A great pricing video

[sjackal]

[video=youtube_share;r3lervNPTgU]http://youtu.be/r3lervNPTgU[/video]

This series is really enriching to the new pros and seasoned ones alike and I think its good to learn together from the featured photographers.

I wanna share my thoughts views on the above video and like hear your discussion too.

My take on this video is that; if you want to enter or stay in this line you gotta build up your self worth and business skills, break out of the 'clubsnap hobbyists' mentality, and stop giving yourself excuses. I want to share something that I am sure many will relate; early on in the business I donno how many times I caught myself writing my desired price rate but when come to real client negotiation/quotations I find myself going below my desired rates. I can lie to myself and find excuses and claim 'economy bad lah, hobbyists spoilt market lah, now with digital very hard to price higher lah, or get the client first built brand later lah, etc, etc' but those are excuses, Excuses, EXCUSES. The fault is with self doubt and poor salesmanship, a problem with many artistic people. If this is to carry on I guess I better go back to being a hobbyist shooting sunsets, spiders and stray cats. Hell no, I started reading about Tony Robbins (a great teacher/author/motivator about sales) and always continuing to learn the business aspects from peers and senior photographers around, am very happy to say that doing a lot better than last time.

Please feel free to share your opinions and we can further this thread to discuss more videos in this series. The embedded video in this post is at week 15 already but we can go back to week 1's video next time.

 

[Agetan]

Interestingly similar to the way I price my work.

One thing for sure is, it is easier to offer discount then to increase the price.

For example:

When I first started, I set my creative session as $388 with some prints but no soft copy. As soft copy is always my bargaining chip.

Let's face it, most clients (I will say 95%) will want digital negative. My way is, if clients want it, don't sell it or sell it at good profit.

Of course, you need to first have something that the clients want.

Be honest, work smart and be rewarded for it.

Excuse is something you can't afford to have when u run a business. I often know I prefer not to sit down and work on the images or design album, but those are the starting point of all sales figure, so I stop my excuse and do something.

Stop thinking and start doing.

Regards,

Hart