July 18, 2024 • 45 mins
Join us as we count down some of our top episodes- as we get ready to start a new season.
What if you could transform your photography business into a thriving, profitable venture while maintaining a manageable workload? Discover how to set the right prices for your photography sessions by first pinpointing your desired annual income. We kick off this episode by revealing the significance of having a clear financial target and how it can streamline your pricing strategy, stabilize your business decisions, and ultimately help you achieve long-term financial goals.
Have you ever felt like you're constantly working but not seeing the financial rewards? Learn about the "Profit First" approach by Mike Michalowicz, an alternative financial planning method that allocates income into specific percentages for paying yourself, taxes, expenses, and savings. This approach offers a more reliable way to ensure your business remains sustainable and profitable. Hear personal stories of scaling a photography business and the unexpected costs that come with it, along with practical examples of how to allocate each dollar earned to meet revenue goals.
Managing your workload without burning out is crucial. That's why we suggest aiming for five to eight clients per month and offer detailed calculations to determine necessary income per client based on your desired annual income and available work hours. Uncover strategies for maximizing client revenue, from offering high-value products like albums and art pieces to implementing effective marketing strategies that attract high-paying clients. Additionally, we break down three main pricing strategies for your sessions and provide actionable advice on adjusting these fees based on client feedback and business volume, ensuring your pricing model works best for you and your clients. Join us for an insightful journey towards mastering your photography business finances and setting yourself up for success.
Connect with Karinda!
- Ready to Sell More Wall Art? Join us in Your Magic Year to Sell More Wall Art
- Website
- Photography Business Tune-Up with Karinda K. - Free Facebook Group
- IG @Masteryourmindmoney
Thanks for listening!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Mindset and Money Mastery for
Photographers the podcast.
We help overwhelmedphotographers make more money
while simplifying their businessby mastering their you guessed
it mindset and money.
Tune in each week for practicaland actionable tips to take
your photography business up anotch.
Let's dive right in.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to today's episode of Mindset and Money
Mastery for Photographers.
I'm so excited today.
This is probably the number oneconversation that I have with
photographers about theirbusiness.
I talk to so many photographerseach and every week and before
we talk about anything else,this is what I ask them.
So this is an incrediblyvaluable process I'm going to
(00:45):
take you through today to sharewith you exactly what you need
to know about figuring out whatto charge your clients.
So when I'm looking throughFacebook groups and I'm online
and I'm seeing photographershaving conversations, I see
people posting this question allthe time.
They're saying what should mysession fee be?
(01:05):
What should I charge my clientsfor this?
What should I charge my clientsfor that?
I had somebody contact me aboutthis type of session, but I
have no idea what to charge them.
And this question really boilsdown to one thing.
It boils down to what do youneed to be making in your
business to pay yourself whatyou want to pay yourself?
(01:28):
Let's break this down a littlebit.
The first thing we need to doto break this down is we need
you do you want to make in yourpocket each and every year from
(01:49):
your business?
If you could wave a magicalwand and imagine that you're
taking a paycheck from yourbusiness.
How much money are you payingyourself each and every year
from your business?
Are you paying yourself $50,000a year, 60, 70, 80, 100?
Maybe you want to pay yourself$150,000 a year, and when I ask
(02:14):
this question, I really want youto think what do you want to
put in your pocket If you weregoing to a job and working?
What goes in your pocket fromyour business, not what does
your business make.
Right now, it's all about whatyou're paying yourself.
Because, ultimately, we'rephotographers because we love it
.
We're also photographersbecause we want to make money
(02:35):
and have a legitimate businesswhere we're paid well, where we
can afford to do things where wecan afford to go buy a house,
or maybe go buy a pony, or maybesomething simple like go on a
vacation for a couple of days onthe weekend with our family.
That's why we do this.
So how much money do you wantto put in your pocket?
(02:56):
If you have a number in yourhead right now, I want you to
ask yourself this Is that numberwhat you really?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
want to make.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Or are you being conservative with that number?
Because all too often I talk tophotographers and they give me
a number and they say I want tomake this much money.
And then I poke and prod alittle bit and they're like,
well, actually you're right, itwould be nice to make a little
bit more than that.
So what is that number?
If you're sitting there andoriginally you thought it was
(03:27):
$50,000, but then you said, ohman, I'd really like to make
like $100,000, then go with thebig number, go with the scary
number, go with where you wantto be five, maybe even 10 years
down the road in your business.
Go with your end goal.
The reason why we need to gowith that number, instead of
(03:48):
thinking small and going withwhat we think is reasonable or
what can happen this year ormaybe the next year, is because
if we come at this with an endgoal in mind for five or maybe
even 10 years down the road, wecan set our pricing now for
where we want to get eventuallyand we can hop off this whole
bandwagon where we're constantlyreinventing our pricing.
(04:12):
You see, in the early years Iremember when I was in this
place I was like man, it'd benice if I could just make
$30,000.
And then I get to the end ofthe year and I'd be like it'd be
nice if I could make 50.
And then it'd be nice if Icould make 60 and then 70.
And every year I was changingmy pricing and I was driving
myself and my husband insanebecause I kept asking him what
(04:34):
do you think about this?
He's like why are you changingyour pricing again?
Corinda, this is crazy.
And the reason I was changingmy pricing again was because I
kept changing the end goal.
So let's just make the end goalwhat we want it to be and let's
go for it right here, right now.
This first question that I askedyou about how much you want to
(04:55):
make in your business at the endof the year.
This is the basis of everyfinancial decision that you make
in your business going forward.
This is the compass that youwill use in your business to
figure out what to charge yourclients.
What really matters at the endof the day is that you can run
(05:16):
your business, you can make agood living, you can be paid
well, you can do the things youwant to do because of your
business.
If you aren't sure what thisnumber looks like.
What I would love for you to dois I would love for you to sit
down and look at your finances,sit down and look at your bills,
sit down and look and say howmuch money do I really need to
(05:37):
survive in a year?
Then how much extra money do Ineed to do the things I want to
do?
So for those of you listening,maybe it's that you want to go
buy yourself a horse.
Maybe it's that you want to goto horse shows and ride with
some big fancy trainer.
Maybe it's you want to go buyyourself that fancy hunting dog
that you've been dreaming about,or some type of thing like that
(05:58):
.
How much is it going to costyou to be able to do those
things in your life?
And consider that when you lookat this number, now that you
know how much money you want tomake in your pocket from your
business, there's two differentways you can start to figure out
what you need to be making fromyour clients, and I'm going to
(06:18):
explain to you the wrong way togo about this.
First, and I'm going to sayit's the wrong way, but I'm
going to say it's the way thatmost people in the photography
world are taught to figure outwhat they need to be charging
their clients.
You sit down, you say I want tomake a hundred thousand dollars
in my business and then on topof that, you sit down and you
write down every single littleexpense you have.
(06:40):
You're like my website is thisthis is that my editor costs
this much.
You know every little detail ofevery expense you have and then
you add that to how much moneyyou wanted to make and then, on
top of that, you add so muchmoney, taxes and any products
you buy or whatever else youwant to do in your business, and
you come up with a number andyou're like great, I only had
(07:03):
$10,000 worth of expenses in thelast year and I think that's
all I'm going to have.
So I need to make $110,000,plus money for taxes.
Let's throw an extra $15,000 onthere for taxes.
That sounds about right.
So I need to make $125,000 toput $100,000 in my pocket.
That's what I used to do andthat's probably what some of you
(07:24):
are doing here who arelistening to this podcast.
You're just calculating whatyou think your expenses are
going to be and trying to pieceit all together.
I used to do my business thisway and I used to sit down and
figure out what I needed to becharging, just like that.
And each and every year at theend of the year I would look at
my books and look at my thingaccount and I'd think to myself
(07:46):
where did all of my money go?
I'd be like, well, I didn'tcount that I was going to have
this expense that was going tocome up, or I didn't think I was
going to need this new piece ofequipment, or I didn't think
this was going to happen.
And all of these extra thingscame up that I didn't account
for in my expenses and all of asudden I'd spent all of the
money I'd been making and Iwasn't paying myself.
(08:08):
And that is a bad feeling.
It's a whole bad feeling whenyou work five or six or maybe
seven days a week in those earlyyears, all day long, all night
long maybe and you look at yourbank account at the end of the
year and you say to yourself Ididn't make any money, but I
worked my butt off.
(08:29):
What happened here?
What happened was you didn'tknow how to plan the right way.
You didn't know what to chargeyour clients.
You didn't know how to get yourclients to spend the amount of
money that they needed to bespending for you to pay yourself
off.
About this time I was probablylike five years into business.
For those of you that don'tknow, I've been in business for
(08:49):
over 10 years now that'sprobably five years into
business and I kept hearing thisidea come up and this book
being recommended, called ProfitFirst, and I was like what are
all these people talking about?
And I really started to diginto this book and this idea and
in this book the author hisname is Mike he proposes this
(09:10):
idea that you can usepercentages to plan your
business finances, with the ideathat each and every month, you
take a certain percentage ofeverything that comes in and you
set it aside for payingyourself, you set it aside for
taxes, you set it aside forcomes in and you set it aside
for paying yourself, you set itaside for taxes, you set it
aside for your expenses and youset them aside for your savings.
And he proposes that mostbusinesses have essentially like
(09:36):
standard numbers that fit formost businesses.
And he shares these percentagesand how he uses them in his
book.
And I started to think aboutthis and I started to realize,
huh, this makes sense.
Because part of my problem wasthat when I was bringing in
(09:58):
$100,000 a year and I wassitting there going, I want to
hit $300,000 a year in mybusiness, I didn't realize how
much more expensive it was goingto be to run a business that
was bringing in $300,000 a year.
Or one day when I woke up andsaid I want to build a business
that brings in half a milliondollars a year, I have no idea
(10:21):
what it looks like, what theexpenses associated with that
work to run a business thatbrings in that type of revenue,
because I'm not there yet.
So if you're sitting here todayand you're saying I want to put
$100,000 in my pocket for mybusiness, do you have any idea
what it's going to cost to getyou there?
Probably not.
I can tell you it's a lot morethan you think.
(10:43):
Just ask my bank account everymonth y'all.
If you knew how much money Ispent on my bank account each
and every month to run mybusiness, y'all would probably
cry.
I want to cry sometimes too,even though I know I can pay for
it.
But still, it's terrifying tothink when you're spending tens
of thousands of dollars a monthin your business because your
(11:05):
expenses are so high to berunning a business at this level
.
So what I did was I started tolook at these percentages.
I started to look at my ownbusiness over the last few years
.
I started to look at mycoaching clients' businesses and
I started to look at thesenumbers and say how do these
numbers really work forphotographers?
(11:26):
Does this really work for us?
And I started to plan mybusiness and my financial goals
based on percentages Instead ofjust these arbitrary.
I think it's going to cost thismuch, so why not Right?
Once I started planning mybusiness based on these
percentages, I took them, Itweaked them a little bit and I
(11:48):
made them a little bit morespecific for photographers, and
here is what I came up Wheneveryou make one, let's say a client
pays you $1,000.
Let's talk about where that$1,000 goes in your business.
The first place that that$1,000 is going to go to is to
pay for any products that yourclient purchases, which we call
(12:09):
COGS or cost of goods sold.
Typically in the photographyworld, you will hear recommended
that your cost of goods sold isanywhere from 15 to 25 percent,
depending on who you're talkingto.
I recommend that your cost ofgoods sold be at or below 20%.
So 20% of everything you makeis going to go straight to pay
(12:31):
for the products that yourclients are purchasing.
20% of what you make is goingto go straight towards your
expenses of running a business.
40% of what you make is goingto go into your pocket.
So if that client pays you$1,000, that means $400 is going
straight to your pocket.
(12:52):
About 15% is going to go totaxes and about 5% is going to
go to savings.
These numbers are not exactlywhat you hear in the Profit
First book.
They are a little bit differentand they're numbers that I have
morphed to kind of fit my ownpersonal business and my
coaching clients' businesses.
So keep that in mind.
If you have read Profit First,you've listened to Profit First
(13:14):
and you're familiar with thisidea.
These are the percentages thatI believe work really great for
photographers.
So if your cost of goods is 30%right now, these numbers aren't
going to work for you.
If your products are marked upthree times instead of five
times, these numbers might notwork for your business.
So this is where you want tostart to pay attention to what
(13:37):
your products are priced at.
You want to look and be like ohman, if I'm running a business
bringing in $250,000 a year, 20%of that's going to be expenses.
That means I have this amountof money to spend on things, and
this is how I'm going to breakit down Right?
So I'm going to repeat thenumbers one more time for y'all.
It's 20% towards your cost ofgoods sold, 20% towards your
(14:01):
expenses, 40% goes in yourpocket, 15% goes towards taxes
and 5% goes to savings.
If we keep these numbers in mind, we can reverse engineer what
we need to bring in to meet ourincome goals.
So if you are paying yourself40%, how much money do you need
(14:26):
to make to meet that income goalwith your business?
And this is about the time,when I say these numbers, that
people freak out and go holycrap, that's a lot of money.
I had no idea.
And I didn't either.
I had no idea.
That's why.
I wasn't making money in mybusiness, it's because I didn't
realize how much of my money wasreally going out the door and
(14:47):
how many expenses I really wasgoing to have.
So if you're not a math person,I'm going to throw some numbers
out there and help you figurethis out.
Just make things super simpletoday, especially if you're
driving down the road andlistening to this and you don't
really have time to sit downwith a calculator.
So I'm going to throw out someof the most common numbers and
I'm going to start at the lowend and I'm going to work up to
some bigger numbers.
(15:07):
Let's say, if you wanted to payyourself $40,000 in your
business, you would need tobring in $100,000 in revenue.
If you wanted to pay yourself$60,000, you would need to bring
in $150,000 in your business.
If you wanted to put $80,000 inyour pocket, you would need to
(15:32):
bring in about $200,000 inrevenue in your business.
If you wanted to pay yourselfsix figures and you wanted to
put $100,000 in your pocketevery year from your business,
you would need to bring in about$250,000.
And if you wanted to put$200,000 in your pocket again,
(15:54):
you would need to bring in about$500,000.
In your business in the newyear.
Let's consider that your goalis to put $100,000 in your
pocket each year from yourbusiness.
Let's take this a step furtherand see what we would need to
make per client that comes inour door to actually put
(16:16):
$100,000 in our pocket.
So you would need to bring in$250,000 in revenue, which means
40% of $250,000 is going to be$100,000, which is going
straight to you.
The next question I want you toask yourself to determine what
you need to be making per clientthat comes through your door is
(16:38):
how many months out of the yeardo you want to be photographing
clients?
How many months out of the yeardo you want to be photographing
clients?
It's incredibly important toremember that you do not want to
work 12 months out of the year.
So many times I ask people thisand they're like I want to work
12 months out of the year.
It gets too cold.
I'm going to go somewhere whereit's warm so I can work all the
time.
Guys, take time off, takevacation.
(17:02):
Take at least a couple monthsoff a year.
Photography it's tiring, it canbe exhausting.
It can be physically, mentally,emotionally taxing.
We need to take time torecharge our creative brains.
If you only shoot outdoors.
Chances are there's going to bemonths where it's too cold or
too hot to work For me.
I don't want to work in July inTexas it is hotter than I don't
(17:25):
even know what, and there's noway that any horse or dog or
person looks good in July inTexas.
They look like a.
Even a horse looks like a wetdog in July in Texas.
Okay, and the winter time?
People in Texas are weeniesguys.
We don't even have cold winters, but it's below 70 degrees.
Nobody wants to go outside.
(17:46):
They're like I'm freezing, Ihave goosebumps.
I can't do portraits outside.
So you know what?
I really only want to work likeeight months out of the year.
I can take a couple months offduring the summer, a couple
months off during the winter.
I'm perfectly fine.
I would say that mostphotographers choose to work
anywhere from eight to 10 monthsout of the year.
However, let's say you wanted towork three months out of the
(18:07):
year.
That's totally doable.
For example, when COVIDhappened and the world shut down
, I had clients all over theplace.
I travel all over the US for myclients and I couldn't hop on a
plane and go to my clients likeI used to.
So what did I do?
I waited until things settleddown.
I bought myself a camper and Iwent on the road for three weeks
(18:31):
.
I photographed all my clientsIn a three-week time period.
I have a session almost everysingle day.
Came home, I did all my imagereveals and I had a $100,000
month Like that.
You could literally photographclients one month out of the
year if you wanted to and if youplan for it and bring in all
the money you need to make andbe done.
(18:51):
So you get to choose how youwant to structure your business.
You get to choose how you wantto structure your year.
So don't be afraid to dosomething like you know what?
I would just love to work withclients three months out of the
year and then be done.
That's totally fine.
Now, today, for our example,I'm going to consider that you
(19:11):
want to work 10 months out ofthe year and it makes the math a
little easier.
So if you want to work 10 monthsout of the year and you need to
bring in $250,000 in revenue$250,000 in revenue Looking to
(19:32):
create more magic in yourbusiness Make sure you join us
over in your Magic Year.
Your Magic Year is our newyear-long program designed to
help give you direction andguidance as you move throughout
the next year in your business.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Together we're going to work through quests each and
every month.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
We're going to have a magical training every month to
give you guidance and direction, but, most importantly, you're
going to be surrounded in acommunity of people that are
also working towards the samegoals as yourself, so you don't
have to feel alone.
Check out the link in the shownotes.
You need to make $25,000 permonth 10 months out of the year.
(20:04):
So if you're sitting there andyou're thinking, holy crap, how
can I ever make $25,000 a month,I feel ya, I get it, I was
there.
It is totally possible.
And let's break this down,because right now, when I think
about a $25,000 month, I'm likethat's an easy month, no big
deal, Right?
(20:24):
When you are not there yet, itfeels like crazy.
It feels like how on earth canI ever get there?
Once you get there, you're likehow did I ever not do that?
I can sit there and look at myaccount and be like I have
$100,000 months in my business.
Now I do four times this.
Of course you can do $25,000.
If I can do $100,000 in onemonth by myself, you can do it.
(20:54):
Let's talk about how we decide,how we figure out how to break
this monthly revenue that weneed to bring in down to a more
manageable level.
So the next thing I need you tothink about and to decide is
how many clients do you reallywant to work with each and every
month?
What number is popping intoyour head right now?
And you're like I would love Xnumber of clients.
So many times I askphotographers this and they say
(21:15):
something to me like I wouldlove to have 15 or 20 clients a
month, and I'm like no, whoa,whoa, whoa, let's take a step
back.
Can you actually deal with thatmany clients?
Or how many clients can youactually deal with with your
life, the life you want to liveand like not be drowning, right?
For most photographers, asingle client can take anywhere
(21:40):
from 10 to 15 hours of directtime related to that client.
So when you think about that,is it realistic to do two or
three clients every single week?
Probably not.
That's a full time job plusmore, not considering all of the
(22:01):
extra back end things we do.
Let's say a full-time job plusmore, not considering all of the
extra back-end things we do.
Let's say a full work week ifyou're working eight hours a day
, five days a week, that's 40hours.
If you did two clients per weekand those two clients per week,
you're spending about 15 hoursworking on their things, between
communications, emails,meetings, driving to their
(22:22):
session, photographing theirsession, calling, editing all of
those things.
That takes up 30 hours a week,not to count the time for your
back-end stuff like marketing,education, updating your website
, scheduling social media, beingyour own bookkeeper and all of
these other things that you doas a photographer.
I would say that, realistically,most photographers need about
(22:43):
five to eight clients per month,and that seems to be the sweet
spot.
So once like one and a half ormaybe two clients per week, once
you get your systems down,really good.
Managing two clients per weekisn't crazy, but it can be a
little bit more difficult.
Let's be honest.
You work for yourself.
You don't want to work all thetime.
(23:05):
Really, how many days a week doyou want to be working?
Do you want to work five days aweek, from eight to five, or do
you want to work like threedays?
a week for four hours.
Consider these types of thingswhen you're deciding what you
need to make and what you needto make per client.
If you're sitting here saying,realistically, I can only work
eight hours a week, I need tohave one client per week.
(23:25):
I need to figure out how to getthat client to only take eight
hours of my time and I need tomeet my income goals from that,
and you're going to have tofigure out how to do it.
Not impossible, you can do it.
You just have to decide whatthat looks like for you.
So let's say, with this,$25,000 a month if you're
working 10 months out of theyear.
Let's say you want five clientsper month.
(23:45):
If you want five clients permonth, that means you need to
make $5,000 per client that youhave.
Now maybe you're thinkingthat's insane, there's no way,
so let's play with some othernumbers.
This is when you get to plugand play and decide where your
comfort level lies.
Maybe you're thinking how abouteight?
Eight sounds like okay, that'sa little bit less per client.
(24:08):
Eight clients per month soundskind of scary.
But how much is that?
If you have eight clients permonth and you need to bring in
$25,000 per month.
That would mean you needed tomake $3,125 per client.
Or maybe you're like, oh, thatfre freaking out.
Okay, 10 clients per month,I'll do 10 a month.
You would need 10 clients permonth to pay you $2,500 a piece.
(24:31):
Or maybe you're like you knowwhat?
Heck.
No, I want three clients permonth, corinda.
What does that look like?
If you only wanted to havethree clients per month, you
just need to make $8,333 perclient, which, in all reality,
is totally doable.
I have a coaching client rightnow and I was talking to her the
(24:52):
other day and she switched to asystem where she went from
including digital files orclients paying her a few hundred
dollars, to selling art andoffering art to her clients, and
I think she said most of herclients are spending around like
$7,000.
And she's in her first year ofmaking the switch.
(25:12):
I have coaching clients whosevery first client who comes to
the system actually they'veworked with me spend seven or
eight or 10 or $14,000 withtheir first client.
Like it's insane, right?
So it's not impossible to haveclients that are ready and
willing to invest thousands ofdollars.
You just have to have the rightsystems in place.
(25:34):
But what I hope this helps yourecognize is that doing portrait
sessions for $250, $300 ormaybe even $1,000 or $1,500,
it's going to take a lot to getyou there.
It's going to take a lot ofthose $1,500 clients even to
help you get to where you needto be.
(25:54):
And I'm going to tell you thisit is so much easier to make
more money from the clients youhave than it is to find more
clients.
It is so much easier to findfive really amazing clients than
it is to have 15 mediocreclients.
So don't be afraid to justmaximize the clients that you
(26:19):
have coming through your doorand stop feeling like you have
to drag in all of these extrapeople because that is not fun.
That sucks.
Marketing is hard, guys.
I'll be honest with you.
Probably one of the hardestthings to really master in your
business is marketing.
That's why it's easier just tomake more money from the people
that are already coming throughyour door Now if you're sitting
(26:40):
there going.
This sounds really cool, but Ihave no idea how I would ever
make $5,000 per client.
You're saying that to put$100,000 in my pocket.
If I'm working 10 months out ofthe year, I would need to bring
$250,000 in that year.
10 months out of the year means$25,000 per month.
(27:00):
If I did five clients per month, that's $5,000 per client.
Let's talk about what a $5,000client looks like.
A $5,000 client could buy analbum, a large album from me
with about 50 of their favoriteportraits and spend $5,000.
A $5,000 client from me couldbuy one 60-inch piece of art.
(27:25):
A $5,000 client for me couldbuy a small album with around 25
portraits and get a couplemedium-sized metals around maybe
20 inches.
Most of my clients are going tospend at least $5,000.
Most of my clients are going toget an album and a couple
pieces of art and spend at leastthat $5,000 mark and most of my
(27:46):
clients don't hesitate to dothat.
They're excited, they're ready,they're willing.
And I hear this time and timeagain from my coaching clients.
They say, corinda, all of thissounds great.
That's why I hired you to be mycoach.
I thought like this would be socool if I could get there, but
I didn't believe it would reallyhappen.
And then I had my first clientand I was like holy crap,
(28:10):
corinda.
They didn't hesitate to spendthe money, they didn't hesitate
to get the art, they didn'thesitate to buy the album and
spend the thousands of dollarsand, the best part, they didn't
even care that they didn't getall their digital files.
Is that to say that they don'thave to get their digital files?
No, not at all, I have coachingclients that have implemented
this system that I teach.
(28:32):
They have had an image revealwith a client that did get all
their digital files and thatclient's been over $10,000 on
their portraits.
So it's possible for yourclients to get their digital
files and still spend money onart, still go above and beyond
and help you get to those bignumbers.
Now the fun part about this andthe next step is once you know
(28:55):
what you need to be making perclient, you get to decide how
you get there, and there's anumber of ways you can get there
.
The way I do it is not the wayfor everybody and I completely
understand that.
In my business personally, myclients come to me.
They pay a session fee.
Their session fee covers thesession, my time spent
(29:16):
photographing the session, myhelp planning the session, my
travel to them, all this goodstuff, and it includes a credit
for them to use towards theirfavorite portrait after the
session.
Then afterwards they spend moremoney, they buy art, they buy
albums, and that gets me tothose $5,000 more clients.
(29:37):
Now there's a lot of differentways you can get there to that
target number, but in my opinionit's easier when people pay a
little bit less upfront, becauseit's hard to get into the door
sometimes, and then they can buymore on the back.
Once they see their portraits,once they fall in love with them
, once they see the art, oncethey see that picture on their
wall, they're obsessed and theyhave to have it.
(29:59):
And it's easier to get themthere after the session than
before.
But let me share with you a fewdifferent ways you can get to
this place.
The first option, and theoption that seems like the
easiest route, is hey, justcharge $5,000 up front, charge a
high session fee and includeall their digital files.
(30:22):
There are photographers thatuse this method.
There are photographers thathave a high session fee that's
thousands of dollars and theyare so well known, they have
such a great reputation thattheir clients will come to them
and pay thousands of dollars andbe okay, walking away with all
their digital files.
Now you could have a reallyhigh session fee up front that
gets you there, but maybeinstead of including the digital
(30:44):
files, you include a product oryou include a credit to use
towards product.
So my session fee could be$5,000.
And I could say my session feeis $5,000.
And you're going to get a$4,500 credit to use towards
your single portraits after that.
But you have to pay me the fullthing front.
That's big and that's scary andultimately I think that
(31:07):
especially in the early phasesof business even where I'm at
it's a little scary to thinklike could I just go put a
$5,000 price tag out and peoplewould just book and pay it and
be fine with it.
Honestly, as a client myself, Iam hesitant to work with a
photographer like that because Imight not want all of like that
, because I might not want allof my photos, I might not want
(31:30):
all of those things that areincluded with their session fee.
So personally I struggle withthat a bit.
I'm not that person that wouldgo spend that money up front and
just pay it and get all myimages and call it a day,
because that's not who I am Now.
The next route you can go is tohave a middle of the road
session fee.
So you can have a session feesomewhere in between.
A session fee that requalifiespeople a bit by making them buy
(31:54):
in and invest up front.
That includes a credit of sortswhich is my go-to and my
preferred method.
My preferred method is to have asession fee that includes a
credit to use towards theirfavorite portraits.
What that magical number is, itdoesn't really matter.
What matters is that thatnumber that you choose for the
(32:17):
session fee and the creditthat's included gets clients
through your door.
That you can convey the valueand what they're getting to them
when you speak to them.
That you can convey the valueand what they're getting to them
when you speak to them.
Get them through your door, getthem to pay your session fee.
You can share with them thatthey're probably going to want
to spend more money than that onthe back end and be clear and
transparent and upfront withthem of what that looks like.
(32:38):
And then, when their session'sover, they're ready and willing
and excited to invest more ontheir portraits.
And although you only got asmall percentage of that up
front, you're going to be ableto get more of that down the
road.
When they see their portraitsand fall in love with it, and
when they can envision thatbeautiful portrait of them and
their dog out in the fields ontheir wall, or when they can
(33:02):
imagine that beautiful portraitof their family on their wall,
they're going to be willing andready to buy and spend the
thousands of dollars on it.
Once they can imagine thatbeautiful portrait of their
family on their wall, they'regoing to be willing and ready to
buy and spend the thousands ofdollars on it once they can see
it, versus when it's justsomething that hasn't even
happened yet and they don't haveany context of that.
That middle of the road optionwith having a session fee that
includes your time photographingthe session and a print credit
(33:25):
is really my preferred route togo to.
Like I said, it can come in anumber of different ways, and
the numbers you choose reallydon't matter.
It could be anywhere from a$450 session fee that includes a
$300 credit to a $1,500 sessionfee that includes $1,000 credit
.
The number you choose really isinsignificant, so don't put too
(33:48):
much thought into it.
However, I'm going to leave youwith a couple of tips to think
about when you're deciding whatyour session fee should be, if
you choose to go the middle ofthe road option.
Now, when we talk about sessionfees, our session fee is really
a pre-qualifier for our clients.
We want to consider that havinga session fee that's too low
(34:08):
could mean that we get poorquality clients in our door.
Having a session fee that's toohigh could also scare people
off, and really what we want todo is we want to find the sweet
spot.
The sweet spot thatpre-qualifies people and says if
you're willing to spend thismuch money up front, then you
probably have more money tospend on art and things like
(34:28):
that.
But we want to have it in theright place and sometimes we
have to gauge that.
So, if you set your session feeand you find yourself getting
too many low quality clientsthat aren't willing to invest
more, or they're just a pain inyour rear end.
Your session fee is probably alittle bit too low and you
should bump it up.
If you're so busy you'returning people away, it's your
(34:50):
sign to bump your session fee up.
Now, if you set a session feeand you're just like really
struggling and every time yousay it to somebody it's so high
and it makes you cringe and itfreaks you out a little bit and
you're not booking any clientsat that rate because you chose
something that might be too high, you're not booking any clients
at that rate because you chosesomething that might be too high
.
It might be your sign to bumpit down a bit, but there's a lot
of things that go into that too.
(35:11):
And without knowing exactlywhat your process looks like
when you get an inquiry, withoutknowing exactly what your
methods are, your systems thatyou have in place, without
knowing exactly how you'respeaking to your clients, I
really can't tell you if youneed to consider lowering your
session fee down, becausethere's a lot that goes into it.
It might not be your sessionfee, it might be something more
(35:32):
like your script and the wayyou're talking to your clients
when they inquire with you.
It might just be that youaren't properly conveying the
value of what they're getting.
So there's a lot of things thatgo into that, but just kind of
keep that in mind.
Really, if your session fee istoo low, you might get too many
poor quality clients and peoplethat are a pain in the butt.
That could happen.
(35:53):
Or if you get too busy and youhave to turn people away, then
raising your session fee canhelp there.
Now the third option when itcomes to your session fee.
Right, we talked about highsession fee includes a ton of
stuff.
It gets you all your money.
We talked about a middle of theroad session fee that includes
session fee plus a credittowards their products.
Or we talk about low sessionfees, a very low session fee
(36:16):
that literally just covers thesession and includes nothing
else.
That's another route you go inand, honestly, in all of these
things I'm sharing with you,there is no right or wrong.
I will tell you and I told youwhat I think works best and what
I use, but that doesn't meanthat something else can't work
for you.
So you need to look at how muchmoney you need to make per
(36:38):
client and then you need toconsider these three options
when it comes to your sessionfee, and you need to ask
yourself how am I going to getmy clients where they need to be
?
Which one of these methods isgoing to be the easiest and the
best way for me to make themoney I need to make?
And then you need to try it,and if it doesn't work, but then
(37:00):
you need to try something else.
And if it doesn't work, youneed to try something else.
And if it still doesn't work,you need to try something else.
And if it still doesn't work,then maybe there's some other
pieces broken, because thisisn't just about a session fee,
it's about a whole lot of otherthings in your business, so make
sure you keep that in mind.
I have tried them all.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I've tried every pricing strategy there is under
the sun.
I've had a very low session feethat included nothing.
I've had a high session feethat included everything.
I've had a high session feethat included some but not
everything.
I've tried every pricing method.
I've tried both things.
If somebody out there teaches amethod of pricing, I've tried
(37:41):
it, Whether it's in my portraitsor in my wedding years years
when I used to photographweddings I tried every single
strategy there was.
I tried like letting clientsbuild packages up front.
I tried.
I can't even explain to you myhusband literally was like we're
doing this again.
Like yeah, we are, we're gonnatry something else.
But the thing is, I come hereto you with this knowledge to
(38:05):
share with you all the mistakesI've made to share with you why
the things I tried did not work.
And for those of you that mightbe listening to this and saying
there's so many other chiefphotographers in my area, why
would anybody come to me?
Or maybe you're sitting heregoing.
(38:26):
I would never spend that kindof money.
How would my clients?
I have a couple of pieces ofadvice here For those of you
that are sitting there sayingthere are so many chief
photographers in my area, why isanybody going to come to me?
They're going to come to youbecause there's a difference in
what you provide when you'recharging thousands of dollars
than when you're charginghundreds of dollars.
(38:46):
There is a substantialdifference.
There is a service, there is avalue, there is an experience
you are providing to clients tobe able to get to spend
thousands of dollars, and it'snot just showing up to their
session and taking their photos.
When you are a photographerthat is willing to go out there
and charge thousands of dollarsand have clients that are ready
(39:08):
and willing and excited to sendthousands of dollars, it's
because you are solving all oftheir problems.
You are helping them, you areguiding them, you are providing
something that is so amazing.
How could they not spendthousands of dollars on it.
And for those of you that say Iwouldn't personally spend that
much money on portraits, I'mgoing to tell you you don't know
(39:32):
, actually, if you would or notuntil you're put into a
situation.
Because for me personally, Iprobably would have said that
same thing, except for when Iwas very, very early on of my
business, like baby years in mybusiness.
First year when I started mybusiness, I hired a photographer
to do boudoir photos before Igot married and I found this
(39:55):
photographer and I was obsessed,I was in love with her work and
I was like I have to hire thisgirl.
I remember where I was.
I was sitting at Chili's when Ifound this girl's work online
with my fiance at the time, andI remember seeing her pictures
and being like, oh my gosh, Ihave to have this.
And you know, I remember goingand meeting with her and talking
to her and her saying I'm goingto provide you with this
(40:18):
experience.
I'm going to provide you withthis amazing transformation.
I'm going to get to know you.
I'm going to pour my heart andsoul into you.
I'm going to love on you.
I I'm going to pour my heartand soul into you.
I'm going to love on you, I'mgoing to do all of these things
for you and, by the way, if youwant this beautiful book, it's
going to cost thousands ofdollars.
No lie, guys.
I was fresh out of college, Iwas starting my business.
We were paying for a wedding oncredit cards.
(40:39):
We did not have a whole lot ofhelp from our family and I
figured out how to buy that$2,000 or $3,000 album in secret
and pay for it out of my pocketwith money that I don't even
know where it came from lookingback at it, I did it Now, if you
would have asked me beforehand,before I went through the
(41:00):
experience, before I waspresented with the opportunity,
if I would have done the samething, I probably would have
said no, I don't tell you again.
I've been in business for 10years now.
We had maternity photos donewhen I was pregnant a couple
years ago.
I went into the maternitysession.
I knew what I was gettingmyself into.
This photographer I know well.
(41:21):
She's an incredible artist.
She's an incrediblebusinesswoman.
Her clients pay her lots ofmoney and I said I want one
photo for over my bed.
I want one photo for my bed.
Here's exactly what I want.
Here's the dimensions.
I know what I want.
I went into it going.
I'm going to spend a couplethousand dollars on this one
piece of art that's going to goover my bed.
Hey, I know how this works.
(41:44):
I do this on the daily.
Guess what?
I showed up at the session.
She killed it.
It was an amazing experience.
It was like I was a queen, Didall these outfits.
She was like try this on, putthis on.
You're a badass, do this.
I sit on the imagery field.
No joke, my like.
I want one photo.
(42:04):
This is what I want turned intolike I think the invoice ended
up being over $10,000 in the endand I was like, if I can do
this to myself, knowing what I'mdoing and being so excited
about it, holy crap.
I understand how my clients can.
So I'm going to encourage you.
(42:25):
If you're sitting there goinglike I don't think I could ever
do this, Go hire yourself aphotographer that provides a
full experience.
Go treat yourself to somethinglike this.
Go through the experience as aclient, because it is incredibly
important to experience that.
It's something that we do everyyear.
We try to hire a photographerto do our portraits, to go
through the experience, and wespend the money we invest, we do
(42:45):
it and sometimes I come into itthinking I'm not going to do it
and then I fall into the trapand I do it anyway.
So I just want to encouragey'all and know that it is
possible that you can do it.
My coaching clients all the timesay I don't think this is
possible.
I don't know how this is goingto happen.
They come through the processand they're like holy schmoly,
(43:06):
it worked.
My client spent all this money.
How did this happen?
It is possible for you and itis possible for each and every
one of you.
But the first step is having avery clear picture of what your
goals are, to know your numbers,to know exactly what you need
to make per client and to alwaysmake decisions that are going
to get you there in yourbusiness, To figure out how do I
(43:27):
meet those goals.
And if you're sitting herethinking like, OK, my number, I
need $5,000 per client, I needfive clients per month.
You're saying that seems so outof reach, Remember, you don't
have to get there tomorrow Ifyou got 25% of the way there in
the next six months and then inthe next six months, you got 50%
of the way there in the nextsix months and then in the next
six months, you got 50% of theway there and then, a year after
(43:50):
that, you've got 100% of theway there.
You don't need to get theretomorrow.
Your averages will get higher.
Your clients will buy more art.
Your clients will buy biggerart.
Your clients will buy albumsand more images in their albums.
The better that you get at thesystem and the better you get
with the process and thatdoesn't always happen right away
(44:10):
, and that's okay, but you justneed to make small steps to get
there, and your pricing can beset up now to get you there, and
over time, you will get closerand closer and closer.
So don't feel discouraged aboutthis idea of, like man, I feel
like I'm never going to getthere, because you can and you
(44:31):
will get there.
And each and every year, youwill get closer and closer and
closer to where you want to be,without having to ram within the
wheel.
By just simply making smalltweaks, by simply getting better
, by honing in on your skills,by becoming a better
photographer, by becoming abetter business owner, you will
get closer and closer.
I hope this has been helpfulfor you today and I hope by the
(44:52):
end of today, you have a goodidea of exactly what you need to
be making for each and everyclient that comes through your
door.
In the show notes, we're goingto share with you a link to grab
a PDF guide.
It's going to share the detailsand these numbers with you too,
so you can break them down.
But I hope this has beenhelpful and I cannot wait to
hear what numbers you come upwith.
Make sure you head over to ourFacebook group Photography
(45:15):
Business, tune Up with CorinnaKay and you share your results
and what you figured out onceyou work through this podcast.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Thank you so much for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to support the
podcast, please make sure youshare it on social media or
leave a rating and review.
As always, you can check outthe links and resources in the
show notes over atmasteryourmindmoneycom.
To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on Instagram
at masteryourmindmoney anddon't forget to join our free
(45:42):
Facebook group PhotographyBusiness Tune-Up with Corinna
Kay.
Thanks again, and I
Welcome to Mindset and Money Mastery for
Photographers the podcast.
We help overwhelmedphotographers make more money
while simplifying their businessby mastering their you guessed
it mindset and money.
Tune in each week for practicaland actionable tips to take
your photography business up anotch.
Let's dive right in.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to today's episode of Mindset and Money
Mastery for Photographers.
I'm so excited today.
This is probably the number oneconversation that I have with
photographers about theirbusiness.
I talk to so many photographerseach and every week and before
we talk about anything else,this is what I ask them.
So this is an incrediblyvaluable process I'm going to
(00:45):
take you through today to sharewith you exactly what you need
to know about figuring out whatto charge your clients.
So when I'm looking throughFacebook groups and I'm online
and I'm seeing photographershaving conversations, I see
people posting this question allthe time.
They're saying what should mysession fee be?
(01:05):
What should I charge my clientsfor this?
What should I charge my clientsfor that?
I had somebody contact me aboutthis type of session, but I
have no idea what to charge them.
And this question really boilsdown to one thing.
It boils down to what do youneed to be making in your
business to pay yourself whatyou want to pay yourself?
(01:28):
Let's break this down a littlebit.
The first thing we need to doto break this down is we need
you do you want to make in yourpocket each and every year from
(01:49):
your business?
If you could wave a magicalwand and imagine that you're
taking a paycheck from yourbusiness.
How much money are you payingyourself each and every year
from your business?
Are you paying yourself $50,000a year, 60, 70, 80, 100?
Maybe you want to pay yourself$150,000 a year, and when I ask
(02:14):
this question, I really want youto think what do you want to
put in your pocket If you weregoing to a job and working?
What goes in your pocket fromyour business, not what does
your business make.
Right now, it's all about whatyou're paying yourself.
Because, ultimately, we'rephotographers because we love it
.
We're also photographersbecause we want to make money
(02:35):
and have a legitimate businesswhere we're paid well, where we
can afford to do things where wecan afford to go buy a house,
or maybe go buy a pony, or maybesomething simple like go on a
vacation for a couple of days onthe weekend with our family.
That's why we do this.
So how much money do you wantto put in your pocket?
(02:56):
If you have a number in yourhead right now, I want you to
ask yourself this Is that numberwhat you really?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
want to make.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Or are you being conservative with that number?
Because all too often I talk tophotographers and they give me
a number and they say I want tomake this much money.
And then I poke and prod alittle bit and they're like,
well, actually you're right, itwould be nice to make a little
bit more than that.
So what is that number?
If you're sitting there andoriginally you thought it was
(03:27):
$50,000, but then you said, ohman, I'd really like to make
like $100,000, then go with thebig number, go with the scary
number, go with where you wantto be five, maybe even 10 years
down the road in your business.
Go with your end goal.
The reason why we need to gowith that number, instead of
(03:48):
thinking small and going withwhat we think is reasonable or
what can happen this year ormaybe the next year, is because
if we come at this with an endgoal in mind for five or maybe
even 10 years down the road, wecan set our pricing now for
where we want to get eventuallyand we can hop off this whole
bandwagon where we're constantlyreinventing our pricing.
(04:12):
You see, in the early years Iremember when I was in this
place I was like man, it'd benice if I could just make
$30,000.
And then I get to the end ofthe year and I'd be like it'd be
nice if I could make 50.
And then it'd be nice if Icould make 60 and then 70.
And every year I was changingmy pricing and I was driving
myself and my husband insanebecause I kept asking him what
(04:34):
do you think about this?
He's like why are you changingyour pricing again?
Corinda, this is crazy.
And the reason I was changingmy pricing again was because I
kept changing the end goal.
So let's just make the end goalwhat we want it to be and let's
go for it right here, right now.
This first question that I askedyou about how much you want to
(04:55):
make in your business at the endof the year.
This is the basis of everyfinancial decision that you make
in your business going forward.
This is the compass that youwill use in your business to
figure out what to charge yourclients.
What really matters at the endof the day is that you can run
(05:16):
your business, you can make agood living, you can be paid
well, you can do the things youwant to do because of your
business.
If you aren't sure what thisnumber looks like.
What I would love for you to dois I would love for you to sit
down and look at your finances,sit down and look at your bills,
sit down and look and say howmuch money do I really need to
(05:37):
survive in a year?
Then how much extra money do Ineed to do the things I want to
do?
So for those of you listening,maybe it's that you want to go
buy yourself a horse.
Maybe it's that you want to goto horse shows and ride with
some big fancy trainer.
Maybe it's you want to go buyyourself that fancy hunting dog
that you've been dreaming about,or some type of thing like that
(05:58):
.
How much is it going to costyou to be able to do those
things in your life?
And consider that when you lookat this number, now that you
know how much money you want tomake in your pocket from your
business, there's two differentways you can start to figure out
what you need to be making fromyour clients, and I'm going to
(06:18):
explain to you the wrong way togo about this.
First, and I'm going to sayit's the wrong way, but I'm
going to say it's the way thatmost people in the photography
world are taught to figure outwhat they need to be charging
their clients.
You sit down, you say I want tomake a hundred thousand dollars
in my business and then on topof that, you sit down and you
write down every single littleexpense you have.
(06:40):
You're like my website is thisthis is that my editor costs
this much.
You know every little detail ofevery expense you have and then
you add that to how much moneyyou wanted to make and then, on
top of that, you add so muchmoney, taxes and any products
you buy or whatever else youwant to do in your business, and
you come up with a number andyou're like great, I only had
(07:03):
$10,000 worth of expenses in thelast year and I think that's
all I'm going to have.
So I need to make $110,000,plus money for taxes.
Let's throw an extra $15,000 onthere for taxes.
That sounds about right.
So I need to make $125,000 toput $100,000 in my pocket.
That's what I used to do andthat's probably what some of you
(07:24):
are doing here who arelistening to this podcast.
You're just calculating whatyou think your expenses are
going to be and trying to pieceit all together.
I used to do my business thisway and I used to sit down and
figure out what I needed to becharging, just like that.
And each and every year at theend of the year I would look at
my books and look at my thingaccount and I'd think to myself
(07:46):
where did all of my money go?
I'd be like, well, I didn'tcount that I was going to have
this expense that was going tocome up, or I didn't think I was
going to need this new piece ofequipment, or I didn't think
this was going to happen.
And all of these extra thingscame up that I didn't account
for in my expenses and all of asudden I'd spent all of the
money I'd been making and Iwasn't paying myself.
(08:08):
And that is a bad feeling.
It's a whole bad feeling whenyou work five or six or maybe
seven days a week in those earlyyears, all day long, all night
long maybe and you look at yourbank account at the end of the
year and you say to yourself Ididn't make any money, but I
worked my butt off.
(08:29):
What happened here?
What happened was you didn'tknow how to plan the right way.
You didn't know what to chargeyour clients.
You didn't know how to get yourclients to spend the amount of
money that they needed to bespending for you to pay yourself
off.
About this time I was probablylike five years into business.
For those of you that don'tknow, I've been in business for
(08:49):
over 10 years now that'sprobably five years into
business and I kept hearing thisidea come up and this book
being recommended, called ProfitFirst, and I was like what are
all these people talking about?
And I really started to diginto this book and this idea and
in this book the author hisname is Mike he proposes this
(09:10):
idea that you can usepercentages to plan your
business finances, with the ideathat each and every month, you
take a certain percentage ofeverything that comes in and you
set it aside for payingyourself, you set it aside for
taxes, you set it aside forcomes in and you set it aside
for paying yourself, you set itaside for taxes, you set it
aside for your expenses and youset them aside for your savings.
And he proposes that mostbusinesses have essentially like
(09:36):
standard numbers that fit formost businesses.
And he shares these percentagesand how he uses them in his
book.
And I started to think aboutthis and I started to realize,
huh, this makes sense.
Because part of my problem wasthat when I was bringing in
(09:58):
$100,000 a year and I wassitting there going, I want to
hit $300,000 a year in mybusiness, I didn't realize how
much more expensive it was goingto be to run a business that
was bringing in $300,000 a year.
Or one day when I woke up andsaid I want to build a business
that brings in half a milliondollars a year, I have no idea
(10:21):
what it looks like, what theexpenses associated with that
work to run a business thatbrings in that type of revenue,
because I'm not there yet.
So if you're sitting here todayand you're saying I want to put
$100,000 in my pocket for mybusiness, do you have any idea
what it's going to cost to getyou there?
Probably not.
I can tell you it's a lot morethan you think.
(10:43):
Just ask my bank account everymonth y'all.
If you knew how much money Ispent on my bank account each
and every month to run mybusiness, y'all would probably
cry.
I want to cry sometimes too,even though I know I can pay for
it.
But still, it's terrifying tothink when you're spending tens
of thousands of dollars a monthin your business because your
(11:05):
expenses are so high to berunning a business at this level
.
So what I did was I started tolook at these percentages.
I started to look at my ownbusiness over the last few years
.
I started to look at mycoaching clients' businesses and
I started to look at thesenumbers and say how do these
numbers really work forphotographers?
(11:26):
Does this really work for us?
And I started to plan mybusiness and my financial goals
based on percentages Instead ofjust these arbitrary.
I think it's going to cost thismuch, so why not Right?
Once I started planning mybusiness based on these
percentages, I took them, Itweaked them a little bit and I
(11:48):
made them a little bit morespecific for photographers, and
here is what I came up Wheneveryou make one, let's say a client
pays you $1,000.
Let's talk about where that$1,000 goes in your business.
The first place that that$1,000 is going to go to is to
pay for any products that yourclient purchases, which we call
(12:09):
COGS or cost of goods sold.
Typically in the photographyworld, you will hear recommended
that your cost of goods sold isanywhere from 15 to 25 percent,
depending on who you're talkingto.
I recommend that your cost ofgoods sold be at or below 20%.
So 20% of everything you makeis going to go straight to pay
(12:31):
for the products that yourclients are purchasing.
20% of what you make is goingto go straight towards your
expenses of running a business.
40% of what you make is goingto go into your pocket.
So if that client pays you$1,000, that means $400 is going
straight to your pocket.
(12:52):
About 15% is going to go totaxes and about 5% is going to
go to savings.
These numbers are not exactlywhat you hear in the Profit
First book.
They are a little bit differentand they're numbers that I have
morphed to kind of fit my ownpersonal business and my
coaching clients' businesses.
So keep that in mind.
If you have read Profit First,you've listened to Profit First
(13:14):
and you're familiar with thisidea.
These are the percentages thatI believe work really great for
photographers.
So if your cost of goods is 30%right now, these numbers aren't
going to work for you.
If your products are marked upthree times instead of five
times, these numbers might notwork for your business.
So this is where you want tostart to pay attention to what
(13:37):
your products are priced at.
You want to look and be like ohman, if I'm running a business
bringing in $250,000 a year, 20%of that's going to be expenses.
That means I have this amountof money to spend on things, and
this is how I'm going to breakit down Right?
So I'm going to repeat thenumbers one more time for y'all.
It's 20% towards your cost ofgoods sold, 20% towards your
(14:01):
expenses, 40% goes in yourpocket, 15% goes towards taxes
and 5% goes to savings.
If we keep these numbers in mind, we can reverse engineer what
we need to bring in to meet ourincome goals.
So if you are paying yourself40%, how much money do you need
(14:26):
to make to meet that income goalwith your business?
And this is about the time,when I say these numbers, that
people freak out and go holycrap, that's a lot of money.
I had no idea.
And I didn't either.
I had no idea.
That's why.
I wasn't making money in mybusiness, it's because I didn't
realize how much of my money wasreally going out the door and
(14:47):
how many expenses I really wasgoing to have.
So if you're not a math person,I'm going to throw some numbers
out there and help you figurethis out.
Just make things super simpletoday, especially if you're
driving down the road andlistening to this and you don't
really have time to sit downwith a calculator.
So I'm going to throw out someof the most common numbers and
I'm going to start at the lowend and I'm going to work up to
some bigger numbers.
(15:07):
Let's say, if you wanted to payyourself $40,000 in your
business, you would need tobring in $100,000 in revenue.
If you wanted to pay yourself$60,000, you would need to bring
in $150,000 in your business.
If you wanted to put $80,000 inyour pocket, you would need to
(15:32):
bring in about $200,000 inrevenue in your business.
If you wanted to pay yourselfsix figures and you wanted to
put $100,000 in your pocketevery year from your business,
you would need to bring in about$250,000.
And if you wanted to put$200,000 in your pocket again,
(15:54):
you would need to bring in about$500,000.
In your business in the newyear.
Let's consider that your goalis to put $100,000 in your
pocket each year from yourbusiness.
Let's take this a step furtherand see what we would need to
make per client that comes inour door to actually put
(16:16):
$100,000 in our pocket.
So you would need to bring in$250,000 in revenue, which means
40% of $250,000 is going to be$100,000, which is going
straight to you.
The next question I want you toask yourself to determine what
you need to be making per clientthat comes through your door is
(16:38):
how many months out of the yeardo you want to be photographing
clients?
How many months out of the yeardo you want to be photographing
clients?
It's incredibly important toremember that you do not want to
work 12 months out of the year.
So many times I ask people thisand they're like I want to work
12 months out of the year.
It gets too cold.
I'm going to go somewhere whereit's warm so I can work all the
time.
Guys, take time off, takevacation.
(17:02):
Take at least a couple monthsoff a year.
Photography it's tiring, it canbe exhausting.
It can be physically, mentally,emotionally taxing.
We need to take time torecharge our creative brains.
If you only shoot outdoors.
Chances are there's going to bemonths where it's too cold or
too hot to work For me.
I don't want to work in July inTexas it is hotter than I don't
(17:25):
even know what, and there's noway that any horse or dog or
person looks good in July inTexas.
They look like a.
Even a horse looks like a wetdog in July in Texas.
Okay, and the winter time?
People in Texas are weeniesguys.
We don't even have cold winters, but it's below 70 degrees.
Nobody wants to go outside.
(17:46):
They're like I'm freezing, Ihave goosebumps.
I can't do portraits outside.
So you know what?
I really only want to work likeeight months out of the year.
I can take a couple months offduring the summer, a couple
months off during the winter.
I'm perfectly fine.
I would say that mostphotographers choose to work
anywhere from eight to 10 monthsout of the year.
However, let's say you wanted towork three months out of the
(18:07):
year.
That's totally doable.
For example, when COVIDhappened and the world shut down
, I had clients all over theplace.
I travel all over the US for myclients and I couldn't hop on a
plane and go to my clients likeI used to.
So what did I do?
I waited until things settleddown.
I bought myself a camper and Iwent on the road for three weeks
(18:31):
.
I photographed all my clientsIn a three-week time period.
I have a session almost everysingle day.
Came home, I did all my imagereveals and I had a $100,000
month Like that.
You could literally photographclients one month out of the
year if you wanted to and if youplan for it and bring in all
the money you need to make andbe done.
(18:51):
So you get to choose how youwant to structure your business.
You get to choose how you wantto structure your year.
So don't be afraid to dosomething like you know what?
I would just love to work withclients three months out of the
year and then be done.
That's totally fine.
Now, today, for our example,I'm going to consider that you
(19:11):
want to work 10 months out ofthe year and it makes the math a
little easier.
So if you want to work 10 monthsout of the year and you need to
bring in $250,000 in revenue$250,000 in revenue Looking to
(19:32):
create more magic in yourbusiness Make sure you join us
over in your Magic Year.
Your Magic Year is our newyear-long program designed to
help give you direction andguidance as you move throughout
the next year in your business.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Together we're going to work through quests each and
every month.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
We're going to have a magical training every month to
give you guidance and direction, but, most importantly, you're
going to be surrounded in acommunity of people that are
also working towards the samegoals as yourself, so you don't
have to feel alone.
Check out the link in the shownotes.
You need to make $25,000 permonth 10 months out of the year.
(20:04):
So if you're sitting there andyou're thinking, holy crap, how
can I ever make $25,000 a month,I feel ya, I get it, I was
there.
It is totally possible.
And let's break this down,because right now, when I think
about a $25,000 month, I'm likethat's an easy month, no big
deal, Right?
(20:24):
When you are not there yet, itfeels like crazy.
It feels like how on earth canI ever get there?
Once you get there, you're likehow did I ever not do that?
I can sit there and look at myaccount and be like I have
$100,000 months in my business.
Now I do four times this.
Of course you can do $25,000.
If I can do $100,000 in onemonth by myself, you can do it.
(20:54):
Let's talk about how we decide,how we figure out how to break
this monthly revenue that weneed to bring in down to a more
manageable level.
So the next thing I need you tothink about and to decide is
how many clients do you reallywant to work with each and every
month?
What number is popping intoyour head right now?
And you're like I would love Xnumber of clients.
So many times I askphotographers this and they say
(21:15):
something to me like I wouldlove to have 15 or 20 clients a
month, and I'm like no, whoa,whoa, whoa, let's take a step
back.
Can you actually deal with thatmany clients?
Or how many clients can youactually deal with with your
life, the life you want to liveand like not be drowning, right?
For most photographers, asingle client can take anywhere
(21:40):
from 10 to 15 hours of directtime related to that client.
So when you think about that,is it realistic to do two or
three clients every single week?
Probably not.
That's a full time job plusmore, not considering all of the
(22:01):
extra back end things we do.
Let's say a full-time job plusmore, not considering all of the
extra back-end things we do.
Let's say a full work week ifyou're working eight hours a day
, five days a week, that's 40hours.
If you did two clients per weekand those two clients per week,
you're spending about 15 hoursworking on their things, between
communications, emails,meetings, driving to their
(22:22):
session, photographing theirsession, calling, editing all of
those things.
That takes up 30 hours a week,not to count the time for your
back-end stuff like marketing,education, updating your website
, scheduling social media, beingyour own bookkeeper and all of
these other things that you doas a photographer.
I would say that, realistically,most photographers need about
(22:43):
five to eight clients per month,and that seems to be the sweet
spot.
So once like one and a half ormaybe two clients per week, once
you get your systems down,really good.
Managing two clients per weekisn't crazy, but it can be a
little bit more difficult.
Let's be honest.
You work for yourself.
You don't want to work all thetime.
(23:05):
Really, how many days a week doyou want to be working?
Do you want to work five days aweek, from eight to five, or do
you want to work like threedays?
a week for four hours.
Consider these types of thingswhen you're deciding what you
need to make and what you needto make per client.
If you're sitting here saying,realistically, I can only work
eight hours a week, I need tohave one client per week.
(23:25):
I need to figure out how to getthat client to only take eight
hours of my time and I need tomeet my income goals from that,
and you're going to have tofigure out how to do it.
Not impossible, you can do it.
You just have to decide whatthat looks like for you.
So let's say, with this,$25,000 a month if you're
working 10 months out of theyear.
Let's say you want five clientsper month.
(23:45):
If you want five clients permonth, that means you need to
make $5,000 per client that youhave.
Now maybe you're thinkingthat's insane, there's no way,
so let's play with some othernumbers.
This is when you get to plugand play and decide where your
comfort level lies.
Maybe you're thinking how abouteight?
Eight sounds like okay, that'sa little bit less per client.
(24:08):
Eight clients per month soundskind of scary.
But how much is that?
If you have eight clients permonth and you need to bring in
$25,000 per month.
That would mean you needed tomake $3,125 per client.
Or maybe you're like, oh, thatfre freaking out.
Okay, 10 clients per month,I'll do 10 a month.
You would need 10 clients permonth to pay you $2,500 a piece.
(24:31):
Or maybe you're like you knowwhat?
Heck.
No, I want three clients permonth, corinda.
What does that look like?
If you only wanted to havethree clients per month, you
just need to make $8,333 perclient, which, in all reality,
is totally doable.
I have a coaching client rightnow and I was talking to her the
(24:52):
other day and she switched to asystem where she went from
including digital files orclients paying her a few hundred
dollars, to selling art andoffering art to her clients, and
I think she said most of herclients are spending around like
$7,000.
And she's in her first year ofmaking the switch.
(25:12):
I have coaching clients whosevery first client who comes to
the system actually they'veworked with me spend seven or
eight or 10 or $14,000 withtheir first client.
Like it's insane, right?
So it's not impossible to haveclients that are ready and
willing to invest thousands ofdollars.
You just have to have the rightsystems in place.
(25:34):
But what I hope this helps yourecognize is that doing portrait
sessions for $250, $300 ormaybe even $1,000 or $1,500,
it's going to take a lot to getyou there.
It's going to take a lot ofthose $1,500 clients even to
help you get to where you needto be.
(25:54):
And I'm going to tell you thisit is so much easier to make
more money from the clients youhave than it is to find more
clients.
It is so much easier to findfive really amazing clients than
it is to have 15 mediocreclients.
So don't be afraid to justmaximize the clients that you
(26:19):
have coming through your doorand stop feeling like you have
to drag in all of these extrapeople because that is not fun.
That sucks.
Marketing is hard, guys.
I'll be honest with you.
Probably one of the hardestthings to really master in your
business is marketing.
That's why it's easier just tomake more money from the people
that are already coming throughyour door Now if you're sitting
(26:40):
there going.
This sounds really cool, but Ihave no idea how I would ever
make $5,000 per client.
You're saying that to put$100,000 in my pocket.
If I'm working 10 months out ofthe year, I would need to bring
$250,000 in that year.
10 months out of the year means$25,000 per month.
(27:00):
If I did five clients per month, that's $5,000 per client.
Let's talk about what a $5,000client looks like.
A $5,000 client could buy analbum, a large album from me
with about 50 of their favoriteportraits and spend $5,000.
A $5,000 client from me couldbuy one 60-inch piece of art.
(27:25):
A $5,000 client for me couldbuy a small album with around 25
portraits and get a couplemedium-sized metals around maybe
20 inches.
Most of my clients are going tospend at least $5,000.
Most of my clients are going toget an album and a couple
pieces of art and spend at leastthat $5,000 mark and most of my
(27:46):
clients don't hesitate to dothat.
They're excited, they're ready,they're willing.
And I hear this time and timeagain from my coaching clients.
They say, corinda, all of thissounds great.
That's why I hired you to be mycoach.
I thought like this would be socool if I could get there, but
I didn't believe it would reallyhappen.
And then I had my first clientand I was like holy crap,
(28:10):
corinda.
They didn't hesitate to spendthe money, they didn't hesitate
to get the art, they didn'thesitate to buy the album and
spend the thousands of dollarsand, the best part, they didn't
even care that they didn't getall their digital files.
Is that to say that they don'thave to get their digital files?
No, not at all, I have coachingclients that have implemented
this system that I teach.
(28:32):
They have had an image revealwith a client that did get all
their digital files and thatclient's been over $10,000 on
their portraits.
So it's possible for yourclients to get their digital
files and still spend money onart, still go above and beyond
and help you get to those bignumbers.
Now the fun part about this andthe next step is once you know
(28:55):
what you need to be making perclient, you get to decide how
you get there, and there's anumber of ways you can get there
.
The way I do it is not the wayfor everybody and I completely
understand that.
In my business personally, myclients come to me.
They pay a session fee.
Their session fee covers thesession, my time spent
(29:16):
photographing the session, myhelp planning the session, my
travel to them, all this goodstuff, and it includes a credit
for them to use towards theirfavorite portrait after the
session.
Then afterwards they spend moremoney, they buy art, they buy
albums, and that gets me tothose $5,000 more clients.
(29:37):
Now there's a lot of differentways you can get there to that
target number, but in my opinionit's easier when people pay a
little bit less upfront, becauseit's hard to get into the door
sometimes, and then they can buymore on the back.
Once they see their portraits,once they fall in love with them
, once they see the art, oncethey see that picture on their
wall, they're obsessed and theyhave to have it.
(29:59):
And it's easier to get themthere after the session than
before.
But let me share with you a fewdifferent ways you can get to
this place.
The first option, and theoption that seems like the
easiest route, is hey, justcharge $5,000 up front, charge a
high session fee and includeall their digital files.
(30:22):
There are photographers thatuse this method.
There are photographers thathave a high session fee that's
thousands of dollars and theyare so well known, they have
such a great reputation thattheir clients will come to them
and pay thousands of dollars andbe okay, walking away with all
their digital files.
Now you could have a reallyhigh session fee up front that
gets you there, but maybeinstead of including the digital
(30:44):
files, you include a product oryou include a credit to use
towards product.
So my session fee could be$5,000.
And I could say my session feeis $5,000.
And you're going to get a$4,500 credit to use towards
your single portraits after that.
But you have to pay me the fullthing front.
That's big and that's scary andultimately I think that
(31:07):
especially in the early phasesof business even where I'm at
it's a little scary to thinklike could I just go put a
$5,000 price tag out and peoplewould just book and pay it and
be fine with it.
Honestly, as a client myself, Iam hesitant to work with a
photographer like that because Imight not want all of like that
, because I might not want allof my photos, I might not want
(31:30):
all of those things that areincluded with their session fee.
So personally I struggle withthat a bit.
I'm not that person that wouldgo spend that money up front and
just pay it and get all myimages and call it a day,
because that's not who I am Now.
The next route you can go is tohave a middle of the road
session fee.
So you can have a session feesomewhere in between.
A session fee that requalifiespeople a bit by making them buy
(31:54):
in and invest up front.
That includes a credit of sortswhich is my go-to and my
preferred method.
My preferred method is to have asession fee that includes a
credit to use towards theirfavorite portraits.
What that magical number is, itdoesn't really matter.
What matters is that thatnumber that you choose for the
(32:17):
session fee and the creditthat's included gets clients
through your door.
That you can convey the valueand what they're getting to them
when you speak to them.
That you can convey the valueand what they're getting to them
when you speak to them.
Get them through your door, getthem to pay your session fee.
You can share with them thatthey're probably going to want
to spend more money than that onthe back end and be clear and
transparent and upfront withthem of what that looks like.
(32:38):
And then, when their session'sover, they're ready and willing
and excited to invest more ontheir portraits.
And although you only got asmall percentage of that up
front, you're going to be ableto get more of that down the
road.
When they see their portraitsand fall in love with it, and
when they can envision thatbeautiful portrait of them and
their dog out in the fields ontheir wall, or when they can
(33:02):
imagine that beautiful portraitof their family on their wall,
they're going to be willing andready to buy and spend the
thousands of dollars on it.
Once they can imagine thatbeautiful portrait of their
family on their wall, they'regoing to be willing and ready to
buy and spend the thousands ofdollars on it once they can see
it, versus when it's justsomething that hasn't even
happened yet and they don't haveany context of that.
That middle of the road optionwith having a session fee that
includes your time photographingthe session and a print credit
(33:25):
is really my preferred route togo to.
Like I said, it can come in anumber of different ways, and
the numbers you choose reallydon't matter.
It could be anywhere from a$450 session fee that includes a
$300 credit to a $1,500 sessionfee that includes $1,000 credit
.
The number you choose really isinsignificant, so don't put too
(33:48):
much thought into it.
However, I'm going to leave youwith a couple of tips to think
about when you're deciding whatyour session fee should be, if
you choose to go the middle ofthe road option.
Now, when we talk about sessionfees, our session fee is really
a pre-qualifier for our clients.
We want to consider that havinga session fee that's too low
(34:08):
could mean that we get poorquality clients in our door.
Having a session fee that's toohigh could also scare people
off, and really what we want todo is we want to find the sweet
spot.
The sweet spot thatpre-qualifies people and says if
you're willing to spend thismuch money up front, then you
probably have more money tospend on art and things like
(34:28):
that.
But we want to have it in theright place and sometimes we
have to gauge that.
So, if you set your session feeand you find yourself getting
too many low quality clientsthat aren't willing to invest
more, or they're just a pain inyour rear end.
Your session fee is probably alittle bit too low and you
should bump it up.
If you're so busy you'returning people away, it's your
(34:50):
sign to bump your session fee up.
Now, if you set a session feeand you're just like really
struggling and every time yousay it to somebody it's so high
and it makes you cringe and itfreaks you out a little bit and
you're not booking any clientsat that rate because you chose
something that might be too high, you're not booking any clients
at that rate because you chosesomething that might be too high
.
It might be your sign to bumpit down a bit, but there's a lot
of things that go into that too.
(35:11):
And without knowing exactlywhat your process looks like
when you get an inquiry, withoutknowing exactly what your
methods are, your systems thatyou have in place, without
knowing exactly how you'respeaking to your clients, I
really can't tell you if youneed to consider lowering your
session fee down, becausethere's a lot that goes into it.
It might not be your sessionfee, it might be something more
(35:32):
like your script and the wayyou're talking to your clients
when they inquire with you.
It might just be that youaren't properly conveying the
value of what they're getting.
So there's a lot of things thatgo into that, but just kind of
keep that in mind.
Really, if your session fee istoo low, you might get too many
poor quality clients and peoplethat are a pain in the butt.
That could happen.
(35:53):
Or if you get too busy and youhave to turn people away, then
raising your session fee canhelp there.
Now the third option when itcomes to your session fee.
Right, we talked about highsession fee includes a ton of
stuff.
It gets you all your money.
We talked about a middle of theroad session fee that includes
session fee plus a credittowards their products.
Or we talk about low sessionfees, a very low session fee
(36:16):
that literally just covers thesession and includes nothing
else.
That's another route you go inand, honestly, in all of these
things I'm sharing with you,there is no right or wrong.
I will tell you and I told youwhat I think works best and what
I use, but that doesn't meanthat something else can't work
for you.
So you need to look at how muchmoney you need to make per
(36:38):
client and then you need toconsider these three options
when it comes to your sessionfee, and you need to ask
yourself how am I going to getmy clients where they need to be
?
Which one of these methods isgoing to be the easiest and the
best way for me to make themoney I need to make?
And then you need to try it,and if it doesn't work, but then
(37:00):
you need to try something else.
And if it doesn't work, youneed to try something else.
And if it still doesn't work,you need to try something else.
And if it still doesn't work,then maybe there's some other
pieces broken, because thisisn't just about a session fee,
it's about a whole lot of otherthings in your business, so make
sure you keep that in mind.
I have tried them all.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I've tried every pricing strategy there is under
the sun.
I've had a very low session feethat included nothing.
I've had a high session feethat included everything.
I've had a high session feethat included some but not
everything.
I've tried every pricing method.
I've tried both things.
If somebody out there teaches amethod of pricing, I've tried
(37:41):
it, Whether it's in my portraitsor in my wedding years years
when I used to photographweddings I tried every single
strategy there was.
I tried like letting clientsbuild packages up front.
I tried.
I can't even explain to you myhusband literally was like we're
doing this again.
Like yeah, we are, we're gonnatry something else.
But the thing is, I come hereto you with this knowledge to
(38:05):
share with you all the mistakesI've made to share with you why
the things I tried did not work.
And for those of you that mightbe listening to this and saying
there's so many other chiefphotographers in my area, why
would anybody come to me?
Or maybe you're sitting heregoing.
(38:26):
I would never spend that kindof money.
How would my clients?
I have a couple of pieces ofadvice here For those of you
that are sitting there sayingthere are so many chief
photographers in my area, why isanybody going to come to me?
They're going to come to youbecause there's a difference in
what you provide when you'recharging thousands of dollars
than when you're charginghundreds of dollars.
(38:46):
There is a substantialdifference.
There is a service, there is avalue, there is an experience
you are providing to clients tobe able to get to spend
thousands of dollars, and it'snot just showing up to their
session and taking their photos.
When you are a photographerthat is willing to go out there
and charge thousands of dollarsand have clients that are ready
(39:08):
and willing and excited to sendthousands of dollars, it's
because you are solving all oftheir problems.
You are helping them, you areguiding them, you are providing
something that is so amazing.
How could they not spendthousands of dollars on it.
And for those of you that say Iwouldn't personally spend that
much money on portraits, I'mgoing to tell you you don't know
(39:32):
, actually, if you would or notuntil you're put into a
situation.
Because for me personally, Iprobably would have said that
same thing, except for when Iwas very, very early on of my
business, like baby years in mybusiness.
First year when I started mybusiness, I hired a photographer
to do boudoir photos before Igot married and I found this
(39:55):
photographer and I was obsessed,I was in love with her work and
I was like I have to hire thisgirl.
I remember where I was.
I was sitting at Chili's when Ifound this girl's work online
with my fiance at the time, andI remember seeing her pictures
and being like, oh my gosh, Ihave to have this.
And you know, I remember goingand meeting with her and talking
to her and her saying I'm goingto provide you with this
(40:18):
experience.
I'm going to provide you withthis amazing transformation.
I'm going to get to know you.
I'm going to pour my heart andsoul into you.
I'm going to love on you.
I I'm going to pour my heartand soul into you.
I'm going to love on you, I'mgoing to do all of these things
for you and, by the way, if youwant this beautiful book, it's
going to cost thousands ofdollars.
No lie, guys.
I was fresh out of college, Iwas starting my business.
We were paying for a wedding oncredit cards.
(40:39):
We did not have a whole lot ofhelp from our family and I
figured out how to buy that$2,000 or $3,000 album in secret
and pay for it out of my pocketwith money that I don't even
know where it came from lookingback at it, I did it Now, if you
would have asked me beforehand,before I went through the
(41:00):
experience, before I waspresented with the opportunity,
if I would have done the samething, I probably would have
said no, I don't tell you again.
I've been in business for 10years now.
We had maternity photos donewhen I was pregnant a couple
years ago.
I went into the maternitysession.
I knew what I was gettingmyself into.
This photographer I know well.
(41:21):
She's an incredible artist.
She's an incrediblebusinesswoman.
Her clients pay her lots ofmoney and I said I want one
photo for over my bed.
I want one photo for my bed.
Here's exactly what I want.
Here's the dimensions.
I know what I want.
I went into it going.
I'm going to spend a couplethousand dollars on this one
piece of art that's going to goover my bed.
Hey, I know how this works.
(41:44):
I do this on the daily.
Guess what?
I showed up at the session.
She killed it.
It was an amazing experience.
It was like I was a queen, Didall these outfits.
She was like try this on, putthis on.
You're a badass, do this.
I sit on the imagery field.
No joke, my like.
I want one photo.
(42:04):
This is what I want turned intolike I think the invoice ended
up being over $10,000 in the endand I was like, if I can do
this to myself, knowing what I'mdoing and being so excited
about it, holy crap.
I understand how my clients can.
So I'm going to encourage you.
(42:25):
If you're sitting there goinglike I don't think I could ever
do this, Go hire yourself aphotographer that provides a
full experience.
Go treat yourself to somethinglike this.
Go through the experience as aclient, because it is incredibly
important to experience that.
It's something that we do everyyear.
We try to hire a photographerto do our portraits, to go
through the experience, and wespend the money we invest, we do
(42:45):
it and sometimes I come into itthinking I'm not going to do it
and then I fall into the trapand I do it anyway.
So I just want to encouragey'all and know that it is
possible that you can do it.
My coaching clients all the timesay I don't think this is
possible.
I don't know how this is goingto happen.
They come through the processand they're like holy schmoly,
(43:06):
it worked.
My client spent all this money.
How did this happen?
It is possible for you and itis possible for each and every
one of you.
But the first step is having avery clear picture of what your
goals are, to know your numbers,to know exactly what you need
to make per client and to alwaysmake decisions that are going
to get you there in yourbusiness, To figure out how do I
(43:27):
meet those goals.
And if you're sitting herethinking like, OK, my number, I
need $5,000 per client, I needfive clients per month.
You're saying that seems so outof reach, Remember, you don't
have to get there tomorrow Ifyou got 25% of the way there in
the next six months and then inthe next six months, you got 50%
of the way there in the nextsix months and then in the next
six months, you got 50% of theway there and then, a year after
(43:50):
that, you've got 100% of theway there.
You don't need to get theretomorrow.
Your averages will get higher.
Your clients will buy more art.
Your clients will buy biggerart.
Your clients will buy albumsand more images in their albums.
The better that you get at thesystem and the better you get
with the process and thatdoesn't always happen right away
(44:10):
, and that's okay, but you justneed to make small steps to get
there, and your pricing can beset up now to get you there, and
over time, you will get closerand closer and closer.
So don't feel discouraged aboutthis idea of, like man, I feel
like I'm never going to getthere, because you can and you
(44:31):
will get there.
And each and every year, youwill get closer and closer and
closer to where you want to be,without having to ram within the
wheel.
By just simply making smalltweaks, by simply getting better
, by honing in on your skills,by becoming a better
photographer, by becoming abetter business owner, you will
get closer and closer.
I hope this has been helpfulfor you today and I hope by the
(44:52):
end of today, you have a goodidea of exactly what you need to
be making for each and everyclient that comes through your
door.
In the show notes, we're goingto share with you a link to grab
a PDF guide.
It's going to share the detailsand these numbers with you too,
so you can break them down.
But I hope this has beenhelpful and I cannot wait to
hear what numbers you come upwith.
Make sure you head over to ourFacebook group Photography
(45:15):
Business, tune Up with CorinnaKay and you share your results
and what you figured out onceyou work through this podcast.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Thank you so much for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode andyou'd like to support the
podcast, please make sure youshare it on social media or
leave a rating and review.
As always, you can check outthe links and resources in the
show notes over atmasteryourmindmoneycom.
To catch all the latest from me, you can follow me on Instagram
at masteryourmindmoney anddon't forget to join our free
(45:42):
Facebook group PhotographyBusiness Tune-Up with Corinna
Kay.
Thanks again, and I
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.