I recently received an email from a photographer who downloaded my Pricing Guide. It hit me hard because it’s a feeling I know many of us have experienced.
It said this:👇
“Thank you. Well that was depressing. It confirms I will have to hang the camera up. In my saturated market with today’s inflation, customers are just not willing to pay what I need when I have 125 competitors willing to give it away for free. There are just not enough of those individuals willing to pay that price. Good bye for good.”
My heart sank.
I looked at this person’s portfolio and their work is beautiful. They have the experience and the expertise to thrive.
But here’s the mistake I saw: their prices are up on their website.
“Unpopular opinion” I know, but it’s a mistake I see all the time, and it’s a huge reason why photographers feel like they can’t charge what they’re worth.
Here’s the thing.👉 There’s no such thing as a “saturated” market or other people undercharging being the reason why you can’t charge more.
If that were true, Gucci wouldn’t be able to sell $1000 purses.
This isn’t a NEW problem and it has nothing to do with market saturation or today’s inflation.
Even 20 years ago, in Los Angeles, a super competitive market, there were photographers willing to shoot for next to nothing when I was charging my worth.
We’ve ALWAYS had to contend with undercutting prices.
So, how did you get past this? By selling your value.
Putting your prices up on your website forces you into a price competition. It gives potential clients an easy reason to say “no” because of your prices before you’ve had a chance to sell them on your unique value proposition.
F all this advice on social media to be “transparent.” It does NOT serve you.
Having prices up is a huge missed opportunity to connect with prospects and to show them why you’re worth more.
This is the whole point of my Six-Figure Booking Script (if you haven’t downloaded it, please do!) And if you have, let me know if you’ve implemented and if it works for you, I genuinely want to know.)
You can’t sell your value if your prospect has already decided they won’t pay your prices.
You need to reveal your prices only after demonstrating your value first.
My Booking Script will show you how to do this.
I literally created it through trial and error and perfected it over the years. It’s the single most important strategy I used to become one of the top photographers here in the very competitive, very saturated market, LA.
So please don’t let your business become a casualty of a mindset that believes you have to compete on price.
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