Anna Mi Tonkin (0:00)

So a while back, I had a client reach out to me. It was a new client, and they were real sticky about the price. So we had our intro phone call and I just kept getting a lot of friction, a lot of pushback about the price, questions about the price. This is really stretching our budget. It's more than we were anticipating spending, those kinds of questions, which are not unusual. But I remember when I hung up the phone, assuming that they weren't going to book, and then lo and behold, you know, I send over the proposal and they do book, they fill it out, they lock in their date, and we go about getting ready for the session. So I was kind of anticipating that, you know, the rest of the conversation as we went through the process of the session and you know, when they were purchasing their collection, that they were going to be on the least possible expense road. And as it turned out, that was not the case at all. First, at their session, we had agreed to meet. They did not want to do a session at their home. Their kids were older. They wanted to be, you know, outside the house. So we met at a park that I sometimes photograph at. And I got there early, and the two parents showed up in separate cars with the kids in the two cars. And they were both driving very expensive vehicles. I don't remember exactly what the make and models were, but they were like six figure cars times two. So that was like clue number one. And then the second sort of insight into their situation was that I ended up dropping a product off at their house, which is not typically what happens. Normally people, when they order through my online gallery, their products come delivered, you know, directly to their home. But for some reason or another, I had to go deliver their products. And when I showed up at their house, they lived in a gated community where houses start at like a million and a half. So here I had gotten all this pushback, initial friction about the price of my services, which, you know, they are what they are. And if I had been perhaps earlier in my business or less confident about my pricing, it would have been not unlikely that I might have said, you know, what, let's go with a different price or package or something. I might have changed what I, you know, had established as my pricing in order to accommodate this budget that they were talking about, only to then find out that, like, they had plenty of room in their budget. It was just a matter of, you know, whatever it was, for whatever reason, they wanted to give me some pushback about that. When I didn't capitulate, they went ahead and booked and the rest is history. They bought my top package, they bought a bunch of products that went beyond their print credit, and everyone lived happily ever after. But today I share that story because I want to talk about pricing. And I know that it can feel like pricing is, you know, it's just about the numbers. You put together a spreadsheet or you go through a calculator, or you look around and you see what the market tells you you can charge. There are all different ways to price your business, but in reality, pricing goes beyond the numbers. It goes beyond the math and the sort of bare bones reality of what it costs you to run a business and turns into something that is pretty deeply emotional for a lot of people. On your client's end, it can be tied to the value of your business. It can be tied to the perception around kind of where you are in the market. But on your end, pricing really can get caught up in your confidence, your self worth. It's certainly driven and steered by your past experience with money. If you've ever heard somebody talk about money scripts. We carry a lot of money baggage into our businesses and our pricing does impact our ability to communicate the value of our services. So there's so much more to pricing than just numbers on a page. And today I want to talk about three big mindset shifts that I think are kind of required when it comes to pricing your business profitably and talking about that price confidently. Right. I want to help you get to a place where you get many fewer we can't afford it responses from clients who actually can afford it. Welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. My name is Anna Mi Tonkin and I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it and I can show you how. So in light of the story that I shared there in the intro, I want to kind of start with this mindset that you really need to go into every conversation about your pricing, understanding that the phrase too expensive is kind of a garbage phrase. Now, sometimes someone is going to say that's outside of our budget and that's going to be reality. And that's fine. Everyone has a budget. We should respect people's budgets. I would never encourage anyone to try and talk somebody out of their budget because that's kind of a shady thing to do. But Sometimes the, the phrase that's too expensive is just kind of a stand in for whatever it is that's holding that person back. Right. I have many, many examples, like the story that I just shared about people who very clearly had plenty of money but told me that my prices were higher for whatever reason. The thing is, it's really important that you establish what your prices are and become comfortable enough talking about and sharing that price and comfortable enough with the idea that not everyone will be able to afford what it is that you're charging in order to set that price and be happy with it. People have budgets, the economy affects everyone. But it's also really frustrating when people say they can't afford it and then they're out there spending money on things that are important to them perhaps, but kind of objectively less meaningful than the services that we provide as photographers. Right. So let's talk about what's really happening when someone says we can't afford it. If they can't afford it, then that is what it is. But oftentimes it's not that they can't afford it. It's that the perceived value of what you're offering doesn't yet match the price that you've put out. Now, again, that doesn't mean that they don't love your work. It doesn't mean that your work isn't valuable. It means that the client doesn't fully understand the value yet. Right. Maybe they've talked to other photographers whose prices were half what yours are and even though they like your work better, that seems like a big jump to them. Your job isn't just to create beautiful photos and then hope that people put, you know, connect the dots and figure out like that's worth whatever it is that you, he or she is charging. It really is to help clients see how those photos will mean something in their lives, will transform something in their lives. Right. This is how they preserve memories. It's how they feel better about themselves. It's how they promote their businesses. It's how they, you know, create legacy type products and things for their children and grandchildren. I mean, these are big important transformations, big important things that you are offering to people. And you really have to take the time and make the point of helping them connect those dots. They reached out to you because they saw value in whatever it was that you did. Now you just need to demonstrate for them how that value will show up in their lives. Because as you do that, they will be more and more willing to spend money on that. We all want to believe that our photos will sell themselves, that, you know, clients will just kind of get it. But most people really do need that help when it comes to believing that what you offer will actually help them get what they want. Now, I want to talk about this in terms of a totally different example. I was thinking about the healthcare industry or the fitness industry, the weight loss industry, and all the different health coaches and personal trainers out there who are charging sometimes high prices, but many of them are, these days are charging pretty low rates. You know, 25 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, 100 bucks a month. If we're talking about, like, online coaching programs, some of those are pretty inexpensive, right? And if you follow what it is that they are teaching you, chances are that they will be able to make good on the promise of real, meaningful transformation in your body. But the transformation requires time and effort, and in many cases, it requires discomfort of a sort, right? Eating less, working out more, pushing yourself in a way that maybe you don't love pushing yourself. And that is a lot to ask of someone. Now, as these GLP1 drugs have come on the market, you've got Ozempic, which costs like $1,000 a month, right? And requires you to give yourself daily injections, which I don't think many people are too thrilled about. And it has this long laundry list of potential side effects. And some of them sound terrible, but Ozempic is super hard to get. And all the other GLP1 drugs are, like, flying off the shelves, even at these really high prices. Why? Because people believe that it will work and they see that it's less work on their part, less effort on their part than working out a lot or, you know, having to give up the ice cream that they love so much. So even though these drugs are expensive, even though giving yourself injections is uncomfortable, even though there are the risks of these side effects, people are willing to pay for things when they believe that it will help them get the outcome that they want. So if we are to translate that to our job as salespeople in the photography world, we're not here to convince people, but to educate them. We want to show them evidence that we get people the results that they're looking for and that we have a process that works each and every time, right? You want to position yourself as the easy sort of push button solution, like the Ozempic, that will help your clients get something that they care deeply about. If you can sort of sell that at the level of your pricing, you will not have a hard time booking Clients. The second perception shift or mindset shift that I want to talk about is the fact that how you present your pricing has a huge impact on how it's received. Now, you have heard me talk before about the importance of not hiding your pricing. I'm all for giving some amount of pricing information on your website. I think it's really important actually to build that trust. However, when you give every last detail about the pricing right up front and you sort of shove that in someone's face, they don't necessarily have a full understanding of what's involved, who you are. It just means that you're going to be judged kind of only on price as opposed to all the different factors that go into your client experience. So if you break that up and you say, okay, you know, minimum expense is X, or the average client invests xyz, that lets them make a basic decision about whether they can afford you. And then they're reaching out and giving you the opportunity to talk them through what's involved. I think that makes an enormous difference. And if you take nothing else away from this episode, that would be something that I would say. If you change that one thing in your business, it will make a big difference. But when it comes to talking about the same total price, you can make it more or less risky for someone to make that investment just in the way that you package that up. So, for example, let's say that your full client experience price is fifteen hundred dollars, right? If you just put that number out there as like a big single lump sum, whether it's on your website or whether that's just, you know, somebody reaches out to inquire and you say, okay, it's fifteen hundred dollars to work with me. Many clients at that point are going to instinctively flinch, not necessarily because they can't afford it, but because it feels risky. It's a big expense all at once on what is essentially an unknown entity. Right? Here are a few things to keep in mind. Number one, those big numbers feel riskier than the same amount broken into smaller bites. So if nothing else, taking that fifteen hundred dollars and breaking it into a three installment payment plan can make it feel much more manageable. Now, I like to take that a step further and make it so that there is an initial investment of a session fee, whatever you want to call it, a booking fee. And then after the photos are able to be previewed, after they can see like that person showed up, they took the photos and now I can see that. I love them putting the rest of the payment the Balance after they've been able to preview their images makes that a much more manageable purchasing decision than someone being asked to pay upfront for something that they haven't yet seen or received. Right? So think about that as you think about the way that you're presenting your pricing. Second, price anchoring helps. So I've talked about price anchoring before. It's basically this concept of we have some sort of mental script around what the price of everything should be. We have an idea in our mind about what coffee should cost. If you go to a coffee shop, we have an idea in mind about what a dozen eggs should cost at the grocery store. Right? And when the price goes up or down, it's not that that price in and of itself is bad or wrong or high or low, it's just that it's different. Or when it's different from that anchor that we have, then we feel like, oh, that's expensive, or, oh, that's inexpensive. When someone comes to us, we don't have any control over what their price anchors around photography are. They may have hired a photographer in the past that charged a quarter of what you charge, so their anchor is set really low. They could have worked with a photographer before that charged double what you charged. So all of a sudden they see your price and they think, huh, that seems kind of low. Maybe this person is new. Maybe they don't really know what they're doing. Those things can have a positive or a negative impact, but we don't control them. What I like to do is again, give people enough information on your website that there is some sort of anchor that you've set. But give yourself the opportunity to then come in and talk about the alternatives. Maybe you have a few different offerings in your business and you can talk about those things. And then their anchors, their price anchors, become those products in your business rather than comparing you to all the other businesses out there in the world. Right? So positioning your price next to alternatives at different price points and showing what's included and why that particular product could be beneficial for someone can really change how that number is perceived. Finally, remember to build some context around what it is that you are offering. So saying this is a full service experience, from, you know, planning to final delivery and then walking them through what that means helps a client understand what it is that they're paying for. People often don't need a lower price. They just need a better frame in which to understand your price. Right? So show them how the investment works for them, both in structure and value. And also in outcome, the last thing, and I won't belabor this point, but it really is important. So many people out there use that phrase, price your worth. Are you charging your worth? You are not your price. Right? This is a big sticking point for me, and it really changed a lot for me because I used to use that phrase too. Like, I need to charge my worth. Separating your identity from your pricing is really important for your mental well being and for your ability to weather the ebbs and flows of any business. Right? So many of us treat pricing like some kind of personal report card. So if someone books, it means we're good. And if they don't book, it means we're too expensive or we're not talented enough or we're doing something wrong. And that kind of thinking is totally toxic, right? Your pricing is a business decision. It should reflect your cost of doing business, your expertise, your client experience, and your financial goals, but not your worth as a human being. And while we're at it, I want to say this too. You are not necessarily your ideal client. Now, chances are you and your ideal client share many values related to aesthetics and the importance of photos and those kinds of things. But it's way too easy to assume that because you can't or wouldn't pay a certain amount for photos or because you feel nervous about, you know, charging a certain amount, then your clients must feel the same on the client end. But your clients are not you. Your financial history, your relationship with money, your fears, those are yours. Now, your clients might be in a different life stage. They might be in a different income bracket. They might be in a totally different mindset altogether. So don't let your personal money baggage shift shape your pricing or your sales process. The more you project your own issues onto your clients, the more you're limiting your potential. The moment that you can say, this is what it costs to work with me and stay grounded, no matter how someone responds, that's when everything really changes. Because confidence isn't about having all the answers. It's about being rooted in your value, even when other people may not see it just yet. So to recap, pricing isn't just about math. It is about recognizing that too expensive often means I'm not yet convinced. It's about helping clients believe that what you offer will work for them and provide them with that outcome and that goal that they are looking for. It's about presenting your pricing in such a way that you remove friction and make it easier for people to say yes. And finally, it's about detaching your self worth and your personal money baggage from from the prices you charge in your business. If this is a topic that you are really struggling with and you could use some help with practical solutions to how to position your pricing, how to overcome those objections, I have a free resource that I want to point you to. It's@thiscantbethard.com Worth it. And in it I cover some of the most common objections that people feel, but they don't say and instead they say it's too expensive. So go grab a copy of that. It's@thiscantbethard.com Worth it. And I will see you back here next week. That's it for this week's episode of this Can't Be that Hard. I'll be back same time, same place next week. If you like the show, be sure to check out thiscan'tbethard.com to explore all the resources we have for photographers and of course it would mean the world to me. If you would like, leave a review of the show on itunes or Spotify. As always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.