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Lesson Info

Selling Your Work

so the plans and the pricing you know I've raised my prices over the years you know I was ninety nine dollars and twenty five miles but I haven't raised them crazy if you think about it one hundred ninety nine dollars that is my session and people go we get the calls I'm gonna tell you now before you say what it is so the hundred nine hundred ninety nine dollars that includes everything right my digitals my session because everything no that's just anna what because the photographer would walk away from her that's everything and that's great for them and tiffany has a real hard time with this because she's so kind and so sweet and she's gotten over the years she's really got her stride but I would always hear her paws and hesitate and be like it is a lot of money and now when I hear her talk because she's given me her blood sweat and tears and her first two children you know what and it is just for anna and she's been doing this fourteen years and we have a full staff and we're going t...

o take care of him from start to finish and you could come here with nothing but your panties in a bag and we will take care of you and with family will help you coordinate your clothing we'll help wrangling your children will carry them onto the field if we have tio will bring bubbles cheerios law perhaps we will do everything in our power to make it a great session and so yeah it is one hundred ninety nine dollars and for the time and talent of the photographer in their staff and if susan down the street on ly charges two hundred dollars and gives you all the digital files more power to susan we can't afford to do that I can't afford to do that the great news about that is we also have no minimum purchase we did back in the day I did have a minimum purchase when I wanted people to spend money and take me seriously I created a three hundred dollar purchase than when I met that I I asked for a five hundred dollar minimum purchase and when I met that I stopped altogether and took away all my minimums remember the first time any of sales I wanted to break a hundred and then I wanted to break three hundred and then I wanted to break five hundred and then if I could just get a thousand dollars sale I'll have made it and then it starts to become your average and then you get a three thousand dollars sale and you're waiting for the charge back because you're like they're going to change and you're like you're like don't want to touch the money because you're afraid it's going to get taken out of your account and then when you're on a client's home you're doing in person ordering and they say hon I need the credit card and is here what's the total fifty five hundred and you're like oh my god I'm not here can you do that when I'm not here and there like okay it's in the safe and they're okay with it and you're like you're okay does that mean that I expect that kind of a sail from every person no I'm okay with the person that comes in and spend one hundred fifty dollars I don't have any minimum purchase requirements the fact that the person had the money in the first place to come to me and wanted to come to me is a privilege photography is a luxury item it is not a right it is not a requirement it is not a necessity toe live when you're on your last roll of toilet paper and you run to the local convenience store and the only thing there is eight bucks a roll it's worth it right that's not photography come on guys at the end of the day you can give your camera to someone else and they can capture your legacy just fine so it is we are in the luxury business like I think we forget that the props the studio the lighting the ideas the creativity it's all a privilege and a luxury I'm not going to require that my clients spend a certain amount of money to see me because I don't think I have that right I can say well my time is on ly gonna be valuable if he spent at least two thousand dollars in my presence that's just not me I couldn't sympathy end of the day with that and if my hair salon said you can on ly come in if you spend the amount of money that I spent on my hair I probably wouldn't have spent it but when I went in and I kind of had an idea of how much it is and then when I go wow this is a good boy dry I'm good you know what I mean and when a client sees us sweating in and we get a great image and you know you get little baby lucas smiling and they're like that was worth it that was worth it but when they come in to see these pictures I'm not saying lucas is going to cost you a grand or you're out I always say these air locus is lucas is pictures we're gonna talk about how we do that there are no minimum purchase requirements are products catalogue is here let's go through it photography is more than a medium for factual ideas could ineffectual communications of ideas it is a creative art says randall adams I even coating is autonomous for twenty years but being a photographer means you're going on a business in which you create art create and sell art for monetary gain and that just finishes off that business or hobby thing because you're we decided we're in the business mode we're not enough we're not talking about happy's today this isn't a this isn't a class about hobbies is a class about business and when we're selling were going to say that we already know my reason behind selling is a legacy and I like to sell coffee table books campuses for the nursery and wall groupings for the bedroom and we're going to get in the selling this is just the eye candy because we're going to talk about how we're doing things and why we're selling and this is why I don't sell online because if you tap into creative soul and provide products and the wages that inspires and showcase your clients and you give something like this on a big beautiful campus like this that can go next to their crib come on wouldn't you want that wouldn't you want that so you must create samples but keeping in mind my first frame sailed seven hundred dollars I had no samples but I did have friends in my home but they weren't from that catalogue I've always had work in my home even when I was in college and I was single I always had things in my wall I am hans ansel adams is calendar I ripped out every page and framed him and then I did it for and guinness and so I always had worked despite of my mom and then when I started really shooting I framed my flowers I used to shoot in sedona arizona I framed the red rocks so I have boxes of my own framed work that was just in like you know dying store frames so I've always believed in selling and I didn't grow up with pictures on our walls my parents bought the school photos yes and they put him in my dad's office drawer second drawer down I know where they are but they didn't hang him on the wall but my mom loved to corn we had mirrors and all other things but I do remember my mom hanging framed art of babies in which is was fascinating to me so when you sell products you have to think of where they're going so newborn canvasses I remember the first time I was alone in california my husband was around there was a shaker and things were falling off the wall and I'm like okay that was all I needed to never sell frames in a nursery in california I'm not gonna be responsible for anything fallen in anybody's head so we sell a lot of campuses in the nursery and I tell clients I even tell him to go one step for it further and use museum gel and attack the pictures to the wall and I did it in my studio for liability reasons I everything in my studio is tacked to the wall and in our o b display because anyone anyone anything falling in anybody so we talked about selling while you're shooting and it's such a simple concept but what we manifest what is before us were the creators of our own destiny be it through intention or ignorance our successes are failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves and sometimes it is through ignorance I was oh so many times I don't know what I am doing but your success in how you sell is completely one hundred percent manifested by you if you think you can't sell you won't it's just that simple if you think no one will buy their not going tio and if you can't stand behind your work get someone else who will this is a big one in the industry I can't sell my own work can't handle rejection they're not going to like it I'm not gonna like it was a horrible shoot I'll tell you a perfect example of another girl photographer that I've been mentoring over the years it's part of our form and she knows who she is because I told her I was going to use her as an example but I wouldn't sail and say your name she sends me a message panics I have the worst session ever was a newborn session it was crazy you know you have those sessions they're just not good and I can't show them you're gonna offer your issue now I've done what she's done so that I can use her as an example have they seen the images no but I'm gonna just I'm just gonna call him up a statement a reshoot but they haven't seen the images no then you can't do that why can't why are you doing that use taking away any choice that they have you need to show them the image is oh no it's bad let me see them she sends it to me there's nothing wrong with these images they they need to see the images right before I come here since many male thirty two hundred dollar sale I mean I've been there where I'm like hi yeah it all sucked how about house next tuesday and they're like ok wasn't me knows me it's not you it's me and they're like okay how bad could it be put yourself in the mother's position you're going to be like wow we are like the most photogenic family ever hey who does that but I've done that and I had a couple of sessions where I tell tiffany oh my gosh I can't look I can't look I can't look I'm gonna edit I'm not gonna be there for the sales question is can't look and it will be like a really good sale you did there and I was like really she's like yeah we're worse critics right or or worse critics and sometimes that's when we do our best work but you've gotta let your I can't make that decision don't make that decision for them and don't offer to reshoot unless they're sitting there and they're telling you they're extremely unhappy and even then find out why because hopefully you had enough communication to the session that there isn't a need for it you made a choice to be a photographer which means you need to create a business businesses require sails so you sell if you say I can't sell and I I've tried I can't do it get somebody in off the street there are million people out there looking for a job I will find you one and bring them in and put him on commission on lee and those south tomorrow done there you go and you go hide in the corner and shoot pictures I don't love it I'm sitting there the whole time going aren't cautious shit do that shit do that shit do that but I've learned to keep my mouth shut and then when the clients like oh I love that one I'm like you do you do off you do I do I love it too okay how are we doing we're doing great there's just quite a bit of conversation in the chat rooms with regards to teo what if you don't live in the type of area where people are and afford this where the medium income is at this level people are talking about you know when people first have babies don't have money I don't understand so there's you know people have a lot of blockage around this area it's just really difficult area also trying to figure out how much profit you make like where do you figure out those those nuts and bolts numbers has nordstrom ever going out of business our people still buying mercedes and lexus is are people still buying flat screen tv's so in every single town somebody has money somebody has money to buy right and you also have to understand that if in your immediate area let's say there's like ten people and everyone's broke what about the area next to you click how bad is our economy because the area next to you whether it's a half an hour away or pulling inasmuch as an hour away I have people driving from san diego l a I have my client will tell you drove two hours to see anna drove three hours to sienna and I'm like really cause I know if delivery area because I'm mentoring them you gotta work on that so um if your immediate town is just dead broke no one has money you need to extend outside of your area is one okay the other thing is the price is going to fluctuate based on the economy happened based on the areas of the world we know that you know while I'm in so cal I mean something california I can charge one hundred nine knows now is for a pregnancy session which I think is ok after fourteen years in the business I may move to a small town in wichita kansas and they may think I'm absolutely out of my mind and I might go bankrupt so it does have tio you do have to adjust for the area you're livin and the cost of doing business in a house in wichita kansas is very different than in couse in orange county even into me even a house in covina in california or river side I can get a six bedroom house and live like a queen in riverside and that same amount of money wouldn't get me a one bedroom condo in orange county so you do have to adjust with the level of business in your area and if I was in a different town I would look around and say okay how many years have I been in the business am I just starting out if I'm just turning out I don't have a lot of years behind me part of that goes with how good am I because I have seen people start out the gate hang up their shingle and there good you couldn't tell if they were ten years in the business or one year in the business so I think you need to be good but I don't think you should also come in with one month experiencing charge what a ten year veterans been charging and you haven't put in the work and you're trying to feed off of that so yeah you have to check your surrounding area and see what the market will bear and you have to test it and you made me you say in my area my session fees fifty dollars and that seems high okay we'll make it seventy five offer some more exclusive products and see what happens because you might just pull one person out of the woodwork and all it takes is one and two come out before you've got five hundred behind it okay so my pricing is not to say duplicate across america because some people look at what people in orange county spend for their houses and they they can't even believe it I can't even believe it right so that is important number two if you say nobody in my area is it's just not happening and I've tried everything the area no one spending any money and then I drove an hour out and nobody's spending any money then it's got to be something more than money that's the problem and I hate to say it it's got to be something more because if you look in an hour away and you and I ask you is anyone driving luxury cars and you say yes and this happened when I was in canada the woman said I was doing the workshop in canada no one no one no one spending any money anna okay I'll take you up on that and I did a little field trip myself and from the hotel to her house I went early before the workshop and I drove around the neighborhood and I went in and I go I have a question for you I ran into this whole area of million dollar homes yeah that's an exclusive area nobody gets in that area okay so when you said nobody was buying did you include that area we'll get because that I can't get in that area so wait so no one's buying that you know off but they're buying million dollar homes if I knocked on every single door in that in that area do you think they have photos on the wall were they going teo are there going to your competitor that's an hour away that figured out how to tap into your market and you're sitting there and then you're on your back door so that's where your personal field trips come on and you say what kind of photographer are you are you a luxury photographer where you include all the bells and whistles are you just a small town girl and you want just wanted for everything on cd for one hundred dollars how much is a caution and threw everything in a cd for hundred hours one hundred dollars and you spent ten I was editing every single image for the hundred dollars so you're making what what you making by the time you're done you've done the photo shoot you're making dollar an hour what is it so you're not even you know you're making minimum weight even if you want to start somewhere started minimum wage you want to come up with a baseline find out with the minimum wage in your area and say ok takes me an hour to do a photo shoot let's say minimum wage is nine dollars okay let's say it's two hours I should get paid at least eighteen dollars for showing up I have no photographers that aren't even making that right you want to start somewhere let's start there you know and just break it back down to the basics and say if you're a photographer and you could make more money at mcdonald's than doing your work there is a problem there is a problem so I'm not going to go in here and say this is how much you should charge for an eight by ten because I've seen eight by tens acosta's muchas from ten dollars to two hundred dollars we've all seen it I've seen campuses as little as twenty five dollars to six hundred dollars what's the difference ordering from the same company the difference is one values their time and one doesn't want thinks they're good enough and one doesn't one has excuses no one in their areas spending money and the other one doesn't because there are people spending money out there I guarantee it I guarantee it you guys look at how much money is being spent in this world went back to those those females sats are you kidding me trillions of dollars and the last time I checked when nordstrom put up nordstrom rack it didn't didn't put a dent in their sales did it how much money you spend it target when you go for detergent come out a hundred dollars later targets not stupid what target do bring in designer labels to help out right did they succeed so much not so much there's still testing all that out people are still going in there spending one hundred three hundred dollars when if you look at their average price point how high is it really that much right that makes sense I feel like every time there's a workshop in a class here's my struggle you're sitting on the edge of your seat going anna is going to tell me exactly how much I should charge anything ten and the minute she tells me in a perfect price I'm going to do it and I'm going to be amazing blood sweat and tears people it's not that easy is not that easy I've been teaching for seven of my fourteen years my first seven years I made more is more mistakes in seven years that I mean my entire life right you have to learn by your mistakes in the minute you heard me talk about change the minute something is not working you change it