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Blocks and Obstacles

How do you sell this is one of the christians back to the slide show how do you sell ala carte pricing individual priced images or package pricing interestingly enough ala carte pricing came up one hundred ninety one times package pricing two o nine but the majority are doing both so I think there's a little bit of confusion about the selects talk about it you could say I am an ala carte price photographer I have a menu style priceless that says eight by seven my teen start at two hundred seventy five and go up to twelve hundred for thirty forty but my in my folio started twelve hundred and go up to three thousand three hundred but my best package is three thousand three hundred where you get which is very similar to what my plan is done on her pity if she's listed the ala carte she's listed the package but then our she's listed the album she's listed the ala carte but then she's priced the dream package which is her ultimate package to sell right it is not what you're selling because ...

your average sailors under that so you need to work on bringing your average up so why did I ask this question head away address it this is the biggest commonly asked problem question in our industry had a y price myself and the truth is at the end of the day I believe there is a basic interested industry standard I believe even when you're starting out, you possibly have a part time job or another job or a full time job and you're shooting part time. I believe you should be sitting up your gift vouchers now if you're shooting for free and doing complimentary shoots with a dollar value on them so that you're planting that information or their idea and people that they've paid for it or it has a dollar amount to it if you were charging under four hundred dollars, which is the big number that all professional photographers hate the shooting burn at one sixty five, the shooting bennett to seventy five, which is a massive part of our market. What I'm trying to do is lift you up over there level now a lot of people said to me after I talked about this, a lot of people said two things to me we hate those people under four hundred dollars rara but you will started somewhere and I beat you it was under four hundred dollars, I know I did and then four hundred dollars was my first goal. I remember being a new photographer on you be a newbie own my own business photographer I was selling shoots teen years ago fifteen years ago for eighteen hundred dollars in the studios working for but when it came time to sell up myself, I couldn't get four hundred bucks such an interesting energy the truth is, is it the end of the day? If you you start somewhere you start and you louis because you cannot sustain an income friend of four hundred dollars, said joke species, not when you knew because you shoot it, at least her you shoot definitely a lot leased that of a new quality, and then you spend fifty times longer photoshopping it. So you find yourself working for eighty hours to clear about, you know, one hundred fifty dollars, in it doesn't equate to earn income, so the thing is is you gotta build up from somewhere I seed around the four hundred dollar mac is good to start and go up from there, I could literally have andi, I've actually thought about it a last creative life if we can have a forum where we take a cross section off some of the beast in the industry that air, you know, ranging in price from four hundred dollars to the teen thousand dollar mark for winning and portrait kids portrait newborn that we have two people that speak on either end and that we debate what an industry standard is, and we talk about pricing across the board because I feel like I can say it until I'm blue in the face and it is the one thing that people struggle with a I'm struggling against you defending yourself for charging this? I'm struggling against the angry people that are looking down on you who think you should charge more and I'm also struggling against people who emailed me and say, how could you make me charge twelve hundred dollars for a shoot? And I'm not getting any work because I put my prices up and I said, well, maybe your work's not with twelve hundred dollars yet you were the one that was meant to make that decision I didn't tell you just to pull a number out of your bum and they put it on the internet and say are worth twelve hundred dollars I told you it was about this service your level it was about you leveling up it was about you doing this I came video twenty nine came down to the folio for me I said, if you were struggling to price yourself you take one beautiful girl, you create a shoot and if you're if you're not a glamour or beauty genre, then you take one beautiful family or you take one beautiful couple or you take one newborn you show the entire shoot okay, so everything to do with the shoot and then you put one price on it you say this is with twelve hundred dollars, okay that's what I said to do because that to me is you saying I'm capable of doing the entire thing I'm capable of selling. This is a package I'm capable of selling this is an experience and look his forty five images off the shoot to show you how good I am like that was my suggestion so a lot of people went along and put twelve hundred dollars on their pity of price list but didn't work on the images they package or even create a look a package and experience or anything like that. The whole point was not that you change the number on it but that you change the entire picture of it. It was about you taking forty two images off one girl and saying, this is what I'm with, you know? So and look, she never changed her clothes uh that's not true. Okay, we did the white look in the black look but that was it. She only changed twice. I rather changed to here then who? Clothes? I wanted to make it about here. You know, this was so easy. I filmed this. This is one of the video down lights you can watch the shoot. It is the most basic shoot to do she's standing against a white wall with one reflector that susan's holding and you can see shawn's videoing may so pricing I think I'm going to find a way to break it I'm going to be the one that no longer complains about an industry because in fact I neither have complained about industry remember I'm a cockroach I came in the industry at eighteen years old when there were no women photographers okay I didn't burn my bra okay I'm a strong woman but I didn't being libra I put bells on it okay so then I came in and I said well I get it it's a male dominated industry and now I hear the argument that the female dominated industry well boo hoo try being the other way I think it's fifty fifty if you ask me and so I army but back then the old school I remember coming through the ranks of being a photographer and being treated like total nothing I remember going to advance with a big photographers were and seeing how incredible they were in being treated like the scum of the earth and none of them educated me I taught myself had opposed I taught myself how to retouch I went to a job interview at the base clamor studio and new zealand and I was I was twenty two years old at the time and I said to the guy I will scrub the toilet every day I will do what I have to do the work here and he was like all right he signed my contract for my wage and said I eat that more in a year and I was like, I don't care, so I don't want to do okay. Then two years into my fabulous job, they said all glamour photography's did we have to rename the business and or us we will die if we do not above we die, so I involved, and so I am a cockroach because I've been through the fallout of my genre, and I still did it. I did a whole lot of other stuff I don't want to do, too, but I still did it, so, you know, I priced myself through it, but I will say to things I never had an accurate idea of how good I was as a photographer, this is what I was with, I still don't I don't believe anybody has it? I believe you're either overinflated or you're completely underrated or you're completely over exaggerated to a point where I'm better than her. I don't know why she's so also more she's making money, and I'm not I mean, I think they're too, and then the whole and I couldn't and I could enough both are pathetic. Your service provider, you provide a service to a client if you don't provide that service, they don't pay for it it's really easy to market it when your client too heavy because they'll do it for you. So stop making it about am I better than here and I'm better than him I'm better than her I'm better than him how key is god it's so wrong it's so misaligned with your cosmic order which is to stay to sustain an income in a service orientated business and to build into stain a small business at home that gets you paid doing what you love well while you balance your life and your family and building in sustaining an income in a business and nothing to do with anything else ally cat pricing package pricing I feel like I'm avoiding it now because I'm going off on a tangent but I want you to be with what you give in time I want you to put a dollar value on the time that you were giving if it's based on a wage mentality start there now most wage mentalities between five hundred and nine hundred dollars a week if that's what you need to earn at first to get going then get you going you will learn and build and grow but do not overprice your product or undervalue yourself you must find their equilibrium you mast you mast in the chute watch it twenty ninth video on twenty eight days I did twenty nine because I couldn't bloody stop I wouldn't have stopped you'd still be watching me shoot every single day if they'd let the camera crews day but you know they were all tired and needed a day off after sixty days I just loved it that much I asked you are you happy with your pricing four hundred sixty eighteen year seven hundred six you know this is really interesting course you're not happy with your pricing what you're telling me is you're not happy with your income okay yes you're pricing is probably off you're not happy with it because it either makes you uncomfortable or you want it to beam or you don't know how to gauge it being maur this is when you go and you really have to go and look at the industry standard and if you have trouble gauging that we're going to help you do that by getting a public critique off your value juices you're with this is we you pair consultant instead of goto a workshop cancel your next workshop take the money pay a consultant instead somebody like these two woman sitting here after the break you'll find out why trust me it will change your world all right are you happy with your pricing now yes most of you said now do you have a studio space? This is really interesting I wrote this on the survey because there seems to be a question but I can't do that cause I don't have a chute studio space so I started in my garret and it was a crappy old gadge and and and middle of the country with roller doors and cobwebs and I, you know, borrowed furniture. I picked up finish off the side of the road when the inorganic rubbish collection and painted it white, and I did everything I could to make a studio space and still made four hundred eighty thousand dollars in the first year of my business, and that was because I finally got out of my own way started to put myself out there, started to make maggot myself actively and got a business partner that knew how to make money because I was incapable of making money. She taught me how to make money. She changed my world that was the greatest gift from her to me. So do you have a studio space? Two hundred nineteen people said yes, so that's close to a thousand that don't five hundred twenty three, same no in four hundred thirty six say that if it is him and said they work from home, ultimately what's gonna happen is you're going to build your folio, you're gonna whip from home into you cannot work from home anymore and then you're going to go and find yourself a studio space, you're going to find yourself a studio space after a good month when you've got a few thousand dollars in the bank and you've had some big sales and you're feeling very inflated you're going to throw in a receptionist in a couple of other things and there you probably either going to get alone going to ditch or use all of your savings to service the studio space and then in about two months time you're gonna have no bookings coming up for the next three months and you are going to freak out because that's, what happened may um then you're going to get serious about your business, your service, what you're doing because you have failed to do the one thing that you thought to do, and that is sustain an income by marketing and promoting your business because that now becomes more important than shooting. And now I've put you off getting that studio because now you've realized that selling marketing and sales selling, marketing and promotion is now higher on your agenda then shooting get it that's called business sorry, but if you want one that's what you gotta do so here's the kicker people that love it live for it the get the market dollars, the sales I have a girl in new zealand, the charges may thirty dollars an hour to retouch an entire shoot loves it once more work really? Yep, okay, I don't want to do it anymore I don't have time so heavy to outsource it's such an amazing thing but you have to decide right now what's going to sustain and income how you're going to make that happen and what do I need to make that happen? And if you do not want to market yourself sound your own way today's your wake up call if you are a shooter, you either need to be a paid shooter you need to pay a business manager now here's the thing the engagement level off lower management so anybody who's working in the factory there's twenty two percent so the engagement level of your staff is around twenty two percent the engagement level off off middle management is around fifty two percent okay in the engagement level of a vice president or a c e o who doesn't own the business who is running? The show is about seventy five percent the engagement level of an owner is it about one hundred twenty five person? Wouldn't you say so? Nobody is going to work in your business if they don't have skin in your business, so if you cannot afford to hire someone and if you cannot afford to pay someone, you've got a couple of options imagine that you met somebody really dynamic it's small business really dynamic at marketing and sales and you say you have strengths in the areas where I suck we could go into a business partnership together let's try it for twelve months let's say you go into a business partnership and you lock down now everybody said to may when I went into my food's business partnership don't do it you will regret it you will fall out, something will go wrong and I tend to my business pattern of that day and I said to hear in the car nothing you do will ever put me in litigation and she said what humane and I said I would walk away from you if we go bad I would walk away from you before I would fight you and she was like why are you saying this is like well let's get riel let's go to the worst case scenario I would walk away from you before I would fight you for my own business and she's like okay and I did I left new zealand started my own business and now I'm here perfect. Okay, what did she teach me? She taught me how to make money. She gave me a greater gift than anything I could have given here. Well, I know it was fifty fifty and actually it was a fifty fifty exchange so that's something that I really need you to work on video number twenty six on twenty eight days were shooting glamour and location outside and shooting into the back right we took the beautiful amanda canes and we drove around cielo until we found places to shoot here outside. Can you create a brand being a location photographer? Yes. Can you do with glamour years? Can you do with children? Years? Newborns? No winnings? Yes. Can you do it with boudoir? Know that you can do hotel rooms, motel rooms. There is always a way to make it work if you see possibility. One of my friends shared a studio with five other photographers. They got one day a week each. You know, she had one day a week to book a shoot, and she always booked two on that one day, and they shared it until two of them became more successful than the other three, and then squeeze them out. And they got two days a week each. And then the third person got one day and they did that and told three years later, she got more successful than the other three, squeezed them both out and took over the lease. She's, being there seven years on her own here in a husband because she became so successful here, has one left his job when awake for here. So this always a solution that you need to go and look for a solution, there's always a way, what service can I offer myself if I can? To cash remember when I was down and out I retouched people's photographs? It was easier to retouch and to sell my services as a re toucher than it was to piddle myself as a photographer shoot me now I need more confidence to put myself out there false two hundred fifty nine people feel quite good about it. Nine hundred live ins, andi and so confidence to put myself out there means you need more validation because the truth is the only confidence you need is to be able to build a service and the critique this afternoon's going to highlight where you're going wrong very, very quickly. What are the blocks in obstacles getting in my way? I asked on the sheet of paper, I asked our sorry on that survey, I asked one of the blocks and obstacles getting in the way, and I got a live one hundred and seventy eight paragraphs on everything that you can't do and none of them none of them were really all of them were just mindset. Lies block small thinking, empathy, self hate ego competition remember this the fear video that all it wass it's, a lie, that's a lie you've told yourself so you cannot succeed, right? Don't cry because you're gonna make me I'm crying today, I'm gonna cry kind of day all I can tell you is this blair and I have been talking about it a lot. We talked to bed again last night all I can say is this when you decide you want something, you will actively pursue it every day okay? You will get roadblocks, you'll get smacked down, you'll get tripped up, you'll get punched in the face time and time again it will be is equivalent to the amount of joy the amount of positive that you get because everything in life is fifty fifty but we measure l success by how much pain we're getting. We measure our relationships by how much pain we get from them. We never measure our relationships in our life or how business is by how much joy it brings us never so you will become a successful as thie amount of pain that you are prepared to endure, the bigger my profile god, the more I was on stage the more I put myself out there, the bigger the criticism got the bigger the trolls got, the bigger the pain gets, the bigger they're the demands get, the more people want from may want from may you know I'm a generous person, but there are just times when I have to stop and go home and just leave me the hell a line where you don't have the right to do that your surprise you know like, uh and then I realized that for one troll that hurt my feelings a thousand people have emailed me to say you've changed my life, you changed my life I didn't change your life by the way you did I was just talking you listened all right? So thank you and I appreciate their very really do I go above equilibrium? Very really do I over exaggerate myself? I'm a very humble person I know where I came from, I'm grassroots baby on blue call appearance I've got no education, I'm happy to say it somebody told me not to say it I'm never going to stop saying it my name's super ison from pookie code, you know? And I'm okay with that and the thing is every now and then when I do pop up over equilibrium, I will get hit either credit, I will attract criticism and it will hurt and it brings me back to equilibrium but never drops me lower because you guys also support me like nothing I've seen before. I get support and overwhelming support on my social media and facebook, the leaders, the stories you share with may I read if free one they changed my world that is such a beautiful paradox, but if you expect a perfect relationship with only support and no challenge, then you're living in a dreamworld if you expected big business that's going to give you only supported no challenge you're living in a dream world everything is fifty fifty you're just measuring it on the wrong side that's why gratitude when she bet to equilibrium because you condition them both and go out awesome out awesome just also just is it's not out just not awesome okay when you get hit by a troll online trolling trolling trolling this people out there that just actively want to troll you that's okay can you imagine the businesses are really successful are making lots of money because you know you've got time right? So you've got time when you're really successful to go in troll and hate on other people it's okay they just bringing you back to equilibrium accept it and go all have I've bean above that lately because clearly I needed something to bring me back down a pig boom there it is thank you and when the people build you feel only gratitude in here don't inflate I'm so awesome I'm so awesome just go wow thank you gratitude gratitude if you maintain the equilibrium then you're like may I'm very really get hurt or criticized and I very, really feel over inflated so I feel very lucky grateful true path um liberated powered by by what I do I just love it and I'm never going to live a life that's not that ever, ever either again ever you can't make me ever be there again it's too amazing go back to this video every time you feel block deal with the block it's on the path kick it out of the way keep going it hurts you just have the toe next level you up what could I do next to help you more tell me what can I do now I can do anything on their this twenty three shooting videos on there every one of them pertained to a demographic that will attract more clients these marketing material on their these marketing demographics thiss photoshopped tutorials yes you need to deal with your production because that is your service and your referral system and everything that will bring you work the money block is something you need to deal with personally you need to value yourself in your work and you need to do it without ego it's not about being validated it's about knowing that you're providing a quality service if I focus more on making my client's look and feel beautiful it's that moment when dawn sees the back of the camera if I focus more on that part of it then I will enjoy every shoot that I go to. If I focus more on trying to make a picture that dawn's gonna by then I will not I will fail it there because that is not my highest value my highest value is to see him moved by my photography you know we were talking about there's no pitch there's no marketing pitch there's no promo pitch there's only enthusiasm right? I've always said that there's no pitch it's just enthusiasm change your pitch to enthusiasm talk about what you do enthusiastically believe it on the inside you know mine connie said you know why I keep saying it it's like it's all I want in this world every woman on the planet who's ever looked in the mirror and not felt good about herself to feel it every woman woman just like me a woman just like you every woman deserves that what we want why be aligned with everybody's values and that's okay, just about two million of them, right? Okay, so I'm just gonna kind of circle back if I can for a second because I was listening to everything he said and everything you said right? I was one hundred on point with where I am I actually had a whole bunch of business and I started to studio and now I'm like oh, crap how am I gonna sustain this? I got to pay rent and better buckle down man up put on my panties and just go for it what do we got to do it's about the business I got to make the sand gets put on your man pence not put up with and he's letting on one other thing that the three of us were talking about right beforehand was, and I know I feel as I'm listening to all this because I'm going, yes, I can do that. Yes, I could do that. Yes, I can do that. Okay, that I need to work on. I need to get over that and totally line with everything you're saying. And there is this one thing that is keeps hitting me is how do I reach these people I work out of when I'm not in the students are in the studio. I have very little contact with people in general. I drop my kids off to school, I go back to editing and then, unless they're in my studio, I don't have a place where I go and I I just socialized with peter. Why? Because you're the family first demographic, the case I break down all four demographics and twenty eight days what? His family first she's time poor yeah, because she has a family and the family come first she goes from home to school to home. Yeah, she is the biggest internet researcher of all four demographics because she's at home, the first thing she's gonna do and she puts her kids debaters go online, you know why, because you can't go out I could go out, I can pick up my keys and my wallet and walk out the door at any time because I don't have children, you can't do that, you go out online, so all of your marketing is online in in it yet is and it and it and it has been, and I almost I have aired greatly in a lot of things I've done, which I can move forward incorrect, which I know will help and to resolve and for me to grow in lieu of that, I've always I've always felt whether wrong or right that it's almost like a potluck in the sense that you're you're throwing a bunch of stuff on the wall and hoping that some of it sticks no, it it's not very specific let's be a little bit more specific. This is how specific were going to get I just posted dawn's story on my block. Oh my god, don't my double gang or not me it's got your name on it, so I didn't post your website or anything like that yet, okay, because you're a weak and progress, I could not read out the story today because we don't have enough time and I could have spent the whole day tomorrow doing it dawn has a really unique story, and she's tracked it from starting to failing abysmally, um well, actually starting. I love I love his story it's long and it's with the raid it's on my block it's in bed with so and bid was so dot com forward slash blawg board slash I've just posted it at lunchtime and it says dawn's journey starts here on creative life may twenty second and so what we're gonna do is I was so taken by the story because it was so painful to read, but so perfectly true, and not many people are prepared to be dead on us. And blair said it last night when you were that honest half of our job is done because there is no b s you add to the point, this is where I met. This is what I'm struggling with. Help me all my god, I'm closing the door, I'm stuck and I'm broken, okay? So this is what we're going to do. I posted your story on my block. I did ask stone if I could do that and we're going teo jame beggar going to consult here regarding the winning side of her business. I'm going to consult here regarding the portrait side of her business, and we're going to see if dawn continued around because dawn's done something that most people that will ring true for a lot of people, she moved to a new city she went from a small city to a big city with some of the best wedding photographers in the world and when she got there she hasn't had one winning booking in that city since she got there so as far as she's concerned she's dead in the water so when you read her story on my block you're going to see why she's dead in the water because everything about her language is I was never gonna be able to make it this was never gonna happen for may so how does she get noticed in san diego is a new photographer a completely new brand doing a new website introducing a new genre into her business and we're going to track it so it's going to unfold on my block because I feel like some people don't understand how hot it wass for me everybody just thinks it looks so easy for may I can stand up here and cry I can tell you the story oh my god ivanova get I clawed my way through the face for things years off my career could desperately clung to survival for getting paid and yet I stand here now the successful end and you'll say but you're so bryce oh god if you only knew the irony of that statement so what if I can show you through dawn and you see who truth because she's failed so badly and so perfectly at the same time yeah I'm about to show dawn that her greatest weakness is her greatest strength, because I believe that is everybody's answer and you need to find what that is and if you need to know it's, the thing that has been in your life for many he is that you struggle with and you have to find a way through it. And I believe she continued around in a city is biggest san diego, I believe that so read her story and follow from here on in, but what you're asking me for specifics would come down to a consultation now I worked that out about you in five minutes. They work that out about you in five minutes they read what I read, we were not together in the same room. That's why we me and and these girls do what we do because to me it was in your face, your language, your body language, the way you apologize in your work in your website and you reeked of it. To me, it was written all ofyou defeat, you know, no purpose, no idea had away move forward. I'm stack how would take action? Where do I go from here? And exactly what you just said it's not specific enough to may well, if they're two hundred and fifty dollars an hour to consult then you would have to find five hundred dollars in order to get two hours of consulting from two people that will change your life, but I bet you could find five hundred dollars either shoot will pop up, something will happen you will get that money and you will be able to do two hours consulting with them and then you'll create an exit plan that is specific to you what I'm telling you all out there is you can shoot by practicing to shoot but no more going and learning to shoot in person do as much as you can in real time I want to see you shooting so if the workshop is not a shooting workshop if you're not actually shooting, if you're watching someone else shoot, don't waste your time I won't need a start shooting and shoot in shoot in shoot in shoot in spain, your money on refining how you're going to share that how you're going to package that how you're going to produce that and if you find that that's not your strength that you can't be all those things, then you need to move on and it's somebody else be them for you so that you can be what you were good at and so I'm going to enjoy watching your story unfold and get specific about that and that's going to come down to a consultation with both of us, okay