Lessons

Lesson Info

Pricing & Booking

seems to me that these two types of photographers there's the one that wants the large sitting fee with the minimum spend and they constantly say to me you gave shoots away you gave filters away I was like yes but you have to pay a makeup artist well yes the idea was that I gave a shoot away so that they would spend money and then I could pay my maker patters uh what if they didn't buy anything well there are some people that don't but that's the law of averages okay so let's talk about that there is the photographer that wants the large sitting fee with the minimum speed that sells packages nothing quite says you are going to spend four hundred ninety nine dollars like telling people that your minimum spend in your package to me what you're doing to your client is telling them that they're going to spend four hundred ninety nine dollars and that's what you're going to own and then there's a photographer that has a low or no sitting fee and an ala carte menu which is not asking for a f...

ee up front or asking for a ninety dollars one hundred dollar fee up front and then opening up an ala carte menu so straight away that terrified the hell out of me because I wanted to know in my mind what I was going in so if I told you when I had a four hundred dollar eight hundred twelve hundred dollar package then I felt safe that I was going to either get four hundred eight hundred twelve hundred and gets what gets which when you get out of those three you get lots of four hundreds because what does your client here the cheapest of the three packages correct okay there's no value there there's no idea around it there's no nothing all they hear is four hundred bucks awesome done sit in stone so I changed everything to an alley cat menu with a free shirt for the first six months of my business what I needed was recommendations bums on seats context and never at any time I did what I offer say that it was free never and this is how I did that I decided right early on that is a confused mind says no I walk into too many studios with priceless with a hundred things on it and I look at them and I go you just have boggled people with numbers and you have ceased to sell the one thing that you were trying to sell them and that is the photography and the experience that you amanda too many numbers okay so if I say to you this a shoot with mei is complimentary because you've been given a beautiful gift voucher the images I still thie images ice l started two hundred and seventy five dollars on the wall and go up from there and I have a beautiful folio box it starts at twelve hundred dollars my most pitchers package is a twenty page folio box with a beautiful free wall portrait for three thousand three hundred dollars what do you hear your spending three thousand three hundred dollars never at any time that I say anything was free never at any time did I say you know I said lower numbers I said hi numbers but what I'm doing is I've got to sell you this idea and I have to tell you what my average spenders and it must be delivered in this way a sitting with me is one hundred and ninety dollars that is a double makeover amanda so that's for two woman is there a sister best friend partner or anybody that you would like to bring the shit with you who would you like to bring my sister are you know being assisted and he had two she have children yeah okay so you're gonna both bring your families and make a day of it sure we'll book out the studio for you now I have two families so you and your sis to get you here and make up down the boys can look after the children they can come and say eleven thirty excellent the best part about that is you can get baby sitters in the afternoon and you can all go out tonight and look absolutely incredible so if that is my sales pitch right from the start that I'm selling the entire package right from the beginning I'm educating you and I'm going to talk more and more about that because it comes down to how educated you are and how invested you are in the chute how invested you are in the final product but never at any stage have I withheld from you or planted a seed in your head that says that you were spent less than three thousand dollars with me and now just because I'm going after three thousand dollars doesn't mean you you can just taylor this to how you're selling and how you're presenting your work in my studio you can buy a folio box and it's handmade by celtics in australia my favorite album company they treat me like a family member and I am not even one of the big clients because they're big clients do hundreds of winning's a year um I love their folio box because I hate albums okay I don't wanna offer albums I think they're confusing if you want to sell albums and studio go for it I don't want teo I want to sell war portrait it's in a folio box this is a celtics folio box this is a beautiful polio box with my name and bost on it and inside this folio box is a beautiful city hand mounted images and they can be taken out the best part is they could be framed individually given away as gifts or if you want to keep it as a very special little gift a little keepsake you can hide it under the bed if you want to if it's a private folio box but the beauty of it too is it stands up vertically in a bookshelf and you can print on this outer cover these are also distributed through america by finnair sure now when I tell you that I sell war portrait's from small to large in a folio box with images from six up starting at twelve hundred dollars that's it there is no more there when I show you this these are my war portrait's they start seven by tina two hundred and seventy five dollars and they go up to twelve hundred dollars for thirty forty five those sizes aaron inches you can pay extra for framing that's your choice this is my nine at frame when I do a shoot I'll do a dancing siri's our work towards selling a nine up off either one vehicle set of horizontal images or vertical images and what I'm trying to do is sell one beautiful frame set these images of six by four if you have six by four images times that by nine it makes that entire sit up about twenty two inches twenty four inches wide by thirty it's a gallery of your nine best images that is two thousand dollars frank didn't finished so if you do not want the folio box you could have an entire wall gallery in one frame if you do not want that I sell individual images for the wall I've covered all three of my basis with three products there is simple to understand and I look at it like this this is the beautiful follow box small medium or large madam so if I can simplify what I do I can simplify the experience and then simplify the cost of it people not only understand it they're not they're no longer confused by ain't that the truth is I loved my grandma by the way I get a lot of stickum I blogged about my total lack of spelling and punctuation I does not matter I does not matter I does not it does not matter which of these you choose no client will spend if they're not educated none okay I went to a studio to do a consultation we get there to this beautiful studio the photographer is amazing I love her whole team makeups incredible fantastic I'm styling a shoot off five women and they are photographing it and I'm going to be a behind the scenes spectator and their business for a whole day and then show them where they're going wrong at the end of the shoot the three generations of woman and kissing us and coddling us and telling us that beast experience of their life being photographed they just had so much fun thank you so much and then they lived I turned to the photographer and I say I didn't see you give her a priceless or talk about price at all she said ah no we don't do that it's a little bit confusing I said yes that that would be very confusing because the idea is how many photographers have sat down in a viewing and head people say there how much or why they so expensive or how much are they or what I didn't know they were gonna be that expensive okay uneducated client shouldn't have bean there shouldn't have been and now feels trapped okay so if you are afraid of saying what you cast then you don't believe you're with it and until you change that mean television you will not attract anybody into your business that believes the same educate and sell educate cell educate cell educate cell educate cell educate sell if I could drill let into your forehead right now educate cell I want you to I want you to go away and say this from the moment somebody calls may I am selling myself my experience my photography in my studio okay classic example classic example of selling myself um is coming up and you're just absolutely love this but I will say one thing the phone is paramount answering the phone getting clients on the phone speaking to people about what you do let's say you're at a trade show in macro anna's doing the fly by and everybody knows that the fly by means don't look at me don't talk to me I'm walking past if she stops to talk to me I can engage her in a million different ways but I'm going to engage her like a woman fabulous caf gray color okay we're not gonna talk about the weather is it warm out there because she's gonna say no not really it's wearing a scarf and jacket yeah okay it stopped raining then okay now you're boring me really the weather I'm so I want to talk to roam and talk to her or not and then next time I'm doing a wedding expo and say when you're getting married tell me about your wedding day I'm not trying to pitch to any really I'm never trying to pitch to anybody so when I meet marijuana in the street and she says inevitably what do you do and I say well actually I'm a photographer and you say gland photographer remember I say yes like this because that tells a story in itself if ma who asked me the one question that people ask me constantly when they find out what I do and how you do it the first thing they wanna know is tell me about this oh my god you're amazing I love your work you know wow how long if you mean doing this this is incredible so do you do the hero makeup all of those questions come I don't have an elevator pitch that I lost chintu well map wanna it just so happens that I have a glam a photography studio what I do is I sit there and I just tell people what I love doing so if you speak with enthusiasm about anything that you do it is so attractive to people that people are so inextricably drawn to you and what I'll do is I'll say iced attitude and glamour twenty years ago I've always worked with hair omega paris I know I have my own makeup room I know I know I'm sponsored by elizabeth arden yeah and I get excited about what it is that I do the second I get excited about what I do people just cannot get enough off what I'm talking about it's that whole I'll have what she's having right ok at the end of the day you have to understand one thing if you read eckhart tolle which is the power of now you'll know the cat's philosophy is we have two states ego and enthusiasm enthusiasm is devoid of any ego when you are in a pure state of enthusiasm all you're talking about which could be called passion but I think people misunderstand the idea of being passionate about something when you're purely purely enthusiastic about something when you can talk about something because you love it so much that the experience of it and everything about you and everything about what I do and what I could do for you is being translated to you because you're so excited that on it's interesting that's amazing when you hear that enthusiasm you will understand one thing enthusiasm comes from the ancient greek word in theus in theo's means to be filled with a god within you to be completely devoid off all eager and to be filled with the god within you to that feeling that you were so excited and so impassioned by what you do that it's so easy to translate to other people that energy is so attractive in any form that anybody who is actively happy in this world will attract ultimately millions and millions of followers ofthe people because we all want that same feeling it's just unavoidable when we see it in others and we know it's not bullshit we know it's the truth well you can't fake that consumers have a sixth sense they're smart they smell your fear they can smell a fake and you reek of it if you are not truly enthusiastic about what you do and if you aren't enthusiastic about what you do go and do something else you know I always thought to myself I could be every day I would drive to this gas station and I have a little mix five convertible and I always drive with the roof down and I pull into this gas station and this guy runs out of this cap on puts gas in my car he does not know my name but he x like he knows me every week I see this guy every week he charges out he says hi to me one day I go there and he's gone and for a year this guy has been putting gas in my carriage chatting to me every week I don't know his name amazing dude suddenly I'm waiting for my car nobody comes out I'm putting guest in my own car and then having to pay go in come out put gas in my car go back and buy some other stuff I'm annoyed I don't want to go there any more and it occurred to me that guy was heavy pumping gas he was just a heavy day right hey whatever his life wass he used to like channing to all the girls and all the boys that used to come in and get the guest and he was an amazing guy he was just happy it didn't matter what he did he was happy I thought to myself I'm a photographer and I've got this amazing looking job but I'm struggling to make money I've got absolutely no money in the bank in this guy's heavy pumping gas you know attitude counts for ninety nine percent of everything and if you can't be happy or enthusiastic about what you're doing do something else if you want to be a photographer but you cannot master the business side of being a photographer go on work for another photography studio I did for teen years yes you will not get paid us much but guess what you also don't have to market your business sell your work pay texas lie awake at night wondering how you're going to pay those texas when I lie awake at night wondering where your next shoot they're going to come from lie awake ignite trying to evolve your business constantly and go to work every day and manage eight bretz you know so you'll get less money but you'll get to do what you love do would ever spend two wheels until you're not spinning your wheels you are not actively participating in your own life you know being miserable is not a way of life it is just not being miserable is not the answer it's your choice change it any time you want from the moment I pick up the phone I'm selling soup so I pick up the phone and I say good afternoon suit by speaking certainly oh where did you get your voucher from kate that's wonderful so kate are sitting with me is one hundred ninety dollars and you've been given that for free from fitness first yes it's a gift to you they've paid for the you shoot you're gonna come and get a double makeover yes a double my cover exactly well you can bring your sister your best friend your mom all of the above yes no no extra charge well we kind of make it a girls day out kate so the idea is that you will come and you have a beautiful here and makeup we give you a great experience we take your photographs you can go go out afterwards and paint the town red and you end up beautiful photographs of all the people you love sure is sitting with me is one ninety you have that beautiful gift voucher so you also have on it about two hundred dollars to spend on photographs and my war portrait started two hundred and seventy five so obviously to get the first porter it's only one hundred and seventy five dollars and it goes right up to the really large portrait's for twelve hundred and I have beautiful folio sits as well the best path though kate is there is no obligation to buy anything the idea is that I take beautiful portrait of you and that you love them and then you want to buy them so when you come in I will show you right through my priceless in all of the beautiful products we can create where would you like to book him awesome let's go and do that when I first out in the studio was twenty two years old in the big studio is an employee my boss told me I had poor allocution and that means I spoke like a country girl which I kind of still do but it's kind of endearing now back then it wasn't and and so they made me do phone training they would sit me down with with unplugged phone and make me talk like that in front of my boss I would go bright heart rate on my stomach would ten but what it did was it taught me how to speak on the phone it taught me how to speak to my clients and if you have not practiced that pitch if you some people my staff wanted me to ride it out and key points so that they could hit all of those points and keep the flow of that conversation going I did that they did that for a year they had that conversation above the phone it was so important that when somebody calls your studio they're calling to book you in if you do not book them in you have missed an opportunity to make money because y house what they call you if they weren't interested in your service