Photography Business Pricing Strategies (and why In-Person Sales DIDN’T work for me!)
When I first started photography in 2009, I was – like most photographers – offering only the digital photos and charging about $100 per session, and even my primary wedding package was a digital only package.
Of course I offered print products, but they were add-ons.
There came a time, though, where my business plateaued and I got stuck offering discounted sessions and at that digital package price, and I started studying business and marketing to make more money.
This is when I learned about IPS: In-Person Sales.
If you’ve never heard of this before, this is the business model where you do the session, edit the photos, and then have the clients come in for a “viewing appointment” (sales session) where they choose their print products, and if you’re lucky, spend thousands of dollars with you.
At this point in my business, I’d been going for 7-ish years and truly felt the value of my work was far beyond what is was in my first few years, but I was still charging the same prices. Or in some situations, like for mini sessions, I was charging even less…
I felt completely stuck. And I was SO BUSY. Exhausted. Burning out.
So when I learned about the in-person sales business model, I latched onto it as a way out. As a solution for the problem.
There was a problem though: I felt truly TERRIBLE about the sales session part.
Not terrible about my work, I felt great about my work and was at the peak of my skill at that time. I put tremendous time and effort into learning more about lighting, getting better at posing all different body styles, refining my editing…I deeply loved the photography part. I knew the value in my photography.
But I got caught in that same trap that others do: I allowed myself to be too influenced by my own bank account and financial possibilities, and allowed my emotion about that to influence my own pricing.
See, at this point, I had just gotten married and we were a beautiful, blended family… with 5 – yes FIVE – kids. I went from being a single mom of 2 barely scraping by to now a mom of 2 and stepmom of 3, and all the challenges that came along with it.
Juggling SO MANY kids sports games…soccer, football, track, baseball, cross country, band concerts, plays, and choir concerts. Getting them all where they needed to be on time became a full-time job in itself!
My business at this time was also very busy, which was amazing. I had a constant flow of clients and was finally really dialed in on my brand and effortlessly attracting the personality of clients I deeply wanted to work with.
And…income-wise, after business expenses, I was making about $4 an hour.
I knew it was unsustainable. I knew my pricing had to change.
This is where I thought the in-person sales model would save me.
But…
I had been offering digital packages for so long that I didn’t see the value in forcing my clients – through my IPS business model – to only get access to their photos if they spent extra money that they possibly didn’t have to get them.
I truly DID want them to print their photos and cherish them beyond posting them on social media or printing them on a holiday card and promptly forgetting about them.
But there was an energetic misalignment in the way I felt and thought about that model at the time.
It was purely something I was doing to make more money because everyone was saying that it was “the ONLY way to have a profitable photography business.”
I was working so much, so hard, and making so little…
My business had become a drain on all of us. A time drain and a money drain. And I had NEITHER of those things to lose.
And here’s the kicker: the IPS model wasn’t even working for me! I was doing the in-person sales sessions. I was doing everything I was supposed to per the way other photographers were teaching it! First we’d do an amazing low-priced photography session, then once the editing was done they’d come back into the studio or I’d go to their house for the “Image Reveal” sales session, where I’d present all their gorgeous edited photos and show them what products they could get…
but they wouldn’t buy anything!
They took whatever digitals were included in the session and that was it.
It was SO discouraging! And I was making even less!!! Not only had I dropped my session fee because now there was an expectation that they’d purchase print products to make up the difference and take me from $150 per session to $1,500+ per session,
but I was also doing DOUBLE the work because of adding on the Image Reveal/Sales Session! Now there were hours more work and commuting for me, WITH NO PAY.
I started to get bitter, angry, resentful… not towards my lovely clients, but towards the business and towards myself. I thought, how could I mess this up so bad??? Why couldn’t I get this right??? All these other photographers were making 6-figures a year doing this, what the hell was I doing wrong???
I tweaked the session fee, the Image Reveal, my product pricing, my packages, a million different ways…but nothing worked. I sold almost NO products.
What I didn’t understand at that time was the problem was not the model, the pricing, or my packages.
The problem was ME.
There was a misalignment in the entire thing: I didn’t feel ok with the model. I knew that the main driver was more money for me. I felt like I was offering them the same level of my talent and skills that I always had in the session itself and didn’t see the value in making them spending thousands more dollars they probably didn’t have for prints that I thought they probably didn’t want.
I was putting the entire thing through my own filters, my own emotional body, because my business wasn’t thriving and we were living paycheck to paycheck – barely – on my husband’s income.
I didn’t really believe that about my clients… I just believed it about ME. We, my husband and I, because my business was failing, couldn’t afford more than a $250 session.
And I felt that failure so deep. I felt so incredibly shameful and guilty for continuing to want to be a photographer even when it was a financial, time, and emotional drain on everyone.
And I was SO HARD on myself for that, for not being able to figure out my pricing and be a profitable business when so many other photographers were doing it.
The problem wasn’t my clients, or the IPS model at all. The problem was ME.
My shame. My guilt. My misalignment with the pricing model and the way I felt and believed about it, the stress of needing my clients to spend a bunch of money at that Image Reveal or else it would compound all those awful emotions, and worse, it would reinforce them… I would bring all of that into the sales session with me!
Do you really think that those people, sitting there with me feeling like THAT, didn’t pick up on my weird, ick vibe?
Of course they did.
They’d LOVE the photos! They’d cry, they’d say things like, “oh my god I’ve never felt so beautiful in my entire life!” they’d cry laugh at photos of their kids, they’d literally gush emotion over the entire thing and express the most beautiful emotion over their photos. And then they’d tell stories about their family, about the day, about the memories these photos carried…
This was IT for me, this was why I did it. Everything was right there.
And then,
they would take their little collection of digitals and leave.
I would get SO upset!
I just didn’t see it at the time. It wasn’t them, IT WAS ME.
They picked up on the feeling that I desperately needed them to spend $1,000 for this to feel “worth it” for me - business-wise, and for ME, to make it mean that I wasn’t a failure.
I emotionally needed them to spend money to ease my deep feelings of shame and guilt over being a failure.
Whew. That’s so much pressure that I was putting on them!
Of course they didn’t buy! Of course I would eventually have to close that business!
Fast forward to now: when I wanted to reopen my business and started thinking about what was most important lesson I learned in my business before, this pricing thing came up again for me.
There was a lot of consideration about how it went last time, and a lot of consideration about how I felt during each phase of my business and where the sweet spot was.
I deeply considered: What was the fairest price I could offer for the amount of value that they would receive from me?
What was the most important part of the entire service that I was offering?
What was the part that made me feel the best? What could I stand behind, knowing full well that I could deliver that and more?
I built from there. A full digital package, yes. Because what I realized is that for me, the experience of the session was where a lot of the value was and the digitals document that experience. I wanted them to have that. And I also realized that having prints were ALSO extremely important to me, so I incorporated that into my packages as well. I didn’t want them to only have the digitals, because that didn’t incorporate the full experience and richness and value of what I offered. It couldn’t be just one…I had to build it as a complete package for the fullness of the experience to be understood.
And THEN the right clients would come!
Once I figured out that it had to be right with ME first,
everything finally clicked.
Now. . .
The right clients find me every day. I feel so excited about my sessions and what I offer.
There is no ick, no question in my body. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the value I’m offering far exceeds the session price! I know it’s a great value AND a beautiful experience that adds to their heritage and builds their legacy and business.
There is no question. I am fully at peace with my prices and love my business model now.
And that has made ALL THE DIFFERENCE in the world.
Moral of the story: If you’re running a very personal business, your pricing structure has to feel correct. Not through your own filters, but in belief of what you bring to the table and in the knowing that what you offer will probably even exceed their expectations for the price.
When you’re contemplating your pricing, remember this: People Pay For The Result.
As service providers, It is our job to DELIVER.
HOW you deliver – the customer’s journey, the point between deciding to work with you and the finish line of your time together – is where you can build in the value.
Feel into it. Be objective (remove your own personal filters as much as possible). Believe in your skill and be honest with yourself about them.
Then start playing with how a price feels in your body…
Listen. Allow it to feel how it feels.
Then maybe take a walk outside in a place where there’s a lot of trees, or a big big sky and some mountains, or go swimming in the ocean or a river, or at least put your feet in a creek, and just sit with it.
You’ll know if it’s right or not.
(And you’ll probably know some other things about yourself after that, too.)
At the end of the day, you can’t sell what you can’t stand behind. Not when it’s this personal.
So… work your numbers. Definitely take the time to understand the basics of where you need to price your work and what is going to make sense. I’m not saying to not make the spreadsheet, or skip your overhead costs, or anything like that. This is a business, afterall.
What I’m saying is do that,
And then…
feel into it.
Then, only then, after you’ve married the head with the heart, the brain and the gut, then you’ll know what’s correct for your business.
Do both.
When there is complete cerebral and emotional alignment, when the numbers make sense and you can stand behind it with no question in your body, you’re in the Zone.
