Jed Eltom wrote:
- Offer his work at a lower price or offer discounts.
- Produce better work.
- Dump all his/her life savings in marketing.
- Pray for a miracle.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not doing any of these things.
Jed Eltom wrote:
Most do the easiest of the above, and try to undercut the big guys in order to appeal to the low-medium budget brides, and make a buck.
But, at the prices we're talking about here they AREN'T making a buck.
Jed Eltom wrote:
Does this hurt the market? No. The rich will buy Louis Vuitton, the rest will buy what they can afford.
It hurts the market a bunch - the market doesn't dictate what people can afford - the industry dictates what something costs. If photographers stop selling for an unsustainable price the budgets will rise. If photographers stop cheaping out on themselves then perceptions of what people can afford will change. People want to spend less because there is an option to spend less, an unprofitable option for sure, but the fact that the option is being offered is what is adjusting perceptions about what they can afford.
Don't believe for a second that the market dictates price. This is not the truth.
Jed Eltom wrote:
In order to compete with famous photogs who have large marketing budgets, an average decent photog has to do one or more of the following:
- Offer his work at a lower price or offer discounts.
- Produce better work.
- Dump all his/her life savings in marketing.
- Pray for a miracle.
Most do the easiest of the above, and try to undercut the big guys in order to appeal to the low-medium budget brides, and make a buck.
Does this hurt the market? No. The rich will buy Louis Vuitton, the rest will buy what they can afford.
Does this hurt the craft? Surely.
Why do yo have to compete with famous photogs with large marketing budgets?
How many of those are there in your market?
How many brides that could pay sustainable rates are getting married on any given Saturday?
Are you saying that the first number is larger than the second?
I mean heck... if I were in the same market as Ghionis... he can shoot ONE wedding on 11/11/11 ... why can't I shoot the other one? Once Ghionis is booked for that date (likely in 2008) what's the next bride going to do? tell me she'll go with ghionis instead?
mosier wrote:
My opinion, as this happened to me when I first started out and at the end of the day I paid to shoot that wedding.
I would never just "throw in" stuff. I'll work things into a package, but I feel like if I say, "I'll throw that in too," they are going to start grinding me down on other things and then where does it stop? Then a demand is made, you say "sorry that's not included" and all of the sudden you're a bad guy for saying no.
We don't offer discounts or throw in stuff. We simply offer the products at the cost that we think they our worth for our work. We feel confident that they're worth at least what we charge, so 'throwing things in' just devalues everything in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong, we work our butts off for our clients and will always do everything possible to overdeliver on our time and effort. But I think its important to charge appropriately for what the products are worth.
joelconner wrote:
or, they have to learn how to convince their potential clients that they are worth the money...
Very true, but we live in the digital age, you can't just stand at a street corner and sell yourself or your work. Clients have to hear about you and come to you, before you can wow them with your sales tricks.
I personally believe in offering a fair price for my work, based on my skills and the quality of my work. I stand by my prices and never discount my packages. I do occasionally however throw in something small here or there when I'm asked for a discount. I don't want to lose a client over $50 - $100.
TRReichman wrote:
And yes, I am saying that if you don't charge a sustainable and profitable amount you are unprofessional. Professionalism encompasses a number of qualities, and I'm here to draw a line in the sand and say profitability is one of them.
What's the profitability cutoff to be considered a professional, in your opinion? Actually, the amount that someone charges per-event would have the greatest impact on the market. Certainly the part-timer doing 2 $4k weddings in a year and not even covering initial gear costs is better for the 'professional market' than the full-timer making a living off of 40 $2k weddings. It seems this is where the concern over discounting is coming from. In which case:
TRReichman wrote:
If you are an amateur, then embrace it, be one, and take photographs FOR FREE.
Do you believe passionate amateurs who give their work away are hurting the profession less than those who charge enough to, more or less, break even?
juicer wrote:
Do you believe passionate amateurs who give their work away are hurting the profession less than those who charge enough to, more or less, break even?
Of course! What kind of question is that?
I'd much rather compete against someone charging $0.00 than someone charging $500 less than I do.
That should be totally obivious, I don't get the question.
Someone who charges nothing is unprofessional and the fact that they are unprofessional is immediatelly obvious to anyone
Someone who charges $500 less than I do is unprofessional but someone who doesn't understand the cost structure might think they are professional, hence they appear to be possibly a professional competitor of mine.
lisy78 wrote:
Why do yo have to compete with famous photogs with large marketing budgets?
How many of those are there in your market?
How many brides that could pay sustainable rates are getting married on any given Saturday?
Are you saying that the first number is larger than the second?
I mean heck... if I were in the same market as Ghionis... he can shoot ONE wedding on 11/11/11 ... why can't I shoot the other one? Once Ghionis is booked for that date (likely in 2008) what's the next bride going to do? tell me she'll go with ghionis instead?
If Ghionis is booked, the bride will type "Melbourne Wedding Photography" in Google, and go for the next photog there that is available and within her budget. So now you are competing with non-famous photogs with large marketing budgets.
Jed Eltom wrote:
If Ghionis is booked, the bride will type "Melbourne Wedding Photography" in Google, and go for the next photog there that is available and within her budget. So now you are competing with non-famous photogs with large marketing budgets.
A few years back, I lost a wedding to a VERY famous photographer. At the time, I considered myself nowhere close to the level of that photographer. The client told me it was between them and me. Back then, I seriously charged about 90% less than what they probably paid with the other photographer. I learned a lot of lessons from that one...
lisy78 wrote:
Strongly disagree on that point. Very Very strongly.
Say I price my package to provide $1,000 of after tax profit and that is sustainable to run my business and it's enough income to keep me interested.
A client wants to book but is hesitant to do so due to price, they are looking for "a good deal"... they're used to ALWAYS negotiating and never paying the asking price (that does happen in certain cultures).
Ok... so I can give them a $150 discount. or I can upgrade them to the next size album whcih lists for $300 more, for an extra $100.
If I give the discount I end up taking home something like $120 less... instead of $1,000 I now made $880 for the same work. I AM NOT HAPPY. And he got what he sees as a $150 deal
If i give them the deal on the upgrade, and let's say that the next size up album COSTS me $75 more... now instead of $880 I'm taking home maybe $1010... I work the same, I AM HAPPY. And he got what he sees as a $200 deal, PLUS when his wife shows the bigger album it looks more impressive to their friends, it's better "advertising" for me, if you will.
So yeah... NOT semantics at all.
That's not to say that I jump all over myself trying to give away free or cheap upgrades, but if push comes to shove there is a HUGE difference between the two, both in the financial impact on you and the preception.
The perception can be VERY signficant.
If I give a $150 discount I'm saying that SOMETHING that they're getting is worth LESS than I offered it to them for. The something could be the album, but it could ALSO be MY WORK.
Now on the other hand if they ask for a discount and I say "look, I'd love to help you out, however in order to produce the level of work you expect I just can't cut corners and reduce my fee... however, I do want to work with you and I think I might be able to upgrade your album for a fraction of the upgrade price... here... $100 more rather than the $300" ... now there what I've done is IF ANYTHING, discounted the value of a book... not of my work.
Sure... ideally I'd prefer not to discount anything... but if I have to choose, I prefer to give the perception that a piece of leather and paper can be discounted but my art cannot.
Perhaps I should’ve been more explicit in my statement. Obviously we can come up with scenarios where discounts and free upgrades aren’t financially equivalent, and it’s just as easy to come up with one where free upgrades would be less profitable than just discounting. All I was stating was that from a financial (strictly numbers, not the long term brand impact) perspective was that discounting and free upgrades can be identical and an understanding of your cost accounting is a good tool to decipher what activities are best for you.
Wedding A:
$4K package discounted to $3K
Wedding B:
$3K package with $1K in free upgrades
At the end of the day, these both look like your $4k package given for $3k. My argument was that your cash flow statement doesn’t have any perception of which of these is better and you won’t convince me otherwise.
Best,
Dave
Jed Eltom wrote:
If Ghionis is booked, the bride will type "Melbourne Wedding Photography" in Google, and go for the next photog there that is available and within her budget. So now you are competing with non-famous photogs with large marketing budgets.
The fact that I pay for SEO suggests that I *HOPE* some brides who are willing to pay sustainable prices do search on google for their photographer. I don' t know this for a fact and in fact suspect it not to be true.
That said I seriously doubt that brides select photographers based on their google ranking. Sure they might only look at the first ten but I doubt that being #2 in a google search = an automatic booking.
That said I don't have a massive marketing budget, you couldn't buy a single L lens that I can think of for what I paid to be on page 1/2 of google... so it doesn't have to be uber-expensive.
Jed Eltom wrote:
I personally believe in offering a fair price for my work, based on my skills and the quality of my work. I stand by my prices and never discount my packages. I do occasionally however throw in something small here or there when I'm asked for a discount. I don't want to lose a client over $50 - $100.
Apparently those prospects who ask you to discount aren't as fervent a believer as you are in how 'fair' your prices are.
They're really willing to walk away from you over $50? Geez, women will spend way more than that if they love a shoe.
And a bribe makes them stay?
Maybe when they're asking for discounts it's a ploy to try and get you down or get more out of you, hmmm?
Tony Hoffer wrote:
A few years back, I lost a wedding to a VERY famous photographer. At the time, I considered myself nowhere close to the level of that photographer. The client told me it was between them and me. Back then, I seriously charged about 90% less than what they probably paid with the other photographer. I learned a lot of lessons from that one...
lol. I consider your work to be light years better.
what i mean by that is you should focus your time and money (especially money if youre paying that much for seo) on reaching brides, not letting brides reach you (that's all google is).
qwyjibo wrote:
Perhaps I should’ve been more explicit in my statement. Obviously we can come up with scenarios where discounts and free upgrades aren’t financially equivalent, and it’s just as easy to come up with one where free upgrades would be less profitable than just discounting. All I was stating was that from a financial (strictly numbers, not the long term brand impact) perspective was that discounting and free upgrades can be identical and an understanding of your cost accounting is a good tool to decipher what activities are best for you.
Wedding A:
$4K package discounted to $3K
Wedding B:
$3K package with $1K in free upgrades
At the end of the day, these both look like your $4k package given for $3k. My argument was that your cash flow statement doesn’t have any perception of which of these is better and you won’t convince me otherwise.
Best,
Dave ...Show more →
I think the scenario you concocted is not just hyperbolic (which I'm sure you intended) but it's also totally unrealistic in it's structure.
I've had clients ask for discounts before, typically after selecting a package and deciding that THAT was what they wanted.
So, once that situation presented itself, if it was appropriate instead of just hardlining the NO DISCOUNT, I opened the door a little bit by allowing a few upgrades, that to me were total gravy at only a fraction above cost.
If you want to debate the merits of discounting a 4K package by 1K or selling a 3K package with 1K in FREE upgrades then you're creating a whole new situation different than what was discussed. and I very specifically said I'd offer upgrades AT A DISCOUNTED RATE THAT STILL COVERED MORE THAN THEIR COST
what i mean by that is you should focus your time and money (especially money if youre paying that much for seo) on reaching brides, not letting brides reach you (that's all google is).
Tony's post assumes the choice is booking at full price vs. discount. But it assumes booking. What about when you have a Saturday free, and it means work vs. no work? (and you have room in your schedule to do the other business improvements).
Also, what about the bait-n-switch flavored tactic... discount the wedding but raise prices on the auxiliary stuff (prints, albums if not included, other products etc) without telling the client, yielding the same profit for the same time?
Sergio Mottola wrote:
Google is not marketing.
what i mean by that is you should focus your time and money (especially money if youre paying that much for seo) on reaching brides, not letting brides reach you (that's all google is).
How do you do this Sergio? How do you reach brides versus letting them reach you?
