Tony Hoffer Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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ACP728 wrote:
I know that if i book just one wedding from WW it will pay for itself and then some.
I don't mean to jump in this thread critically, so forgive me if this comes off wrong. I did want to share my thoughts on this statement though...
I've heard many photographers say "if i just book X weddings, than it will easily pay for Y." To me this is a really faulty way of thinking for several reasons:
1. If one were to do an audit of their business, they would likely find that the profit from a typical wedding is anywhere from 0-50% of the package cost. Of course, by that I mean true profit... profit after paying expenses and yourself. In most cases, any discount (and any expense) dips into those profits. Once it exceeds the profit, it dips directly into your salary. I think it's dangerous to think of expenses in comparison to raw numbers. I get why it's tempting and easy (after all most photographers are solo ventures and think business money is their money), but the reality is that you simply can't trade expenses for income as a 1-for-1 exchange. Every expense takes a percentage of your overall profit or salary. It's a big picture cost.
2. If you're going to say that 1 booking can pay for itself, than you should also apply that logic to all forms of marketing. For example, walking up and down the street handing out business cards and being friendly could easily find you a few clients and cost you like $20. So 1 booking would pay for hundreds of those. Getting a referral is basically free. I don't mean to state the obvious, but my point is that if you apply the same logic to all forms of marketing you'll likely find that with a bit more effort in one area or another, you can easily get that 1 booking for much less.
3. I had a third point but it's late and I forget. If I remember, I'll edit it in
Anyway, sorry to hijack the thread. I actually do think that these directory sites are the right way to go for some people. There's just very, very few of those people. Before you head down the WW route, I'd try to get creative with how you market yourself. There's lots of options out there, and most of them don't involve you being another name on a list.
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