I recently helped a fellow photographer through something that gave me the idea for this Topic Tuesday.  It also reminded me about a similar situation that I have been in at the beginning of my photography business.

Pricing is a big issue and sometimes it is hard to feel confident in your pricing, especially when you are new.  I know it took me a while to feel even somewhat confident about my pricing and a while to feel ok with losing clients because of pricing.  It is definitely a hard one to swallow because you want the business so bad.  And wanting the business so bad in the beginning made me shy away from my job as educator to my potential clients on my pricing.  You want to get them in the door so you think that just giving them enough info to get them in the door is all you have to do, then your beautiful, wonderful, jaw-dropping images will do the rest.  Or at least that is what I thought.

I have learned the hard way that being upfront and confident in your prices and educating your client about your pricing is most important.  I have definitely had some clients not book me because the pricing was higher than what they wanted to spend or higher than Joe down the street.  And I will be honest, that is always a hard pill to swallow.  But, I have learned that my work is worth my prices and whoever doesn’t want to pay that is not my client.

So, how do you educate your potential clients about your pricing?  What is the right method?  Of course, just like everything else, there are many theories or ways to go about educating your clients on pricing.  Some put there prices on their website and anyone that thinks about hiring them sees that first and foremost.  Others wait to get an inquiry through email, and send them the pricing then.  And others, pick up the phone and call the potential client to discuss everything on the phone to give a personal touch.  During that phone call some don’t go into a huge amount of detail about every price but rather give an average that most clients spend so the potential client can see if they are willing to spend around that.  Some wait until the sessions is booked to send a Welcome or Pricing Guide that details the session pricing, a la carte pricing or collection pricing.

As you can see there are many different ways to do it.  Today’s Topic Tuesday is a question about how you educate your potential clients on your pricing?  What works best for you?  Watch the video below as I chat about a story that happened to me in the beginning of my photography career that taught me the importance of educating my clients before the session and then head over to our Facebook page and comment on the Topic Tuesday Status for today!  I love to hear your comments!!