RichardLavigne Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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TRReichman wrote:
I sort of feel bad for Rich, I think we can see where he was going but the execution fell flat.
You can be yourself, but if yourself wouldn't pay what you want to make you might want to represent something else as your primary selling point. You can decide to only work with people who are exactly like you, but that's potentially very limiting. You also don't have to like what you do as much as you might like something else. Michael Jordan wanted to play baseball after all, but he just wasn't as valuable doing that.
I think our industry has become enormously self-absorbed. People advocate that it is all about you and what you want to do. There is nothing without the client. They are the beginning and end of the process. There is no reason that you have to have a personal relationship with a client, but you absolutely have to have a professional relationship. I'd like to think we could all benefit by worrying more about our professional profile than our personal.
- trr...Show more →
Agree 100%.... When I reference be yourself, what I mean is find your own distinct reason for doing what you do.. which is something I think you advocate for in Sexy Business.... my understanding of what you do is, is to get to the root of each person's reason and begin to build their brand around that... It may result in looking for clients just like them, or it may result in something completely different, but in the end it starts building something that is unique to that studio. For some people it is about that personal relationship, for some it is not... but if you haven't done the hard work to figure out where you fit, then none of what you do matters.
eephoto wrote:
If I raise prices I will find more clients in line with what I want to do? Wow...I should have done that sooner. Sorry I'm just not buying into what you are saying.
I'm sorry you're not buying into it.... and I understand that. I didn't buy into it when people told it to me 5 years ago, either. This is a learning process... we all go through it our own way. 5 Years ago, our average wedding booked was $3000 or so.... and our clients were all over the place, some understood our vision, but most did not. The fact that most did not was not their fault, it was just as much our fault.... we were not clearly presenting what that vision was, hell, we didn't even know what it is... Could we have simply raised our prices and made it better? No, because we didn't have that vision figured out... the 2 must go hand in hand... Let's look at it the other way... What if we had found our vision and begun to clearly present it, but kept our rates right there? well, surely we would have gotten some people that understood it, but still.. there were people that were just hiring us because the price was right... not because they got it or were hiring us for it. again... the two must go hand in hand... it is not a vacuum.
Over the course of the last few years, we've steadily refined exactly what we do, why we do it and how we present it... we've also continued to raise our rates and all I can say is that I've found that increasingly we meet with the right couple more often than not. We don't have meetings with couples that show us another photographer's work and ask us to copy it, we don't get stuck looking at a shot list from Pinterest... and I think that's because we've defined what we do and why we do it and presented that to the couple, clearly... Additionally, we've gotten our rates to the point that couples who don't get it, won't spend the money.. if they don't love what we do, its a waste of money and time.. for both them and us.
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