Draper
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 Perceived Value & Reflecting Respect | |
As posted on my blog:
I\'ve always been fascinated by why people think and reason the way they do. I\'ve often told clients I\'m better at people than I am at photography and I\'d have to admit, I\'m more interested in people than I am in photography. This interest led me to take some classes at the local university on marketing and consumer psychology. I learned much from these classes which also served as a reinforcement to principles that I already believed as a lover and watcher of people.
As a studio owner, I constantly battle with pricing and perceived value. This battle has raged an incessant war as more and more options for photography inundate my market. My worth is at the forefront of that battle. I know that I personally can\'t afford my own services and that bothers me. As the oldest of five children, there wasn\'t money for the elaborate senior picture sessions that my clients book on a regular basis. If we didn\'t have the money to spend on something outside our budget, either my mom went to work on my dad, or we simply didn\'t buy it. When the first of my siblings got married, I had the best camera in the family (Nikon N90s 35mm) at the time and was nominated to photograph the wedding. When clients say I\'m expensive, I know where they\'re coming from.
The past week I had some email correspondence with a potential customer. After receiving my prices she asked me to drop my prices $1600 to fit within her budget. Knowing it was a weekend that normally wouldn\'t get booked, and worrying that the economy just might not be as solid next year, I gave in and told her that I\'d do it at that price. Just before I sent the contract in the mail to have her fill it out and put it on the books, I was invited to a family reunion. I decided to spend this 4th of July weekend with my family. I emailed the potential client and told them that I was sorry but I was going to take the weekend off to spend with loved ones. The response shocked me. Below is my email transcript (I changed the client\'s name):
Amy! Sorry to say this but my mom scheduled a family reunion over your weekend. I\'m so sorry!!! I have to attend this, we haven\'t met up in years. Try Angela Probst at AC Images, www.acimagesphoto.com she is super good and I\'m sure she\'s available hun!
warmest,
Aaron Draper.
Wow Aaron, really disappointed not very professional using your family as an excuse....... I have a lot of family and contacts over in the states and they will be spreading the word....
Sorry Amy.  But family needs to come before work. I\'m sorry you feel that way. I\'ll let my mother know that you don\'t think I\'m professional. Again, I\'m sorry that there is a conflict in schedules and had hoped you\'d be more understanding.
warmest,
Aaron.
Well Aaron, I have my own business also and if I had said yes to do the hair for a wedding I would stick to my word, I also have a family and yes they do come first but I would of worked around that, it\'s not like you could come to do our pictures then gone to your own function, I am a professional. You have obviously have had a better offer as I negotiated a price with you. I am very disappointed as you should understand.
Amy.
*Note: Notice the client references her bartering for a discount and suggests I accepted a job that came in at full value. This is an important clue to how the consumer mind works.
Amy,
I\'m sorry you think I had a better offer.  The better offer is still being with my family. No amount of money, wether you negotiated a price or not, will keep me from visiting my family this weekend. The fact that you mentioned your negotiated price is interesting. This may have been on your mind, but it wasn\'t on mine. When a contract is signed, I honor that. I meet with brides all year long and some I hear back from and some I don\'t. Contracts arrive in the mail weekly and once signed with a retainer they are solid. If a contract would have come in with a retainer check from another bride before yours, they would have received precedence. In this case, family does. I\'m sorry you wouldn\'t cancel a hair appointment to see family you haven\'t seen in years, and possibly the last time you might see some elderly members. Please feel free to tell any and all your friends and associates my stance. I\'m sure you\'ll have a great and glorious wedding.
warmest,
Aaron.
I\'m sorry too, I had made my choice clear before, I wanted you to book that date in you said you could do it and stuffed me around for so long I asked you to send me a contract I never heard back from you till now, what you\'re not understanding is that you said could do it! Hope you have a wonderful future, whatever it may be. Good or BAD....
Amy.
Because Amy\'s emphasis had been on price when she booked me, she figured that mine was too. I can just imagine working for her all day only to have her thinking deep down that I must not be trying my hardest because I wasn\'t charging my full rate. She wouldn\'t have liked the work afterward either because she would have felt like she didn\'t get the quality she paid for. She undermined the value of my service even for herself. Because she did this she would always have doubts. This is not how I am but she doesn\'t know this. When working for a $100 senior or a 5k wedding... I spend every minute trying to get the best photographs I can. And when my camera isn\'t clicking - my mind is.
The epiphany that Amy\'s comments lead me to was the following:
\"Reduction of price for service will always lower the perceived value of that service to the client.\" (Perceived value is defined as the \"customer\'s opinion of a product\'s value to him or her.\")
Amy felt she could threaten me and level insults at me because she didn\'t respect me. But Amy didn\'t respect me before I turned her down for her wedding date. And this isn\'t Amy\'s fault. It is mine. By lowering my prices, I showed Amy that I didn\'t respect my services. And if I didn\'t respect my time and craft, how could I expect a client to do so?
The problem is that once we accept less pay for the same work we\'d do for any other client, the client never looks at our service the same again. This is OUR fault. We\'ve communicated to the client that we don\'t respect our service either. Now that the client knows that you don\'t respect yourself, you can\'t expect them to respect you either. Now the client thinks you are worth far less than they originally thought. Once you establish this precedent, it will carry over into all other areas of your relationship. This psychology shift will manifest itself in how they treat you, their future purchases and how content they are with the product you deliver. They will continually view everything you do as not worth what you charge.
Just this year a single mother called me and told me that her daughter had gotten her pictures taken by a school photographer and that her daughter hated all of the pictures. I knew that school contracted photographers by reputation generally did the bare minimum and their style was somewhat dated. By design, they are structured to shoot quantity. I told the mother what my senior rates were and gave her our pricing. For our market, my senior prices are not high. We run $100 in studio for an hour (unlimited changes of outfits) and $150 on location for an hour (unlimited outfit changes). We require a modest minimum order of $150. A senior can get an hour shoot and our smallest package for $250. The mother told me that she was a single mother and they had already paid their allotted budget for senior pictures with the school photographer. I felt bad for the mom and told her that I would waive the session fee and she just had to buy prints. When the clients arrived we shot a indoor/outdoor session for 2 hours. I felt the shoot had gone well. We hit 4 different locations while shooting outside and her indoor stuff was nice as well. After a couple weeks had gone by after they had picked up their proofs I got a call asking to speak to me. It was the single mother. The daughter was distraught. Her mother couldn\'t find a single shot out of the 200 proofs that they liked. I was speechless. The mother went as far as to say that she thought the \"lighting\" in the pictures was off. I looked at the pictures again and wondered if I had had a bad shoot. Sometimes that happens and I\'m willing to give another hour or so if I thought I was in a creative funk. The images were strong. What did the mother ask for before I got off the phone? She wanted to know if I\'d give them another hour or two. I had done the shoot for free.
I know senior girls aren\'t the most hormonally balanced to deal with. But I had this coming. I told the mother and the daughter that I did not value my own service. And I really didn\'t value my time either. Because I didn\'t value my craft, they did not value my craft. Because I did not value my time, they did not value my time. Get the picture?
I have anecdote upon anecdote of clients that started off our professional relationship asking for discounted service. To the client, they have all shown the EXACT same characteristics. Once the got the initial discount, they asked for discounts on other prices. They found minute fault in pictures which they asked to be reprinted. Once these were reprinted they asked to keep the original ones they\'d found fault with. And they never seemed content with the entire experience - almost as if I had never lived up to what they had expected. This is because, through my actions of discounting myself, I showed them that I wasn\'t what they expected. I was less than that. What they expected was full price. What they received was a discounted, cheapened version of myself that they could never respect.
My experiences are not unique. I spoke with other photographers in my market and asked if they had encountered this phenomenon with clients who had asked for a discount. One photographer told me the story of a wedding client that had asked for a break because they were on a tight budget and were having a hard time. The photographer relented because the family had used her services for years and she wanted to help them out. The client came back the next week and thanked her for the discount because they were now able to upgrade their flowers with the money they saved on her. The customer asked for the discount and once it was given, spent that money on something she perceived had more value. She didn\'t save the money or use it toward future purchases of an album or more prints. This would have shown that she still valued photography and was wanting to put the money toward that. She didn\'t value photography. She valued flowers. And that was all because the photographer didn\'t value herself. You cannot expect the client to value your time or craft if you don\'t value your time and craft.
The academic research supports by my anecdotal evidence. Professor Dhruv Grewal of the University of Miami, R Krishnan of Cal Poly, Julie Baker of the University Texas at Arlington and Norm Borin of Cal Poly, collaborated to write a paper titled The Effect of Store Name, Brand Name and Price Discounts on Consumers\' Evaluation and Purchase Intentions. According to their research, \"Price discounts, however, are likely to have a negative influence on perceptions of quality (Blattberg and Neslin, 1990). Perceptions of quality can be explained using self perception theory, one type of attribution theory which describes how consumers explain events. If a consumer purchases a product/service on discount they often \"attribute\" the fact that it was on discount because it is a poorer quality product/service (Dodson, Tybout, and Sternthal, 1978). The higher the price discount, the lower the buyers\' quality (or merchandise) perceptions.
\"Price discounts, however, are likely to have a negative influence on perceptions of quality (Blattberg and Neslin, 1990).
While I agree with the research that discounts affect the value of a perceived product or service in some way, it\'s important to note that I am not against giving discounts to clients. In fact, I believe the research ONLY applies when a client begins the professional relationship by asking for a discount. The devaluing doesn\'t occur if the professional offers on their own.
A couple of teachers walked into my studio a couple of years ago. The soon-to-be bride was an art teacher and loved my work. Her fiance was a teacher as well and worked with autistic children. They pored over my albums and looked at my work. When I handed them my pricing I could see the bride\'s shoulders slump. They thanked me for my time and told me they would try to work it out to be able to afford me. They mentioned that they thought they could borrow some money from a grandmother or something, but they would make this work. I was touched by the fact that even though I wasn\'t in their budget they were still willing to pay for me. When they called back to book, I asked them what their budget was for photography. They told me and I booked their wedding for that price. To this day, this couple has been easy to deal with. They loved the photos. They loved their album. There were no problems. This couple was different because they didn\'t ask for a discount. I gave them one. It was a gift. They understood I was gifting my time and craft and they appreciated it and respected the gift - all because they hadn\'t asked for it.
Other photographers might have experiences that differ from mine. Like all writers, we only write what we know. And I know I\'ve never had a client that, after having asked for a discount, ever respected me. A famous photographer once said that he photographs himself in his clients. The energy, confidence poise he gives, the client reflect back in their expressions. This is the same with marketing. The same confidence and value we transmit, our clients will reflect.
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