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Archive 2016 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?

  
 
brennan55
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


So my usual business model is to charge session fee, edit, deliver final jpegs without watermark, done. I used to let them handle the prints/cards/whatever but recently after interning for another photographer over the summer I realized I may be doing this all wrong. So this brings me to my main point.


Would it be better to charge session fee, edit, deliver jpegs with watermark, ask what they want printed from the gallery (charge x4 margin), and then deliver prints? I'm trying to switch up my model as I feel as though I haven't been as productive in my previous. What does your business model for senior/family portraits look like (or are they different)?



Sep 05, 2016 at 09:38 PM
agelessphotog
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


We charge a session fee, then schedule and do the photo shoot, edit the photo's, bring them into our studio (use to be our house until we leased a office / studio) then at that point they decide which prints / digitals / package they want and they pay while they are there. We get the prints, call them to come pick them up.


Sep 05, 2016 at 10:06 PM
brennan55
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


agelessphotog wrote:
We charge a session fee, then schedule and do the photo shoot, edit the photo's, bring them into our studio (use to be our house until we leased a office / studio) then at that point they decide which prints / digitals / package they want and they pay while they are there. We get the prints, call them to come pick them up.


what do your packages look like if you don't mind me asking?



Sep 05, 2016 at 10:09 PM
friscoron
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


I charge a session fee and have a minimum print order. After the shoot, they come to the studio for a viewing and to make their purchase decisions. So our process is something like agelessphotog, tho we just do a very light LR edit for the viewing unless there's a wow image that should go big on their wall.


Sep 05, 2016 at 10:18 PM
nolaguy
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


Hi Brennan, welcome to FM. To chime in, Renee's (agelessphotog) business model is the most successful one I've heard of and what I try to practice but I'm still a bit inconsistent with it.



[[ major edit: ]] -- Below I reference a video tutorial developed by Spencer Boerup and direct attention to the current owner of the tutorial's site. Or at least that's what I assume it to be. I just dug around a little more on the site and my impression (may be wrong, may be at least somewhat correct) is that the current owner(s) have probably taken Spencer's basic material and expanded upon it. Below I present my opinion of Spencer's material and say I assume it's still the same. It appears that may not be the case so have a look at the site and judge for yourself. I was impressed with what I saw and am tempted to buy the whole thing all over again.

If I'm guessing correctly and the new owners have made this material their own in a big way, I apologize if bringing legacy info to the discussion feels like a slight in any way. I certainly didn't intend that and again, I'm enjoying your incarnation of the information.





Spencer Boerup is an FMer who created a video series called Salesographer which seems to parallel Renee's advice and he goes into quite a bit of detail explaining how he arrived at that business model and why.

He puts a lot of emphasis on the one and only opportunity to purchase prints - the image review meeting Renee references above. It's a use it or lose it approach which feels like a hard sell - not generally my style but here's what changed my mind...

I went through an exhaustive pricing exercise... a massive spreadsheet detailing the costs involved through every step of the job process (broken out by about a dozen types of jobs) from first answering the phone through the appointment scheduling, travel time, the session itself, editing, sales meeting, final delivery and 10 or 20 additional steps along the way - all those little details we often don't account for.

I costed out each step as if I were a sizable business and had lower paid employees doing clerical work and higher paid folks doing the talent-based work - point being, I shaved every penny I could off the cost analysis.

It was a huge eye opener and took me quickly from an "anything the client wants when and however they want it" to "the client doesn't want to pay for how expensive that is and my job is to explain to them we're gonna do it Spencer's way or not at all - you don't want to know how much your prints would cost if you dick around and don't make your decisions in a timely manner - as in, today."

I realized it's not hard sell. It's simply efficiency you can pass on to the client. That made all the difference in how I looked at it.

The Salesographer course is currently about $200 and I assume it's the same presentation I purchased a few years ago but I can't say for sure. Spencer's also an inventor and sold his Salesographer business a year or so ago to make more time for his Magmod speedlight modifier system. He's a great guy and I'm not affiliated with him or Salesographer in any way.

Hope this helps,

Chuck

Edit: I just saw Ron posted. Forget whatever I said and do what he tells you. The guy knows his business.



Sep 05, 2016 at 10:41 PM
agelessphotog
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


brennan55 wrote:
what do your packages look like if you don't mind me asking?


We actually have a $300 deposit, that includes professional hair and make up. We spend about $150 on the hair and make up ourselves. This I believe is something that is very important though, because some girls are pretty good with doing their own or having someone do it, but sometimes it looks pretty bad. And it just seems to work out better for us and them. They like their photo's more and they will order more. We don't have a minimum purchase order though, but we do have a minimum product order to get all of their digital files, $900. And that's $900 on top of the $300 they already paid.

But having said all this, I can tell you right now with high school senior's you really need to get some hype going in your area. You really have to invest time and maybe some money in some marketing and branding. You may already be there and have that part down. But you can have the best sales plan in the world but with people that age, it's all about hype, who their friends are booking with, etc. We tried hard to set ourselves apart and give a different look and experience than the other photographers around us. I don't know the strategy for marketing for family sessions.

Do you have a link to some of your work? Here is the flickr to some of our recent high school senior shoots.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/100775131@N04/



Sep 06, 2016 at 12:08 PM
Salesographer
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


Thanks, Chuck/nolaguy for letting us know about this discussion.

Salesographer - started by Spencer Boerup, acquired by Chris and Adrienne Scott (I'm Adrienne). When MagMod blew up, Spencer went looking for someone(s) to take over Salesographer. We'd gone through the course (a downloaded PDF/worksheet and some videos and a couple resources) a while before, doing in-person sales profitably for a handful of years ourselves. At this point we were also running Preveal and thought that Salesographer and Preveal would be two great complimentary products for photographers wanting to make more money. We've since used Spencer's fantastic course as a skeleton and really beefed it up with a ton more resources (hello, email templates!) as well as interjected when we felt we were doing things differently that worked, to give photographers other ideas.

So now I think everyone's caught up on Salesographer's background.

We really strongly push pre-session consultations. You can call them whatever you want. For us, they gave us the ability to do a few things. We could cut away potential clients who didn't really want what we did. We knew exactly what to shoot for (product wise, aspect ratio wise, location/wardrobe wise, and even to narrow down poses). Talk about earning more: cut down on your shooting time, editing time, and prepping time! Plus the client leaves the consultation knowing a fairly good estimate of how much they're going to spend (but typically spend more with upsells at the sales meeting). Consultations set the stage for your client/photographer relationship when you show how much you know (without being annoying) and clients will learn how you work and how you handle sales.

But here's the rub... in-person sales aren't for every photographer (I know, aren't you surprised I said that?!). Some business models of high volume are fantastic and profitable. Most photographers don't do that right though, and do some kind of hybrid of high volume with too much time cost per client. Or assuming you'll make a certain online sale and you don't, and now you're not meeting your client averages you need to stay profitable. Also, most clients think they want digital files and then never do anything with them. We personally found our clients to be happier with physical products.

Hopefully that clears some stuff up about what Salesographer is and what we think about the process at a really, really basic level. :-)



Sep 06, 2016 at 04:00 PM
agelessphotog
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


We also do a senior model program, it helps keep us booked and earning money on our off months.


Sep 06, 2016 at 05:20 PM
J.Marcus Photo
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


Not trying to hi jack the thread, but can you explain the best way to find the right seniors to shoot for free / in exchange for promoting you?


Sep 06, 2016 at 07:45 PM
agelessphotog
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


J.Marcus Photo wrote:
Not trying to hi jack the thread, but can you explain the best way to find the right seniors to shoot for free / in exchange for promoting you?


I never shot any seniors for free, I did shoot some at a discount rate in the beginning to build a portfolio. I did a model call and picked the senior's who had the look I was looking for, popularity also helps.



Sep 06, 2016 at 07:47 PM
nolaguy
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


Salesographer wrote:
Thanks, Chuck/nolaguy for letting us know about this discussion.

Salesographer - started by Spencer Boerup, acquired by Chris and Adrienne Scott (I'm Adrienne). When MagMod blew up, Spencer went looking for someone(s) to take over Salesographer. We'd gone through the course (a downloaded PDF/worksheet and some videos and a couple resources) a while before, doing in-person sales profitably for a handful of years ourselves. At this point we were also running Preveal and thought that Salesographer and Preveal would be two great complimentary products for photographers wanting to make more money. We've since used Spencer's fantastic course as a skeleton and
...Show more

Adrienne, thanks a lot for joining the discussion and so nice to meet you. I'm glad I revisited your site and realized how much more development had taken place. I appreciate you filling in the blanks and helping ensure better info in this thread. Best of luck to you two and I really like where you're taking things.

Cheers,

Chuck



Sep 06, 2016 at 09:41 PM
brennan55
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


nolaguy wrote:
Hi Brennan, welcome to FM. To chime in, Renee's (agelessphotog) business model is the most successful one I've heard of and what I try to practice but I'm still a bit inconsistent with it.

[[ major edit: ]] -- Below I reference a video tutorial developed by Spencer Boerup and direct attention to the current owner of the tutorial's site. Or at least that's what I assume it to be. I just dug around a little more on the site and my impression (may be wrong, may be at least somewhat correct) is that the current owner(s) have probably taken Spencer's


Spencer Boerup is an FMer who created a video series called Salesographer which seems to parallel Renee's advice and he goes into quite a bit of detail explaining how he arrived at that business model and why.

He puts a lot of emphasis on the one and only opportunity to purchase prints - the image review meeting Renee references above. It's a use it or lose it approach which feels like a hard sell - not generally my style but here's what changed my mind...

I went through an exhaustive pricing exercise... a massive spreadsheet detailing the costs involved through every step of the job process (broken out by about a dozen types of jobs) from first answering the phone through the appointment scheduling, travel time, the session itself, editing, sales meeting, final delivery and 10 or 20 additional steps along the way - all those little details we often don't account for.

I costed out each step as if I were a sizable business and had lower paid employees doing clerical work and higher paid folks doing the talent-based work - point being, I shaved every penny I could off the cost analysis.

It was a huge eye opener and took me quickly from an "anything the client wants when and however they want it" to "the client doesn't want to pay for how expensive that is and my job is to explain to them we're gonna do it Spencer's way or not at all - you don't want to know how much your prints would cost if you dick around and don't make your decisions in a timely manner - as in, today."

I realized it's not hard sell. It's simply efficiency you can pass on to the client. That made all the difference in how I looked at it.

The Salesographer course is currently about $200 and I assume it's the same presentation I purchased a few years ago but I can't say for sure. Spencer's also an inventor and sold his Salesographer business a year or so ago to make more time for his Magmod speedlight modifier system. He's a great guy and I'm not affiliated with him or Salesographer in any way.

Hope this helps,

Chuck

Edit: I just saw Ron posted. Forget whatever I said and do what he tells you. The guy knows his business.
...Show more

Thank you so, so much for this!!



Sep 06, 2016 at 10:04 PM
brennan55
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


agelessphotog wrote:
We actually have a $300 deposit, that includes professional hair and make up. We spend about $150 on the hair and make up ourselves. This I believe is something that is very important though, because some girls are pretty good with doing their own or having someone do it, but sometimes it looks pretty bad. And it just seems to work out better for us and them. They like their photo's more and they will order more. We don't have a minimum purchase order though, but we do have a minimum product order to get all of their digital files,
...Show more

sure. I'm actually a high school senior myself believe it or not, and I've been running this business for about a year now.

http://www.brendanbrennanphotography.com/



Sep 06, 2016 at 10:06 PM
agelessphotog
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


brennan55 wrote:
sure. I'm actually a high school senior myself believe it or not, and I've been running this business for about a year now.

http://www.brendanbrennanphotography.com/


You are off to a great start. We actually have a local high school senior in my area who just started their own photography business.



Sep 07, 2016 at 07:28 AM
Vcook
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


agelessphotog wrote:
You are off to a great start. We actually have a local high school senior in my area who just started their own photography business.


Its genius when you think about it. So many potential clients that you have easy access too, and with social media you can tap neighboring schools too.




Sep 07, 2016 at 08:34 AM
brennan55
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


Vcook wrote:
Its genius when you think about it. So many potential clients that you have easy access too, and with social media you can tap neighboring schools too.



Social Media has been a huge player; the girls I photograph have huge instagram followings and will obviously post a picture and give me credit. Always pays off.



Sep 07, 2016 at 02:34 PM
DaveOls
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


The link for brendan has some really impressive sr photos. It's hard to believe that he is only a senior in HS himself.


Sep 08, 2016 at 05:39 AM
brennan55
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


DaveOls wrote:
The link for brendan has some really impressive sr photos. It's hard to believe that he is only a senior in HS himself.


Thanks so much!



Sep 08, 2016 at 08:39 PM
Oscarsmadness
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · What, in your opinion, is the best senior portrait business model?


Yeah Brendan's link has some neat work in there. Actually all of it is quite nice. Dude you need to fly with that business; as far as product goes I think you have something attractive.


Sep 12, 2016 at 12:48 AM





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