Nicole (00:00)
In today's episode, we're moving from the science to pricing into the art of pricing, which I believe is absolutely critical in order to get to the sales averages that you want to get to. So if you're selling photography, this is a must listen. Go ahead and stay

Nicole Begley (00:16)
I'm Nicole Begley, a zoological animal trainer turned pet and family photographer. Back in 2010, I embarked on my own adventure in photography, transforming a bootstrapping startup into a thriving six-figure business by 2012. Since then, my mission has been to empower photographers like you, sharing the knowledge and strategies that have helped me help thousands of photographers build their own profitable businesses. I believe that achieving $2,000 to $3,000 sales is your fastest route to six-figure businesses;

that any technically proficient photographer can consistently hit four figure sales. And no matter if you want photography to be your full-time passion or a part-time pursuit, profitability is possible. If you're a portrait photographer aspiring to craft a business that aligns perfectly with the life you envision, then you're in exactly the right place. With over 350,000 downloads, welcome to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast.

Nicole (01:14)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Freedom Focus Photography Podcast. My name is Nicole Begley and today we are talking about the art of pricing. Now, if you missed last week's science of pricing, I encourage you to go back, take a listen to that because it really lays the groundwork for how we need to price our work, specifically making sure we're reaching that 25 % cost of goods sold average.

There is an art of pricing that comes into this in order to encourage your clients to do what you want them to do, to purchase what you want them to purchase, to get to your expected and hopeful spending points so that you can have a profitable business that's actually sustainable.

So let's talk about it for a minute. No matter what type of pricing strategy you have, whether it's all inclusive or all a cart or something in between, you want to use the art of pricing to turn your buyer from a responsible buyer to a deal seeker. What the heck does that mean? Well, let's just think about it.

In general, photography is a luxury service. So whether you're selling family photography, newborn photography, dog photography, no one has to have photos of their loved ones. Yeah, it's great to have, but it is definitely a luxury purchase. So when you're selling a luxury purchase or when you're buying a luxury purchase, put yourself in your buyer's shoes for a minute.

You're looking at it, you're like, man, I'm going to splurge, I'm treating myself, I'm going to do this and I'm excited for it. But at the same time, it's a luxury splurge. So they're going to try to talk themselves out of getting all the things they might want because they're going to be quote, responsible. For instance, if you're selling all the cart, they might want five different things that you're offering. So they're like, man, I really want those five, but I'll be good. I'll just get the three.

But our goal with the art of the pricing is to create a path for those clients to go down in which getting all the things they want is actually the best possible deal where it will flip their psychology from being responsible to, my gosh, how great is this? Those are the things that I want and I'm getting so much more value that they can easily allow themselves to splurge on this because they're getting a great deal.

So that's what I mean when I'm talking about turning your client from the responsible buyer to the deal seeker. It doesn't mean we're just slashing our prices. It means we are actually putting together thoughtfully our pricing in a way that encourages them to purchase what we want them to purchase that they're going to love. Like everybody wins. They get what they really want. They don't have to leave things on the table and walk away from them. They get everything they want. We reach those.

target session averages that we want to get to as well. And we can continue serving our clients. So let's start to break down some different ways that we can do this. So the first thing it comes to selling artwork and it is really by offering a couple of different levels of artwork. I firmly believe, especially once you get up to level three, the Eagle, that you need to have a

more high-end artwork option. So you can have still kind of your classic series, then maybe have a signature series. You can call it whatever you want, but maybe two levels, possibly three, no more than three. I personally like two levels of different artwork. This also works, by the way, if you're like me and there's so many different kinds of artwork that you want to sell and you want to be able to kind of customize the style to your client and you're just a...

art or quarter like I am and you're like, my gosh, I want to sell all these things. If you're going to have a lot of different options, we don't want to overwhelm our clients. So you can place them into basically two pricing levels. So then clients can just choose between those two levels. And then you have a couple of finishes in each level potentially that you can help them with. But the key here is to have those two levels. And what those two levels do is that signature level is going to price anchor that. So then the classic level

is something that they can easily look at and be like, my gosh, yeah, no, I can definitely splurge on this. it might surprise you though, when you do that, how many people actually end up going to your signature level. So I had done this for my artwork a couple of years ago. I introduced guild canvases, which are absolutely stunning. One of my absolutely favorite artwork and calling them a canvas doesn't even really do it justice because

It's printed on a canvas material, but it's like hand stripped and then printed and then hand painted and acrylic over top to give it a little bit of texture. And it's, it's absolutely just brilliant and beautiful. Highly recommend it. It is a little bit pricey because every process of that creation of that piece of art is hand done. It's, created here in the U S it's, small family owned business.

and it is all hand created and it is absolutely luxurious, but it is a little bit pricier. So if you have something like that as your high-end signature piece, then it makes that kind of normal, like maybe a framed canvas, maybe regular framed artwork, a little bit more easy yes from your client to be a value seeker. But you might be surprised because people will see this beautiful signature piece that you're offering and they might

just go for that. That's what I've actually found over the past couple of years. Almost all of my clients end up purchasing a Guild Canvas because it is so beautiful.

Now for those of you out there that are at our eagle level and maybe looking up to go to that peacock level to get to the ultra luxe high end level of your photography business for you, that signature product is non negotiable. That is the cornerstone of having that peacock level service. So, highly recommend at the Eagle level. Definitely do that at the peacock level. If you're still stork or swift, you don't necessarily have to do this yet.

But as you elevate from Stork level to Eagle level, you are going to likely want to add maybe two tiers of your pricing for your artwork at least.

That's of course assuming that you actually focusing on artwork is your main sale. If you're a photographer that focuses first on album sales, then maybe you want to have two tiers of that album first and then maybe just an artwork add on. So it really depends what your focus is. I tend to focus on artwork. Most of my students tend to work focus on artwork first, but that does also work if you want to focus on the albums first.

So now let's move on and talk about digital files. And it's kind of the elephant in the room that so many photographers under price them. I do not want that for you. Digital files are absolutely critical in working with the art of pricing to help get your client to your target session average that you want to reach.

The other thing about digital files is that they are a commodity. So even if you are creating amazing, beautiful, like award-winning work that is the best the photography world has ever seen, and then somebody else is, you know, barely getting things in focus, and their digital files are $200 and yours are $2,000, potential clients still see that they're getting the same thing.

even though the quality of the art is different. So it becomes really challenging to sell digital files only at a four figure plus price point. So we do put digital files, at least I do. And I recommend that most of my students do, although there are some that just don't want to sell digital files. Maybe they just have them as an add on. But I really like to have it listed on my price list on my product guide.

because I want people to see the value for those digital files. Now, those digital files should be priced higher than whatever your target session average is. They should not be priced lower because once people buy the digital files, they're not going to buy anything else. They can print their own artwork. They can print their own albums. Granted, it's not going to be as beautiful as if you can print it from your professional services, but they still have them and they're not going to feel the need to purchase the artwork from you. So you want to make sure

Those digital files are priced really high. And as I said, I like to have it on my product guide. I like people to see them priced really high on their own because I am going to use them as the art of pricing to switch their buyer psychology from, my gosh, I'm going to be responsible to, my gosh, look at all that I get when I do this. So we can do that in a couple of different ways. We can have a bonus schedule where when a client spends a certain amount of money on artwork,

They get digital files, maybe a certain number or all depending on how much they spend for free. So I did this bonus schedule in my business for years. It worked amazing. My goal at the time was a $2,000 average sale. If people spent $2,500 on products, they would get all the digital files from the session for free. And the digital files were priced at $2,500. So no one ever bought, okay.

Forget it. Nope, sorry, I'm lying. One person. Since 2010, one client has purchased digital only files and that's because they were moving out of the country. Everybody else has gotten beautiful, tangible artwork and then added on the digital files either as a gift as part of my bonus schedule or purchase them to add them on. Let me talk about some creative ways we can do that. So this bonus schedule I was talking about, my goal was $2,000.

You can make this work with whatever goal you have. Maybe your goal is 3000, 1000, whatever it is, we can adjust the numbers for that. But for this example, $2,000 average sale goal. So if they spend $2,500 on artwork or albums, they get all the digital files. If they spent $2,000 on digital file or artwork, they would get all the digital files added on for $295. If they spent $1,500 on artwork and tangible products,

They can add on all the digital files for $4.95. If they spent $1,000 on artwork and products, they can add on the digital files for $7.95. Do you see what I'm doing there? I am getting my average sale pretty darn close to or over $2,000, and it is allowing my clients to buy what they want and then feel like they're getting a great deal to add on those digital files.

and my cost of goods sold is going to be lower. If somebody only spends $1,000 on products and they add on the digital files for $800, my cost of goods sold is going to be about 13, 14 % maybe for that sale. So it ends up being a little bit more profitable because so much of that sale is the digital file add-on. So this worked extremely well for me. Like I said, you can adjust the numbers.

You also don't need to gift digital files. The gift might be that they could purchase the digital files at a significant discount, 75 % off, 50 % off, something like that. So we can customize this to whatever you want, but the key is you're using those digital files as kind of like the carrot of, when you do these, look at this tremendous value. It also allows you, when clients reach out to you and ask if you sell the digital files, you can say,

Yes, absolutely. I do have digital file packages. However, most of my clients choose to do XYZ because then the digital files are included with their order or they can save a significant amount of money on their digital files. So it just allows you to open that conversation, steer your client through to purchase what you want them to purchase to get to that target session average that you want them to get to. It is just a great way

to do that. I also wanted to talk about a couple other ways that you could use those digital files. And one way is to include them with any signature art purchase. So when you purchase a signature art wall piece, you could even have it be 16 by 20 or larger or 20 by 30 or larger. Whatever you want to sell, have it include the matching digital file.

If you want to sell more albums, can have your albums include the matching digital files for the images that are in the album. If you wanted to keep your album prices a little bit lower, you can have the opportunity to add on the digital files for 200, 300, 500, 700, whatever makes sense for you in addition to your album. So as you can see, really the sky's the limit here and

You know, we can create something completely customizable for you, for your business to move your clients from that area of responsible buying to, my gosh, this is such a great deal. I'm so excited that I'm getting all of this at this price. This is 100 % my zone of genius. Our students in the freedom focus formula can ask, you know, we, do these kinds of pricing reviews all the time to help you figure out what may

the most sense for you, for your business, for your target session average goals, for what you want to sell, whether you want to sell digitals, whether you just want to add them on. Literally, this guy's limit, and I know it can be a little bit overwhelming, but I want to help you walk through that because, like I said, it's my zone of genius. I love nothing more than looking at people's price list and helping you guys make these little tiny tweaks that results in doubling or tripling your average sale without doing anything else.

different. It's really just the key is finding those ways to turn your clients from that responsible buyer to the deal seeker.

Don't forget that if you haven't figured out what you want your target session average to be, like what you want each client to spend in your business, that you can go to www.freedomfocusformula.com slash target and grab my session profit planner to help you figure that out without you having to do spreadsheets, without you having to do the math. It'll ask you a couple of questions, walk you through the process, and then it will let you know what

your monetary goal should be for each of your sessions. And don't forget, if you have digital files on your product guide, they need to be priced more than that because that will 100 % cap your sale. So go check that out. Use the coupon code podcast if you need to so you can get it for free. And I would love to know what your target session average is. I would also love to know how you're using digitals in your business.

or if you're doing a bonus schedule. There are just so many different ways to do this. And yeah, I would love to know what is working well for you. All right, otherwise, I'll see you next week.