The Evolution of SCP's Pricing
Sal Cincotta
Lessons
Class Introduction
22:15 2Establishing Goals
37:21 3Establishing Goals: Advice for Beginners
17:36 4Establishing Goals: Advice for Intermediates
14:33 5Establishing Goals: Advice for Established Businesses
26:28Specialist vs. Generalist
41:04 7Pricing & Packaging
45:11 8Shooting to Sell: Big Prints, Albums & Products
23:59 9Pricing: The Digital Negative Controversy
26:21 10The Evolution of SCP's Pricing
37:04 11Student Q&A
19:05 12Defining Your Style: Consistency is Key
09:14 13Defining Your Style: Advice for Newbies
51:27 14Defining Your Style: Advice for Intermediate Studios
14:03 15Defining Your Style: Advice for Established Studios
23:49 16Next Level: Medium Format
08:56 17Branding
09:28 18Next Level Products
21:06 19Marketing: The Other Half of Your Style
05:58 20Marketing for the Newbie Studio
26:38 21Marketing for the Intermediate Studio
20:35 22Marketing for the Established Studio
25:39 23Networking: Who, What, When, Where and Why
31:06 24Customer Service
49:08 25Best Practices: Seniors & Families
40:51 26Best Practices: Babies, Glamour, Engagement & Wedding
28:29 27Best Practices: Backing Up and Equipment
12:48 28Best Practices: Sales
42:22 29Best Practices: Post Production
09:54 30Training Plan
13:24 31Husband and Wife Teams
1:15:36 32Husband & Wife Teams: Stories from Facebook
14:36 33Insourcing vs. Outsourcing
14:17 34Business Types
21:03 35Building Confidence
17:51Lesson Info
The Evolution of SCP's Pricing
So pricing foundational to your package structure your ala carte pricing, this is what you're charging for each individual item, and I will tell you there's no formula for pricing allah card it is whatever scares your clients away from that party or menu. So whatever you have to raise that price to raise it, there's no, like three hundred percent markup, none of that stuff because none of it makes sense, right? And eight by ten is going to cost you two bucks three hundred percent markup is not the right price for so you figure it out. We'll look at our ala carte menu. We've gotta punish bad behavior if you are coming into my studio trying to buy an eight by ten trying to buy us one sheet of wallets got his bad behavior, I am going to punish you, and I'm gonna punish you by high pricing there's no other way around it. That being said, I want everyone to understand that we still have clients that walk into our studio and buy two prints makes me crazy. I don't understand why they do it. I...
don't understand why they came to us, but they'll pay three hundred dollars for a session fee and then buy two eight by tens. Makes no sense whatsoever even though it happens to us I don't dwell on it right? I don't dwell on that just like I don't dwell on the client who comes in and spends ten grand on a portrait session it's all about averages that's all that matters in your business what is your average so money will follow the path of least resistance we spoke about this already if you have clients that are ending up on your ala carte menu consistently I'm not talking about the one off right eighty twenty rule if eighty percent of our clients are ending up on that ala carte menu or fifty percent or ending up in that ala carte menu that's on you you've got to make an adjustment there okay, so uh they don't they walk into your studio they don't want to spend money when clients come in they're not looking to spend money in your studio they actually don't want to spend money right? So it's kind of you against the wall it and you wanted your pricing sheet to make sense um it's your business ultimately and you have to control your own destiny or repeated theme here okay if you want to go out and you want to make more money, you gotta start charging morning gotta start having a little bit more confidence in what you're doing while my while my imagery changed from a wayto nine okay, I got better and better every year my pricing was typically ahead of where I was as an artist my my pricing was forward because if I book a wedding today I'm usually booking you for a year out. So right now my pricing is where I wanted to be next year not necessarily this year so hopefully that makes sense so here's some ala carte prices for you guys to see um gifts, sizes fifty dollars and I am going to show you my two thousand nine ala carte prices but gifts sizes are eight by ten four by six is five by sevens wallets okay, so that's what we're charging for uh gift sizes and then wall portrait and first of all let's go back to this fifty bucks the fifty box like I said it's an arbitrary number if I were in new york and I charge fifty bucks, I'm probably cheap. Okay, so you have to understand your local market this number on the card all that matters is you are not having clients purchased from here that's all that matters. So whatever number you have to be out that's the number you should be at and I had ah husband wife team come out to st louis recently and we were talking about the cost of an eight by ten and for them it was it was all an ego thing and they realized because at one point in their business, they were charging one hundred bucks one hundred fifty bucks for an eight by ten and now I'm talking down to going to fifty or lower for an eight by ten it was an ego check for them, right? Because they're like, no, our business is defined on how much we charge for an eight by ten, and we're one hundred fifty dollars or one hundred dollars, eight by ten studio, and then I asked the question, how many of those are you selling? Zero so if you're not selling any, who cares how much they're charging for it? In fact, you actually scaring clients away? If you go to high and a client calls, and they ask how much is an eight by ten and you have a number that comes across his offensive, they're not going to book you, even though you know they're not gonna buy a thousand dollars eight by ten, right? Let's just be ridiculous in one thousand dollar buy ten they're not gonna buy it what's gonna happen is you're gonna scare them away. So you've got to find some balance in that number portrait sizes, guys, I don't, we don't have to sit here, I'm not going to take you through everyone but here's what's important notice the structure first of all we don't offer every sides there's no sixteen by twenties there's no eleven fourteen's if you wanted to sixteen by twenty you'd pay the same is a sixteen twenty four all right we're just gonna cut four inches off so it's the same thing same price noticed the price increments as you go from a full size it's one hundred dollars price jump and you're going to see that it back in two thousand nine same concept so the price might have been lower but the jump between sizes was one hundred bucks so this is consistency in our pricing this framework and that's all it is your pricing is a living breathing document is not set in stone we move our pricing not are all a card by the way we move our package pricing up and down all the time every year twice a year it's constantly moving all right is we jumped to canvass notice the difference between campus and a prince so a wall portrait and these air all mounted sixteen by twenty four three ninety five but a sixteen by twenty four campuses six ninety five a fifteen by thirty seven forty five canvas uh where's fifteen by thirty four forty five print noticed that between a print and a canvas there's a three hundred dollar price bump for our clients that's very very important to understand as we're jumping through the pricing rankings here because we were telling the client how are pricing works? Oh, you want to pray, but now you want upgraded to a campus it's three hundred bucks extra and so our pricing is extremely consistent uh for our for our client base? What about other things? So other things were selling an emotive slideshow to ninety nine fourteen day web posting right? So we don't just post everything online for our clients sometimes once you posted online they're done, they don't even need to they don't even need thio buy anything from you they'll just screenshot everything posted on facebook and now you've got no sale and so they've got to pay for a web posting ala carte package wise, we'll have it built into, uh into a package facebook ninety nine dollars so facebook posting is ninety nine dollars, right? And that's their ordered prints on lee it's very, very important to understand thank you and save the date we produce it cost this is also very important o understand? Uh, the truth is I'm not making you know what? You can go to any of the labs and your facebook and, uh, I'm sorry your save the dates thank you cards, graduation announcements they're anywhere from like, what, two box tough four bucks, depending on who you know who you're buying from or dollar fifty four bucks depending on what you're getting right? Well how much would I have to sell that for to make any kind of money? How much do people how many save the dates is a typical wedding by seventy five to one hundred and so if I if I made two dollars per save the date card which is a lot, I'd make it most two hundred dollars that's not where I want to make my money and the truth is your bride they're going to ask for their pictures so what? So they can go to flicker someplace and online and buy their own save the date cards so instead what we do is we just say, hey, we've got better quality for you we've got better product for you from the labs pearl paper thicker card stock and we'll do it at cost, which is a bach to a buck fifty per card guess what's on there our logo, our branding so now that's free marketing so every time if you're not doing save the date or thank you cards, you're making missing out on a huge a huge opportunity for for your clients and for your studio because it's all marketing and branding so just get some templates man there's nothing wrong with templates I don't care whose temperature used where you buy them from get somebody's templates drag and drop images into this thing customized tweak the color but man, we're doing save that hr thank you cards we do not spend more than ten minutes working on these things because there's no profit in it for us it's all about having your logo on it for seniors we do yearbook ads you know how families in the back of your books say hey susie so proud of you. Congratulations. We do yearbook ads that we designed same concept templates and we drop it in there facebook timeline templates so the top we talked about this we sell these for ninety nine dollars not very expensive not really a profit center but if you sell it in a package right you bundle it it has to have an associate id ala carte price with it. So session fees what are we charging for session fees? This is very important. So salvador sin cada um photography for seniors, right? You've got a two hundred dollars session or three hundred dollars session local one and a half hours and when we promoted as up to one point five hours that's gonna be a two hundred dollar session five outfits on location which could be in st louis it could be chicago, new york if we're in that area up to three hours a time that's gonna be a three hundred dollar session families, babies, engagements bridles three hundred dollars session picture's not included, no cd no pictures it's time and talent that's my time on the shoot if they're not willing to pay up to three dollars for an hour and a half to three hours a time depending on what we're photographing what am I doing? Where am I going to make my money? That's not my client that's the client looking for the picture people fourteen ninety nine I'm gonna come in, bring my kids, shake a little rattle and get a bunch of pictures that's not what? That's not our client that's not who we're looking for. All right, what about implementation? This one? I expect teo spend a little bit more time. Uh, talking. So how do we change over from all pricing to the new one if you believe in anything I've told you right? And if you've done any of it in the past, this is where you're struggling and this is where I expect you guys online. You start hitting us with some questions here. Where are you struggling here? Because I do promise you it's not easy, it's not gonna be easy making that transition from where you were to where you want to be that's not easy because you're getting the clients you have today are going to continue to refer more of the same and so once you change your pricing and raising or change the structure where you're no longer shooting and burning all of a sudden these clients are coming tio expecting what you used to do now they're going to reject it and you're going to feel like and I know somebody wrote in and was asking me about that you're gonna feel like it's not working and to a certain extent it isn't working because you've got to go find the new clients you can't keep you can't change your pricing structure and think the same client's going to be there so for example let's think about if hyundai went from making low end economical cars and suddenly they wanted to be a luxury car competing with the mercedes bands and lex is that would not be an easy transition for them not to say they're not capable they may be very well be capable of producing that kind of car but I guarantee if they did it it wouldn't have the hyundai label on it I wouldn't be able to cause the brand disassociated with that kind of car it's just like thinking mercedes benz can go down and compete and I don't know if you guys realize this but if you go over to europe you see mercedes benz like taxi cats all right? But you don't really see that here because mercedes benz in the u s is a luxury car item but over in europe it's like it's a common car this is a little bit different the concept of the brand and even how it you know it transfers across the world is also different small changes are going to get you where you need to be bad clients refer more bad clients we need broad changes we need big changes to our pricing we gotta shock the system we got to go after the right kind of client that we're looking for and ultimately who doesn't want to shoot less and make the same money or more so let's say you raise your prices but your book and your perfect case study you to write that we talked about this earlier let's say you raise your prices and you dropped two three four weddings doesn't matter right because now you're getting into a whole new circle it's a blip it's going it's going to level off right one year and then it's going to take off again once you start getting the right referrals coming through your door we need separation from you and the other studios remember what we're talking about here we're talking about implementing new pricing and pricing is what's going to separate you just by being more expensive than anyone else you've automatically created separation maybe good may be bad and so the key is understanding that with that separation okay you've got to now deliver the right kind of products you can't just raise your prices and do nothing else different that cannot be the message you get from me out there if you just raise your prices and don't change anything else shooting style editing product you're offering it's not gonna work and you're gonna scratch your head and go this isn't working what he's telling me to do and the people you're seeing online talk about success and the people here in our studio audience that air talking about success are people who've made broad changes not baby changes um when you initially make these changes it's gonna hurt it's gonna be painful um some of you will be lucky you'll make the changes and it'll happen overnight you know, robbie, you've had immediate success making this change is jules you have immediate success making these changes, but I guarantee you there's people who have made the changes and it hurt and for us and our business when we started making these changes it was painful. There was a three to six month window where we were in limbo we weren't booking any more events and it was at that moment I realized it's because I'm advertising to the same bride I'm connecting to the same bride I gotta look for that different bride and once I did that, everything else changed because imagine if you go to a bridal show who here was telling me about a broader show that has a seven year wait you are so there's a show here in seattle there's a seven year wait been on it for two and a half years so you get your half years so that must be a damn good show is it a high end show? Yeah okay so here's a high and show when you go to that high and show if you don't raise your prices higher and then I'm doing now hiring then you're doing although that's fine so but when you go into that show the reality is you're probably not going to see the same broads that you were seeing at the lower end shows, right? We can all agree to that so there's no preconceived notion that your prices have increased do we agree that they have no idea what your prices used to be all there comparing you two are the prices of the people who were in that room? So if the average photographer in their mind you I know I said don't worry about what other divers they're doing I'm just trying to get you comfortable with this concept if the other photographers in that room or higher price you raising your prices to match that level it's not going to be a scary as you think, but if you just raise your prices and keep doing what you've been doing for the last year two years, three years that's when it gets really, really scary ah studio overseeing home let's, come back to this the importance of studio samples in making the change if I make this shift and you double your prices or go up by fifty percent, whatever you raise your prices by and you don't have samples new album's, new acrylics, new medals to showcase your clients how do I make the connection that your brand is worth more than the other company I just saw? I've got to be able to touch and feel the difference and you've gotta invest in those new products, especially albums that's very, very important studio overseeing home I think you've got to get to a point as you start growing your business and implementing these where you're working out of a studio a true environment, right? Bobby, you made that change gangbuster since you're making that change, you can only bring so much business into your home. And when we started off for the first two, three years, we're working out of our home, but as we started raising our prices, we realized we can't charge the money we're looking to charge and operate out of our home. It was convenient was cost effective, but ultimately it's not gonna allow us to do what we're looking to do I have a question from taylor howard photography and I pretty much know your answer is gonna be sal, but do you recommend people do many sessions discounting the session fee that way as the false sessions are coming up these are requested more and more what your thoughts yeah many sessions can be really powerful you khun doom or but ultimately just doing a mini session we're gonna come back to the same thing we can't do in many session hand over the cd of images we've got to do in many session and bring them into our sales process so the mini session is a great thing and once again I always related to a real world scenario rewind two years ago I think it was we rented out busch stadium so home of the st louis cardinals I rented it for the entire day and I ran thirty minute many sessions for families, seniors, anybody who wanted to shoot on the field I think we charged about two hundred dollars per session the session fees and we shot we started shooting it somewhere like nine a m and when all the way till about seven p m something like that all the sessions booked out in less than five hours and so we ran a post on facebook limited time limited number of siege boom all the sessions booked out the session fees covered the cost of the stadium and so that was a brilliant move for us well, guess what now? Because I'm not just handing you over a cd of images are you gonna buy pictures from a place that is completely unique? You don't have access to? Of course you are. And so on that single day we ended up turning about a ten to twelve thousand dollars profit just on that single day many sessions so I'm a big fan of many sessions a cz long as you do something unique if you just do many sessions in the park, I don't know what's so unique about that, so make sure you do something that's kind of unique so that's a good question gpm photo just yesterday, a client asked me to remove two of my five, pull through adam's for my black cable package and reduce the price of the package. How do you answer that? Or avoid that happening in the first place? Also here's the thing man, if you follow it sounds like he's following his is my model right on the bottom of those packages? You should say collections cannot be altered. That should be number one and number two. The price of the package is going to be able teo signal the package might be, you know, two thousand dollars value for thousand dollars, and when you start saying your clients is guys, unfortunately, is packages put together based on specials and pricing I'm getting for my clients. I can't lower the price because I can't discount something that's already been discounted and as you can see, this has always been discounted by twenty thirty, forty percent so good question, but it sounds like you're not implementing everything so you got to bring all that strategy into play can't just take one piece of what I'm teaching you got to do the whole thing all right? So we have half a dozen people are asking about this including johnny, ella and christie l photography and aaron very when you made the leap to studio did you have the money saved or do you take a risk with alone and there's so many people asking how did you make the transition to a studio to a full two full studio? Okay, so I'm gonna share something I've never really talked about with anybody, really the one story everybody knows about me is back in two thousand seven we were probably sixty days or less from bankruptcy because I just went out I took a risk I am a risk taker in the last five years you've watched this audience has watched us grow and create new businesses in the photographic in industry I have almost bankrupted my company, I am going on three times in five years and so I don't say that is a badge of courage what I want you to understand is I'm a massive massive risk taker which is probably why I don't gamble too much in vegas because I would lose everybody you do gamble in vegas yeah but very little very little money man I know what to do I'm an entrepreneur I love business and if you believe in yourself and you believe in the product you're offering sometimes you have to take risks if success was easy everyone would be successful it's that simple it's not easy successes ugly success is messy and success is riddled with failures okay and so I risked everything to get to the point I'm at today multiple times yet another reason my wife has me on probation uh this year just kind of rebuild everything so when you go from wanting to jump from ah full working at home to a studio we did not have anything bankrolled we did not and the studio you saw earlier today or you see on facebook right the million dollar building we just purchased that was from saving money that one right we didn't have that money but my business has been grown without ever taking alone obviously we had to take a loan for the building but as faras gear equipment marketing advertising it was built with cash from the business now you know when we talk about risking the business I don't want anybody believe that we've risked our business because because we were selling something that was inferior or we were irresponsible when you want a business, the life blood of your businesses, capital, when you're investing back into your business, you're taking all that cash flow think about a payroll taxes that's when you see a business like american airlines filing for bankruptcy, right, do you do you really understand what that means? They didn't they're not going out of business per say they need to restructure and what that means is they're kind of running out of working capital, you need working capital to keep your business moving, to make payroll and all these other things that go on that's where I've risked my business, you start growing so quickly, okay, so if you are running a sustainable business, you have income coming in, sometimes you've got a by into the future, if that makes any sense, right? If you know what you're gonna look like next year in your studio, you've got to make that investment now you can't wait until you need a studio to go look for a studio, you have to start looking for one now and robbie, I would say that's, what I pushed you to do right when we talked last time you were here, I was like, you know, if your ass and go do it now and you did right, and it wasn't necessarily tell me if I'm wrong what you wanted to do with the moment, but it was what you needed to do no it's it's exactly what he said it's what I forecasted where I want to be a year out on dh like you said, we spend every dollar you know from like last year we made into it so invested right back into it, but now he set himself up right that's kind of a slingshot, a launch point into where he wants to be next year, but he would never get to where he wants to be next year if you just kept waiting waiting, waiting. So if you're at home and you're thinking, do I need a space yet or not? At the end of the day, you don't need to save up every single penny before you go do it because you'll never be ready. There's always something nagging for our money, right? So sometimes you just gotta believe in yourself and take a little risk not too much risk, like I mean, I think I think I'm out of control sometimes a little bit uh reads and tough tootle and I know miley hope as well has been talking about this is their reason for session fees rather than combining in them into the package price I know miley says that their country I forget where it is, I apologize that, you know, people are not comfortable with the idea of paying for a session fee and then paying even more for for prince that's crazy talk yeah, you want to if you want to alter what we do and kind of build a session fee with included prints or prices, you contrive that we tried that it didn't really work here's why? And that doesn't mean it won't work in your market, but here's, why I didn't work here let's say I come up with a session fee of nine, ninety nine and for that nine hundred ninety nine dollars, that includes up twenty by thirty campus, right? I'm just making up what's in their includes product at what do you do when the client doesn't want product acts? Now of a sudden, you've got to start altering your offering, okay? Because they go well, we don't want twenty by thirty campus we want for eight by ten prints what's the price you start getting into this situation where suddenly you don't really have a set fee, you're locking up your time and your average session is moving all over the place, so that's reason number one we stop doing it reason number two is if a client spends in that session fee nine ninety nine. Getting them into the studio and thinking they'll buy mohr and you'll have the opportunity to upsell becomes impossible because mentally they think I've already spent nine ninety nine I don't have to spend another dime we're good and so we tried that we tried it here we call that a print credit right? So if you buy this package you get a three hundred dollar print credit you buy whatever you want five dollars print cards you buy whatever you want and what happened was clients would start coming into the studio and by just the print credit and not spend any more so that actually heard us so we stop doing it yeah faras session fee I think your session fee should be like the very minimum the minimum that you want to walk away from that shoot with even if they don't come back in to buy any prince you're still happy that you made two hundred dollars and a half hour to shoot them that's exactly right your session fee is for your time driving there gas everything that's engaged in producing that chute so that is a very important point it's got you've gotta get paid for the time you're you're investing into the shoot and don't be afraid to charge for your talent are you an artist or you just a gargoyle with a camera just going out with the camera and don't worry about it right charge do group on do living social do those things and you could charge forty nine dollars and shoot in the park and you you'll be good, right? But if you're an artist you want to charge a little bit more we're in the homestretch we're going to see some scp pricing here side by side from two thousand nine and two thousand thirteen and the reason I'm putting this up here is to really, really drive the point home that everything I'm teaching you is everything we've been doing since about two thousand eight, two thousand nine two thousand seven we weren't doing it we're floundering we didn't understand it two thousand two thousand nine we came up with what I call a system if you will and this is the way it has been since on the left hand side is two thousand nine these have not been altered this was a pdf document on my machine opened it up copy pasted or took a screenshot so you concede here notice that the concept of gifts sizes wall portrait and one and a half inch campus portrait have remained the same from o nine or o a all the way to today so you're talking about something that's been in place for damn near five years it works stop trying to tell me how it won't work it does work on I'm not in some like far off country I'm in st louis, missouri blue collar, conservative america and so this is the stuff that works gifts, sizes twenty five dollars and then the eight by ten is if it was fifty dollars back then, okay? And so what you're seeing are the subtleties of how we've changed this. And so if you flip over to the ala carte on two thousand thirteen now all gifts, sizes or the same price because what was happening was no one was buying eight by tens money's like water follows the path of least resistance they were buying for by sixes and I'm like, dude, I don't want to sell four by six is I want to sell no four by six is it's not what they're coming to me for today we sell hardly any four by six is why? Because it's the same prices and eight by ten so just by altering my pricing structure, I am controlling consumer behavior that's the part you have to understand make sure you're seeing the structure here. Wall portrait sizes eleven sixteen was one, ninety five right? But notice the structure was still the same as you were jumping from size two size on the left hand side there you're jumping up one hundred dollars price points eleven sixteen sixteen twenty, four hundred dollar price junk it was easy as you go from size, size two size writes full size it's one hundred price one fast forward to two thousand thirteen eleven sixteen is now two, ninety five this is cho's you it's a living document. We've raised our prices, so no matter where you are, okay in your business you can adopt this pricing model and find success so you don't have to be up here and beat fifty dollars or higher. You can see that your gift sizes khun b twenty five the truth is you should never be less than twenty five it's too cheap and you're losing money. The truth is, if they come in and buy an eight by ten and twenty five dollars and you start figuring out all your total costs involved to produce it, you're more than likely losing money notice the sizes though no, even two thousand nine we were not offering eleven fourteen or sixteen twenty it just it doesn't make sense, it doesn't come off our camera that way, that was a medium format size and so we don't want to offer that we want to offer the full size as close as we could get. Yeah, I got a thirty forty in there but that's just any bigger it starts getting too big for your clients and then of course, custom sizes available upon request oh, this is a blast from the past under the one and a half inch cameras we used to offer something twenty four by thirty six I forget the company name that used to produce him maybe some of you might remember it was an oil painted canvas and so you would send them a print and then they had a machine that would oil paint over the print actually was gorgeous it was just too traditional it didn't sell, so we eventually dropped it right? I personally love this product, but here you go testament to what I've been saying all along, if it doesn't sell, get rid of it, it doesn't how matter how much you want it to be good, no one's buying it, get rid of it, and I couldn't do that couldn't give this away, and my margins were horrible, that particular product cost me nine, ninety nine, and I was selling it for fourteen, ninety nine, and so the truth is I really didn't want anybody buying that it was it was a loss leader for we're gonna drill into this on the left you're seeing our package is from two thousand nine and on the right you're seeing our packages from twenty thirteen on the left and I'm going to zoom in so you can see it a little closer there's four packages I'm so anti four packages it's not even funny look out confusing this was we had a silver collection of gold collection, a platinum collection of black label collection, so even back then we had a black label collection, but it was so confusing to figure out what the hell was what and so as we drill into this look what was in our black label we had a sicilian siri's and engagement session all my god and engagement video you have no idea how much work it was to produce an engagement video so we would get our clients out there tell us what you love about each other do some highlight reel stuff I was losing money, so people started booking this to get the engagement video and then I had to start producing the video and I'm like we need to stop selling this package. It was it was killing us you get an engagement guestbook and engagement frame or an event frame that's that loom of you frame that I talk about rights and led lit frame if you don't know out there and you haven't heard about it bloom of u lun view e we did a bridal session damn, you could get south and taylor at your event that is no longer possible there's no scenario unless we're doing video and photography that taylor and I are at the same event there's no way as two photographers were locking up a date for that but back then, man that was gold were like oh, we want to sell our black label black label black label full resolution ah, digital negatives from your wedding but we were clear it was on ly from your wedding. So not your engagement session, not your bridal session. Not none of that. All other stuff and it was digital negatives. Ten hours of coverage, thirty percent off any video package. Webb ready digital goodies so what web ready digital goodies word and you might wantto re incorporate this into your package. Brilliant name. They'll write goodies. Yes, that meets my brand web ready digital goodies. We're facebook ready images so it was all the edited images with our logo on them just rendered through through the engine fully edited on a cd so that they could post them to facebook personal website for sixty days now let's think back man go back to two thousand nine right? This is the time social media starting explode oh eight o nine so we didn't really know where we were going to land on any of this stuff look at it today today what if we pulled out? We no longer do the engagement video that was a loss leader it just says two photographers notice the coverage though not ten hours of coverage up to ten hours of coverage very very important distinction don't look look at my pricing today and maybe if you're beginning look at what it was back then and incorporate those changes why do I do up to ten hours of coverage because I don't want that bride looking at me going you left after nine hours and twenty minutes you owe me money back why should I just stay there to take pictures for the sake of taking pictures how many of you today are doing that where you're like damn it we have ten hours of coverage but we were done it seven in seven hours that happens to us all the time the event is going smooth things they're done they don't need ten hours of coverage well I'm not giving you ten hours I'm giving you up too so if I'm done I'm done we've incorporated something called client for life so climb for life is once a year every year you get a free photo session family session pet session whatever the hell you want uh you get a dvd sideshow so that's our an emoto slideshow that's built in where we didn't have that back in the day that wasn't even inexistent back then for us no web ready digital goodies no full resolution right? We have high resolution so a change in language and then we highlight what high resolution is we highlight the size of the file check out the platinum collection though you might be looking at some of these, right? You go two thousand nine nobody's really seen this? And I haven't taken any questions. But did you notice our pricing in two thousand nine was ninth out? Eighty nine hundred dollars for black label. But we've actually today my black labels actually cheaper there we see that it's five hundred dollars cheaper. You might be thinking my he's going backwards. I'm actually not going backwards. I didn't sell. I hardly sold maybe one of these a year back then if it all today, seventy percent of my weddings or black label so what's the point of having something price high if nobody's buying that, does you? No good problem. Number one problem number two I have a higher profit margin today at a t for ninety nine than I had in two thousand nine at eighty nine ninety nine this was not following my fifteen percent cost of goods. This was costing me damn near forty percent. If not, mohr cost the goods. So this hurt me every time I sold it. So it wasn't it you could be an eagle. Meaning I could be like no, no, no, we can't we can't work for less than nine thousand dollars that's just not gonna happen or you can look at profit margin for me, I look at profit margin. I've got a massive profit margin in what is our black label today, even though a five hundred dollars cheaper than I was back in two thousand nine let's go to platinum platinum collection notice we've got something called dvd proofing, so we used here you can see our digital negatives were used to pull through into the black label collection, and so pressure forced us in our platinum collection to now add them. So today, if you look at the right, the digital negatives are in the platinum collection on the right in our middle package, because clients, they're not going to spend that level before they get their digital negatives. Two photographers look at the other, pull through back then it was sal or taylor, so we use the fact that you could get me and taylor at a wedding as a pull through. We sold. That is a bonus. If you go black label, you get both of us at your day and we had to preface it with, if available right? We didn't want to stop somebody from getting black label just because taylor wasn't available. Um, look at the print credit, uh, that was brutal three hundred dollar ala carte print credit towards your wedding prince. This became a nightmare to enforce because clients were trying to get it on their engagement prints as well. And how do you tell them? No, they're like a print credits imprint credit. And so this became a nightmare. Same thing. Web ready. Digital goodies. Fast forward to today. We've still got a ten by ten album. An engagement session of bridal session. Two photographers, high resolution digital I guess, from your wedding up to eight hours of coverage day of events slideshow which is? We produce that slide show at their actual wedding, right? So we pull out a projector, replied a screen and we show a, uh probably a ten or fifteen minute slideshow of pictures from the day. Can you see how this framework is the same today as it was back then? It's a living document, the framework is the framework is the framework and that is key to understanding what we what we've done over these years is this document is a living document. Let's, look at the rest of this. So then we had a gold collection which had dvd proofing right? Those aren't negatives. Dvd proofing are all the images. On uh it's from a company called emotion media we still use them from time to time emotion media produces a dvd that you can put in your computer put in your your home dvd player and you see your image is as big as your screen but you can't print from it it's a really good solution for instead of doing printed proofs printed proofs are very expensive but then look at this silver package we had twenty nine, ninety nine this is obviously gone. This was there to get the phone to ring and so twenty nine, ninety nine we were able to save prices start at twenty nine, ninety nine. Okay, but the truth is you only got six hours of coverage. One photographer and ah press printed album the capri series on was a press printed album. This is something that today that beginning photographer khun khun try and implement I wouldn't go with four packages would go three, but your base package can have limited coverage one photographer and it's more of an intra package to help get the phone to ring right prices starting at and then you're using pull through methods like multiple photographers, extra hours, better album digital negatives the digital negative should never be in your base package never that isa pull through item which would be in your middle or top package
Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
user-55a907
How is this just $99? I would of definitely payed at least twice as much!!! Half way though the course and this information is more than what the price is worth. Thank You sal, We love your great energy and amazing information.
a Creativelive Student
My husband and I truly enjoyed this informative course. We love the way Sal is straight to the point about things and how to handle difficult situations. Taylor was awesome and helped me to embrace who I am and make it work for me. We can't wait for another class by Sal and Taylor. Josh and Lory
a Creativelive Student
My husband and I truly enjoyed this informative course. We love the way Sal is straight to the point about things and how to handle difficult situations. Taylor was awesome and helped me to embrace who I am and make it work for me. We can't wait for another class by Sal and Taylor. Josh and Lory