"Do you have any deals..."

[cgipson1]

Charlie, read the disclaimer in my OP I know that's a part of it, and even touched on it a few minutes ago - but I refuse to blame those people for my lack of success. There's a way for me to do it, just not how I'm currently marketing. I'm going to PM you in a bit.

It still affects the market... overall! When someone reads on facebook that a friend got 300 images on a CD for $50, they want the same thing (even if the images are crap!)

"WHAT??? you want $250??? WOW.. that is SO expensive when my friend got > (yadayadayada)!"

 

[amolitor]

Charlie, read the disclaimer in my OP I know that's a part of it, and even touched on it a few minutes ago - but I refuse to blame those people for my lack of success. There's a way for me to do it, just not how I'm currently marketing. I'm going to PM you in a bit.

It still affects the market... overall! When someone reads on facebook that a friend got 300 images on a CD for $50, they want the same thing (even if the images are crap!)

"WHAT??? you want $250??? WOW.. that is SO expensive when my friend got > (yadayadayada)!"

That downward pressure on prices is here to stay. A half a billion picture a day uploaded to the webernets, or if not really that many at least some astronomical number. It's *hard* to get your mind around the idea that some pictures are worth a bunch of money, when pictures are just about the most common thing in the universe. I can bang out 100 of them with my phone in 2 minutes.

 

[imagemaker46]

It also depends on what area of photography a person is working in. In my field of sports and working with a lot of amateur sports they simply don't have the money for photography, but will come to me anyway and see how we can work things out that will benefit everyone, I will try and work with these people because this is my area. I know what kind of money they have and a few of my long time clients have dropped me from their events because someone has come along and said they will do it for free, it's not the amateur I get pissed with, it's the fact that I wasn't given the opportunity to work out a deal with the sport, professional loyalty doesn't exist with many people anymore. Here is an example of how an event worked out, I was approached by group to shoot their big swim meet, they told me upfront they had very little money, the event was happening 10 minutes away from home and ran from Friday-Monday. The deal we made, they have me listed in their advertising/marketing/program/website that I was the photographer covering the event, I would shoot and upload all the photos to my website for high res downloads, the down side to this, no guarantees that I will make any money, I had nothing to shoot that weekend, so it was a chance. I shot the event, put the photos up, and what I shot was better than these swimmers would ever get. I told them I would sell 10 pictures, download was only $15, not much money for all the work involved, I did almost a $1000 in sales. What it all came down to was just taking a chance, and giving people options to use me as the photographer and not someone else. The risk of not making any money was pretty high, it worked out for this time, but may not the next time, but I will still use this as an option.

It's all about the potential.

 

[jowensphoto]

CRAP! That reminds me... I still have some film I need to take to the shop.

I hope you are charging a premium or there goes your profit margin.

It's an upgrade, so yeah - and the mark up is pretty high considering I have to buy the film, drive to get it developed/scanned to disc and printed... I make it worth my time.

 

[jwbryson1]

But the fact of the matter is, I'm going after a certain type of clientele and I'm trying to brand my business in a particular way, and if I get someone who thinks I charge too much, that means they're not my ideal client type.

^^^ This exactly. It's like the difference between being a lawyer who represents people who have received parking or speeding tickets, and a litigator who handles complex class action lawsuits. There is a need for both types of counsel, but you can't be both. So you choose what you want to do and you seek out **those** clients. Certainly, the universe of people who need counsel for a speeding ticket is much larger than class action plaintiffs, but that doesn't mean you must *settle* for those clients. Just my $0.02.

 

[amolitor]

And the LAST thing you want is some M&A guy trying to sort your speeding ticket.. might as well represent yourself!

 

[runnah]

CRAP! That reminds me... I still have some film I need to take to the shop.

I hope you are charging a premium or there goes your profit margin.

It's an upgrade, so yeah - and the mark up is pretty high considering I have to buy the film, drive to get it developed/scanned to disc and printed... I make it worth my time.

Don't forget the PITA charge.

 

[jwbryson1]

For the record, those attorneys who represent only speeding / parking tickets defendants make chingos of dinero....

"Chingos" - Noun. From the Latin for "$hitload." :mrgreen:

 

[runnah]

For the record, those attorneys who represent only speeding / parking tickets defendants make chingos of dinero....

"Chingos" - Noun. From the Latin for "$hitload." :mrgreen:

Thats why they can afford such great tv commercials.

 

[e.rose]

While I certainly won't shoot for free, I also don't intend to turn my nose up at an easy gig for what many would consider too little.

If a client has money he wants to part with, well, I want to be there when he does...

See... and that's the thing.

I HAVE shot for less than my normal rate for an *easy* gig. A literal, hey, I need ONE headshot for an audition I'm having in 2 days and I have X amount of dollars.

Okay, sure. Come on over, I can do that for you.

But the client that I just turned down recently wasn't going to be an easy gig. It was going to be a NORMAL gig. For severely less than what I would normally charge. THOSE... I will not get out of bed for, because I *do* spend a lot of time sorting, editing, preparing product, designing albums, stuff like that, in addition to consultation meetings and materials prior to the shoot, and an image premier and sales session after the shoot.

That's a lot of time, effort and some money that I'm not willing to put into someone who doesn't think I'm worth it.

But hey... if Joey has an audition and he needs a single updated headshot and he has $50 in his pocket... I'll spend 30 minutes with him until we grab one he likes... editing out his zits, color correct, and hand it over.

It's all very situational, but generally speaking... for my *normal* services... you get my normal rate. Nothing less than that.

::shrugs::

Steve - All I can really say is I'm jealous. If I didn't have a family depending on my day-job income, I'd have quit years ago and done the very same thing. Good idea for retirement I also don't want to set a precedent - in a small town, especially, word spreads quickly though it's not always a good thing. I want my business established as a luxury service/product and I don't want to open myself up to something that's negotiated THIS much (small discounts and an occassional freebie go far, but this specific instance the quote I gave and the budget the potential client responded with were no where in the same ballpark).

I'm going to rethink my marketing strategy.

See that's the thing chica... since you HAVE a day job... I know it seems like things suck, but you're in a very, very good situation.

I wish I could have brought you out to this meeting I went to the other week. It was super informative and encouraging............ but the bottom line is this:

You have a day job. You're NOT relying on photography for income.

So rather than trying to catch every person that comes through the door, make your photography business what you WANT it to be from the get go. It is NOT going to happen over night, so you have to be patient, but when it starts to happen, it will start to happen among the *right* type of clientele for you.

It's going to be long nights, since you work during the day and have a family... invest in some really good coffee... but if you want to make it happen you can, and you couldn't be in a better position to do it, because again, you don't have the pressure of NEEDING to shoot everything that comes through your door for your family to survive. :sillysmi:

Of course the ultimate goal is to ditch that day job, but when you start to see your business picking up and you get to a point when you're comfortable doing that... THEN you do it.

Different page, E! Start reading on Page 2... and work your way down (keeping in mind that some posts were modified or deleted by mods... you will see the edit notices)

Eh, I'm too lazy to go back. I started from the beginning, but I was skimming... or skipping posts that were TL;DR

 

[jwbryson1]

For the record, those attorneys who represent only speeding / parking tickets defendants make chingos of dinero....

"Chingos" - Noun. From the Latin for "$hitload." :mrgreen:

Thats why they can afford such great tv commercials.

That dork is a plaintiffs attorney for auto accidents, not a defendant's attorney for speeding tickets. This is the type of guy I'm talking about -- can you imagine having to actually TALK to this guy in person? He's not exactly Mr. Personality...

 

[runnah]

That dork is a plaintiffs attorney for auto accidents, not a defendant's attorney for speeding tickets. This is the type of guy I'm talking about -- can you imagine having to actually TALK to this guy in person? He's not exactly Mr. Personality...

Sorry but please forward all request to my lawyer, Adam Reposa.

 

[amolitor]

How do the speeding ticket guys make money? It must be some massive highly efficient operation, since there just cannot be that much money on the table.

 

[jwbryson1]

How do the speeding ticket guys make money? It must be some massive highly efficient operation, since there just cannot be that much money on the table.

Volume. Consider taking in $250 per client (minimum) and 10 to 20 (or more) clients per day in front of traffic court, times 50 weeks per year...

250 x 20 (average) x 50 = $250,000. Decent income in Houston.

 

[pixmedic]

all these pages in and IM still trying to figure out why anyone else cares a twig and two berries what anyone else is charging for their work.
Because it affects your business model? I suppose it could. not saying it cant. it affects OUR business model quite a bit.
We live in the Orlando area. An area that on any given day you can pull up 20 pages of craigslist photographers offering $25 mini sessions, $50 family shoots, and $150 weddings. A college town FULL of students that just discovered they can make some beer money with the camera their parents just bought them. frankly...it sucks when you get a call or an email to quote a price and are told that soandso photography on FB can do it for half that much. decisions have to be made. Sometimes we turn down a lowball offer, sometimes we dont. it all depends on how involved it is.

As some of you are aware, my wife only shoots part time because of our special needs child. even with insurance, his specialist visits get expensive, so turning down work is not an easy thing for us. As silly as this may sound to most of you, a quick $100 portrait session might pay for our sons visit to the endocrinologist, the neurologist, the geneticist, or his pediatrician after insurance. (the specialist visits are actually more around $200 after insurance)
Maybe some of you feel we are part of the problem. Just another photographer stealing your client that WOULD have payed your $4000 fee if we had not come along and done it for $1000. I know it hurts. we feel that bitter sting every week, with every ridiculous lowball offer.

Maybe one day we will be good enough, or business savvy enough, or successful enough to be able to turn down anyone but the clients willing and able to pay the highest premium for our services. Its a wonderful thought, it really is. But until that day comes, there are still times in our photographic career that SOME income is better than NO income. (especially considering what medic salaries are around here) Sometimes we just have to take what we can get.

Maybe we could blame the cheap FB photographers for undercutting the market. Maybe we could blame the over saturated market for not getting as much work as we want. Maybe we could blame our child for not being born "normal", and requiring extra care. But we don't. Whatever failures of successes we have are of our own doing, and we will fail or succeed in this world by our own hands....not by someone else's.

I suppose my point here is this...Dont feel bad about doing what you need to do. Noone else is providing for you or your family, so they have no right to judge how you do it. If you feel you need to take some cheaper jobs, then do it. Never feel bad about doing what needs to be done for your family.