Lessons
Class Introduction
04:07 2Find Your Voice
05:24 3Getting Yourself Mentally Prepared
09:50 4Your Business Support Team: CPA and Insurance
13:00 5Your Business Support Team: Lab Partnership
05:02 6Your Business Support Team: Assistants You Can Trust
06:48 7Your Business Support Team: Local Vendors
16:51 8Photography Education
11:18Pricing for the Clients You Want
08:02 10Making the Sale
16:53 11Preview Showing and Sales Appointment
18:48 12Establishing Strategies for Making the Sale
09:54 13Five Mistakes Photographers Make
19:40 14Home Tour
16:33 15Home Tour Q&A
09:33 16Lighting Setup in the Living Room
20:20 17Shoot: Family in Living Room
21:08 18Photographing Families Q&A
18:32 19Shoot: Headshots in Living Room
13:21 20Hair and Makeup for Senior Portrait
08:09 21Garage Lighting Setup
10:21 22Garage Shoot: Casual Senior Portrait
09:53 23Garage Shoot: Senior Portrait in Short Blue Dress
24:11 24Working with Light Qualities and Quantities
23:40 25Working with Sekonic Light Meter
22:40 26Office Shoot: Senior Portrait in Long Blue Dress
13:14 27Dining Room Shoot: Long Blue Dress Window Light
14:54 28Dining Room Shoot: Product Photography Window Light
28:25 29Product Photography Post Production
05:27 30Portraiture Post Production
12:40 31The Final Reveal
18:47Lesson Info
Pricing for the Clients You Want
one of the challenges that people have uh and I sort of alluded to this a little bit and I just want to revisit this just for a moment if you have a hard time asking for money from a client get someone who's not afraid to do that for you you cannot be that way or you will give away the store we love what we do so much oh I'm so glad you love this oh here let me just give you the extra print and you will do that until you're out of business right up until the day you're out of business we gotta treat it as a business you guys and that's what this segment we're going to talk about a little bit I find that there's a lot of photographers that have made an awful lot of money and continue to make a lot of money I won't call out his name but there's a local photographer here who I talked to last night last week he had an eighty five hundred dollar portrait session sale and not all the family have ordered yet now this is a pretty decent photographer but he's a smart business guy I don't know v...
ery many people anywhere that's got an eighty five hundred dollar portrait sale some not very many I don't know what the averages are across the country anymore I know what they used to be I know what the wedding averages used to be I know people that are selling weddings for three thousand dollars wedding packages and I have some they're selling wedding packages for thirty forty thousand dollars I know a guy in atlanta who charges his weddings clients ten percent of the wedding budget he doesn't have a number what's your wedding budget he wants ten percent do you think that the value of the pictures from someone's wedding is worth ten percent of the overall budget has a bride wouldn't you think ten percent is reasonable of whatever the whole overall budget is right he just wants ten percent so when the wedding planners call him the bride's never call him he he's he's in that category where the wedding planners call everybody and the wedding planner is organized and take care of and they've been given a budget to go put this event on you saw them you saw the wedding planner with j lo it's that scenario right so it might be a two million dollar wedding this feast two hundred thousand it might be a fifty thousand dollar wedding there he would probably say no because he does have a minimum of twenty five thousand but don't don't think that there's not money being made in our career in our choice of our craft there is a lot of money being made not by everybody but there's a lot of money being made I heard a good friend my baby cantrell one time made the comment that when someone said uh no one will spend that kind of money in my small town they just will not spend any money they won't spend money in my home town and she says does anybody near town drive a mercedes our bmw or cat lacquer high high end cars and we'll have answers of course right people will find the money for the things that they want you just have to show them and give them the things that they want but you can't lower the value if the value is this don't give it away for this if you think the values this then that's the value they don't get you if they can afford it or if they decided not to spend that dollar with you it's not your business your value stays the same what if the phone's not ringing I need to give it away no you don't you can't get away you can't give it away because once you bring it back to here you will never get up again and I'll tell you one of the things that I learned from a great great photographer uh tim walden from kentucky tim is this great tim and his wife bev had this fabulous studio in kentucky tim and bev the walden's oh my gosh where they found this couple doing wonderful black and white work and tim told me one time we had a great discussion about this and he said let me tell you what photographers need more than anything today in the world of business I said what's that he said one word gaps they need to build more gaps so what are you talking about he said well he said with all the flood of new people that are coming in that for very little money or sort of going out of shooting a session for you know one hundred dollars and given somebody a dv with a dvd with all the high rez files and he says let me take what you need to do is photographers create bigger gaps between you and that person in what you deliver in how you price it how you market yourself how you present yourself what your brand looks like your style every single thing about you needs to present bigger gaps don't try to close the gap and get closer to them you will lose because there's gonna be more of them coming in you got to move the gap I was trying to figure out where to put my pricing as a commercial photographer in san diego california and I went and I did a little bit of research and I found the highest price photographer there and it was big and I didn't want to be that high but I wanted to be number two so I put my price one click below his I want to be the number two guy in san diego and he and I were there was a big gap between he and I and everybody else that was shooting commercially in san diego was a pretty big gap and and I don't not sure I don't know how everybody feels about if that makes sense if it's smart or not but I'll tell you what it did do it made everybody else in the community go with tony and that guy are up there we're bumping ours up and everybody brought their level up they brought their quality up they brought their pricing up everybody started coming up it works so wherever you I'm not saying that every photographer can charge race that heir of the you know the high end stuff everybody wants to see I want to deliver I want to be with high end clients of course you do everybody lives so let's just say we got the top ten percent of our clientele then there's that bottom ten percent of the clientele there's eighty percent in the middle who's taking care of them somebody better take care of them you don't have to be the highest in guy in town but get appropriate fees for the appropriate work I think that's the fair statement what's appropriate for what you're doing and you need to do some research and evaluate yourself and evaluate some of your former clients call some of your former clients can I have a conversation with you about how I priced my work to you did you feel that I overpriced that overcharged you for anything but do you feel that I undercharged anything did I feel like comfort comfort level with you was that about the right place why can we not have that discussion as a commercial photographer the biggest sentence I ever learned was when someone would call and ask what my pricing was I never had a problem with this one sentence and it saved my butt every time well what's your budget for the project just put it back on them like I get my price until I asked them what your budget guess what they'll all tell you if you just ask same with the wedding they'll tell you if you just ask what is your overall budget for this way what have you budgeted for photography for this wedding have you thought about what your pricing might beer what your budget might be for your family portrait session mr mcgraw my point is this folks if you'll ask enough questions you'll know what to do and you know where the right places to go with this
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Sean
Another great course by Tony Corbell. I loved this course. Tony is a great teacher, great photographer and great business man. He's enjoyable to listen to and a great teacher. He holds nothing back and shows how to shoot great pictures even in small shooting environments or on a low budget. I would buy again Tony's courses.
Penny Foster
Wow! Tony is fantastic! So many hints and tips, crammed into this great course. I shoot portraits out of a small converted garage, about 9 ft high, 9 feet wide, and about 19 feet long. Tony has shown me so many ways to make this small space work for me, for which I am eternally grateful. What this course highlights is that whatever small space you have, there are ways of making it work. You need to buy this course and watch it over and over because, every time I watch it, I gain more and more info that I missed the first time around. Brilliant!
Kat Ciemiega
Absolutely wonderful, I cannot praise the content enough. I value Tony's stories as much as the information he is giving away, because it puts the data in the perspective and practical context of the actions we take. Thank you for this class!