$100 Wedding

It's Friday 5:45pm, I just got a phone call from Joe¹. He wanted me to shoot his wedding, in 2 weeks. A good friend of his brother in-law is offering to shoot his wedding for free. But he wants a "real professional" to shoot his wedding and his budget is $100.

I was both angry and wanted to "understand" Joe, so I started asking some questions, he was spending:

25% Off

As I have written before in Discounts and in Discounts Discounts that I don't like to give discounts. I am very firm on that policy. I give "freebies" and extras but not discounts. So why did I give in April a 25% discounts to a customer?

Aggressive Pricing

Price is rarely THE number 1 factor when hiring a photographer. Price plays an important role in determining where and when you are on the buyer's list. If a buyer is looking for the highest quality, she will not start by looking for the lowest prices. The higher the prices you charge, the higher the perception of quality of your work.

Some people are more sensitive to prices than others.

All other things being equal, people will buy the cheapest one. Luckily for us², we are not all equals.

• 2 photographers with the same equipment at the same event will take different photos³.
• 2 photographers with the same computer and the software will process their photos differently.

This week I had coffee with Georges, it's a French Georges with an s. It's the same Georges from: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. He just lost $3500 Canadian, or just under $3000 US, because he forgot.

Two years ago, he made some photos for a company that used his photos for a national ad. Georges realized that they stopped using his photos in their ad. So Georges took his courage in his hands and phoned to see what happened. Why did they drop his photos from their ad.

A photo business, like any other, can only exist if money comes in. As a photographer, how do you get money in? By getting paid. How do you get paid? By invoicing your customers. Do I hear Duh? There are a few studies floating around claiming that:

Build Your Portfolio

Sorry, but I couldn't resist. Over the last couple of month I have had to endure a few of these. And no, I have never beaten up any potential customer. I always explain politely that I can't afford to go out of business

Build Your Portfolio

When I take photos, I always get:

Can You Help Me Justify Spending This Much?

The Saddleback Leather Company sells leather bags. Everybody else sells leather bags, but these ones are expensive, tough and look great. Did I say that these leather bags are expensive? So how do you compete with Prada, and Tumi? Their bags are expensive, tough, look great. They have massive advertising dollars and the Saddleback Leather Company is small without the millions of dollars in advertising.

Everybody, I talk to, wants a discount. I hate discounts, I am tired of discounts, unless I receive the discount. But lately, it feels like I am so much more on the receiving end of the asking for discounts.

Not of my own choosing, but Canada Revenue Agency — CRA, the Canadian Income Tax people, have dictated that I have to make a profit! No, I am not kidding! As a small business without any other employee, other than the owners, we only have 3 years to turn a profit or...

New York, the centre of the universe, Wall Street has been seriously hit by the recession, banking fraud,... In the last year since January 2008, Wall Street has laid off 40% of its employees. The other 60% have had from pay cuts to no bonus⁴. It's been a slaughter fest in New York, especially Manhattan.

Jay Kos, an upscale men's wear boutique⁵, on Park Ave in upper Manhattan⁶ sells buttoned-up men's fashion—traditional hats, Italian-made shirts, cashmere sweaters from Scotland. Jay Kos is also the name of the owner of the "boutique". He put a huge sign in his window:

Charging for Travel

Should you charge for travel or not? It's a great discussion and there are many threads on forums. It's a question that people ask me regularly.

In the 1980s, I never charged for travel, but in 1991, I was at a customer downtown, when I received a phone call from Gerry, one of my "flux"⁷ client. They needed a quick portrait for one of their financial advisor. I was already downtown, only a 15 minute walk with the lights... "I should be there in an hour".

I was talking this week with Sam, a friend of mine. He was "complaining" that he has all the cheapskates customers. His customers don't want to pay for the 14x14 or 16x20 prints. So I started asking where he gets his photography clients. Many of his clients came from his wife, Airin. Airin is a "barterer". She loves to barter. Barter is exchanging good or services without using money and the keyword is exchanging and not the word paying.

Sam doesn't barter but many of his photography customers do. It turns out that he promotes, actually his wife, at places where cheapskates congregate. A cheapskate is a cheapskate. a cheapskate doesn't pay for things that are not a necessity. A cheapskate pride themselves on being cheap and how little money they paid for ... including photography.

SWMBO⁸ aka The Boss started looking for a Gucci watch for her birthday next February. She has a collection of them. Gucci watches mean "mucho dineros" i.e.: expensive. Last week she got a phone call from one of the most expensive jeweler in town, that they will be having a "sale" on Tuesday. Luxury and Sales. The recession must be on and it must be hurting. She went, saw the watch she wanted, asked for a big further discount, another 20% below the sale price, that the store manager approved. What a deal! I can't afford to save money.

Lets examine the situation:

Either you differentiate yourself, you compete on price or you will go out of business. Can you compete on price? You think you can?

1. With her cousin who just bought a "real camera" and will do it for free!
2. With millions and millions of photos on Flickr that is available for the tidy sum of $0.

The other day, I got a phone call from an existing customer. He wanted the same type of photo we did last time but much cheaper.

Do you know how much it costs you to be a professional photographer? Yes, this is you and your money. The cost of doing business is often as referred as CODB.

The CODB⁹ is what it costs you to operate your photo business. The CODB is the yearly sum of your business expenses. Here is a list of some of the expenses:

Do you know what your costs in producing photos are? If you don't know what your costs are, how do you set your prices?

• Pick from a hat?
• Match the competition?

Customer Finally Sees The Light

It's been a long term problem for me and my customers, they buy a photo, actually it's usually a series of photos, I get paid, then they decide the photo is so great, so beautiful and so wonderful will use it for their marketing piece and sell millions of dollars.

I come back to them to ask for more money and now they are not so happy with the photo. The photo is not worth 2 cents, it's a piece of shit. How could I do such a bad photo, and con them in buying and using it? Now that I want to be paid more?

Deadbeats

What's a deadbeat? It's somebody that owes you money, and is not paying it. You took the photos, you've delivered the files, you've delivered the prints, and they won't pay.

Is it your fault they haven't paid?

I have never shown a YouTube video on Foto-Biz.com before, but this one is fantastic. It's 2 minutes and 20 sec, short, sweet and discounted...

I hate discounts. I sell both prints and licenses for my photos. I regularly get asked for discounts. So I hate discounts (I love a discount when I buy something, but that's another story). Asking for discounts is part of the human nature. Look at all these people who are asking for deep discounts or even want your photos for free, when it's not even their money! They have no problem asking for perpetual rights and unlimited number of prints but they still want their salary and would never work for free.

Dealing with discounts

Discounts are never an easy thing to deal with. They very much change, depending on the mood, the business environment, the type of work, the industry and what I can get away with. I have set a policy, many times, but the policy change on regular basis.

As I get busier, I give less and less discounts, but give more and more extras. I wrote about this in: Discounts

You finally got a customer, a live one. She paid the $300 or $750 to book the photo shoot. She selected the "grand session" that includes 4 photos 8x10, 8 photos 5x7 and 1 photo 11x14. You came, you made the photos, you processed the photos and now you either go to her place to deliver the photos or she comes to your studio to pickup the precious photos.

Do you give the photos? or Do you start with the real "sales pitch". If you answered start with the real "sales pitch", you've just doubled or tripled your profit without increasing your rates.

As I have said in many postings, I don't like to give discounts. What I give frequently are "freebies".

Friends and Discounts

A couple of days ago, I had a discussion with John A. about giving discounts to friends and relatives. It turns out that we both had to deal with giving discounts to friends in the last month. The interesting part was that we came to very similar conclusions in different ways.

The question is you have a friend that knows that you are a photographer, they want you to do them portraits, cover a wedding… Do you give them a discount on your photo services? What about a discount on the prints? Is 25% off good enough? Or do I need to give a 33% discount or even a 50% discount?

A phone call. A live one, I have a "could be customer" on the other side. They are interested in my work, they want to do a photo shoot. The keywords are they want to do a photo shoot with me. It doesn't mean that it will happen. There are those little pesky details like rates, rights... It's so easy to forget an item that I made a spreadsheet. Here's my form:

A friend of mine, Dan¹⁰ is almost a full time photographer. His photo income varies from 50% to 90% of his income. He wrote custom software a few years ago and he still gets paid for support and changes.

In Canada, Hockey is very big, and now's the Stanley Cup¹¹ is on. The For the first time in many years the Canucks, Vancouver's hockey team, won it's first round, and will go to the second round. Since the Canucks are doing so well, many people and corporations are on the band-wagon. There are many Canucks parties and events sponsored by various companies. A local children's charity asked Dan to cover and make photos of an evening event, they couldn't afford to pay him, and it's a fund raiser... You know the whole song and dance. They have no money to pay the photographers for his photos, but they have plenty of money for the champagne, the food, and the entertainers¹²... Blah, blah... They promised him to have his name on the sponsors list, and his copyright notice on the photos whether they were used for print or on the web.

Gift cards are a huge industry! All the big companies are using them, from Best Buy to your neighborhood mall. Gift cards are so big that are gift cards conferences!

Time to issue your own gift card? Lately, I have been giving away $50 gift cards. My own gift card for my own services. So basically, I am giving away $50 discounts. But, it's not a discount... It's different from a discount. People ask for discounts, they work you, they nag, they complain, they threaten to get the discount. Once they receive a discount, they always want the discount. A gift card is different:

1. Do you bill by the hour?
2. What do you include in your hourly rate?

Recently a regular client tried to low-ball me. Mattie knew my rates, but she asked if I would consider going lower. Of course it would only happen once. Their budget is quite tight... Immediately, 2 things came to my mind:

1. If I give them a lower price, they would ask for it again.
2. Are they really having a tough time or is she trying to squeeze me?

You receive a phone for a photo shoot, they ask you for a quote. How may quotes do you give? One or two?

I always give 3 quotes, like Goldilocks:

How Much to Charge?

When somebody turns professional, one of the first question is: “How much to charge?” There are basically 3 different ways:

1. Time based pricing

How To Say No

I received a phone call for what would have been an important photo shoot. During the conversation, Sheila¹³ mentioned that she already spoke to 2 other photographers. She was trying to get the 3 of us to bid against each other. As I was asking questions about her requirements for the photo shoot, she mentioned that "another photographer" was going to do it for $3,250 less than my price. Was it true? or not? It was clear that was around what she was willing to pay.

I couldn't do it for that price; I would have lost money on this project. At this point, I knew that it was time to bail out.

Three of the most useful words. "I am sure" will be your best friend when you are negotiating prices for a photo assignment or for stock photos:

1. I am sure you know that… — Will transform your argument into a fact.
2. I am sure you understand… — Will force the other party to agree with you.

I don't really like it.

I had lunch with Dany and we talked. You know the usual: “how's business”, “how's the kids”, “do you still work with…” About halfway through the lunch, Dany pulled a printout. It's was an email from a customer and here's just the interesting part.

This morning I received a call from a web designer who wants me to make some photos for one of his client. I don't really know him, I just know of him through a common acquaintance. Right now, 7 photos for the end of next week, plus the possibility of more photos later¹⁴. We start to discuss design, format... no problem, yes, yes... Then I start talking money, budget, the amounts sound reasonable. I can make these photos and still make an almost decent profit, and finally I say:

All photographers [like everybody else] want to raise their income. There are two basic ways:

1. Work longer hours
2. Raise your rates

All photographers [like everybody else] want to raise their income. There are two basic ways:

1. Work longer hours
2. Raise your rates

The famous industry standards! Industry standards are great to justify pretty much anything you want or feel like...

and when you combine the "industry standards" with I am sure you get:

Inventory Turnover

Contrarily to what most people think, restaurants do not make money on the meals or even the liquor but on the "table turnover". The higher the table turnover, the more profitable the restaurant is. What's the table turnover? It’s how many times can they get new customers to a table on the same night. Their inventories are the tables.

Grocery stores have an inventory, the food. What do they make their profit on? Surprise, surprise: not on selling the food but on the concept of inventory turnover. If you do stock photography, photos are your inventory.

Keeping your eyes on the ball - Part 2

I have already written about keeping your eyes on the ball in many articles, especially with “Keeping your eyes on the ball”. Why am I bringing this subject again? Everybody knows that you should keep your eyes on the ball. So why again today? Because we have one of the “best” example of what happens when you don't keep your eyes on the ball.

President Obama. He has very important things that he needs to concentrate on. He doesn't seem to get it. This morning it was the Olympics for Chicago, the afternoon he “deals” with Afghanistan and the evening with health care.

When I negotiate rights or prices, I always:

1. Listen
2. Slow down the negotiation

Long Term Relationship

I hate it. I really hate that expression. When I hear this expression, I know that it's time to get my gun, my dog, the beef jerky and run for the hills. They are trying to “screw” me.

I just had this conversation this afternoon. They want the photos, they want them hi-res, they want to publish them and they want the copyrights.

How long can you loose money being a photographer before calling it quit?

Most photographers do not charge enough to cover their expenses. The expenses range from cameras, lighting equipment to computers, transportation... In Canada, CRA¹⁵ aka the income tax police has made the decision for you:

You can only operate a business for 3 years, if you are loosing money! After 3 years, the business must start to turn a profit or break-even. If the business does not at least break even, it's not a "real business" ¹⁶. CRA will reclassify your photo business as a hobby. Converting your business to a hobby means that CRA will disallow all of your expenses and reassess retroactively your taxes, penalties...

Lots of Visitors, Low Sales

I get a lot of emails, over a thousand emails per day. The majority is spam, and I have an extremely effective anti-spam system that cuts out at least 99% of the spam. But from time to time, I receive emails asking for help. Here's a recent one from Kathy:

I couldn't resist today's What The Duck

Loving It Is Enough

I just had a phone call from somebody wanting to "dicker" with my prices. If I lowered my prices, he would recommend me to his friends. After a few minutes, I basically ended up saying:

Money Back Guarantees

Seven weeks ago, GM, yes that one the bankrupt trying to get revived, announced in North America, Canada and the US a 60 days money back guarantee on Chevrolets¹⁷, Cadillacs and Buicks. I don't know if they have the same program in other countries. You can drive the car, the SUV or the cross-over for 60 days and up to 4000 miles or 6400 kilometers.

What large companies do when they offer an expensive guarantee such as money back guarantee on expensive items or good weather guarantee? They buy insurance from an insurance company, and it's cheaper than I thought.

Whenever I need to negotiate with a "soon to be customer" (I hope she will become a customer) and she asks for a discount or for... I don't like to give discounts. So usually, I come up with something else, but it's never the price she wanted. If this is not handled properly, she will go somewhere else. I usually present my alternative as:

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Summer is here, times are slow, so I use this time to see friends, acquaintances, renew networks. This week I had coffee with Georges, it's a French Georges with an s. He recently did a favour to a friend, Tracy, by offering her to do a photo shoot for free. Tracy needed some samples for her portfolio, times were slow, and she's a very good friend. Did I say that the photo shoot was free? The photo shoot went well and Tracy was very happy with the photos, she paid the actual cost of the 3 prints for her book.

Last week, George got a phone call from Tracy and she was ecstatic. When she was doing rounds, showing a portfolio, a local publication wanted to use one of her photo for their calendar, and they will need the raw file.

Not Even In The League

Everybody, and their dog, thinks that a camera's all they need to get into the business of photography. On average, I spend about $6000 Canadian per year on equipment: that's camera updates, accessories, computers, software upgrades… I'm chicken feed, a small potato. Rod Mar wrote, on the PhotoShelter Blog, an article about doing Football photography. That's American Football for everybody else, because what the North American are calling soccer is football for everybody else in the world¹⁸.

It's a very interesting article, but at the end of the article Rod Mar list his equipment:

In the 1970s, there was a TV show called Colombo, a Los Angeles police inspector in the homicide section. He would keep asking question and whenever he was just about to leave, by the door, he would say:

Photography can be either a business or a hobby. If you are reading this website, it's because you are already operating a photographic business or want to become a photographic business. All businesses have customers.

To put more simply: No customer = No business. If you have customers, you will need to charge for your photos.

Today's Monday 16-May-2009. I'm writing this article now, and will publish it soon. So what's special about this Monday? In Canada, it's a statutory holiday, it's Victoria day, in remembrance of Queen Victoria. One of my neighbor had a leak, not a leak but a geyser. I had to help to find and close her water main. Edith had to call a plumber to repair the water pipe while we helped with the soaking up some of the water. Edith asked if I knew a good plumber, I did, but he was away for the weekend. So Edith called the "big plumbers" from the yellow pages.

1. The first one charged $275 per hour with a minimum of 2 hours.
2. The second one charged only $250 for the first 1/2 hour, then $250 per hour.

Every year Photo District News does a survey of wedding photographers. The 2009 survey is at: PDN's 2009 Photography Wedding Business Survey Results. It does yield some interesting results that I think apply to most "retail" photography: weddings, portraits, children...

1. Fewer bookings with a 6.5 percent drop in wedding photography income with a few less hours per week on wedding photography work.
2. Wedding photographers who offer a la carte services have raised their prices by 1½%. The wedding photographers who offer packages have raised their prices by 3%. The most interesting part of it is:

Photos: Facebook Size

Many people want to display photos on their blog, on the the Internet. As a customer, the user of the photo, I want the photo to biggest size possible. As a photographer, the producer of the photo and the seller of the photo, I want the photo to be as small as possible.

As a professional photographer, I need to show photos on my websites. As a professional photographer, I don't want them stolen by somebody for their own website without me getting paid.

What's The Price Of A Photo

What's the price of a photo? You can buy photos for $1 on iStockPhoto and use it forever for whatever you want. You can get millions of pictures for free on Flickr. So what's the price of a photo?

Pricing Don't Explain

This is for a corporate magazine or for internal use of a stock photo.

This is for a corporate magazine or for internal use of a stock photo.

This is for a corporate magazine or for internal use of a stock photo.

This is for a corporate magazine or for internal use of a stock photo.

The main goal of a photo business, as a matter of fact all businesses, is to make a profit. It's not me who says so. In Canada, CRA¹⁹ aka the income tax police, has made the decision for me:

You can only operate a photography business, any business, for 3 years, if you are loosing money! After 3 years, the business must start to turn a profit or break-even. If the business does not at least break even, then it's not a "real business"²⁰. CRA will reclassify your photo business as a hobby. Converting your business to a hobby means that CRA will disallow all of your expenses and reassess retroactively your taxes and penalties…

There are many resources on the Internet to help you set your prices. You should use them as guides, they are not cast in stone.

Lists

• National Union of Journalists Freelance

Questions for 2010

This is already January 2010. Photography is a tough business, prices are going down, competition is growing and the market is expanding significantly. To be ready to get a good piece of the pie, here are 3 questions that will shape your year in the business of photography.

1. What are you promising?

• Scalped tickets at the concert cost more than tickets ordered month ago.
• Airport food is so not only more expensive than any other place in town and the quality is...
• Out of town towing is always very expensive.

The recession is biting, and the photography business is hurting. Photographers are not immune to the general economics. "The Boss", aka SWMO²¹ is looking to buy new appliances, she walks out of the store if she can't even get a 20% discount! And I'm looking at raising my prices.

The only purpose of cutting prices is to be cheaper than the competitor to grab their customers. So let's make a leading promotion of $25 for the portrait session to grab market share. The $25 portrait session will include:

Read The Darn Contract

I used to do construction photography. I had a few customers. I was well paid and had very little competition. That was before the recession. All of my customers either closed, went bankrupt, or are doing nothing at all. Last week, I got a phone call from Cherryl. Cherryl used to work at a large firm, that owns a big patch of land. That firm was a customer and was developing the land by building offices/high tech buildings as needed.

Now Cherryl works at another construction company. That construction company is very special, it's still working and building 2 towers. My usual terms are 33% to start, 33% on delivery and the rest usually 30 or 60 days later, but they must pay before they have the right to use the photos. I know Cherryl quite well, but this is a new customer for me, so when they emailed me their contract, I read it carefully. Buried in the contract, on page 3 in the terms, I found:

Reply To Lowball Offer

Whenever I receive an email, I usually respond very quickly. But sometimes, especially when I want to smack the sender and give them a good kick in the ass, I will wait for the next day, so I have time to cool down. Yesterday was one of these days. Here is an extract of the email:

Revisiting the $100 Wedding

Here is the link to the original entry: $100 Wedding

Rolex Watches

What's Rolex watches to do with professional photography? Actually, plenty. We have a lot to learn from Rolex. Rolex sells watches, not just watches, expensive watches and extremely expensive watches for as much as five hundred thousand dollars. Rolex official retailers are reporting good sales. In spite of the worldwide recession, 2008 has been the best year ever for the luxury watch industry, Rolex, Cartier, Patek Philippe, Breitling, Panerai… 2009 looks like another great year of the luxury watch industry.

Rolex sponsors many high-end sports tournaments like yachting and tennis. As a sponsor of Wimbledon Tennis, Allen Brill, President of Rolex Watch, US was attending the men's final when asked:

If you are operating a photographic business, you must have clients. It's very simple, No client = No business then you would be operating a photographic hobby. If you want to sell more, there are only 2 solutions and that's it:

1. Sell more to your existing customers.
2. Find new customers while keeping your existing customers²².

Selling A Commodity

Do you need to lower your price? or do you need to increase your value?

People don't want to pay your prices? Are you delivering enough value for those prices? You are selling a commodity because you do not provide enough value.

Set Your Hourly Rate Where You Really Want It

Setting Prices

How do you set prices? Setting prices is one of the most complicated part of the business of being a photographer. You only have 3 choices:

1. Charge for your time: either on an hourly basis, half day rate, the photo session...

Can you shut up? It's actually very hard, but it's a skill worth learning.

A regular customer asked me to return a 8.5 by 11 inch canvas print. She wanted another photo on a 16 by 20 inch canvas print. She asked if I would give her a credit for the smaller one.

In the western world, that's North America and Western Europe²³, photography is treated as a marketplace. It's subject to the basic laws of supply and demand, and the customer is always right.

The law of supply and demand is what has governed the world for the last 75 years. You can argue whether it's good or bad, but as photographic businesses we are all governed by the law of supply and demand.

Times are tough everywhere, even Hasselblad is feeling the punch. Hasselblad is feeling the heat from the latest batch of full frame cameras, especially at the "low-end"²⁴: the Canon 5DMk2, the Sony A900 and the Nikon D3x. So they came up will a couple of promotions.

1. "Special pricing" aka discount on their "low-end" H3DII-31, a 31 megapixels for US$13,000, until 30-Jun-2009.
2. "Buy Now and get the full credit for it" when you buy a new Hasselblad H3DII-50, before June 30, 2009, you will be able to upgrade to the even newer H3DII-60 the moment it's released for the difference in MSRP price.

Turning Down Business

Every so often, I get phone calls asking about wedding photography. I don't do weddings. Why? Because of the stress, not of dealing with the BrideZillas but with the parents. Too many of them go nuts. So usually I turn them down and depending on my mood and where the wind comes from… I will recommend some other photographer.

I don't take job that I can't do. Some people would say, take them as a learning experience. I don't, I prefer to specialize. I can earn a better living, I can charge more, and I'm more pleased with myself.

What The Duck: Work For Free

As usual, What The Duck recently had a great cartoon:

Attach:What-the-duck-work-for-free.gif Δ|What The Duck: Work For Free

• Microstock commissions are in the pennies per photo.
• The brother-in-law of your first cousin is shooting weddings for only a $100 with all the photos on CDs.
• 65+ millions stock photos are available for free on Flickr.

I often scour the Internet, lurk in photographer's websites. I look for ideas for myself and too often two hours later, where did the time go? But sometimes I find gems, here's one from photographer Anon Ymous²⁵

Occasionally I get a request for free images:

You'Ve Got To Be Kidding Me!

I regularly go Photography On The Net - The Business of Photography. The moderator got the following email: