Maintaining an idea in your clients' minds
that our work has its value.
This is in my opinion the most difficult thing for an artist
especially for a photographer, a professional photographer
especially in the times when literally every other person in the world
thinks they are a photographer, too.
Just because they are holding in their hand a small photography lab.
What do we do in this situation and how we go about it.
We have to - of course - educate.
Without hitting people with a hammer
you have to find a way to make sure
that your client(s) see, understand and appreciate that aunt Mary cannot create a picture with her iPad
that requires walking ankle deep in mud and placing a light behind the couple to utilize the fog
and in our heads, our minds, our creative minds
we saw a vision of this photo before it was created.
Staying on the surface is not easy, there is always haggling about the price
especially in the world where the competition is ready to eat you alive.
I will tell you two stories that happened to me during my
17 year old career in photography.
The first one is: during a consultation meeting with a client,
a meeting with a bride and her mother, after showing all my work we are getting to pricing.
Mother of the bride says:
You know, to be honest with you our neighbor Steve has a good camera
He's going do this for 1/5 of the price.
I didn't give up right away, I fought on but at the end I lost.
Steve got the wedding instead of me.
This part of the story isn't super unusual.
Similar situations happened many, many times in the past. My price simply wasn't right for a client.
I wasn't willing to drop my pants and the client ended up booking someone else.
This must be happening to all of us.
But in this case the unusual thing was
this client came back to me after the wedding.
Mother of the bride came back. Showing me Steve's pictures she says:
You see what these look like, we are not happy.
Now I understand exactly what you were telling us before the wedding.
And I am willing to pay the price you were asking for
if you process these photos now
wave your magic wand in Photoshop and make them look
more like pictures you take.
I didn't agree of course, not even to try and teach this client some lesson.
Simply because it would be a nightmare to try and work with Steve's pictures and make them into something.
The second story is from the other end of the problem.
I lived in Philadelphia for 6 years.
During all that time I was trying really hard to get into good graces
of a wedding design company.
Meaning they take care of all the visual design and decorations.
Including flowers, tables, sometimes even a complete redesign of the entire wedding ballroom.
All their clients are very well off so it's no surprise that
many people want to work with them. I was successful at some point.
I was getting two to three weddings per year from this company.
And every single client was really worth it.
So one of these clients after a few weeks of reviewing my offer online and so on is calling me.
And she says: you know, David
Evrything's great, we like what you do. There is something about your photos.
We would like to hire you for my daughter's wedding but I have one concern.
Explain to me why your prices are more or less half
than prices of all these other photographers we are considering?
So I told her:
Listen, don't worry we can definitely do something about it.
In the end I did book the client, everything went well. The wedding was spectacular, everybody happy.
The point is to know your value.
Stand your ground no matter what.
Don't give into the temptations, don't give into the competition.
Stay on course that you set for yourself.
Try to project
confidence in your own value.
So just be confident that your work has a value, that you know what you can do
You can deliver what you promise.
As I said in the very beginning look for ways to
make your clients see it, understand it and value it.
A cup of coffee and daily kombucha will help you get to this goal.
So to all artists on the other side I wish a lot of patience, a lot of determination.
Believe in your own strengths and have a strong idea of your own value.
Next video this Monday.