p.2 #1 · How best to have the 'Price discussion' with clients
I guess what I'm getting out of this thread is that the value proposition has to be self-evident.
Not necessarily self-evident -- you still have to articulate your value proposition in some way -- but yeah, it does need to be easier to digest than a collection of diagrams and a wall of explanatory text. But this thing is an abstraction. It doesn't apply to you, it applies to photography in general and only implies a reason why someone might choose you in particular.
Most people shopping for photography have already settled on a framework for analyzing price-value and it would be a very rare prospective client who wants to interrupt her shopping trip for what amounts to an economics lecture. I realize that part of your point, in putting this together, is to emphasize flaws in some people's framework, and frankly I agree with your argument. I just doubt many prospective clients will be receptive to being educated in this way when they're actively seeking a photographer.
So, it's not helpful at the decision point -- shoppers have their framework and want to find a photographer, not be educated. But it probably is helpful prior to that point -- it's the sort of "philosophy of wedding photography" treatise that people will post to facebook and discuss. And there, it might productively reframe the decision for people who haven't settled on their own purchasing framework yet.
p.2 #2 · How best to have the 'Price discussion' with clients
Ian Ivey wrote:
So, it's not helpful at the decision point -- shoppers have their framework and want to find a photographer, not be educated. But it probably is helpful prior to that point -- it's the sort of "philosophy of wedding photography" treatise that people will post to facebook and discuss. And there, it might productively reframe the decision for people who haven't settled on their own purchasing framework yet.
Well said, and getting people to think about that framework before they contact me is more or less what I have in mind now, after all these great comments and feedback.
I realize that part of your point, in putting this together, is to emphasize flaws in some people's framework, and frankly I agree with your argument. I just doubt many prospective clients will be receptive to being educated in this way when they're actively seeking a photographer.