I couldn't help myself ... I just had to jump in on this one. There are many reasons why photographers are coy on their pricing. They want to keep their colleagues uninformed. They don't want to frighten potential clients before they have had a chance to impress them with their own brand of personal charm, their list of awards, and the opportunity to brandish their Photoshop skills. They don't feel confident in their own pricing. We have two companies dealing with different budgets. The less expensive brand has full disclosure on the website. 65-75% of people responding to the website are booking To View More >>

In my posts a couple of months back about album marketing I suggested that you need an entry-level price that doesn't scare people. That prompted Darlene to tell a good story... "If a bride has a Mercedes budget and your prices start at Ford, she won't even come look at you. I've seen that in action with some of my clients. "One guy from a rust-belt town was charging $1500-3000. He told me, 'I can't sell your albums – they're too expensive and I can't get $5000 for a wedding round here'. "I told him he'd be surprised to learn, then, that one of his competitors (20 minutes away) was using To View More >>

Can Crash crash the royal wedding? Professional Photographer (UK)'s March issue features "the holy trinity of international wedding photographers", Crash Taylor, Jasmine Star and Yervant, in a competitive pitch for the royal gig. An interesting range of approaches between the three, but we're human and Crash had us at Queensberry: "Albums would be handcrafted in New Zealand by Queensberry, which is the Tiffany of wedding albums worldwide." I like how Crash stresses the significance of the event … the latest installment in the continuing story of the House of Windsor. It's not just about love To View More >>

Follow the links for "the story so far" in our series on the recession... Yes, times will be tough for a while but you shouldn't assume the sky is falling. It makes no sense to sacrifice your business and market reputation to survive the short term challenge. Instead you may need to pull your horns in and find ways to prosper while others decline. A good place to start is by analysing your budget and business model, and we have a spreadsheet to help with that. Most people react to the threat of declining sales by saying, "I've gotta cut my costs". Everyone needs to work out their own figures, To View More >>

These articles are about strategies to combat the recession. I ended my last post by posing the question on everyone's lips: what happens if my bookings drop? You'll need to have read my previous post to make sense of what follows, but to recap, based on the numbers in the graphic below, if I get 30 wedding bookings and average $5000 per job my income is $71k. If I could get 40 bookings I'd make $114k, even if my average dropped to $4600. All good, but what happens if I can only get 20 bookings? The answer is my income drops to $28k! I could still achieve my $100k income goal with just 20 weddings To View More >>