I\'m going to emphathize with Martin here regardless of his uncalled lashing out to the people giving him good advice...
It\'s easy for many of us to give advice like this to Martin and Form because we are not the ones living it out. On the other hand it is very hard for Martin to accept because the advise he gets are contrary to his experiences in the many years he\'s done business.
Many of us here are weekend warriors just like me. Many of us here are also new, with only a few years of experience. We started shooting for cheap just like Martin, we got better, we went to FM and got slammed because of our pricing, and we said, \'what the heck\' and raised our prices and got out of our cheap referral base into our current level.
I know this works because I lived it myself too. Started shooting at $750 as Craigslist wedding photog 4 years ago. Got into FM, learned some stuff, and completely changed how I marketed myself. Right now I get far less inquiries but I got far more solid leads and average close to 4K in a very competitive east-coast market. But I was willing to make the change because I have nothing to lose. I was new, I have very few clients, and I have a day job to fall back to.
But for Martin, he has built years and years of reputation doing this. It\'s far more difficult to get out of a referral base that has been built for many years. If you have been getting referrals from certain vendors and your pricing all the sudden triples, of course all your referrals will completely dry out.
My suggestion - and this probably won\'t be a popular one, is to create a new, more expensive brand and keep the old one going. Get a new, much more modern website under a different name. Create a sense of exclusivity and high-class. Put your best work there to start. See how that works for you. The 2 brands will be so far apart in price that you won\'t be interfering with your current client base.
I\'m going to emphatize with Martin here regardless of his uncalled lashing out to the people giving him good advice...
It\'s easy for many of us to give advice like this to Martin and Form because we are not the ones living it out. On the other hand it is very hard for Martin to accept because the advise he gets are contrary to his experiences in the many years he\'s done business.
Many of us here are weekend warriors just like me. Many of us here are also new, with only a few years of experience. We started shooting for cheap just like Martin, we got better, we went to FM and got slammed because of our pricing, and we said, \'what the heck\' and raised our prices and got out of our cheap referral base into our current level.
I know this works because I lived it myself too. Started shooting at $750 as Craigslist wedding photog 4 years ago. Got into FM, learned some stuff, and completely changed how I marketed myself. Right now I get far less inquiries but I got far more solid leads and average close to 4K in a very competitive east-coast market. But I was willing to make the change because I have nothing to lose. I was new, I have very few clients, and I have a day job to fall back to.
But for Martin, he has built years and years of reputation doing this. It\'s far more difficult to get out of a referral base that has been built for many years. If you have been getting referrals from certain vendors and your pricing all the sudden triples, of course all your referrals will completely dry out.
My suggestion - and this probably won\'t be a popular one, is to create a new, more expensive brand and keep the old one going. Get a new, much more modern website under a different name. Create a sense of exclusivity and high-class. Put your best work there to start. See how that works for you. The 2 brands will be so far apart in price that you won\'t be interfering with your current client base.
Oct 03, 2012 at 09:15 AM
Previous versions of widjayaman's message #11012867 « $895.00 is just way too much »
