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Archive 2015 · what are your booking stats?

  
 
IrishDino
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p.2 #1 · p.2 #1 · what are your booking stats?


Two big issues with "All-Day" coverage for me:

- I'm burnt out once I go past 12-14h. For me, all-day was too long and I ended up covering portions of the day that weren't necessary.
- I feel like I'm cheating the client if I put stipulations on their coverage. "Oh, it's all-day up to 10 hours", well no, that's hardly all-day.



Oct 05, 2015 at 05:46 PM
morby
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p.2 #2 · p.2 #2 · what are your booking stats?


Rather than the stipulations on all day being hours, you can make it parts of the day. I do an hour before the dress goes on until the last dance. Ends up being 10-12 hours. Rarely is it more than 12.

ZachOly wrote:
Two big issues with "All-Day" coverage for me:

- I'm burnt out once I go past 12-14h. For me, all-day was too long and I ended up covering portions of the day that weren't necessary.
- I feel like I'm cheating the client if I put stipulations on their coverage. "Oh, it's all-day up to 10 hours", well no, that's hardly all-day.




Oct 05, 2015 at 05:58 PM
dhp_sf
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p.2 #3 · p.2 #3 · what are your booking stats?


1. How long have you been shooting weddings? 5 years

2. What city/state do you mainly shoot in? SF Bay Area / Napa / Sonoma

3. How many weddings did you shoot in 2014? 40

4. How many weddings will you (or your company) shoot in 2015? 30

5. How many weddings do you have booked for 2016? 12

6. Is this your full time job? Yes

7. How many leads do you convert into bookings if you are available for the date? ~30%

8. Do you do hourly or all day coverage? It's an option (hourly up to a certain point, then an all day fee kicks in)

9. What's you starting price and highest package price? $4000 -

10. What does your starting price include? Me, 8 hrs, files

11. What does you highest package include?
Me + Co-shooter/Second, E-session, Super Huge main album (leather & matted), two parent books

12. What's your average price per booking? Will send in PM

13. What do clients say they like most about you pricing structure? Never really asked, so it's not something I've gotten feedback on. But they appreciate the flexibility. I've had clients say my albums are more expensive but they also admit that they look better...

14. What do you find is a weakness of your pricing structure (your own assessment or client feedback): pretty okay with it for now...


Edited on Oct 05, 2015 at 06:12 PM · View previous versions



Oct 05, 2015 at 06:11 PM
MattGruber
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p.2 #4 · p.2 #4 · what are your booking stats?


ZachOly wrote:
Two big issues with "All-Day" coverage for me:

- I'm burnt out once I go past 12-14h. For me, all-day was too long and I ended up covering portions of the day that weren't necessary.
- I feel like I'm cheating the client if I put stipulations on their coverage. "Oh, it's all-day up to 10 hours", well no, that's hardly all-day.


I've been doing all-day for probably 4 years now. I don't think I've ever had more than a 12 hour day (not including driving). When going over the timeline with the clients, I ask them what time they would prefer me to arrive. You know what happens? They always say "What time do you recommend?" or "It's up to you." And I tell them basically the same thing Mike said about 60-90 before they leave for the ceremony and we leave after the last dance. Except for an extremely rare case- brides don't want the photographer or expect the photographer at their hotel room at 7am when the makeup person arrives. They just want to know they will receive coverage of the getting into their dress and don't have to worry about me disappearing during the cake cutting.



Oct 05, 2015 at 06:12 PM
glort
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p.2 #5 · p.2 #5 · what are your booking stats?


morby wrote:
I don't mind being there all day, but if I could get paid more for that 12 hour day as compared to the 8 hour day it would be worth it.


Not worth me adding in all the details as I don't do packages for a start and all my data would be so Atypical as to be useless.

The reason I don't do packages is precisely this, it pigeon holes you into a set income per job no matter how good a job you do or in this case, how long you stay. There is no chance to build and add on to the value of the sale and that to me frankly is a bit scary.

Thee is the upside of you know what you are going to get but to me that's exactly it.... You know what you are going to get and that's it. For me, any sort of package is trying to do the sale at the exact wrong time. Before you have any pictures to show them they are trying to make a logical decision.... which 95% of the time boils down to what's the minimum we can spend and still be happy?

The way I do it with a base coverage that I and they know ( and are repeatedly told) they will go over, allows me to secure the booking, gives them something to work off but leaves the big decisions until they can see what they have got and bring emotional involvement into the sale.
One BIG recouring factor in my sales has been, particularly with ethnic weddings where giving money is tradition, is that the couple end up with a ship load more cash than what they expected and guess what the first thing they have the opportunity to spend it on after the honey moon?
PHOTOS!

And this is where the back end sales come alive. Instead of having a package where they are still going to spend the same even if their lotto Numbers came up while they were away, I have a whole range of opportunity's for them to increase the net value of their coverage many fold AFTER the wedding. They won't do that if they paid for hours/day and a set of files or a fixed number of pages in the book.


By selling by the Page, If I'm there extra hours, I'm getting paid for them because there are a bunch of pics they are going to be compelled to put in their album. The only exception I can think of to this would be the difference between doing a coverage to the bridal waltz and covering till they leave. There will be bugger all dancing shots in the album but probably 5 pages of them throwing the garter and Bouquet, saying good bye to the parents, family and bridal Party and leaving either in their decorated car or a Limo. That is another $750 worth right there for about $20 in material costs for prints in the album. Call it 50 for arguments sake and I just made $700 for well under 3 hours work. I'm happy with that.

Now if I go and do Night or hotel shots, That's another 2 hours with travel to finish and I'll easily pull another 5+ pages out of that. They are powerful, different and well liked shots that they put extra effort into doing so not something they do and don't bother with.

The more time I spend, the more money I get BUT, with the advantage I still have the opportunity to bump shorter coverages into much higher sales as well. This can be with extra album pages, doing a deal on the set of files, extra albums for parents, wall prints as thank yous and so it goes.

I think THAT is a huge weakness with packages, You are putting yourself into a tight limiting box as to what you can get out of the deal. With Digital coverage's you have already given them everything and everything they need to do whatever you can offer them cheaper themselves.
There is no back end potential to make the most you can of the deal.

MY starting price of $1500-to 2K typically ends up being tripled in the final spend. Sometimes a bit less, frequently more, No two albums, inclusions or profit is the same.


On a couple of other points, I used to stipulate " all day coverage" and put the restriction on it " up to 12 Hours" . I had a couple of smartarses over the years try and challenge ( screw) me on that but they didn't get far. Firstly 12 hours is a working day for anyone and no one would be able to argue that 12 hours was not a fair days work. Hire anyone else on a day rate and you would get 8 hours and no one would expect anything different. Legally, it's a fair and reasonable expectation well surpassed.
2ndly, It's all DAY coverage, not all night. I'll extend it to the night to give them the 12 hours they are due but after that, you pay extra for all night coverage as well.


Nowdays I say it's " Unlimited" COVERAGE up to 12 hours which means I'll cover from the grooms house to 2 Churches if need be, multiple Park/ formal photo locations etc. In other words I don't limit what I do in that 12 hours rather than don't have a time limit. It's unlimited coverage, not hours.


I also think people get a bit carried away with the branding thing. It's like one thing they try to be business like about in the midst of never having educated themselves in any other basic of business, marketing or sales but that one sounds good and gets mentioned so they go with it.

Some people work by referals a lot but even still, we are selling to primarily one off clients. Branding is far more of a repeat client, lifelong customer, brand recognition importance than with on off sales .
Yes! I know you get repeat business because of what you do and all that but that has less to do with you being something people have had multiple and repeated exposures to and know what they are getting like a Macca's Hamburger or know the reputation and what the brand stands for like a Ford or Mercedes car. If people see what you do once and book you, it's not branding in the normal sense of the word even if people want to split hairs over it.

While there is an element in branding, people frequently appear to place an inordinate amount of importance on it because it's probably the one business thing they think they understand although that's usually at the expense of more important factors in why the people go with them that they don't understand.

I doubt the people doing 50 weddings a year or even 30 are getting them all through referrals and if they are getting new clients, then the branding thing is a minor part of the reason they got the gig or people came to them. What they are really working on is presentation and appearance rather than true branding.


There is significance to what was mentioned about Price Vs. Profit.
I recently went to some Bridal fairs and saw what other shooters are doing. First thought was they all must be colluding on price and inclusions because so many were literally exact to the print and the dollar but the other thing that struck was these guys were spending a FORTUNE on those albums with the glossy metalic covers and all those gee wizz gatefolds etc.

I'm standing there thinking " this guy must be starting at $10K with all he's including here" and then I am handed a glossy A4 multipage brochure that much have cost $4 a pop to print and told all this is included in their $4200 covereage. WTF??

The guy is Putting like $1.95 in his pocket at the end of the day, if that, and the WORST part was, he's given away the farm in that there is nothing left to upsell or build into the sale to get some back end out of it.
Scary !!

Years ago I devised a coverage for a friend. He was less experienced than I was and also unfortunately much less confident in sales. It was kind of a variation of my normal coverage but shot on 35mm instead of Medium format and aimed at a lower price point in the market. I put a bit of time and effort into that trying to figure all the angles and was pretty proud of what I came up with in the end. I presented to him and of course he freaked because it would pull a higher spend from the client than the give away prices he was charging for the decent work he was doing then.

He tried it with about 3 clients and through his own nervousness and refusing to follow my suggestions on how to present it, didn't get a hit so declared it was too expensive and went back to his old packages and complaining he was making nothing.
At the same time, I had the usual dreamers coming to me wanting caviar with a hamburger budget so not having anything on these not too distant dates, I ran this past them and scored above average booking rates with it.

Because this had the opportunity to build in the back end, I found I was getting much higher value sales than I expected. I also realized that these Cheaper, easier and far lower cost to me Jobs were giving me very good profits not far away with what I was getting with my main coverage.

They went so well I started pushing them and soon was putting on other shooters to do them for me. If I had nothing on I'd shoot them and when I did I'd get one of the stringers to knock them over. I started telling the clients that one of my staff would be shooting the wedding so I had the option of shooting them myself or sending someone else.

This really confirmed to me the old adage of "It's not what you SELL for, it's what you BUY for that really counts. My costs were very low on these jobs so although the spends were also lower, the profit gap was no where near as wide and I was making good money from them even after paying a shooter.

Since then I have never gone for the over the top albums that I made 10% if any profit on, I use Good quality albums that are far less expensive and I make 800% on selling the pics that go in them. Same thing with everything else. People will only spend a certain amount. It makes no sense to me to Make 10% on $1000 worth of that budget spent on expensive packaging which I can sell them a perfectly good album for $200 and make 800% on the other $800 they would have spent on the album.

Keep the costs, low, the standard exceeding client expectations and the profits high.



Oct 05, 2015 at 07:09 PM
Jeff Simpson
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p.2 #6 · p.2 #6 · what are your booking stats?


cool thread!

1. How long have you been shooting weddings?
5 years

2. What city/state do you mainly shoot in?
Washington DC

3. How many weddings did you shoot in 2014?
14

4. How many weddings will you (or your company) shoot in 2015?
13

5. How many weddings do you have booked for 2016?
5 (but we are blocking off all of April, July, August..getting married myself!)

6. Is this your full time job?
No

7. How many leads do you convert into bookings if you are available for the date?
maybe 50-75%? If we meet, then 90%

8. Do you do hourly or all day coverage?
Hourly

9. What's you starting price and highest package price?
$4500 our only package
$6000 base package + eshoot + album (a la carte)

10. What does your starting price include?
8 hours and us (husband/future-wife team), high res edited files on USB, no engagement

11. What does you highest package include?
n/a (a la carte)

12. What's your average price per booking?
$4500-$5000 (most go with our standard package + eshoot for $5k, and the smaller/larger weddings average out to be around this, too.)

13. What do clients say they like most about you pricing structure?
We only have one price so it's really easy for people. 8 hours for us and if they need 1 or 2 more hours (often) then it's $300 extra per hour. I also sometimes shoot alone for one price as well that is about 1k less.

14. What do you find is a weakness of your pricing structure (your own assessment or client feedback).
It doesn't work well with cultural/asian weddings since we shoot over multiple days for many hours. always tough pricing these.



Edited on Oct 05, 2015 at 09:08 PM · View previous versions



Oct 05, 2015 at 08:27 PM
ohsnaphappy
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p.2 #7 · p.2 #7 · what are your booking stats?


In case no one has mentioned this, price is dependent on region. $1 goes farther in Mississippi than it does in Cali. I've seen people overprice themselves out of business in my market and disappear. I've also seen people underprice themselves out of business in my market because the cost of living is so low.

After doing this for 7 years the one constant I see is fading interest. I think that impacts business more than price. If you don't love weddings you're not likely to last no matter how much money you make.



Oct 05, 2015 at 08:40 PM
joelconner
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p.2 #8 · p.2 #8 · what are your booking stats?


1. How long have you been shooting weddings?
In some fashion...9 years. Seriously shooting? 5

2. What city/state do you mainly shoot in?
Mainly in St. Louis area

3. How many weddings did you shoot in 2014?
36

4. How many weddings will you (or your company) shoot in 2015?
44 (whoops)

5. How many weddings do you have booked for 2016?
18ish

6. Is this your full time job?
yep

7. How many leads do you convert into bookings if you are available for the date?
considering all leads, probably 15-20%

8. Do you do hourly or all day coverage?
hourly

9. What's you starting price and highest package price?
starting $3.2k
top $5.9k
10. What does your starting price include?
6 hours and digitals

11. What does you highest package include?
12 hours, album, e-session, digitals, guest book

12. What's your average price per booking?
with total sales, probably $4.8k (NOTE: this is not an accurate number when taking into account this year's 44 weddings. We are shooting 1 free wedding, a 4-hour almost free one for some people who could not afford almost anything, and a few last minute bottom shoot and burns)

13. What do clients say they like most about you pricing structure?
very flexible

14. What do you find is a weakness of your pricing structure (your own assessment or client feedback).
not effectively driving people to the higher packages



Oct 05, 2015 at 10:30 PM
Tony Hoffer
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p.2 #9 · p.2 #9 · what are your booking stats?


morby wrote:
I got a PM from someone and they made a great point. Hourly vs all day and stats aren't what's truly important when it comes to a successful business. Having a solid brand and clear branding points is primary. However, this thread can still be important to help fine tune things and find out what's working for other people. My purpose in posting this was to see what other's do and how does it work out for them. Reading the responses prompted a few questions and concerns I have for hourly coverage. Hopefully the hourly people can give feedback on
...Show more

It seems like you're viewing it as one or the other... Either you shoot all day and get 'complete' coverage or you switch to hourly and get less complete coverage. There's no reason you can't have both. It's all about structure and presentation. Remember that people can spend money any time and that the hours they book initially don't have to be what they end up with. There's lots of ways to educate and make it what you want.

Two other thoughts:

1. You're DEFINITELY leaving money on the table. There's no question about it. We've had probably 6 or 8 clients this year who have added anywhere from $1k-$4k onto their existing packages. On average, our clients seem to add 10-20% after the initial booking. None of them have mentioned anything about hourly coverage. It's just that they booked us for something 15 months ago then figured out what they needed later. There was no pressure from us. Clients understand that they need to pay for your time. That's how everything works in every industry.

2. Now that I'm actually paying people (I know we both have associates and studio managers), it costs me real money for every hour of coverage that they shoot or that has to be edited. That stuff adds up. Even if we "give away" 1-2 hours per wedding, that's like 100+ hours of shooting throughout the year. Those are images that need to be edited, etc... I pay my studio manager too well to have her working on that much more content without us getting paid for the time.



Oct 06, 2015 at 08:12 AM
MattGruber
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p.2 #10 · p.2 #10 · what are your booking stats?


I have a lot of random thoughts, many of which I feel touch upon things written in this thread.

When it comes to how much money you need to make- that is completely different from photographer to photographer. There is no definitive income that a photographer needs to make to be labeled a professional. If you're living in NYC, and your income is solely from photography, you need to either charge more or book a lot more weddings than someone living in Alabama. The cost of living is completely different.

If you are single, or have a spouse/significant other who has their own income from a different line of work- you don't need to be making as much as a husband/wife team who rely solely on their household income from photography. A husband/wife team essentially is charging for two salaries, therefore they need to earn more. Say "photographer a" is single and makes a $2,000 profit from each wedding- after taxes, expenses, outsourcing, etc. If they shoot 50 weddings a year, that = $100,000 per year. Now, "photographer b" is a husband/wife studio. After taxes, expenses, etc. they have a take home profit of $3,500 per wedding. They also shoot 50 weddings a year = $175,000 profit. Divide that by 2 and that = $87,500 per person.









Edited on Oct 06, 2015 at 01:15 PM · View previous versions



Oct 06, 2015 at 12:17 PM
morby
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p.2 #11 · p.2 #11 · what are your booking stats?


ohsnaphappy wrote:
In case no one has mentioned this, price is dependent on region. $1 goes farther in Mississippi than it does in Cali. I've seen people overprice themselves out of business in my market and disappear. I've also seen people underprice themselves out of business in my market because the cost of living is so low.

After doing this for 7 years the one constant I see is fading interest. I think that impacts business more than price. If you don't love weddings you're not likely to last no matter how much money you make.


I agree that cost of living per region is completely different. Around me even within a 20 miles radius there are drastic difference in the cost of living, housing and property taxes. The reason for comparing base price, top price and average price is to see if the hourly people are making a greater percentage more over their base price per wedding. By offering all day I only make an average of $1000 more per wedding over my base price, which is 25% more. That's because hours are no longer on the table as upgrades. I know some shooters who do hourly and make 75-100% more per wedding over the base price.



Oct 06, 2015 at 12:33 PM
morby
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p.2 #12 · p.2 #12 · what are your booking stats?


Tony Hoffer wrote:
It seems like you're viewing it as one or the other... Either you shoot all day and get 'complete' coverage or you switch to hourly and get less complete coverage. There's no reason you can't have both. It's all about structure and presentation. Remember that people can spend money any time and that the hours they book initially don't have to be what they end up with. There's lots of ways to educate and make it what you want.

Two other thoughts:

1. You're DEFINITELY leaving money on the table. There's no question about it. We've had probably 6 or 8
...Show more

Great thoughts. This is all really making me consider hourly, mainly to shoot less and make more. Around 50 weddings a year, with an average of 10-12 hours per wedding, is going to take a toll on me in the long run.



Oct 06, 2015 at 12:35 PM
GeoLaing
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p.2 #13 · p.2 #13 · what are your booking stats?


1. How long have you been shooting weddings? 24 years

2. What city/state do you mainly shoot in? Upstate NY. Real upstate- Albany/Adirondacks

3. How many weddings did you shoot in 2014? 21

4. How many weddings will you (or your company) shoot in 2015? 18-22

5. How many weddings do you have booked for 2016? 12

6. Is this your full time job? No

7. How many leads do you convert into bookings if you are available for the date? Unsure, maybe 75-80%

8. Do you do hourly or all day coverage? All day(up to 10 hours) I will offer hourly coverage on "shorter notice" bookings if a date is open or for off-season. Minimum 5 hours @ $250/hr for one photographer.

9. What's you starting price and highest package price? $2000-3000

10. What does your starting price include? Files, online gallery, one pre-wedding session

11. What does you highest package include? Files, gallery, album, session

12. What's your average price per booking? 2400-2600

13. What do clients say they like most about you pricing structure? They don't really mention it as far as structure. I have just a few choices, keep it simple. Only comments are usually that I'm hired or we went with someone else. Occasionally someone will say I'm out of their price range

14. What do you find is a weakness of your pricing structure (your own assessment or client feedback). Sometimes I feel like I should make more of an effort to upsell more large prints/pieces of art but my spouse and I both have full time jobs. Between that and 20 weddings, photo sessions, client meetings, processing, album design, etc., we still need time to be us. Great idea for a survey!



Oct 07, 2015 at 08:12 PM
ohsnaphappy
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p.2 #14 · p.2 #14 · what are your booking stats?


morby wrote:
Great thoughts. This is all really making me consider hourly, mainly to shoot less and make more. Around 50 weddings a year, with an average of 10-12 hours per wedding, is going to take a toll on me in the long run.


Setting money aside, the phrase all day coverage can be a very valuable marketing tool. We don't offer all day coverage, but some of our competitors do and it's definitely a very appealing phrase on their websites. Especially when you are starting off. If all day coverage brings brides your way then there's no shame sticking with it




Oct 07, 2015 at 10:48 PM
thebeginning
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p.2 #15 · p.2 #15 · what are your booking stats?


Cool idea. I'm realizing I have a HUGE range in my pricing structure compared to everyone else, probably should deal with that.


1. How long have you been shooting weddings?

8 years

2. What city/state do you mainly shoot in?

Houston, Texas

3. How many weddings did you shoot in 2014?

Don't have the exact number by me, but it's 30 something

4. How many weddings will you (or your company) shoot in 2015?

21 (was shooting overseas for over 3 months this year)

5. How many weddings do you have booked for 2016?

Less than 10 - most of my bookings happen early in the year for the end of the year (Oct-Dec is big in Texas, so lots of bookings in Jan-March)

6. Is this your full time job?

Yep, full time for all 8 years, started as a portrait photographer when I was 18

7. How many leads do you convert into bookings if you are available for the date?

Not including people that are below my price range budget wise, most of them. If I have a face to face meeting with a bride, I'll almost always get the booking.

8. Do you do hourly or all day coverage?

Hourly

9. What's you starting price and highest package price?

~ $2.5k to $10.5k. I have a 5 digit booking in a few weeks, but they're definitely a rarity. My most common bookings are $4.5 to $7k, but I book through the whole range.

10. What does your starting price include?

7 hours and files

11. What does you highest package include?

Up to 12 hours and files, multiple shooters, e-session and bridals, album(s), a really good hug

12. What's your average price per booking?

Didn't see this before, my bad. If I had to nail down a single average, probably 5.5k. My range is probably way too big, so there are a lot of outliers.

13. What do clients say they like most about you pricing structure?

I don't really talk to them much about what they do and don't like about it...I think they appreciate the flexibility, but I'm not sure if the 'buyer psychology' behind it is beneficial in the long run.

14. What do you find is a weakness of your pricing structure (your own assessment or client feedback).

Probably that it's not simple enough, and that I don't focus on product sales nearly enough. People have to almost beg me to make them an album, haha. I'm mostly kidding, I just don't push those as much.



Oct 11, 2015 at 04:27 PM
glort
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p.2 #16 · p.2 #16 · what are your booking stats?


*** WARNING! Glort rant ahead. Use caution. ****

Looking at these questions again reminds me of one of the great benefits of doing a Business plan.

For those that don't know or perhaps have a misconstrued idea of a business plan, it's simply putting on paper ( or computer) everything about your business and how you are going to do it. Another way of describing it could be an instruction manual for someone that has no idea about what you do and could pick this up and read it and then be able to do it.

In this case it would NOT be how to take pics, that's the skill set not the business.
its what you do, how you do it, suppliers you use, equipment you need, and a breakdown of costs, profits and cash flows.

In my experience a LOT of people rubbish business plans thinking they are unnecessary for a small business or they know what they are doing and how to do it etc. I have thought going into new ventures that I thought I knew what I was doing too but a quick basic filling in of a "form" type plan I downloaded off the net that covered the basics soon showed up a bunch of problems I hadn't considered.

I also find many reluctant to do them Rubbish the idea because in reality they either don't know what the hell they are or how to go about them OR, the don't really want to confront the truth right now that their business is a lame duck and just want to keep the dream alive for a bit longer..... or dream on until they come up with an excuse to shift blame for it's failure on something or someone else.

For those that are serious and not wanting to delude themselves that's the real benefit of a business plan, it makes you think about everything you do and how you do it. I spose I better put the disclaimer in that I am not talking about anyone here ( this time) but am reflecting on repeated past personal experience.

One of those is my closest, dearest and oldest friend.
He's a fantastic guy, as usual right by my side, again, in recent times when I was eyeball deep in shit and going out of his way to help my family not just me BUT, when it comes to business, he makes me want to cry. OR strangle him. Usually both!

I ( and another very business savvy friend) have tried SO hard to help him, to point things out, stop him making mistakes and loosing money but the reality is he is just on some closed minded tangent that I will never understand of sending himself broke with ridiculous non viable business schemes. And I'm not talking Hundreds or thousands, the last one was Hundreds OF thousands. The only think he seems to learn is how to lose more money than last time. Short of beating the shit out of him, there is nothing we can do to change whatever it is that drives him this way.

The frustrating part is he has a mind boggling excuse and answer for everything you point out is wrong or won't work and he just won't listen to anything that he doesn't want to hear or is not blowing sunshine up his arse. I have heard him convince highly qualified accountants that he knows more and something about finance that they don't!

And he has done things like this repeatedly. The ONE single idea he had that I'm sure would have been a winner ( and I was keen to back and finance it for him as a partner) got dropped so he could go after some other hair brained scheme that blind Freddy could see didn't have a hope in hell of ever flying.

I have spent more time worrying about him over the years than I have myself.
Sadly, I know he's not the only one that does this and some people actually don't care about whether their business is actually profitable, they just want to be able to say they have a business.

So, with that explained, what I am talking about is the people that are fair Dinkum and want to make their businesses profitable and are prepared to put in the effort to do what it takes and be realistic about their approach.

What I see on this thread is people ( commendably) putting down things they think are weaknesses in their business. I look at some and think these while being minor on the surface could have large impacts on peoples bottom line.

I think the value, and a great value of this thread is that one single last question.
If you think your Business has a weakness, address it!
This is the beauty of sales and client feedback. It's like having a test that the clients have already given you the questions to. Now you can at your leisure sit down and think of a killer answer or work around which has every potential to turn your weakness into an asset.

I can honestly say that has been a big thing with me for a long time. If I see a problem or a drawback, maybe a competitor does something I think is an advantage that I can't do or doesn't fit with the rest of my business model, I try to look at how I can actually promote that as a benefit. I know ( or expect) someone is going to ask, " What about ABC?" and rather than be scared of them asking the question, I'm hoping for it because I worked out something to turn that drawback into something I want to tell the prospect about.

Yeah, sometimes those answers are thin, real thin, because the other guy is doing something good and I can see a lot of upsides and would be doing it myself If I could. That said, there is almost always a drawback to it as well and that's what you have to look at and exploit to work out a benefit of NOT doing it. Often though, just having a solid comeback rather than stammering and loosing that confidence in your speil IS enough to get you over the line or at least not blow the deal where you might have otherwise.

My suggestion to those that think their approaches have less than outstanding points is to address them and have a think about how they can either be removed so your whole structure is rock solid and you have 110% confidence in it or think of some advantage or way to spin it so it at least sounds good to the clients.

For those that think they are working too hard and doing too many jobs or spending too much time on what they are doing, You should in effect have the most desirable problem of all.
The cure is simply put your prices up.

Doing this Fixes the problem in one of 2 ways:
Your business drops off and you have more time and less work therefore making you a happier camper. Chances are more than likely that although you are doing less work, your income will be the same and your profits higher. All advantage, no drawback. And for those that worry about that, I can say that I have NEVER seen people who made sensible increases NOT still maintain their incomes because 99% of the time the person is far more concerned about price than the customer and Undervalues themselves in the first place.

The 2nd thing that can happen is that increasing your prices makes no damn difference to the amount of jobs you get in. You put them up again and still the work comes and so on till all the sudden, you are making so much damn money it's not hard work any more and you are happy to do the work because you know how much you are getting for it.

If you are really good, this can happen. A friend of mine kept putting his prices up in his restaurant to try and get the number of sittings down and maintain the profits. He didn't want to fill the joint most nights, 75% would have been great. We kept putting prices up and there would be a lull for about a month then back to turning people away again. The customers would come in and say " Your prices are pretty over the top but we went other places and didn't enjoy it so at least here we know it's going to be worth it."
At one stage we seriously considered advertising " The mid North coast's most expensive cup of Coffee" in order to REPEL some business but we had a bad feeling it would back fire and would just make the place more busy!

When your profits increase you can hire someone to help. Maybe a 2nd to do the reception while you go home and relax, maybe someone to do your layouts or even.... god forbid.... do your EDITING...... ( Yes I know, we are all artistic gods and only we know how to make our pics fit out idea of perfection and without our touch they pics would be offensive crap and... ) Just a wild out there theoretical suggestion of course but maybe.....

The thing is we have time and ability to look at what we do and think through those negatives and eliminate them. I ask EVERY client at the end of the transaction, firstly " What didn't you like about your experience with me, what would you change or do different?" I'll push them on this not to be nice or polite or anything else because that's actually doing me a dis service by not allowing me to address any problems I might not be aware of. Hit me between the eyes with it so I know what to fix. The reality is I rarely get anything tangible, mainly just the difference in personal opinion. I suppose that is a good thing.

I ask what they do like but unless it's something I haven't heard before, frankly i'm not all that interested because there probably isn't any benefit to me in it if I'm already doing it. Sometimes though you get one thrown from left field and if you hear it a couple of times, Then you take notice and start throwing it back to the prospects as a highlight of what you do. Sometimes you can be surprised at what the clients think is great because as far as you knew, everyone did it and it wasn't a big deal at all. When you hear this though, you know what to push in your promotions and speil.

And this is a part of business that is so damn easy, ask the questions, get the answers and if they are a problem, find the solution so next time it comes up, Your not cringing and terrified of the question, Your hoping to hell they ask it so you can slam dunk them with your Killer comeback. :0)


**Why is it every time I think I'll make a quick comment, it turns to a novel??**



Oct 11, 2015 at 10:30 PM
StevenMI
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Upload & Sell: Off
p.2 #17 · p.2 #17 · what are your booking stats?


1. How long have you been shooting weddings?
4 years
2. What city/state do you mainly shoot in?
Richmond, Virginia
3. How many weddings did you shoot in 2014?
28
4. How many weddings will you (or your company) shoot in 2015?
28
5. How many weddings do you have booked for 2016?
10
6. Is this your full time job?
yes
7. How many leads do you convert into bookings if you are available for the date?
40-50%
8. Do you do hourly or all day coverage?
Hourly
9. What's you starting price and highest package price?
$3950 - $6,000
10. What does your starting price include?
8 hours, files
11. What does you highest package include?
10 hours, engagement, bridal, big album
12. What's your average price per booking?
$5,300 is average of what they pay including tax, travel, etc. $4,800 net to me
Most people add 1-2 hours in the weeks and months before their wedding, so I imagine that net number will go up to $5100-$5300
13. What do clients say they like most about you pricing structure?
easy to understand
14. What do you find is a weakness of your pricing structure (your own assessment or client feedback).
Not sure, i'm sure there are weaknesses but if I knew what they were I probably would have changed it by now



Oct 14, 2015 at 10:19 AM
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