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08/14/2005 01:41:25 AM · #1 |
An interisting read I found at another popular digital photo site
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For the new folks, Hi! My name is Norm and I’m an event photographer. Actually, that is not quite right. I run a business that sells products that have been made in part or in whole from photos. Our subject matter is cars and only in a road race setting. We have a pretty narrow focus. With that in mind, let me start over.
Hi! My name is Norm and I am an entrepreneur! Does this change in label mean anything? Yeah, it does...if you want to be successful. If you are approaching this enterprise as a photographer instead of as an entrepreneur you are probably not as successful as you could be. If you are running your business with the idea that you will be successful because you take great photos, you will be wrong.
If you want to run a successful event photography business, you need to put photography (and unfortunately your ego) in its proper place and recognize that you need to be a business person who sells photos and photo products far more than you need to be the next Ansel Adams. If you think that your customer are buying from you because you use better equipment, know your exposure settings forward and backward, or live and breathe photography, then you are in line for a re-think. In the vast majority of cases, your customers will not share your passion for photography but they may buy your work anyway. So, if my customers aren’t in tune with my passions, why ARE they buying then?
There have been many studies conducted to find out why people will buy any given item at any given time. Why it took more than one study to figure this out I don’t know but they (the research scientists) have determined that we buy 1. To solve a problem and/or 2. To make ourselves feel good. That’s it. Think about what YOU buy and WHY you buy it and you’ll see that every purchase falls into one or both of these categories.
Why does the soccer mom want to buy photos? Is it because she wants to chronicle junior’s career as a soccer player? Maybe Grams lives in another state and wants to see her precious grandson kickin’ butt and takin’ names and she’s been complaining to said soccer mom about the lack of photos. Maybe junior is doing something wrong and mom wants to help him correct his ball handling because she thinks he’s the next Pele. Maybe junior just wants to show off the winning goal he made at the game because there is some cute girl he wants to impress. Whatever the stated reason, the decision to buy will be either because it solves a problem or makes us feel good.
Now, as if I haven’t already bruised your ego, I’m going to bruise it some more. If you are the person taking the photos in your company, you need to stop...at least for a while. You need to go back to school; the school of public opinion. Maybe you need to bring in another photographer. Maybe you need to swap duties with your assistant. Regardless, you need to get out from behind the viewfinder and put yourself in front of your customers to try to sell your photos to them. If you aren’t already doing this, you will get a real surprise the first couple of times you try it.
Your customers will tell you what they like about your work (and what they like will probably not be what you think they like) and what they don’t like. What they don’t like will probably surprise you as well. They will give you ways to improve your business. They will tell you if your pricing is too high and if it’s too low. They will tell you that you need to add different products or that you have too many. Unfortunately, they won’t just walk up and say what they think, otherwise your assistant could just tell you. They will let you know in indirect ways and you need to be there to hear the comments. It’s like a code. You will have to apply your superior brain to deciphering the meaning. It is YOUR business, after all and no one else cares as much about it as you do so uh, start cracking that code.
I don’t like complaints; never have and never will. I don’t want to hear anyone say anything about my business (and as a result, me) that isn’t nice or flattering. I take it personally. I admit it. Yes, I would like to live in a dream world or at least in the town of Perfect. That’s my weakness.
When I started my business I had the toughest time trying to figure out what to charge for my products. Was $20 for an 8x10 too much or too little? I didn’t have a clue and to be honest, no one locally wanted to tell me what I should charge. This was in 2000. I tried to set my prices at a point where no one commented on them as I didn’t want to hear the complaints. $20 was something I’d pay and therefore others would too. I figured that if I was too cheap, I’d make it up in volume. If only it worked that way. Unfortunately, I was selling over the web and as a result I never received any feedback on our prices or anything else. If a customer came to our web site and didn’t buy, I had no idea why. When they did buy, I really didn’t know why either. All I knew was that at $20 for an 8x10 I wasn’t making much of a profit.
Then a friend, who is an aviation photographer of some renown, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and told me what I am going to tell you now. If you never hear a complaint about your prices, they are too LOW! Take this as gospel! The way he said it to me is “Your customer is under no obligation to pay you more than you ask for. You are under the obligation to ask for as much as possible. They are not compelled to buy from you if you are asking for too much. They will comment on your prices if they are correct, complain and turn away if they are seriously high and say nothing if you are low and in some cases, not buy from you when you are way too low. It is up to you, the owner of the business, to make enough money to keep your business running and make a profit. If you aren’t making a profit, and no one is complaining, then you should raise your prices until you hear people making comments about your prices. Doing anything else is sheer stupidity!” As I have said in the past, your customers will let you be as stupid as you want to be.
As a result I raised the price on our 8x10s to $30 and our sales increased. Anyone got an idea why? When we started printing on-site the price went to $40 and sales, and I mean numbers of sales, increased yet again. Even at $40 I was hardly getting any comments. About 18 months ago we started to consider the value of the products we were providing and increased the size of the print and raised the price to the current $50 for an 8x12 on 11x17 paper. Right now I get maybe one comment per event. Because of the changes we have made, and our prices are completely open and I’ll post them here if you’d like, our average sale is $82. My goal is to get that average sale to $100.
Have you ever had customers say “Sorry, I like your stuff but I have all the photos of junior that I need” after they look through all your photos at an event? Yes, they really are telling you that they honestly don’t need any more photos. It happens. What they aren’t telling you, but are asking, is “What else do you have that I can buy?” They wouldn’t be looking at photos if they weren’t willing to buy something. If you don’t have that “something” then shame on you. You’re losing money and losing a customer. A mouse pad of junior makes a nice purchase for mom, dad, junior and of course the grandparents. There’s seven potential sales right there! At my prices, 7 mouse pads goes for $210 plus shipping. Coffee mugs are another great gift item and they go for the same price as a mouse pad.
When your customers are looking at their photos, listen for the comments they make. If you hear “Wow!” stop what you are doing and look at the photo. Ask them why they like that particular photo. After a while if you hear the word Wow associated with a particular style, make a note to take more photos that same way. For us, drama sells and sells big. Cars sliding, cars with wheels in the air, a car leading a big group of cars are all wow photos and all are big sellers. If you hear, “they all look the same” figure out what they mean and don’t do that any more!
We could go on and on, but I’ll let everyone digest this and come back tomorrow.
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08/14/2005 03:20:19 AM · #2 |
That's an excellent read, and right on the mark. I remember like it was yesterday how our business didn't start to take off, in terms of bookings, until we doubled our prices. Go figure...
It probably would be a good idea to credit this fine piece to the site that posted it, and its actual author, though...
Robt.
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08/14/2005 03:45:35 AM · #3 |
| What a fantastic article! I do Artistic Rollerskating a couple of times a year and I can see the point made about being a 'businessman' first as compared to a photographer. If you do it right, you can make a lot of money. But, I also would like to offer fantastic photos (which doesn't always happen) as compared to shoddy ones. |
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08/14/2005 05:48:37 AM · #4 |
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08/14/2005 07:18:06 AM · #5 |
Very interesting read, and all very true. I run my own computer programming business, and it's all true for that. I think the same principles apply to any business.
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08/16/2005 11:37:39 AM · #6 |
some good info, thanks for the posting.
what business are you in bear_music? event photography? |
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08/25/2005 04:32:58 PM · #7 |
any more comments on this.
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