Ideas getting busier, I need help :(

[thereyougo!]

I don't have much to add as I'm not a pro. What I would say is that you have to keep your personal Facebook and business facebook separate. Have your personal Facebook set to private so that any snapshots you take aren't viewable by potential clients. A fun shot taken quickly is fine among people you know, but amongst potential clients is a big no-no. Plus you don't want to always be thinking like a pro photographer when taking fun family photos. You don't want to be thinking about how a shot you take when having fun with your children will make your business appear

 

[MLeeK]

I have raised my prices! I took the plunge and did it even tho it was scary! I got with my clients that I'm doing baby pictures until age one for and told them I would honor the current prices until their child reaches age one, so hopefully not to lose them. I may come off sounding dumb for asking questions that you already know the answers but Im asking so I'll know the answers too. I have made lots of calls and read thru many websites and have had trouble getting accurate answers. Since some of you have been here I came to you to lead me in the correct direction instead of wandering aimlessly thru all the avenues of information. I never claimed to be a business major and yes I'm having a rough start. Thanks for the continued support from those of you who are genuinely helping me. Same remains for those of you who leave less than helpful comments, may you never be in my position. I have learned so many things to better myself and I am proud of the progress I made. I didn't realize how much information I didn't have before I came to this website. I have also decided to keep my "tacky" pink in my logo. I have a brand new logo and the pink is representative of my personality and style. If some one chooses not to hire me to take pictures for them because my name reads in pink I'm fine with that. I like pink, so harass on. I'm sure there are other posts I'm forgetting to reply to, sorry. I am also working on getting my website in shape and putting the professional feel to it. thanks again everyone!

I didn't read every response here, so forgive me if I am beating the dead horse here. Your pricing is actually PAYING your customers for you to photograph them. You already know you need to get everything legal and on the up & up side of things. Then you REALLY need to take a good long hard look at your cost of doing business (CODB.) Here is a good CODB calculator for photograpehrs NPPA: Cost of Doing Business Calculator . You will need to have an entry in ever field-even if it is 0. If you have a 0 in there somewhere you need to think long and hard because you shouldn't. If you are using your home office that space costs you something. Yes, it's included in your household bills, but you NEED that space to do business. It's now a business expense. Same with the electric, gas, etc to run that portion of the house. If you are using a computer or camera or other things that you already owned, it's still wearing on them and you will have to eventually replace them. They are still an expense...

You've said you have raised your prices and Kudos to that. Your pricing is PROBABLY still working against you for your target market. Think about what we say here about goods for your camera... "You get what you pay for." That holds true in most things and MANY people will thumb their nose at cheap as being the AWAC or faceboook photographer.

And my last point on pricing-Work SMARTER not harder. Or most of us want to. I know I don't want to work 7 days a week, 10 hours a day for a measly paycheck. How many hours do you want to work in a week? You can make your money working 40+ hours or you can make your money in the # of hours you want to set for yourself, but you have to price accordingly. Your price point should be where you can make what you NEED to make in the hours you need to work. Shooting 30 sessions and busting your but 24/7 is kind of silly when you can shoot 10 sessions and work a normal pace. You don't have to take a million sessions. You don't want EVERY client, you want YOUR client. Price for YOUR client.

Next your marketing. It's actually working against you. Consider the average viewer that is seeing your marketing. Are they the person who is going to spend money on custom photography? And are the person who is going to spend a large amount of money on custom photography? Probably not. Most of your marketing is reaching the wal-mart budget people. You have to figure out who your target market is. In order to do this you need to figure out who you IDEAL client is. Not who your best client is, but the one that if you could find a million people exactly like THIS you would be rich. WHere do they shop? Where do they play? Where do they live? What brands do they use/wear? What is their income level? What do they drive? How large is the family? WHen you know who your IDEAL client is, then you need to figure out how to market to them. You have to hit them where THEY are going to see you. I HIGHLY recommend Mitche Graf's Power Marketing book. Excellent reading.

Branding is so important. I know you are clinging to your Logo and if you want to do it, that's fine for you. Is it the best move? probably not, but if you want to attract what it is going to attract then that is part of your target market and it's fine. However consider it long and hard as you are thinking in terms of branding. If Apple had been a typical Kindergarten apple with the worm in it would it have been taken as seriously as the apple logo is? Probably not. Apple has re-worked their branding over the years to attract a certain type of customer-their target market. Your branding may reflect your personality, however does it reflect the personality of the high income family you want to attract? It's your decision and you CAN do it with a kitchy logo, but it is a WHOLE LOT HARDER.

You have some things to learn yet and you know it. So work in what you already KNOW for now and add on more as you learn it. Don't try things out of your comfort zone until you learn what you are doing. It's a sure fire way to kill any business you may be building. There are many many resources for you to teach yourself from, but that's a whole different post!

 

[thereyougo!]

i might be talking out of my rear end on this, but i'd be inclined to not necessarily openly advertise actual fees too openly. It might make things less transparent, but one way of getting a 'quality' shoot would be for it to be tailor made for the client, so you encourage people to contact you to discuss what they would like. This to me speaks of quality. You have to get out of the Wal-mart pricing strategy. Value for beans and meat is one thing, photography is quite another. You can only say what something is worth in a more emotional sense with photography that's why it is so damned hard to do. Once you get away from the price per print thought process you can get people to buy into the photography as something that is not a commodity in the same way their groceries are. That I feel is where the secret lies if you want to make money. Value for money in photography for me, is getting something that makes me feel "WOW! That's amazing! I don't care what it cost, it was amazing!" if people are saying she's really good value, that means "she's really cheap" which means their expectations will be lower which you will most likely exceed (I haven't seen your shots though so giving you the benefit of the doubt), but that will not help you, as they will be looking for value not quality.

Don't know if this makes sense, but when I buy photos, the last thing I look at is the price. the price CAN be a deal breaker, but you need to sell the product before you get down to pricing in my view. I'm not exactly struggling for money, but was when my wife and I chose our wedding photographer, and the person we picked was the 2nd most expensive, and he was the one person who didn't give his prices straight away. He wanted to show us what he could do first, which as photography is partially art and partially commodity I feel is right. If you are good at what you do, then you need to charge at a level that is appropriate for your ability. If the level isn't appropriate you will find out. But don't sell yourself short as people will assume you're cheap. In the Uk cheap goes with nasty - cheap'n' nasty. Sell the quality, have a portfolio to show people and if they are in your area, do home visits, and give them a tailor made view of their session. They can order off a menu like they do in a restaurant.

 

[LiquidGrace]

I think it's important for you to kind of get more comfortable with your equipment before you start worrying about how much you're charging. Everyone grows and everyone learns at a different pace. There is no fault in that or in saying "hey I don't know how to use this." But I think what will frustrate some is you're 5 steps a head of where you should be. Almost like you're rushing the process that is growing into a professional photographer. I am by no means a professional photographer, but some things like buying a speed light and not knowing how to work it to me would kind of signify that perhaps your efforts would be best spent learning how to use it before you wonder about renting a studio and upping your prices. I could be wrong and I'm sorry if I am but it just seems like you perhaps rushed this process for where your current skill set is at. This is not to say you're a bad photographer, but when people say 'unqualified' I think they are referring to again where you currently are and where you want to be.

I wish you all the best and am sorry if this information isn't useful. My only advice is to take a step back and look to hone your skills and build a good business plan. All the best!