Brand Camp Blog

The first post of the new year.  No pressure, right?

I had no idea what I was going to write about.  Then I bribed my beloved Hermione into doing a photoshoot and was reviewing the camera card with Photo Mechanic.  (Fab program, by the way!)

Turns out, Hermione (upstager-extraordinaire) and Haunani (photographer, here) are responsible for the first post of 2010:

Aside from making me giggle, this image made me think about upstaging.  Particularly of the business variety.

It made me wonder what my clients and potential clients see when they view my business.  When they walk into the loft, are they seeing the lighting or the photography? Do I want them to note the atmosphere (homey and comforting) more than I need them to want a gallery-wrapped canvas?

What about you — your studio presence and/or your web presence? What do your clients see first?  What takes center stage in your business?  Price? Stature? Availablility? Images? Artist? Design? Doohahs and thingamabobs?

There’s no right or wrong answer to this question, but it’s food for thought that can make all the difference to your business.  Some photographers are absolutely fabulous at having built their photographic brand around their personalities, while others have successfully transferred readers’ attention to their breath-taking images.

Whatever your point of differentiation, make sure that your intent is being met.

Ask a few peeps what they notice when they visit your website or your studio.  Is your intention making its way to your consumer? I’ve seen absolutely lovely photography being completely overshadowed by doohahs on the website, and photographers who think they’re sending the ‘book a family portrait shoot’ message who are actually sending a pretty strong ‘book me to shoot your wedding’ message.

There’s no better time to define and REFINE your focus than at the start of the year, which I’m pretty sure is going to be your best yet.  Welcome to the year your business takes off, lovelies!

We’ve talked about calculating portrait prices and about being brave enough to price your portraits for profit.  You have the price of a 5×7.  You’re determined to charge appropriately for your time.

How do you get your clients to spend X, where X represents your happy place?

Portrait collections.  I’ll tell you, until I agreed to be the grammar fairy and sous chef for Alicia Caine, I thought portrait collections were straight-up stupid.  I tried them, failed with them, and gave up on them.  And then I got smart. I listened to Alicia.

Collections are building blocks.  If collection #1 has block A, collection #2 has block A & B.  Collection #3 — blocks A, B, and C.

If your collections are complicated, clients are going to buy items a la carte.  If your collections are designed like building blocks, clients will move on up the collection ladder until they find the one that suits them.  And then purchase it.

A quite spiffy example using arbitrary portrait products…

Collection #1:  5 8×10′s

Collection #2:  5 8×10′s and 3 wall portraits

Collection #3:  5 8×10′s, 3 wall portraits and the session’s digital negatives

There’s no confusion there.  The collection assumes that OF COURSE you’ll want building block A, you’ll probably want building block B, and we’ll do a dance all the way to the credit card terminal if you’d like building block C, too.  Your clients will be happy to enjoy savings over your a la carte pricing, and you’ll be happy to have reached your sales goal with ‘em.

If your brain just exploded because that’s so simple but you wouldn’t have thought of it, you should probably check out the Easy as Pie Portrait Pricing Guide.  The whole book is like that.  Code Camper30 saves you $30.

A lot of artists base their prices on things like ‘what they think people will pay’ or what they would pay for a product.  The sneaky ones just steal other people’s price lists (no, you can’t see mine, lovely, it’s been ripped off enough), while others just choose prices that sound nice.  The really crafty ones steal the price list of their competitors and suddenly appear with an identical one.

These tactics are merde.  Utterly useless, absolutely foul bile pulled from the belly of an ancient, stinking dragon.

These merde tactics fail to factor in YOUR costs, YOUR time, and YOUR expenses.  It’s great thatTiffany Teenybopper lists $15 5×7′s on her website.  Her website fails to mention that Tiffany Teenybopper has a minimum order of $750 and sells her $725 album with every portrait session.  Those $15 5×7′s only get sold so clients meet the minimum.  (Tricksy, eh?)

Likewise, if Stan Dingelhausen charges $3,000 for weddings, you think charging $3,000 for wedding coverage will be profitable, too.  You don’t know about Stan’s wife, Laverne, who can RAW-process all of Stan’s images in an hour.  You, on the other hand, process images slowly and clocked 23 hours of post-processing on your last wedding.

Since you have absolutely no idea how others price their work and value their time, others’ price lists are completely worthless to you.

So, how do you begin to craft a decent price list?  Value your time and know your cost of goods sold for each item you sell.

A VERY BAD EXAMPLE:

Sweeney Todd just ordered a 5×7″ print.  My cost on that item is $1.19 plus .81 worth of packaging, so $2.  I’ll multiply that number by 5 and voila!  A 5×7″ print is $10!

A VERY GOOD EXAMPLE:

Sweeney Todd just ordered a 5×7″ print. My cost on that item is $1.19 plus packaging, so $2.  My time is valued at $60 per hour.  Processing, ordering and packaging a 5×7″ print takes 10 minutes.  Therefore, my cost of producing a 5×7″ print is $12. I’ll multiply that number by 5 and voila!  A 5×7″ print is $60!

See the big huge difference there?  A mother of four may value her time at $80 an hour, while a photographer who’s just starting out might place the value at $20 per hour.  The cost of goods sold for an artistic product is determined, in large part, by the value an artist places on his or her time.

Other factors — like having to pay rent on a studio space, or a photographer’s average number of sessions per week — will also play a huge role in determining pricing.

If, for example, I pay $1300 per month for a studio space, my overhead costs are much higher than the photographer who works from home.  That studio space has to be heated, cooled, and maintained.  It requires internet and phone services, etc, etc…in this example, I have to make about $1500 per month to cover overhead before I can begin to make a profit. I might have to charge significantly more for the same product being sold in the same town to the same person to maintain a profitable business.

Please take the time to determine your costs, the value of your time, and your strategy for covering overhead expenses when creating your product pricing.

One enjoyable aspect of my professional photography career has been working with Alicia Caine, Montana children’s photographer and acute businesswoman.  Her Easy as Pie Pricing Guide helps many to understand pricing portrait photography for profit.

And yet, there are always those who have an excuse to avoid purchasing the guide, or to avoid raising prices despite the fact that they’re working for pennies an hour.

In honor of Black Friday, I did some comparison shopping:

If your 8×10″ print costs less than $23, your work is cheaper than the 1-hour studio work of the Picture People.

If your canvas prices start at less than $149, Sears is a step above you in the pricing food chain.

Check out the cost of a specialty 10×30″ print that can’t be printed within 10 minutes in the back of the store, won’t you?

Perhaps you’d like a 10×10″ print with a nasty Photoshop action applied for only $79.99…

Oh, and that 16×20″ print you’re scared to sell for $60?  It’s $99.99 at the big S.

Think your collections are too expensive?  The Picture People are offering groupings from $149 – $975. Yes, $975.

You’ll find Kiddie Kandids pricing similar to the others…about $20 per 8×10″ print.  Same at Sadie’s.

Did you want your portrait to finished in black and white, or to include a vignette?  That costs extra.  $1.99 per click.

Oh, you need RETOUCHING?  That requires a quote. And will add a few days’ time to your 1-hour portraits.

These chains are all based on volume to achieve profitability.  Of course, even Wal-mart gave up on this volume mentality, closed 500 of its studios, and now sports PictureMe Portraits, which is run by CPI Corp, who also handles Sears’ studios.

There ya go.  Let’s begin with all photographers everywhere charging at least $20 for prints size 8×10″ and under.  Part II: When You Might Actually Make A Profit, a post full of pricing tips, will hit Tuesday.

If you’ve had sense knocked into you all of a sudden, hit up the Easy as Pie Portrait Pricing Guide and enter code ‘Camper30′ for $30 off!

Your avatar should be a photo of you.  Not your dog, your wife, your child, your logo, or your new shoes.  You.

I felt like such a failure because I couldn’t find an image of me suitable for the @brandcampblog Twitter account.  And then my Mom sent me a stack of photos, including this one:

Note the classic Marie posing: smile, stand stiffly, hold your arms to your sides, get in front of a ‘pretty background.’  Of course, this image is backfocused, because that’s my Mom’s signature.  I’m in focus in approximately four photos from my childhood.

This also shows off my killer glasses — you know, the ones the size of my face that I threw a tantrum to get because they were so PERFECT — and my overachieving ways.  Badge after badge after badge.  I was a perpetual merit badge earner.  My Mom sent me a bag full of badges I earned that she never bothered to sew on with this photo.

My point?  Be personal.  Forget your effin’ logo already.  Get the camera out of your face.  Do dry cleaners have hangers in their avatars?  Do SEO gurus hide behind a laptop?  Let me see your face.  Even if it’s your face from twenty years ago, it allows human connection to happen on the internet.

Oh, and um.  Follow Brand Camp on Twitter, won’t you?  You can also score a mini-branding consultation with me while supplies last.