Blatantly stolen from a post at texasphotoforum in this thread: http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...ad.php?t=43630

I've read a lot an the board lately about folks charging what many feel to be ridiculously low prices for their work. Recently, Sonny started a thread looking for some advice shooting sports teams (read it here).

This is a perfect example of how this industry can be hurt by photographers who are poor businesspeople, or by what I'll call "weekenders". Those of you that aren't full time--please take no offense to this--instead learn from it, and increase your revenues.

There is no way that any legitimate photographer doing good work can sell team photo packages at $4.50 each and make a profit, if he or she has any reasonable overhead whatsoever. (Tom spells that out for you here.) IF a person exists that will do it for that much (and they might not), they are just doing it for fun to make a few bucks here and there, and don't have the type of quality control that someone like Sonny does.

Now before I say anything else, let me tell you a little about my background. I have a degree in Marketing, and before I got burned out in the corporate world, I spent 17 years in sales, marketing, and business development. I carried multi-million dollar quotas, and reached or exceeded them more often than most. I won lots of awards, took lots of free trips to places like Hawaii, and made a lot of money with both large companies and small; I tell you this not to brag, but to assure you I know what I'm talking about: Never, ever, ever did I sell on price. I always sold on VALUE, with an emphasis on the long-term relationship.

Some of those not doing this full time think that they can get "more" business by undercutting the price of the competition, because they have lower overhead. If you don't take anything else from this, understand one thing--that is only a short term solution, and will eventually drive you out of this market.

Due to the advances in digital, the barriers to entry into this marketplace have been significantly reduced, so prices will naturally drop to a degree. But when you are selling your stuff at barely above cost, you not only hurt your "competition", you hurt yourself. With such razor thin margins, you have to work longer and harder to make the same amount of money. Something has to give, and eventually it will be quality. Oh--and I promise you this--when you sell on price, I can guarantee you that eventually there will be someone else that will sell it cheaper, and you'll lose the business.

So if this isn't your primary source of income, great! Have fun, make money, and learn new things (like we all are). But don't literally sell yourself short by giving away your work just to get the job. Once you set the bar that low, it's awful hard to raise it.

Instead, create value by building a relationship with your client, team or league. Don't be the cheapest--it's actually better to be the most expensive--at least then there is a perception by the consumer that there is quality behind the price.

Just as one example, years ago, Gibson guitars were getting slaughtered by foreign manufacturers. Rather than decreasing the price to compete, they actually raised prices, further giving the appearance that they were the premium brand. From their CEO:

I said we are going to increase prices. Prices were ridiculously low. And people said, the price has been decreasing 20% a year, how can you reverse that? I said I'm just going to double the prices on a lot of models. I actually tested it and got an inverse price curve. Basically it showed that every time I raised prices a certain amount, volume would go up.

Sales and margins actually increased!

You are only hurting your "brand" when you try to be the cheapest in the marketplace. The perception of your quality drops. Your margins decrease. You have to work harder to make the same amount of money. But if all of that sounds appealing to you, and you want the type of customer that always gives the business to the lowest bidder (and all of the headaches that come along with working with that type of client on a regular basis), then go right ahead. You have no idea how much easier and more fulfilling your business would be if you didn't though.

Those guys are always complaining about part timers being priced too low....

waaahmbulance.

I get it, but its supply and demand.

There was a thread on the rally forums about 2 weeks ago with the same theme.

Hmm, I didn't read it as complaining or whining at all. I read it as an encouragement to actually charge appropriately for your work. I think most people starting out are scared to charge enough for fear of not getting the job, or for fear of not being able to provide the quality expected. By charging more you are placing value to your work and customers can't take you for granted.

Originally Posted by tardypizza

Hmm, I didn't read it as complaining or whining at all. I read it as an encouragement to actually charge appropriately for your work. I think most people starting out are scared to charge enough for fear of not getting the job, or for fear of not being able to provide the quality expected. By charging more you are placing value to your work and customers can't take you for granted.

I've seen this to some degree, it seems like the more I charge per print, the more people want them. I'm yet to really test it, but I definitely feel like, to a point, people don't take a low price seriously when it comes to something artistic.

- Scott

Totally agree with the quoted post. Quite simply, if you don't take your work seriously (and thus charge accordingly), why should your clients? It's the niggardly ones that'll eat you alive if you only let them. Unless you're literally starving, and need a gig to survive, don't whore yourself out for pennies; stick to your guns, and be prepared to walk. You'll be doing yourself and other professionals a disservice otherwise.

Originally Posted by mkfotos

Totally agree with the quoted post. Quite simply, if you don't take your work seriously (and thus charge accordingly), why should your clients? It's the niggardly ones that'll eat you alive if you only let them. Unless you're literally starving, and need a gig to survive, don't whore yourself out for pennies; stick to your guns, and be prepared to walk. You'll be doing yourself and other professionals a disservice otherwise.

I've been trying to do this more and more lately. Getting away from nickel and dime stuff (postcards excluded! ), you can't really make money that way and once you go down that route, it's hard to turn back. Luckily, I have a good friend who is a photojournalist (professionally) but actually makes more money shooting wedding/portraits on the weekends/evening. He's helped me a lot in terms of marketing my work and it works great because even though we're from the same area, we shoot very different stuff. The business side of photography is WAY more important than people realize when they start out, I think.

- Scott

Yep yep, seems the rule to thumb is around 80% business, 20% photography, with some professionals suggesting it's as high as 90/10. Those are hard numbers to swallow, but true nevertheless, and demonstrate that a mediocre photographer with good business sense will, on average, make it much further than a brilliant photographer that can't even balance his checkbook.

Originally Posted by mkfotos

Yep yep, seems the rule to thumb is around 80% business, 20% photography, with some professionals suggesting it's as high as 90/10. Those are hard numbers to swallow, but true nevertheless, and demonstrate that a mediocre photographer with good business sense will, on average, make it much further than a brilliant photographer that can't even balance his checkbook.

Exactly. Good, even great, photography can only take you so far... ESPECIALLY when you're doing it freelance...

- Scott

Ugh, the whole Gibson guitar thing makes me want to puke. Hoooooorribly quality control for outrageous prices. Everybody I know who plays says Gibsons are way overpriced Epiphones. I have yet to play a Gibson Les Paul that is any better than an Epiphone.

I apologize, I didn't make it through the first paragraph of the quoted post, I needed sleep.

That said, I haven't read it all but it reeked of teh same attitude I saw from the rally guys.

What are you guy's thoughts on selling prints/stuff on someplace like redbubble or smugmug though?

Originally Posted by thechickencow

I apologize, I didn't make it through the first paragraph of the quoted post, I needed sleep.

That said, I haven't read it all but it reeked of teh same attitude I saw from the rally guys.

What are you guy's thoughts on selling prints/stuff on someplace like redbubble or smugmug though?

Well, I sell prints on SmugMug (www.lightofthewild.com) but I don't let them handle anything so in that respect, I have zero experience. But I have had decent luck with people emailing me to buy prints and then I handle it. That reminds me, I need to finish the rest of my site... prices and everything, I think that would certainly help with sales.

I do like SmugMug though, good helpful people when I have a question and everything runs smoothly. PM me if you want to try them out, you can use my referral code and potentially save us both some money.

- Scott

Owners of Smugmug are the same as advrider. Good people.

Its an interesting process pricing pictures I suppose. I've seen some artists at local farmers market type things with pictures that were no better or worse than I've taken/framed, and seen them priced at different levels. To me thats a good example of a place that if you price them cheap to sell a lot you'll probably make more and if you go higher you'll sell less but people may percieve the pics to be worth more.

I've seen 8x10's for $10, up to $25, essentially the same pics. No way they make much at $10 framed, but $25 is a bit better.

(by teh way, I finally read the quoted post now that I've gotten some sleep. i was waaay off!)