The Secret to Charging More for Your Photography

When I’m at the studio, I try to pack my lunch most days but on the days I forget or just don’t have time, I grab my lunch from Sweetgreen.

I pay a whopping $16 for a salad, and after tax and tip, I’m out $18-19. 

And if I’m short on time and can’t drive there, delivery costs $25. So yeah, it’s ridiculous.

The other day I was working from home, and there wasn’t anything in the fridge and no Sweetgreen nearby.

So I decided to try a place called Chop Stop which got 5 star reviews on Yelp.

AND it was cheaper, like $10 for a salad! I thought I’d found the secret to saving money on a healthy lunch. I was excited.

When I got there, I discovered that Chop Stop is a total wanna-be everything, a jack-of-all-trades.

It’s a salad bar, a juice bar, a Mexican taco place, and everything else you can think of place.

Red flag number one. But still, I had to give it a chance.

Their $10 salad was a complete letdown.The vegetables, while similar to Sweetgreen’s ingredients, were all chopped into tiny, bite-sized pieces for mice, NOT for humans.

You couldn’t even tell what you were eating except for the clue you had from the menu description.

The salad was also dry and they wanted .35 cents for extra dressing LOL.

I opted out of that extra charge cuz for some reason it felt too much to fork over another .35 cents for dressing on a salad made for mice.🤷🏼‍♀️

I walked away feeling like I hadn’t eaten a real meal and proceeded to binge on junk food from the grocery store next door.

Sweetgreen, on the other hand, specializes in just one thing: salads. And they do it really, really well.

If you don’t have a Sweetgreen in your state, I don’t mean to make you jealous but their salads feel like a hearty, filling meal (even for a vegan like me) with big chunks of veggies and other delicious stuff.

Their dressings are out of this world and they’re NEVER stingy with their ingredients, especially if you go there in person and they make the salad in front of you.

It’s definitely worth the extra money because I know what I’m getting.

In the end, Chop Stop, just felt like a waste of money.

So if you want to make good money as a photographer, please don’t be a Chop Stop.

I can’t stress this enough but you have to niche down.

And I don’t care how many “influencers” I see on Instagram (well okay I’ve only seen one) claiming they did it ALL, successfully, cuz they don’t want to niche down even though they were told to… nope!

Not if you want to make GOOD money as a photographer.

And let’s face it, being an educator is different. So don’t buy it my friend.

I’m tired of all the “claims” out there with no proof.

Your business isn’t just about delivering pictures. It’s about being the go-to expert everyone turns to when they think of your niche.

And you can’t be an expert if you’re trying to be everything to everyone.

You also can’t charge a lot when you’re not an expert.

By niching down and specializing, you become the Sweetgreen of your market.

You become the trusted authority, the expert people are willing to pay for.

When you’re able to charge more, you completely change your life and your business.

It’s how you get time and financial freedom, and it’s how you avoid burnout. You didn’t pick up the camera so you can work 24/7!

It’s how you attract a better caliber of client who respects your expertise, your time, and your pricing.

And most importantly, it gives you the creative freedom to focus on the work that truly inspires you, which in turn makes your portfolio even stronger and your brand as a specialist even more powerful.