Starting Your Business Vlog Series pt.8 {pricing}

Hello and welcome to my 10 part vlog series sponsored by Pretty Presets. Over these ten weeks, we’re discussing just a few of the different things you need to look into when deciding if you’re ready to venture into charging for your photography and becoming a ‘professional’.

This is week 7 and in this video, I talk about one of the most baffling parts of starting your business: pricing.

Note: if you’re viewing this post in your inbox and there’s no video, click here to view this post on the blog.

{Video Notes}

Who:

Pricing is for everyone no matter what stage you’re at in your business.

Why:

Because business is all about money!

In order to set your prices you’ll need to…

Identify your target market

Your volume of clients {work all day or once a week?}

How much do you need to make to cover overhead?

Identify your business overhead:

Online subscriptions

Storage

Bills

Hard costs vs soft costs:

hard = products

soft = services

then you have your time, education, equipment, software, marketing

Do you want to make all your money out of sessions or sell products

You’ll need to set pricing for those products

Alicia Caine says: “you’re not worth less just because you’re new”

Hopefully before you start charging, you’ll have…

consistency

talent

experience through portfolio building

I HIGHLY recommend Easy as Pie as a part of your education costs. You’ll learn…

Portfolio building

pricing structure

philosophy behind pricing

how to deal with cheapies

pricing your products and services to make you a profit

Should you sell digital files? and other important questions answered.

There are other resources too!

Modern Tog’s free pricing guide talks about…

pricing for profit

business expenses

business plans and calculations

product pricing

creating packages

pricing for your market

Even though you’re just at the beginning of thinking about your business, getting your business hat on is just as important as perfecting your art.

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Stacey

I’m hoping to start a business in the next couple of months, so I’ve been watching every one of your videos! Your advice is so helpful–both realistic and encouraging. Thank you so much for doing these. :)
Stuart Little

Hi Elizabeth,

I am glad someone has done blog about pricing, but also mentioned Easy As Pie which I own a copy of… The one thing you mentioned which is not covered very well in Easy As Pie is your Soft and Hard Running Costs or Expenditure. Otherwise known as your “outgoings”. Its great to come up with a figure that you want to earn which is what Easy As Pie does and it gets you all excited inside with the potential earnings. BUT, when doing the worksheets and calculations its only loosely mentioned that the figure you have in mind is then brought through to your sales targets without any mention of hard and soft costs as well as the 20% Income Tax you need to pay the government let alone things like Class 4 NI here in the UK.

Turnover is NOT Profit people. Please keep that in mind. You need to pay all your bills and then have enough profit left over to feed your family and have some fun money as well and that is a very hard juggling act because photography is not a cheap business to be in. Its a premium service industry selling a product that is not required for everyday living.

So what I am saying is, “listen” to all the juicy between the lines stuff the Elizabeth is saying, because that information is worth more to you for FREE than the content of Easy As Pie which in my view is worth the money to help install confidence but is some what lacking elsewhere because its only viewed from one photographers point of view, who lives in a certain part of the world and shoots portraits, kids babies etc… It might not work with a photographer living and working in another part of the world who shoots weddings only.

Thanks for sharing Elizabeth.

Stuart Little
Stuart Little

P.S. You need to learn to take a breath and edit. It doesn’t have to be all done in one hit ;) a little cut or crossfade mixed with a topic title will not kill you where as doing it all in one take might just. Let me show you.
elizabethhalford

Hi Stuart! I do that actually – perhaps it’s so seamless that you didn’t catch it! There are 2 or 3 cuts in this video because my 5D only films 20 minute segments of video at a time.
Stuart Little

Well I missed them so well done you. I think you need to make them even more bite sized so that the viewer can absorb what you are saying without it all flowing together.
Stuart Little

Well I missed them so well done you.
Nuvea13

Thank you, Elizabeth for this awesome series. You are very generous with your knowledge & as an aspiring photographer, I really appreciate it!
http://www.facebook.com/AprilWilliamsHart April Williams Hart

I loved your bloopers at the end!!