Bryan Carporicci dives into three influencing factors when it comes to pricing your photography. If you have read his first article on pricing, you are in for a treat again. He co-wrote a book for photographers with fellow photographer Robert Nowell called “Pricing for Profit.”

In the book I co-wrote with Robert Nowell, titled “Pricing for Profit”, we share our belief in the idea of calculating your prices based on Cost of Sales. Certainly this is the best starting point, but there are other factors that must be considered when calculating your prices, most importantly quality, perceived value and confidence.

Quality

The quality and artistic measure of your work will have a healthy influence on how you can price your photography. In order to sell something to someone, you have to provide a quality of service or product that the client couldn’t produce on their own. If your photography resembles the basic snapshot-style of images that anyone could take with their own point-and-shoot camera, chances are you cannot charge anything in the neighborhood of what we are suggesting. If, on the other hand, your photographs exhibit a quality of light, posing and finesse that makes your work stand above the competition, then you certainly can demand a premium for your creative fees.

Perceived Value

We have all heard the saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this is true of the professional photography industry. The way that a client perceives a product or service is directly related to the price that they are willing to pay for it. People buy things not necessarily for the thing itself, but rather for the way that the thing makes them feel. This has been proven to be true time and time again in all kinds of business environments.
Perceived value can come from things such as how we package the goods that we deliver our clients, to the length that we will go to to provide exceptional customer service. If you create a higher perceived value for your photography and your products, then you can demand a higher price for those products and services.

Confidence

Confidence is a photographer’s ability to sell him or herself and his or her products or services without any hesitation or apology. It is especially important for starting out photographers, to disassociate themselves from their own price list. We have often heard photographers saying that they would never buy photography at the prices that they themselves charge. As a result of that thinking, they find it extremely difficult to sell to others when they don’t believe in their own pricing system.

You need to be confident and sure of your pricing structure, and you need to present it in such a way that instills confidence in your client. If you don’t believe that they will buy, it is likely that they will sense that. If you don’t believe that what your selling is worth the price you’re charging, they will see that as well. This is why it is important to be extremely confident in the prices that you are asking for your photography.

Next week, I’ll be going into detail about the last “influencing factor” for pricing – the Cost of Sales model. This is the only measurable way to calculate your pricing, and it’s where things start to get fun!

How do you arrive at your photography pricing? What factors do you use to arrive at your numbers? Discuss below!

This guest post is by Josh Solar, a wedding and family photographer based in Kansas City, Missouri. In addition to running their own business, he and his wife, Jenny, help other photographers run their businesses. Read also about their Happy Family Movement. For even more positive energy follow Josh on Twitter. Good vibes all around!

Workshops, conferences, trade shows … being a photographer, you've got many options when it comes to choosing where you go to learn and grow. It's all a bit overwhelming when you think about it.

The thing I've learned about these events in the photography industry is to trust your gut. If you feel a pull towards one over another, trust it. That's how I found myself at a Life as An Artform workshop with Jesh De Rox three and a half years ago, and that's how I ended up at the Beloved Collective Festival two weeks ago in Palm Springs. My life has been forever changed.

I was treated to 3 days of fun in the hot California sun. I heard Jonas Peterson share his story…that you should be the best possible you, you can be. Kristen Kalp made us laugh, made marketing fun, and we collectively jumped in the pool with our clothes on. Bob Goff was there smiling and sharing some of the wonderful stories that have shaped his life (Speaking of Bob, if you haven't read his book, Love Does, you should). Jeff Goelitz from Heart Math helped shed some light on how our hearts are connected in more ways than we can possibly imagine (mind-blowing). Marianne Taylor, Jeremy Bircher, Nicole Polk, Liz Arcus, Amy Seeley, Brooke Snow, and James Moes all gave inspiring, deeply personal talks with a similar overarching theme as the other … be yourself. Follow your heart. Trust your gut. Love life.

And, the fun didn't stop at the speakers. The reason I will attend every single Beloved Festival is for the conversations that happen throughout the day and well into the night. All the wonderfully kind souls in attendance, willing to open their hearts, searching for meaning and purpose in our lives. The why's behind the way we live. For the community built on connection and honesty and delivering THAT to our clients. I will attend for the sunrise concerts, the evening concerts (both planned and unplanned). It's just a great time to kick back, relax, be yourself and celebrate our precious life together!

I was asked to share a few images from Palm Springs, but I didn't actually take any. So, enjoy a few images from my most recent Beloved session. Her name is Teresa. She's had some major changes thrown her way by life, and we spent a few hours belly-laughing, telling stories and celebrating that we get to be alive.

Beloved has forever changed my life. I hope it gets to you as well. The next one is planned for October 21-23, 2013 in Los Angeles.

Will you be there to learn, get inspired and celebrate life with us?

This is a guest post by Jimmy Moncrief, a wedding photographer in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and co-founder of Ciderr.

Every decade there is a new technology that usually disrupts an industry. Ten years ago, there was a max exodus from film to digital due to the rapidly falling prices of digital cameras and the rapidly declining costs of post-production in digital format. Yes, I understand digital photography was around earlier than this, but digital really gained traction about ten years ago.

A couple of days ago, I was very fortunate to speak with Mike Hanline, the President of WHCC. I was fascinated by the fact that his lab went completely digital in 2000. This prescient move, was well ahead of the industry. Now, WHCC is an industry leading lab provider because they embraced new technology ahead of their time. Below are three companies that are disrupting the photography business with new technology.

“The status quo sucks.” – George Carlin

Ciderr – big brands have always used wedding registries to increase brand awareness and to increase sales. Ciderr, now gives that power to photographers and other wedding vendors. Ciderr, lets businesses upload their products and services in a registry. All high-quality wedding vendors get some variation of this email: “I love your products, but can’t afford them.” Now they can! The wedding vendor, can offer the bride and groom a personalized registry. The bride and groom pick the products and services they want, and then create their personalized registry. Then the bride and groom share the link via email, facebook, and twitter and get their friends and family to help pay for that portion of the wedding!

Pinterest – yes, it’s significantly smaller than Facebook and Twitter. The media reports traffic to be in a range of 10-15 million, while Facebook has over 850 million and Twitter has over 100 million. However, it has better referral traffic for your website. Shareholic.com reported in July that referral traffic from Pinterest was greater than Twitter, SumbleUpon, Bin and Google! Essentially, this means Pinterest might bring a smaller amount of traffic to your site, but it will be higher quality.

I love how Melisa Jill organizes and displays her photography on Pinterest.

Sticky Albums – Sticky Albums lets you create digital photo album – which your clients can save to their iPhones and iPads as a separate app. This is how the vast majority of clients want their app anyway, so it is a great convenience for the client. The best part however, is how this service helps your marketing. All the photographs include your logo! So when the client shares these pictures, your brand is being marketed.

In summary, photographers are in a great position to embrace new technology for marketing and establishing a competitive advantage. I would love to hear in the comments how photographers are using the above mentioned resources for their photography business. Also, please let me know of any other innovative businesses out there helping photographers grow their business.