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Pricing

I think pricing is so important because pricing is time pricing good pricing is time with the people you love and that's really and truly what where I want to get and so, um, let's, go ahead and just I think we just dive right in. Actually, I'm going to read this to you, and I had it printed out because it's not the words, but uh, actually, I'll let the home audience read this I want to read it because this is a situation where on my forum on the sandy puts university uh, we have an incredible group of people were very tight community, we don't allow any personal anything. It's not a bantering forum, it is specifically for work, so a client, our student of mine did the model search that we taught you and she did it and she had a client come in and did a session of complimentary session with the free credit, so we're already starting here, right? We've got to get the client to hear she received she's, a newer photographer, and she's trying to build her business, and she received this le...

tter that I'm going to read dear photographer, I didn't see any now you gotta hear this, I didn't see any information on order four by six is what company do you go through to get them printed? I'm basically going to do in all the cards stuff for myself in grandma's, but everything seems pretty pricey ah girlfriend of mine is a photographer and she uses white house custom color and m picks and we've gotten great pictures through those means now right out of the gate, this woman is mentioning uh professional labs she's straight up telling this photographer like I know where you get your pictures taken or printed now would you consider ordering mind through there or do you have a certain place that you like to print them here's my favorite one one of them I understand you have to mark them up and you could and you can add to the above prices but I can't afford to get many pictures based on the price is that you gave me I'd liketo have digital copies too but your cost that seems impossible I love that she said I understand that you have to mark up and you can add to the but she's giving her permission now it's alright if you charge me a little bit more but for heaven's sakes I can't afford what you're talking about here and my favorite closer I'm a little is shocked at the prices to be honest in my experience recently I paid a flat fee that included the session and all of the images on disk and then I ordered prints in addition let me know what you think here comes. I'd loved to advertise for you and show these off on facebook. But that's not an option right now. That's taking the head and slam it into the floor is that you're dying here just because it's painful. Honestly, I've pretty much you know, I just know I've received something like you got that letter. You got it. So I know a lot of people at home are literally cringing at this and dying over this because this is everyday. Now, when you hear somebody talking about the fact that the last photographer shot the whole session, it gave the whole thing on a disk. They're putting this industry in the toilet. And you want to see me get mad about anything and it's, very rare that I ever, ever raised my temperature. But this is killing me too. It's hurting me too. So we have to educate everybody now. I was on a trip in my my students are very so great. I mean, I literally talked to them every day. In fact, like I said, I missed them because it's been a few days, but, um I didn't get this I don't get to see this as fast as one of the other students and a big shout out to lisa because I know she's watching, she does she has been with me for ever since I've done my swear my first show, she was there, she joined the university right out of the gate. She is one of those students that I have watched go from here to the top of the chain she is absolutely gonna kill it in the universe because she listens and does everything that other successful people are doing, period and it's incredible! So she actually answered this before I got to it and answer so beautiful, I have to read it to you because it feels like it came from my heart, but before we go to that, I want to tell you what this photographer's really expensive prices were because I mean, they must be pretty bad from what we're reading. So I emailed the photographer, he said, ok, so what are your prices? What? What is the range we're talking about? And I'm her prices the really expensive eight by ten and twenty five bucks is what we were were struggling with here, so this is where this is, where the industry is going for a client to be so obnoxious over such a small amount is really ridiculous so I want to read you the follow up letter and I appreciate you allowing me to do this because this is lisa's follow up that I swear I could have written myself but it's so beautiful hey, on it's something that I want you to feel because, it's, this is exactly how I feel about portraiture and what we do all right regarding my pricing, the price of my artwork artwork is not solely based on print costs. There are many costs associated with legitimately running a photography business, including educations, licensing, research software and a great deal of time for each client. I spent several hours of time I consult on a location and clothing. I traveled to the location I set up, I do the session, I put everything back in my car and I travel back to the studio. I then open the files and kev really select the best images to prove. After ensuring proper color corrections, I opened each file into a custom at it. Choose the exact actions of modifications that make each image shine. After the proof meets my approval, I create a slide show and maybe even a composite of the work showcasing which images work well together I am available to consult on ordering questions, and after receiving an order for my client, place the order with the lab that I have chosen to work with I check each print when it comes back to make sure that it is exceptional. If you compare my prices to other professional photographers, you'll find that my pricing is low. I will be raising my prices after the first of the year to make myself more in line with other professionals of my caliber count caliber. I do understand that not everyone could afford my prices. Remember there's, no obligation to spend anything more than your print credit and I would love to help you choose which image to order. Just give me a call and set up the ordering session. Now this is important about digital imaging. I know that my client's love the digital images for sharing online. However I am selling art for your walls at home. I want to give you a finished print that will stop you every time you walk past it. Sorry, sorry. My preference is that my clients invest in quality art pieces. Therefore the digital images are priced at a premium. The minimum print order of two hundred fifty dollars stands firm after all of the time and effort that I expend on each of the images. Each one is its own individual piece and is priced appropriately. And I think that's so beautiful kills me. It is spectacular because the truth is this is what we do. We're not selling a piece of paper it is entire lifetime of an experience. I am not selling a two dollar and fifty cent piece of paper. I'm selling twenty four years of my life and it comes at a premium. So keep that in mind. So this, of course, is this incredible. This was a great experience to see a student step up to the bar and hid it so brilliantly. And you know what? My opinion is? The client that received this, they're not going to become a great client because they received it. The artist that sent it it's gonna become a great artist because she believed it. Who? Moving right along. All right. The variables that affect pricing, the cost of doing business, the quality of your work and the proceed value of your work are the things that actually affect your business. You have to understand all three elements in in order for you to be successful. Quality and perception are based on the skill of the photographer, but the cost of sales is a fixed say a price and it's, the most important in being profitable. Understanding what it costs you for the actual physical pieces is very important. Quality and perception are based on the photographer and what the photographer is, what what the clients feel the photographer is, I know a lot of really amazing. Photographers that have gone out of business that have breathtaking work but they couldn't run a business and to be honest, I know a lot of photographers who are not very good photographers and they all I've met even a few that don't even care about photography has been money for them and you know what? They're very successful and they make a lot of money the difference between them and what I want for you is they haven't attitude of get him in and get their money and then that's it and they're constantly marketing to get new people in because they're not selling an experience my goal is to get them in to create a relationship with them and to photograph their babies babies that's what I'm going for oh my gosh when I get to the babies babies babies that's gonna be wow um enhance perceived value there is a second tier to this so you will learn in this this piece you learn as you transition into um mohr experienced your personal appearance and your mannerisms the atmosphere of your studio, our home studio your business ethics your do you have an identifiable style your staff, how they surround you, the presentation of your products, how you deliver and your studio's reputation and of course customer service these are what we call in enhance perceived value because these air physical things that a client has to experience with you and will help guide them on their decision to stay with you and we want to work on those as well what really affects your bottom line while several things changes in your session count the cost of doing business and you're a cot in the economy those air the three things that really can drastically affect your session or your your probability very quickly pricing structures are based on several things or there are several types I should say they're fixed structure which is like mine it's based on the evaluation of your cost of sales there's a competitor comparison, which means you go out there this is how I started you go out and get everybody's price list and you go okay, well, they're charging fifty dollars for an eight by ten I'm going to be forty four and it's based on no information the problem with that is you don't know that photographer what if they won the lottery and this is just what they do is a hobby or what if they're literally going bankrupt and you have no I idea and you just decide to use their pressing, you just can't do that and then of course the worst type is guesstimate that's where you just just you know, throw a dart and say, oh well, whatever it is it is and that of course could put you right out of business so you do have to understand the cost what it actually cost to run a business and what the actual product costs are. So what are your goals? You have to know that in order to build this priceless do you have to know what is it it's an actual number what is the number that's going to make you successful? How much money do you think you need to make as a photographer? Honestly what's I just out of curiosity I don't know embarrassing anybody what do you all think a photographer should make per year just throw it out there we're talking gross not take home pay the actual what is it good studios that's not to be yours good studios take home pay I mean I'm sorry gross take a guess eighty thousand eighty thousand one hundred, one hundred thousand I was thinking a hundred thousand would be my goal I get you there in like a couple weeks honestly, I promise you hundred thousand dollars is not enough honestly know you're talking you're not talking take home pay are you talking take your things were rose and that's with uh you know, like no employees I want you to make so much more than that and you can because if I find I know you're costing your overhead even working out of home there's a certain percentage of that money that has to go elsewhere so if you start taking off of that hundred thousand dollars, you're going to put yourself in the average income, I want all of you to be above average income, all ofyou, everybody out there, I want us to be successful, so it's okay, the hundred thousand over, I'm not trying to embarrass anyone because you're obviously just throwing out a number like I asked you what's wrong with five hundred thousand dollars with all right? So then then that's, you have to put it in here. If your goal is one hundred thousand dollars, you're only going to get one hundred thousand dollars change that goal in your mind, change it to what you really want. Now we're going to go through a process here. First of all time with your client it's equals time away from the people you love. I will drive that into your grave because you have to know what your loved one's time is worth now. I had the sweetest little facebook post yesterday because, ah, nice lady commented on that concept and she said, well, I don't have children and I don't have a husband, I'm single and I don't have that same, she said, I don't connect to that, so how how do I figure out what I'm worth or what my time is worth? And I feel like you have a harley do you have something that you want to connect? Teo, you know and that's honestly how I feel if you don't have ah husband that you want to get home too then if you are, I should say if you don't have children, do you want to tell your husband if you don't have a husband and get home to your motorcycle, just get home and get where you want to be and it doesn't have to be a person if it's an experience you want to travel, you want to see the world, then that is your time with your loved ones, which can be with yourself so we're going to establish what your loved one's time is worth in order to create an effective priceless you're going to know a few things the clients want freedom, they want choices, they wanna have unique products and they definitely want to get things that nobody else has. So when we design a price is your lowest faction, your lowest package option has to be the minimum you could make. Now this is where we tied into the time with the people you love if you've done the math, the stuff I'm about to teach you if you understand it, then the minimum package your lowest package has to be the minimum you could make per hour tow leave your loved ones, period does that make sense? So if you've done your cost of sales, you know your business, you've mapped it out and, you know, you have to make five hundred dollars per hour every hour you spend shooting, then your lowest package could be, what, five hundred dollars, you can not have a two hundred ninety nine dollars package because you can't afford it two out of nine, because the first person that does it, it actually puts you more in the whole than you think you're not just short two hundred fifty, you've got to do two more clients to get to bar. Does that make sense? So be careful. So we know we've established that. Now I'm gonna show you something really cool. We're gonna give away a pricing book later, and it has these actual excel spreadsheets in them. But these air fun. I also want you to know that you're not gonna run out by the pricing book that's ok, it is expensive, but it's also the entire credit system so it's for people who are ready to transition, and I'm not suggesting anybody go out by it. In fact, I'm telling you, you could do this yourself, um, there's a lot of brain in here, though we just happen to make these sheets to make it really easy for you but I want to show you how fun this is because I love numbers and I love plugging in things and I'm really one of those I like to speculate so I like to guess how much I'm gonna make you have to understand your goals I always say dream big we got one hundred thousand dollars goal, right? We're going way past that we're gonna be a real goal we're gonna put a successful go something makes us good money that gives us those extra things we want in life. Um, I want you to see the truth though what would it take for you to make a million dollars? How much work do you have to do for a million dollars? Think about it for a bit. Now I'm gonna show you a little chart and show you how it works let's say the perfect dream is a million dollars so we want the perfect life with our perfect dream. I only want to work three sessions per day. I only want to work four days a week and I only want to work half the year. So my goal is a million dollars and I'm going to show you this chart it's going to tell me that my cells average has to be thirty two hundred dollars per session that I do now watch this little video here you could see that in this little tried these air fun, we're going to type in those goals, so we want to shoot three sessions per day. We're going to shoot four days per week. That's a total of twelve sessions. I only want to work twenty six weeks out of the year. And so my sessions or three hundred twelve sessions. Therefore, at a million dollars, I have to make in the green box. Thirty two hundred five dollars. Okay, so how many of you guys air averaging about thirty two hundred dollars. Anyone so okay, so this might be a little extreme. Now I'm gonna tell you about the million dollar concept before I go on. Because before I take you down a reality, I want to talk to you about my world. When I was growing up in photography, nobody told me nobody asked me what my dream was. Nobody told me what a photographer, mate. I had no idea. Um, I thought it was a lot because photographers were really cool and they were cool clothing and that a big camera. So it had to be a lot of money. And so I set out to build the business that I grew and grew and grew my business well. But the time I was twenty eight years old, I was just starting to really get in the industry and learn and try to take classes and stuff. I still hadn't been knocked over the head with the reality of being a photographer. It was still like a dream and passion. So in my later twenties, I made a goal that I was going to make a million dollars in photography before I hit thirty years old. I'm very proud to say before I hit thirty on when I was twenty nine years old, I made my first million dollars solely as a photographer. Now if somebody had told me, I'd sat never like this and had people tell me that one hundred thousand dollars was the mark, I probably would have set that goal for maybe two hundred thousand dollars at thirty years old because I would always push nobody told me I didn't know, I just did what I thought I literally at that age, when I think a million dollars, that that sounds like a good number, I think that would be enough, and so I did it, and I'm very proud that I did that, but let's talk about sacrifice, what it took to make a million dollars, it took a lot took far too many hours away from my family, it took far too much of my heart and soul, and it wasn't worth it. And, you know, the funny thing is you took the million dollars, and I've come to the conclusion, the more money you make, the more money you spend, you don't ever get any more, but it took all my time away and it took out my passion, and it wasn't worth it million dollars was not worth it. So let's, take your goals, because now, you know, you can make a million dollars in photography. I made a million dollars dirt I've made over a million dollars in every recession we've ever been through. So are the last to that we've been through. So even in a recession, you could make a million dollars is a photographer. I promise you do I make a million dollars now? I don't, because I don't want to make a million dollars in photography. I make very good money. As a photographer, I shoot about half of the year. I make very good money as an instructor, to be quite honest with you, I'm not gonna lie about that. I love this if you didn't catch that, that I can't convince you now, but these are my passions. I make money following my passion and so it's monopoly to me, it doesn't there's no number. That is perfect. I just love what I do, and I'm very blessed that I could do it. And I and I I think every day I'm so thankful every day that I can do that so let's become more realistic. Let's back it down a little bit now you want to work for sessions per day, you want work five days a week and you wanna work fifty days out of the year are fifty weeks out of the air meeting. You're gonna get to at least a two week vacation. Um, your goal is now three hundred thousand dollars that tells you with our little calculated that your average needs to be about three hundred dollars. So now we're talking turkey here, like, think about this. You want to do four sessions per day? If you want to shoot five days week that's, reasonable, you're going to get you to explain vacation, which is awesome. You got to shoot a thousand sessions per year, but you're gonna make three hundred thousand dollars. Your cell's average only has to be three hundred dollars, I've got a lot of your doing that already, so you already on your way to making three hundred thousand dollars it's not that hard to do that. In fact, most of you are probably looking at a thousand sessions going I don't want that many sections and I don't blame you I would say that your goal should be to raise that sells average so this last little one we're going to do is to me maybe your idea of a perfect business now we're gonna do two sessions per day that's reasonable? I only want work three days a week now I have fifty weeks out of the army to get my to expect vacation and I but you know what? I just give you a raise. You're going one hundred thousand dollars and work less days per week. You just got to make thirteen hundred now remember that's an average? Does that mean every sale's gonna be at least thirteen hundred dollars? No, it means that some of them will be less than thirteen. Some of them will be muchmore and your average at the end of the year is going to be here. So just for fun because I love my little charts and I love looking at them magic um two sessions per day three days per week six sessions per week uh you're gonna be open fifty we are fifty weeks out of the year with a vacation I'm going to three hundred which is totally doable you make four hundred thousand dollars and you could do this now does that seem like a better dream than a hundred thousand dollars honestly does that seem reachable to you? Could you do that honestly and if if three hundred sessions too many for you then raise yourselves average let's get those prices up let's sell those product lines let's get you your dream but pick the number and shoot for the number and go far beyond what you think you could do because believe me you can do anything you want all right now we know how to handle the cost let's get going on the pricing in order to create an efficient and I do want to tell you again cost of sales is uh it could be a one entire day conversation I'm just touching it I certainly could teach it much better but we're out we're running low on time so we're just touching base and there are lots of books and education out there and that's how I learned to so you could get it uh you need a simple price list your client's only need to know the basics and you need to be prepared to answer every question I get asked this all the time if I in fact if you come to your coming to a studio workshop aren't too I'm so excited you're actually gonna be at my studio in like three weeks like you could take more of this difference is we're working from the management book and you are building your company so that's what we working on but one of the things they're going to ask you for a very soon in your paper you got to do homework we want your website and your price list and we talked about that your website is going to tell me what your work well I should say your price list is gonna tell me what you think you're worth your web site is gonna tell me what I think you're worth now when I get the price list and I warn you now if it's three or four pages and it has every products you have on available I'm probably going to come after you your client doesn't need to know all that number's scare people away so if you show them everything have you might be going but we have all these great products they don't need to know and they look as a tally and it's gonna cost me that and it's gonna cost me that and it's gonna cost me that and they start to shy away there are basic things that people need to know they don't have to know everything however you do have to be prepared to answer those questions in the studio in the sales session we have a pricing book so it has every product in there so we can showcase them the priceless that they take home is a pricing menu that's different it's a basic structure of what they need we want to make it easy for your clients to order we don't need to overwhelm them we don't need to have them stressing about money we want to make it simple place priceless should be simple organized and easy to read the basic clean information there are many types of priceless and you have to design one that works for you but you have to understand why it works for you the question is should you put your prices on your website that always comes up and I bet we're gonna beat you to it so uh um should you lister prices on the web site that is a yes no answer it is both yes and no and I'll tell you what yes, your prices should be online absolutely listen very carefully before you think before you do anything your client's should never have access to it without you giving it to them I do not have my prices on my website you can't go there and click a button that says pricing and find out what I charge because you know what at my price point if somebody went to my price list eighty to ninety percent of the people that saw it would never make the phone call I would scare them right out of the right out of the water however I have a lot of clients that fly in from other cities and so when they come in and we are when they contact us we have to do a phone consultation. I need to be able to address pricing so we have a girl to hidden you are el you could use a password type or just a hidden url and basically we give them that you are l and then they can go there and we do it right over the phone they go there, they're looking at our price list and we can have a conversation you know, my goal my goal is to get them in for that conversation but the rare occasion that they can't come in I do want them to have access to that. So as far as listing your prices yes, you should have him online. Nobody should have access to them until you give it to them and it's not a free for all its a consultation on ly basis let's go through the different types the price list there's ala carte prices everybody has your own version. All part priceless means it's just individual print prices it's a lot more flexible because the client can build what they want but there's no incentive to buy packages usually or what people were all ingrained to do that some photographers haven't ala carte price list and then when you hit a certain price point of premium you get a discount so at a thousand dollars you get ten percent off but remember your clients always looking at the edit as I got to spend a thousand dollars to get a deal it's it's a negative to me so I'm not saying all the cards bad we use all the cart in the credit system and I'll explain to you why packages are more effective for the average human mindset clients love the idea of bundling we all get the whole buy one get one to get two free but does your client really need or want the products that you're offering? Is this really what they want? Are you just making up a package? It's two eight by tens to five by seventeen eight wallace that's what you get well, what if they don't want an eight by ten? You're gonna be flexible? Well, the question is this brings us back to old school sheets because when I started photography and eight by ten to five by sevens and eight wallets were the same thing, so I priced them the same you could have this sheet, this sheet or this sheet for twenty nine dollars or whatever my price was I met a mentor that changed my life because when I asked him to review my price list and when he did and I hopefully haven't covered this yet but when he did he asked me to explain sheets, he said, what is this sheets? I don't understand. I looked at him, I knew he was a professional. I'm like it's sheets like the lab, you know, one eight by ten to five, seventy eight walsh your client clients love it. They can exchange, they can have whatever they want, and he looked at me and he said in eight by ten does not equal to five by sevens and I said, does they're like same size piece of paper on, huh? On he looked at me and this change my life. This is one of those big light bulbs. He looked at me and he said, sandy and eight by ten is an original piece of art two five by sevens is a piece of art for mom and a piece of art for grandma. How could you possibly charge the same price for two pieces of art compared tto one piece of art and it literally hit me like a ton of bricks. He was right. We're not selling sheets, we're selling art and if it's this big or this big, it is my work, my way, my soul and there's a price to be paid for that. And so I went home and I changed my price list, and I actually changed it over teo a system where it didn't matter what you bought an eight by ten or five by seven or four by five, it was all the same price because it was just it was a piece of art now, as an artist, it help me grow, help me grow the confidence to look somebody in the eye and say, this is my work instead of this is a sheet um and so of course, that was a good thing for me, but you know what? Honestly, there was a negative factor to it because you had clients, some of them accepted, but accepted some of it we're not accepting of it, they didn't like it and they've got frustrated and there were just too many times where I felt that negative, you know, battle between the relationship and I didn't love the power, but I didn't love the consequences that came out of that, so eventually I switched over to credits now with packages again, the buy more save what buy more, save more attitude, everybody gets the client's going to feel better about it. You also could control your costs because you know that this cost you this much every time you sell one, and it can packages can drive higher sales now we're going to go into the credit system which I'm so excited I've never I've shared this with thousands of people were not tens of thousands of people so this is a really big deal this could be a world movement here for the state of photography ah the credit system eliminates working with the dollar we take the dollar sign out of everything this allows us to customize and select only what the client wants they literally get to create their own package just like the ala carte would normally dio so we get the best both worlds I am a we'll create a package structure and they're able to design their own packages and we're going to explain that now let's talk about how it works and why this is super simple here when you use my cellphone here because I need you to use your imagination let's say this is an eight by ten in my studio what does this cost so I sell this for remember one hundred fifty dollars thank you to my studio and eight by ten is one hundred fifty dollars so you are my clients you sit down and I say uh you asked me how much is an eight by ten and I say this eight by ten is one hundred fifty dollars or I say this eight by ten is ten credits which one do you want to get ten credits end credits why smaller number it's smaller number it sounds a lot better, doesn't it? So you can imagine we're taking the numbers of dollar and the word dollar never came up ten credits doesn't sound bad at all have clients all the time that's sitting a sales session going now how many credits are an eight by ten and I'll say, oh, they're ten credits and she'll say okay, you don't go ahead and give me two of those then what did she just by three hundred dollars worth of eight by tens? But when she's thinking twenty credits it's like, oh, yeah, but two of those on there now before we go on, I have probably thousands of you out there going oh, wait a second that's trickery you're sharking your clients, you're tricking them to buy it's? Absolutely not because what I want you to remember at the end of that sail I have to look them in the eye and tell them their total right so there's no way out of it, you can't hide what you're going to charge them and that's important to know because it's not trickery it's not sharking your client we call this dream selling and this is the best part of my job because when a client comes in for a sale session, we sit them down and we tell them first of all, we're going to share with you a multimedia presentation. We want you to sit down and just enjoy the show. We're gonna show you images don't think don't try to remember anything. We'll go through them later. This is just for you. They're going to see a slideshow. The next thing we're gonna do when that's over and we see the emotion we see the ah, we're gonna turn to them and say okay, now I want you to do me a favor. I want you to pretend like, everything we have is free. Of course they go, huh? You're like, just getti ng on, I say, no, I know it's. Not free, but I'll tell you why I say that because you know what I want you to think about. This is an experience. Now, if everything were free, you get what you want, right? And they, of course agree. And I say, okay, well, here's the deal, we work on a credit system so the way it works, you get to select any product you want any way you want it. And we're gonna put it into a package so there's that that word were to put it into a package, and actually the more you spend, the lower your price goes per credit. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna dream cell. You're just gonna tell us what your dream is. We're gonna help you get there, and we're gonna put it in a package. At the end of this sale, I'm gonna give you a total. I want to give you that total. If it is out of your budget that's no problem. We could take things off and we can get it right where you want to go. But honestly, I'd rather get everything in the package that you want, and then let's take out the things you don't want. Is that so unfair and that's exactly what we do now. Do you know what is ten times easier to get people to take things out of a package than to get them to put it in a package on extra eight by ten and one hundred fifty dollars is a battle putting it in there and taking it off is not a battle. So that's why it works. And I think I'm going to see your faces. Do you get that? Do you understand how powerful that is? Because it changes everything. It takes the number out of the equation of the dollar out of equation. With the credit system, the client becomes less concerned about the cost and mohr interested in selecting what they want. Clients like things in term of credits are like thinking in terms of credits instead of cash, and the client is able to purchase their dream package without breaking the budget. We assure them going into it, we're not trying to take advantage of you. We're not going to let you overspend when you hit your mark. We're going to be right there for you where we're educating. You were taking care of you. Uh, super simple math. You've got it already in my studio. A credit is fifteen dollars. Now, where did I get that number? We're gonna talk about that. It really is an arbitrary number, to be quite honest with you. But it's, really? A matter of what your studio pricing is is how we teach it. Simple math. One credit is fifteen dollars an eight by ten to one hundred fifty dollars. So it if you were missing a divided son? Yes. Oh, eight by ten equals ten credits, basically, so divide one hundred fifty dollars by fifteen and you get ten credits now opening on. I got to show you how this work. So now we're gonna talk about the cost of sales. Well, actually, just show it to you, so this is how we're gonna type in the price the credit value here. So this is how we do our priceless with these cool little charts, fifteen dollars here. So now, over in the line bar work, we're typing in an eight by ten portrait. So the sizes, nate by ten, the description is a single print color corrected is what's coming up, and then they're going to be one of them. And so the price our retail price is one hundred fifty dollars. Now, this cool little chart automatically doesn't ask for a math for you and tells you that it's, ten dollars, if we were to change that to twelve dollars, it would redo all the math. We change it to five dollars, it will redo all the math. So this is why it's easy now for those of you, I know there are a ton of people that have the pricing book already, and they have these charts, graphs you could do this manually. You don't have to buy my book to do it and that's, the honest truth takes a little more time and that's okay, too, but it can be done once you choose your credit value, then you do the math. If you take every product, you have everything from wallet to a wall portrait, the biggest one you have and put them in the sheet and do the division you're gonna have your credit total priceless. So it's not hard. This is not brain surgery. I do want to explain how you come up with one hears we're going to change it actually to a five dollar credit cause I want you to see this, um, real quickly so it's same thing eight by ten portrait if we charge twenty dollars for a fire, our friend eight by ten now and it's five credits are five dollars a credit so that the credit total equals for now, I kind of I made that really confusing. The bottom line is the first one I showed you was one hundred fifty dollars, which is what my eight by ten is, so we use a fifteen dollars credit if your price point is lower. If you're in the twenty two, sixty dollar range, you're probably going to use a five to ten dollars credit. If you're sixty to one hundred and fifty dollars, you're going to use a twelve to fifteen dollars credit that's, not a half do that's a guideline because if you're using a fifteen dollars credit and your eight by tens are twenty dollars it's a one and a half credits and working at half credits is not fun, so if you do and mathematically will come up with a half credit, everyone sit around just raise your prices, make more money that's makes sense to me even lower if you want that seems kind of silly. So that's, what these two charges were to show you the difference? Depending on what your prices are, you have to pick the credit number yourself. You could literally play with the math all day long. That's why we created these charts is just so you could just type it in. If that doesn't work, type another one in you won't give yourself a pay increase, change the number of a dollar and you've made yourself a lot more money and it's that simple. Now again, when you choose your credit value it's based on your price point, so whatever your prices are, if you have around one hundred fifty dollars, eight by ten, you're going to probably want to be in the higher credit value if they're lower price twenty dollars. So what you can see is these air reasonable numbers to give two clients does not make sense. Um, and it works let's talk about designing a pricing guide. Uh, this is, um, example of the baby presses they released expensive price and this one's probably two or three years old, so our prices are a little bit more than this, but this gives you an idea of the all the cart page this is what the credits are worth notice we don't put any dollar signs in their uh seven inches five credits it doesn't tell you how much it is what my dollars we don't want the dollar so that's the whole point is to take the dollar signs off and then we go from there now here is the package structure with the ala carte prices so here's your allah card here's your packages so you could see the lowest package it's thirty credits for four forty nine highest packages again baby priceless seventeen fifty two hundred credits but guess what? It comes with a brag book and eight polls archival cd so they're gonna talk about that later why do they get some bonuses? Because we want them to spend that well we're pushing that sales up so what this means is they could take anything we sell and they could pick anything they want and make their own cousin package so even on our product lines they are going to pick and choose the ones that they like um and here's as an example this this one called in e squared um this is simply for five by sevens too horizontal to vertical in a frame I took whatever it costs me whatever I'm sorry whatever my retail price was going to be and divided it by fifteen and I came up with twenty five credits now let's say that price of friends go up and now the thie suppliers twenty percent more all I have to do is raise the price of the credit. So if this was twenty five credits um and I raise it two thirty credits because I need it's costing me more money guess what my client never notices if you take this frame and a client bought it last year for one of her daughters and it was two, ninety nine and this year it's three eighty nine she's gonna notice she absolutely we change credits all the time I've never had a client come up and say I think I paid thirty two credits last year they don't remember it takes all of the money out so you guys can see where I'm going with this it's fascinating to take money out of money it's the coolest thing ever and it works so this is why we do this now I'm gonna break this down because there is one more factor that you have to consider in this equation credits versus cost of your credit system versus your cost of sales. This is an example of a client coming in the door and let's say she wants that small package it's for forty nine includes thirty two credits so she says I want an eight by ten for five by seven eight wallets and of course I have to put it in a box so I do the math of what it might cost of sales these air the actual cost to produce an eight by ten and I come up with sixteen dollars in sixth six cents my charging her for forty nine so that's pretty good markup, right? We're making pretty good money now again, we know that's not your only cost you have caught you have your overhead and many other general expenses but just were looking at cost of sales. Now let's say the same client goes you know what never won, I don't even need all that all I really want is a frame with three five by five happens to be the same price a frame, a walled frame collage she was thirty two credits still for forty nine this time the flash frames costing me forty two dollars and fifty cents and the prince heir cost me two twenty five so now my cost of sales is forty four seventy five so it cost me twice as much to give her that frame, didn't it? Two things here number one I'm making for forty nine it's costing me forty four dollars I am still making really good money, however I lost twenty bucks, so the question is, well, how does that work out then? Mathematically, sometimes you're losing money, what it's about is finding balance because guess what, the majority of my clients by paper eight by tens five by sevens and watts and we know his photographers we make the most money we make selling paper. Our highest profit margin is an eight by tens five by sevens and wallets I make more money on something eight hundred dollars with eight by tens than eight hundred dollars campus print because of the cost of sales so if you know that the majority of your clients are going to buy paper, what happens is it averages out yes every once in a weird while I'll get a client comes in and on lee orders wal portrait that air framed with glass and those costs me a little bit more the other eighty percent of the people by paper tons and tons of paper and I make a lot more doing that so it's all about balance and if you find a product again if this was costing me like everybody was buying it because it was such a great deal and it was costing me too much money, what are we gonna do? Brace for credit price writes that simple so it will take it takes about a year to evolve into the system and to perfect the system we we're still perfecting it? Yes, I know you're going to do it because I could see your eyeballs are like this big we're done that rubber, the referral program and giving people on the referral program things you would mention cash, though. Perfect. Thank you. Great question. So when we gave out a gift certificate, we mentioned the total value because credits mean nothing to a consumer receiving a gift certificate. So, yeah, when somebody buys a gift certificate, we never sell gift certificates for one hundred credits. Okay? Because they're like what's that you know, but if we if it's one hundred credits, my gosh, that's, a lot of money, we would abs, silly state the value for an unknown consumer. We want them to think money it when it's in our favor for our clients, we want them to think credits. We want them to get out of the dollar system, and I can see that some of you guys really have it. And if you have questions, well, I mean, you're welcome to ask them now, but I'm gonna try to keep moving to go ahead. Ask it. No, no. I only question was you're selling to your clients? What if, um, you know grandma wants to look at the pictures or do you offer anything or online that work? Yeah, online. That is a great question. If somebody wants that, we get asked every day. Do you put the pictures online? No, absolutely not. We do, you smug mug. We put pictures online for a lot of reasons. We put them on for events and charities and things that we do. If you control the cell, you capitalize on the most money you could make period on down the chain. We tell people if you, khun, if you could project project if you can't project that big tv, if yu can't big tv than big computer screen and so on because you make the more you show, the more you make. So when it comes to grandma's and all the people that want to see the images there's several ways that we make that happen. But what we do is we tell the person like mom, come in, and once she places the order, we have a template. You have that template. Um and it is available, and you can't do what. You're gonna get a free credit today. So that's something that you should consider there's a referral template there and what it is is mom places her order. And at the end of her we do require that she comes in a place called and if she says, well, my mom would really love to see these and we say, you know what that's great because guess what we're going to send her we're going to actually send you are that some of these images are favorites images that you have selected and you're welcome to forward that on to her mom has purchased her order and closed the sale and now what we do is we have a template and we put anywhere from three to six images that they've chosen and we email it to the parents the person that bought the pictures and it says at the bottom it's their beauty is it remember it's a template so these air small files they're not going to be able to rip him off and they've already paid and at the bottom it says we just had a wonderful experience at sandy put support to design I won I was here a few of our favorites with you by the way, if you contact them and mentioned this email, you'll get a fifty percent off session so now mom gets that she's already paid we've collected her money, she gets that and she sends an email out are we sent an email to her now she goes, oh send us to all my friends to my sisters to my grandmother everybody now they have copies of those pictures but guess what they now called we have grandma's all the time saying oh my daughter sent me this can I get a five by seven of that print does that make sense now there are occasions where grandma's are involved and they need to order and in that case we would use something like smugmug or something like that but we will not do that until our client has placed the order we will not put anything online without that happening all right? So can we do we have time for a couple questions you can let me just make one closing statement on this segment because honestly in order for this to work you have to believe in it period I know there's literally half the audience out there going there's no way that won't work uh nohow it won't work for you honestly you're out of luck and I'm sorry I can't help you half of the people are like I think I could do it maybe I could I get the questionable part because it's a little it's a little overwhelming the first time but you know what? You could do it those who get love the big lightbulbs going on understanding that this changes everything you're going to make a lot of money honestly it's going to change everything and I'm here to help you I'd love to answer a million questions but I know this word has probably been beaten up a million times now, but I'm sure it'll be on my headstone when I go down but uh I'm going up bythe ground forever steaks um anyway uh in order for this work, you truly have to believe in it and when you do believe in it and you could look somebody in the eye and you could tell them this is what you d'oh they're going to believe in it too and that is what I want you to remember. Yes, ma'am well, a lot of questions about the credit system, so maybe the first question is where can you find out more information about oh, this is such a good just so happened so not me. Um unfortunately, I literally and I this is not gonna give one of these away and you're giving one of these weigh in fact, we gave the management book away. So this is this second companion to this I spent this is twenty four years of my life literally the entire system is in here everything how to do this is not a cell's bugged this just an honest answer. I put it all in here because I can't teach one at a time certainly can't teach it over facebook and that's what I end up trying to dio this is everything you need to dio all of those charts air tons more of those graphs and things to make it fun for you are in here and we also produced just a massive amount of priceless templates for babies children, families, wedding seniors you name it so that they're all customizable so it is all in here and it's on you can do dot com however, or if you're a member of s v u r university people, they know it if you're not, you don't have to buy anything. The problem is I don't have this much time to teach it I've given you what I can you have to believe in it first and then you have to do the mac it's simply taking and I'm gonna make this really simple take figure out the credit that you want to charge take every retail cost and divide it by that credit and that's your credit total and it's that simple I did it all by myself and I have a ninety created I don't have a ninth grade education I got bored with that so if I can figure out monkey math and anybody could do it, it did take me a long time and it's it's a lot of years of evolution but it can be done so I apologize that there's a a night um attached to it but that's just the truth trudi from trudy take pictures dot com is wondering how do you charge your family and friends and it's got different? How do you decide whose family are friends? And I'm gonna tell you, okay? You're killing me because I took that slide out because it's such an important slide last night but it does take a little bit of time and I'm trying to get through this but you know, what's funny I teach a pricing webinar every month and we have about three hundred thousand people at a time that actually go to it cause it's like two and a half hours and like, this is q and a, but that slide is the most popular slide in the world and it seems so silly, but I'm going to do it because you asked for it. So thank you, trudy. Correct. Thank you, trudy out there. Thank you. I'm gonna answer this question for you because this is and it's unfortunate comes with the story I said I'm tired I have to hear me all day law but it's an important story and it will it will. It will hopefully make a difference for you. Um I had the same problem that everybody has friends and family I started my business, you know, photographing my friends, church people, friends and then what happens is you evolve your business all of a sudden, you know church people, are they really your friends and other people who are definitely not your friends, but think they're friends or act like your friends when they come to buy from you? The same stuff happen to me? Well, there my honest answer to the friends and family question is simply this don't have any friends and family, and then you don't have to worry about it. Just kidding. Um, however that's kind of how it feels after a while when you feel like you put yourself out of business serving everybody else for free. So here's my honest answer, my family is everything to me, my brothers, my sisters, my parents, they nothing to come to me now. It couldn't always afford to do that. There was a time where I had them pay costs and things like that, but honestly, I hated that because I feel like they thought I was ripping them off for two dollars and eight by ten so we had this wonderful cure. This was a happy accident that I will never forget. Uh, my family lives out of state, so for me and that's, another thing is there far away, so I don't get it if they were at my door every step, every day, I might feel differently about this, so uh my family's out of town my brother came into town with this family had a beautiful family session breakdowns everything he came into order and I literally turned to him and I said, you know, brother won't even name his name bro I want you to get whatever you want there's no charge we're not gonna show you price let's just get what you really want I want you to dream big get everything you want so of course he and his wife sat down and they did they got holiday cards and wall portrait's and eight by tens and albums and all this cool stuff will at the end of the day we looked at the total and he had spent retail price well over six thousand dollars in his order now of course that's not quite what I meant when I said anything you want, but now I'm in a problem because is it? Do I go back and say, uh, what I said everything you want I meant like here, you know, I was in a very uncomfortable situation because I knew that was still going to cost me even at my cost hundreds of dollars and so I didn't want to take it back, but I was a little uncomfortable with that price point and it's not his fault, he didn't know you just we said go go nuts so this truly was an accident the first time, but it's not an accident anymore disorder comes in, put it all together. It had to be shipped out of state to him sales associate for the associate was putting it together. Didn't know was my brother. We have different last names and so she saw this massive total. She printed out the order and she printed out the total and she put the whole entire three page receipt in the box. Of course, my brother calls me hope. He's not listening. He calls me like sam uh, we got we got the order and it's, like really any stuttering is just so beautiful, but oh, my gosh, I had no idea it's six thousand dollars I can't afford that. Can I send some of this back? Of course. So it's literally. So immediate reaction was embarrassment. I was like, oh my gosh, mike, you should have never seen that. I am so sorry. You know, this was honestly since seriously like what I meant, I'm like I didn't know it was you and you should never have seen that and everything and he's like he could not stop talking like I cannot believe you charge that much for this many pictures look, I can't believe it and you know what happened? I saw this weird thing happened where all of a sudden what I did was valuable it was riel he realized that anybody that walked through my door to get what he got would pay six thousand dollars it changed everything they have been back since then and I do give it for free and you know what? They've never taken advantage like that they still get what they want but not six thousand dollars of what they want they're very gracious when it comes to that but they now know what its worth. So we accidentally always put a receipt in for our family even though it's free and that's something I I highly recommend because they need to know the value of what you do that's family that is truly you decided who your family is but my family's my brothers, my sisters, my mom and dad period friends, friends or a different situation I strongly encourage you not to have any friends teo uh it did get frustratingly awkward there for a while there's that transition where you've given discounts and given low prices then you have to make that change and then all of a sudden there's that super awkward moment and you have to go through it everybody does but there's a point where I decided this I decided my friends were just like my client's um and they were gonna pay regular price but I usually had a discount that was reasonable ten to twenty percent off friend discounted these air close friends. This is not the people who think you're friends. Ten to twenty percent was usually my standard off of my package prices now, um, when they came in and ordered, they would sit down and place their order, and you know what? I would watch them. And as they gave up a few items to stay within their budget, I'd write those down and you know what? They're my friends. And so almost all the time, I would order a few things that were gifts to them that they didn't know I was going to give them. So at my discretion, I would give them a few things. They paid full price or they paid because my theory was this, all of them had jobs, I would never walk into one my friends, husbands, doctor's office and say, you know, what? Can I get this for, like, cost? You know, I wouldn't have nobody doesn't. Why do people think photographers or cheek? Where did we're running a real business? So my theory was treat me like a real company when you're here treat me like a real friend when we're out of the you know, we were out of my studio, and you know what? A lot of my clients that are my friends, what happened is they would place the orders, and they'd be a little bit frustrated, and then they'd get a few gifts, and they'd be like, oh, my gosh, that's so sweet, and next time we crossed over, now it was I could surprise them and do what I wanted at my discretion, based on honestly, how much of a friend they really, truly worried to me, and that was awesome. Now, outside of that, everybody else is treated equal, people who think they're my friends, and I know your friends are not my friends, and honestly, I will tell you this, the majority of my friends do not come to me is a photographer, they goto other studios, and I'm totally okay with that. We're still friends, it's okay? I'm not everybody's photographer, and I'm certainly not affordable to everybody doesn't hurt my feelings, my friends, when they want something really special. Well, come to me, and I will give them something really special because they're my friends. So I know that's a long answer, but it's an important one, and there was one more your employees, you didn't say that one, but it'll it'll be you go look, it'll be there um employee discounts um there are two things were very standard we have a sixty percent employee discount twice a year thirty five percent off of frames and hard products that cost us more and that's not a super great discounted our price but I'll tell you why uh at the holiday time we give a gift certificate to each employee based on their ten year we average about one hundred dollars per year and so if a client if an employee's been with me for four years in addition to sixty percent off they're going to get four hundred dollars ben I want my employees to come in I want them to utilize my services I want them to be proud of us I want the level with if they can't afford us and they're not proud of our prices then how can they sell them so we do give them that so I have employees literally most of my employees have been with me many, many years, so I hope that says something about who I am people don't get me and people think of a very strong, very stand offish person and what people don't realize is I am literally the biggest introvert in the world people around me are literally protecting me from myself but my employees I mean, I've had some for you know, very refuses a couple years up to sixteen years so, aaron, wherever you are bye, erin, she you know, if she gets sixteen hundred dollars in photography, hopefully she could enjoy that and that's my gift to them as well. So does that answer that question who we keep going? All right, so and here's for all those you that really don't leave. You can take this one, though you say it can't be done, shouldn't interrupt those of us who are doing it. And honestly, I'm sorry. I don't even you know I'm not gonna apologize for that one just because I truly believe this and you know why I believe it. I was that girl that didn't believe I was the girl that stalled, and I was the girl that took time away from my family, thinking that cheap prices and doing lots of photography was the answer. Giving it to my friends was the answer. Giving everything for free was the answer. It took my life away from me for me to understand that you can do anything you want, just have to believe.