography. Just as every restaurant breakfast is different, every photo assignment is different. You hire a photographer to create a custom product.
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