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Lesson Info

Credit Structure and Pricing

okay I've explained the credit system so I really am this was in belize and maybes we covered it extensively so it's gonna be tough to throw this out here really quick but I want you to understand the concept it eliminates working with the dollar and it allows the clients to customize their packages so it's the best of both world it's kind of an all the carts scenario with a package concept things that affect your bottom line our session count changes cost of doing business your sales go up your costs sales go up and the economy which were had been struggling for a long time with the difficult economy in our industry it's also digital technology has hit a huge learning curve and a huge curve to our industry as well so in order to do this you have to know your goals how much money do you really want to make it photography and I don't think enough photographers ask themselves that question I think everybody's thinking about tomorrow and not thinking about the future and you have to that ...

is I think when I locked in and really became a successful photographer is when I put a number on paper and said I want that and that's what I went for er if you're at the point where you're not sure to raise your prices obviously if you're shooting too many sessions your prices are too low and if your profit that goal that you have is not in line with what you're making it's also the time that you need to refocus and make that happen I will beat this till my dying day time with your client's equals time away from people you love so what is your loved one's time worth we talked about that yesterday your minimum package on your priceless should be the least amount of money that you could make to be a successful photographers if you need five hundred dollars an hour you better not have a two hundred fifty dollars package was the first person that buys that puts you very far behind now you're priceless should be very simple and clean and organized less is absolutely more and when I do christ christ list price for these critiques on the forum uh oh man the ones I beat up the most and I am I'm pretty tough on the price list I will admit it because it's a big deal to me and if I see you with a two to three to four page price list I'm probably gonna come after you because if you overwhelm your clients they cannot make decisions and so that's where we talk about do you need to show everything you khun d'oh or can you make it easy for your clients to order is there a better way to do this and I mean I've had a busy prices and I've had an extremely simple one and I've just I've seen the difference and I've definitely seen the light that way now the credit system clients like thinking in terms of credits because credit is a positive words instead of cash cash is a negative word one hundred fifty dollars sounds like a very negative concept uh when they're using this they become less concerned about the cost and more interested in selecting what they want and clients are able to purchase their dream packages and they're not worried about the money and I'll explain how it works first of all when it comes to package is just do your clients really want what you're offering in your packages just like most people when I started packaging it was like you get to eight by tens to five by sevens and eight waltz for one ninety nine what if they don't want to eight by tens are you willing to exchange it out isn't eight by ten worth two five by sevens used to be in my mind it was sheets sheets of paper and uh it wasn't until I had this incredible experience with a mentor that sat me down and when I tried to explain my argument over sheets he looked at me and he said an eight by ten is not the same thing is to five by seven he said an eight by ten is a piece of art to five by sevens are piece of art for mom and a piece of art for grandma so how can you charge the same price for two pieces of art and it really hit me hard I thought oh my gosh I am an artist this's not quantity this is quality and I want to do the very best I could so I learned that being flexible and trading things did not work for my business model however I didn't want to punish people and force them to buy certain things so this is simply how the credit system works and I'm gonna use this visual phone as an idea if this were an eight by ten in my studio how much does it cost one hundred fifty dollars a time but you know she's she knows the credit system one hundred fifty dollars if you're thinking dollars so this is how I want you to remember it in my studio we use a credit system first thing you have to do is select your credit value how much is a credit worth that's negotiable that's up to you and your priceless then I'll explain so if this is one hundred fifty dollars in my studio one credit equals fifteen dollars so we take one hundred fifty dollars divided by fifteen and we end up with ten so an eight by ten in my studio is ten credits now I thought you were a client and I said to you I said if I said to you this eight by ten is one hundred fifty dollars or I said this is ten credits which one sounds better to you ten credits right why is that smaller number exactly so of course it sounds good I mean I have clients who literally will go how much is innate by ten and I'll say oh it's ten credits just said ok glady give me two of those what did she just do spend three hundred dollars why did it not bother her sudden feels like three hundred dollars now some people out on the virtual I know you guys air spu and you know me and so I know that you get the idea here but a lot of people out this is the first time they're hearing it and they're going ok that's just trickery or changing the numbers to make it work for you it's not what it is is it's separating the money taking the money out of the equation at the end of the day there can be no trickery because at the end of the day I have to look him in the eye and say your total is three thousand four hundred and ninety two dollars so I can't trick him into that there's nothing I could do but the reality is when I get them to that three thousand dollars I got them everything they wanted and when I get there they could make that decision and we tell people when we start this we explain the system and we say here's the bottom line we want you to get exactly what you want so let's focus on that and at the end of this sale when I give you your total if it's out of your budget if it's more than you thought you were going to spend just be honest with me and we could take things out because it's ten times easier to get people to take things out of the package than to get them to put expensive things into a package so that is the simple math in the simple truth of the credit system it's very very powerful and it's something that if I could show you the quote that come off of just the forum and on facebook of people who blip out they build a priceless we help them figure out the credit system they put it out there and nine out of ten times they're coming saying I just tripled the biggest sale I've ever had in my life it is it is really brilliant um this is from somebody monica didn't know I put this in here but this was after she came to every show yeah you just keep showing up um she plays she sent me to this long before you knew you were coming here but it said I had my best sell every today and I wanted to thank you for everything I learned at your in studio workshop fifteen hundred dollars wow thank you so much I had to bite my lip from keeping to keep from giggling during the cell but I did exactly what you said and gave her the total asked her how she wanted to pay for it and shut up and then she said she then said cash yea so that is an old rule in sales the when you give a sales total you shut up I hate using that word I was like my mom's gonna get mad at me but you be quiet because honestly the next person that speaks will lose thegame if you start to apologize or get nervous or be uncomfortable and give things away client wins if you say just like monica went through she said how would you like to pay for it and that that's awkward right that ten seconds fifteen seconds feels like it just a millennium of time when you're waiting for them and when she looked at you and said cash I bet you are ready to explode breathe out and you have to and you still have to look professional and act like it's just an everyday occurrence that the court got my husband isan that amazing though and that's what I want for everybody because it's that it is that's simple and it's just it comes from here and you have to believe you could do it and so this is what I'm going for is this kind of changes and believe me what's that okay so you're ten is one hundred fifty you tell him it's ten credits obviously you're going to get those clients ago well how much is the credit they do and price list it's on the presses it says fifteen dollars so they know that but again because they're dealing in small numbers it's just it's a matter of changing that out so it works really really well and I wish I had a ton of time to talk about this but one thing I do is I'm gonna mention a webcast we do full to our pricing webcast and they're only twenty bucks and we have one on you've done that one before yeah so it's we have another one coming up in a week and a half because I knew I was gonna have to have short time here and I want to make sure if you really want the full spiel you khun join us and learn the whole system and I'm not trying to tricky and to go into the webcast I'm just putting a concept out there but we are short on time so remember if you don't believe in your pricing and credit system your clients will not either you better stand up straight look him in the eye say how would you like to pay for that and then be quiet because it does make a difference you you have the control and when they see that you're confident they go wow she's good or he's good and they will go with it I'm going to give away a really big book so you guys better be crossing your fingers over there if you haven't won today uh this is a really big book of pricing this is everything to build an entire pricing structure isn't you you know what already hey it's beth all right bo like that you're not a credit system user yet are you no okay well I'm just gonna be interesting to see where you go I've redone my pricing in dollars but ive already set it up to transfer over two credits okay good very good and pro select now has because of what we have created in the rash of photographers that air switching to credits pro select now works in credits to it's amazing and that we will do a regular pricing women are and then we'll do a pro select specific pricing webinar a few weeks after that so uh it's six ninety nine value enjoyed it is my brain and I think we put it on sale on the web site to esso under the creative live tab it's I think it's either too forty niner only one ninety nine which normally it's three ninety nine on this is just through creative life there it is where will you be doing a pricing with credits online it's twenty bucks I would say jump on board if you're curious because it is it's a cool concept if not then we'll talk about it when I can come back into a full pricing show we'll definitely talk about it it is important that you signed your work in fact aaron was texting me telling me to sign these images back here she was mad she's like you can't say sign your work I have the pen we signed with the sick or a pen either a pilot or a stick or a pen extra fine point um you want to make sure that if you make a mistake if the print is coded uh you will use wd forty believe it or not don't spread on the print sprayed on a tissue wipe it off I've been using wd forty on prince for twenty years it does not hurt them if the sprint is coded I'm sorry if it's not coded used regular ink remover if it is coded you can use w forty if you use one on the other it will damage the print if you go on a coded um if you put ink remover on a coded print it will eat the coat coding off so coding would be uv protection or something that you would have your lab spray on top of the print yes ma'am I have two questions about your credit system about okay I'm just real quick do you have like packages where you can buy like you know five hundred credits for less money every time and that's the package concept is the more they spend the less the credits causton again if I had four hours we could cover all that but I'm glad you asked because it's all a car meaning they select the items they want but the more they select the more the price point goes down so it's really I'm trying think where I would have a prices everybody in the honest I don't dare say it because then I won't be able to find it but keep watching me on facebook and I will try to put a link to a priceless so you guys can study it and you know what a lot of the price of son you can do you can open those up big and see them and honestly just studying those half of them are credits and half of them are regular so just go to the pricing section on you can do and that's probably the best place for you to see samples I know the baby one is definitely credit system give you an idea of both ways to do it uh eight by tens and smaller our hair digitally stamped with my name eleven by fourteen tze and larger wall portrait's our hand sign just to keep that in mind and then of course getting it out the door everything has to be amazing I told you I showed you packaging earlier our new packaging totally different look and see style actually want my packaging to look just like this I love this blue white and red so I know that's not where we were going but I'm going back and I'm gonna say that's what I'm but right down to the delivery bags you want tohave you want those clients walking out feeling like they invested and obviously that goes grows with your price list with a twenty dollar eight by ten might not want to spend on a fancy bag but one hundred fifty dollars by ten is where you start to invest in higher end products all right do you really want to know how you're doing with your clients you have to ask we have customers surveys and we send them out three times we do one after the session we send out one after the sales appointment and one goes out with their order when they pick up we want that feedback a self addressed stamped envelope and we can we get to know what the client feels and believe me uh the good news is clients do you give you feedback the bad news is the majority of feedback is going to be the negative people who are upset we'll sit down and write you a letter people that are happy a lot of times forget it doesn't mean that you're doing all bad it means that you know thank heavens the people that are upset give you the opportunity to go back and actually solve that problem because when a client tells me we made a mistake I know I have a chance to go and rectify that mistake and that's very worth it to me