Annemie Tonkin (0:00)

Okay, it is time once again to talk about one of the most difficult topics in the photography business, and that is pricing. Now, if you are anything like most of the photographers I know, at some point you have found yourself asking, how much should I charge? And generally speaking, that question is immediately followed by, what are the other people around me charging? And maybe even what would I pay if I were the consumer? And that's not a terrible instinct. I mean, we are consumers as well. We do know what things feel like they should cost. But here's the thing. Price isn't just a number. It's not a gut check. It's not a popularity contest. Your price is a strategy. It's an integral part of your brand and your business model. And if you treat it like a random number or a crowdsourced average, that strategy is going to be all over the place. But here's the truth. Every price that you set says something about your business. It says who you're trying to attract and who you are quietly repelling. It says what kind of experience someone can expect when they work with you. And whether you mean for it to or not, it tells your client something about your confidence. So today, I want to reframe pricing not as this fixed number that you pluck from the sky, but as something far more intentional. We are going to walk through five key elements that take your price from a shot in the dark to a strategic decision that actually supports your business. Because when your price is aligned, when it reflects your brand, your offer, your goals, and your clients, everything gets easier. And when it's not, well, let's dig into that. Welcome to this Can't Be that Hard. My name is Annemie 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. The first thing I want to address today is the fact that pricing isn't just a math problem. Obviously, you need to know your numbers. We're going to talk about that. And definitely those numbers need to be profitable. But the number that you ultimately land on isn't just a way to cover your costs. It really is a way of communicating with your target audience. Your pricing speaks volumes about all kinds of things. It tells your clients where you belong in the market, and it signals what kind of experience they can expect, what kind of service you're offering, and whether it's fair or not, it signals how good your work is. So let's use an easy metaphor. So walk into the grocery store. You walk down the aisle to get some olive oil, and there are two bottles sitting side by side. One is $6.99 and the other is $37. So which one do you assume tastes for better? Which one do you purchase? If you're there to get a hostess gift, you know, for some people who invited you over, who you want to impress, right? We all intellectually know that price doesn't necessarily correlate with quality, but I would argue that none of us are immune to the psychology involved here. Those two price points say very different things about the olive oil inside the bottle. One is saying, I'm special, I am premium, I am worth something. Savoring, right? Your price point for your photography work tells a story too. If your price is high, it says one thing. If it's low, it says another. And if it's somewhere in the middle, well, you better have a pretty interesting label that makes you stand out on the shelf, right? And speaking of labels, what if those two bottles of olive oil that we were talking about looked exactly the same? Like other than the actual name printed on the bottle, everything was the same. The foil on the cap, the font on the label, all of it. It would be jarring, right? And if you were shopping for that hostess gift and you were like, well, maybe I'll just get the cheap one and nobody's going to know the difference because they look exactly the same. What would be even more jarring and weirder would be if the cheap bottle was super fancy or had like a really great looking label and, and pretty colored glass or whatever. And the expensive bottle was made of flimsy plastic and had, you know, a label that looked like it was designed in Ms. Dos. In that case, you might get really nervous and just decide that a bouquet of flowers was the better bet. My point here is that if your pricing is an important part of your brand, and as such, if it doesn't tell the same story as the rest of your brand, the design of your website, the professionalism of your responses, and certainly the quality of your photos, if those things are out of alignment with your price, that creates confusion. Clients might not know why something feels off, but they will definitely feel it. And when people feel confused like that, especially when it comes to a bigger thing that they're investing in, they hesitate, right? They ghost. They go with someone who feels more clear. So before we even get to the five elements that build this strategic pricing system. I want you to sit with this little truth. Your pricing isn't just about money. It really is about meaning. It's a message. So the question becomes, what message are you sending? So now let's get into these blocks. And the first building block is knowing your numbers. Surprise. And I know this one is obvious, if you have been listening to me for a long time, you have heard me talk about this before. But the truth is that knowing your numbers is so, so, so critical to building a strong foundation in your business. You need to know how much money your business has to generate. Not just to cover your gear and subscriptions, but truly to support your goals and keep you going. Even once the novelty of making money as a photographer begins to wear off. That means factoring in things like your taxes, your personal salary, insurance that you have to pay for, savings that you are trying to put away, and the inevitable unexpected expenses up in the course of doing business. Because if you don't know what you need to earn, you're always guessing. And guessing leads to second guessing every single time. The second block is knowing your client. So before you build your pricing model, before you even design your offer, you really need to get clear on who you're trying to attract. The because if you are trying to build this really high touch boutique experience, but you're aiming it at people who are mostly motivated by what they can get quickly and cheaply, you're setting yourself up for frustration on both sides. Knowing your ideal client means understanding what they value, what they need to have your help with, and how they make decisions. So do they care more about luxury and something that's truly bespoke and personalized? Are they more invested in convenience? That's a big one for people. Or are they into minimalism? Once you know your numbers and you know your people, then it becomes much easier to reverse engineer your pricing so that you can connect those two dots. And at the intersection of those two dots is the third block, which is knowing your offer. Your offer is that bridge. It's the bridge between your financial needs and your clients motivations and desires, right? It's the package of services, products and experience that delivers real value both to them and to you. Now, your offer goes beyond just what's included, right? What kind of emotional or logistical transformation they can expect to walk away with, right? Are you offering convenience? Are you offering emotional support? Are you offering artistic curation? Is this something that they get bragging rights because they've hired the most expensive photographer in town who you know pulls out all the stops, all of those are parts of your offer. And when you craft an offer that serves your client, your ideal client well and allows your business to meet its revenue needs, then your price makes sense. It becomes easy to explain and it becomes easier for you to stand behind. Which is different, by the way from defending it. You shouldn't have to defend your prices. So if you have under considered either side, either your needs or your clients needs and wants, that's where the wobble comes in. Strategic pricing is about making sure your offer is aligned on both sides. The fourth block is building profit in intentionally. Now I know we already said your pricing needs to be profitable, but I want to be just crystal clear on this. Being profitable doesn't mean charging a few dollars above the cost of goods and cost of doing business and calling that an enough your business needs to generate a lot more revenue than you actually need to run the business. Especially given that we have such a low average cost of doing business when compared to other businesses in the world, right? Just covering your costs is basically the definition of a nonprofit, right? But everywhere I look I see photographers who feel conflicted about this. They feel guilty about this, they have trouble and considering charging more than they absolutely need to. So I always want to call this out. Pricing your business for legitimate profit isn't greedy. It is what allows your business to be sustainable, right? To carry you through those slow seasons, to allow you to keep investing in growth and improvement. It also allows you to pay you not just what you need to live, but but what will allow you to pour into the things and the people that lit you up as an artist in the first place. Because when you're not paying yourself enough, you start to burn out. And that shows up in the work you produce. It's like this self sustaining cycle, right? Too many photographers build their pricing to cover costs and then they hope that somebody's going to come along and buy something big or overspend and then they'll have something left over. That strategy is backward. Profit needs to be baked into your pricing from the start. It is the thing that turns a hobby into a real business. So when you plan for profit on purpose, your pricing stops feeling like a gamble and it starts being the strategic tool that it was always meant to be. The final block is really just about knowing your mind and your mindset. This is where we tackle these mental traps that all of us have, especially when it comes to money. Those sneaky thought patterns that sabotage our pricing before the numbers ever show. Up on our website at all. And one of the most common issues, one of the most common mental hurdles that I see a lot of photographers wrestling with is this tendency that we have to equate time with value. Most of us grow up conditioned to think in terms of time for money. So if something takes longer, it must be worth more. If it takes less time, we should charge less. But in a creative service business, that becomes a trap. Because the truth is that as we progress in our businesses, as we learn our craft and dial in our systems and all that sort of stuff, we tend to get faster. Efficiency is actually a result, in many cases, of mastery. So the session that only takes you 45 minutes these days, you know, that's the result of years of learning, refining, and getting better. Just because it took you five hours a few years ago doesn't mean that it's worth less. In fact, I would argue that it is worth more. Another trap is assuming that what's easy or fun for us isn't valuable to other people. So, you know, you hear about a session, somebody calls you and says, oh, I'd love for you to do xyz, and here's the budget. And the budget is, let's say, 50% of what your prices are. But the session sounds like fun, right? If you then say, you know what? I will take half off my pricing, not only is that unfair to you, but it devalues your work to the client who's getting 50% off, and it's unfair to your other clients who are paying your full prices. So it's bad business strategy all the way around. Hopefully, if it truly is an aligned kind of a situation, you might be able to get that person to hire you at your regular rates. Another instance of this is thinking like, oh, it only took me 20 minutes to edit this gallery, so how can I possibly charge hundreds and hundreds of dollars? Well, because those 20 minutes became 20 minutes because of the years of vision and skill and decision making that you have taken to get there. The last mental hurdle that I see most commonly when it comes to pricing is the guilt trap. Feeling like we have to earn our rates by hustling harder or overstuff our packages with extras. That's not strategy. That actually reads as insecurity. Honestly, potential clients can smell that insecurity a mile away. So strategic pricing starts with clear numbers and aligned offers, but it really only works if your mindset is solid. You have to believe that the experience you are creating has value and that the ease that you bring to that is actually A selling point, not a liability. Charging appropriately isn't arrogant, it is responsible business practice. So if pricing has always felt like a moving target for you, if you have been tweaking your rates every few months or second guessing yourself every time someone ghosts after an inquiry, this is your invitation to take a different approach. Price shouldn't be a random number. It shouldn't be about what your competitors are doing. It needs to be a reflection of your brand, your value, your goals, and as we said, your strategy. If that feels like a tall order to put that all together, I want to gently remind you that this is my thing. This is what I teach, right? This is what I have been teaching for five plus years. Not just the what and why of it, but truly the step by step how I teach it all in my signature course, the Simple Sales Blueprint. So Simple Sales is a systematic approach not just to pricing, but really to your whole business. It ties together your numbers with your ideal clients to create an offer, a process and a price point that work. It's also a great way to give high end service without needing to get into in person sales. So if you have never watched the free masterclass that I teach, I want you to carve out 45 minutes this week and tune in at thiscantbethard.com simple. Because even if Simple Sales itself isn't the right path for you, that masterclass is a great way to see step by step how a system can help you know your numbers, understand your audience, define and refine your offer, articulate what makes your work different, and then sell the value of that offer, not just the price. I hope you guys have a great 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 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.