Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: If you've followed this podcast for some time, you might know that pricing and money are some of my favorite topics. It's also one of the most challenging parts of having a business. And today I'm speaking with Jane Goodrich about pricing. I'm so excited and I hope this is going to be educational for you as well.
You're listening to sustainable photography, a podcast all about business tips, inspiration and confidence building. I'm Ingvild Kolnes, the host of this podcast, and after over a decade as a photographer, I now help talented photographers run sustainable businesses. And for full transparency, you should know that I'm a mentor with paid offers and I will probably mention some of those in this episode.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Hi jane. I'm really excited to talk with you today. How are you?
[00:00:54] Speaker C: Good, I'm good. Thanks for having me. I love your podcast.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Oh, thank you.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: I love the information that you have on sustainability and just how calm you are about giving the information too. So I really enjoyed you.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Thank you. That's really nice. And we're going to talk about pricing and mindset and a lot of really important, necessary things today. But let's start off by talking about you. Who are you and what's your background?
[00:01:23] Speaker C: Who am I? That's a big question.
So I'm Jane Goodrich and I have been a professional photographer full time for 14 years. I'm actually not focused on weddings. I do newborn and family photographers. I did one wedding. More power to you guys. I did one and I was done.
So give me the babies and the kids.
We all have our things that we're passionate about. And I'm originally from England. And during the pandemic and a little bit before that, I really became passionate about helping photographers price themselves. And through mentoring, I've mentored for close to eight, nine years. I don't know. I have a kid that's nine, so it's probably longer than that, maybe it's ten. And then more recently, I launched a software platform that helps newer photographers run their business and really help guide them a little bit with their coaching and the pricing and how to actually run an effective business, a sustainable business, actually, it's very hard as you are. Well, elopement photographer don't really have that. Oh, we're going to go through training. This is a great workflow. This is that. So you're piecemealing it together. So we're really just trying to combine that with a software platform.
Just best practices in the industry and it's actually been going really well.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Brilliant. That sounds like something that's well needed. I mean, as you said, most of us either kind of fall into photography for some reason, or even go through training for it. But hardly anyone learns the business side, how to run a business, how to price and all that. And I can't even begin to tell you how unfortunate that is. Very unfortunate, because most photographers are really missing out because they're so focused on the photography aspect, the artistic aspect, which of course is really important, but it's not the thing that's going to help you to make a living from photography.
[00:03:30] Speaker C: Right. And there's a whole starving artist mentality. But I also think that as an industry, we don't talk enough about pricing.
When we say, oh, charge your worth, and you're like, oh, well, what is that worth? I ended up asking every single association in the world how to calculate prices, and they don't have anything. So I created a calculator that really helps photographers calculate their prices because we've done time studies and you're well aware that when you start a photography business, it's not like I'm going to give an example of a hairdresser. You can go to school to be a hairdresser, you can go to school to be a photographer, but the added benefit of being a hairdresser or a hairstylist is you apprentice. And that is really where you learn that, oh, this is how you handle clients, this is how you price.
And they do have a lot of companies that are helping them with their pricing, business models too. But I just really think that as an industry, we don't really have that cohesiveness to start. And I don't know if we necessarily want that. We don't really want to go to the government and ask for a permit and get all the licensing. But I think that we can really just try as. Which is why I launched Pixello, was because I can do one on one coaching, I can do group coaching, but my goal was to really just try to reach the masses as quick as possible to help those photographers that quit their job, worked to death for three years and made no money. That's just not what I like. I feel like it can be prevented easily.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. Because what I'm all about, and I'm sure you think a lot of the same, is we need to have a sustainable business. We need to have a business that's going to be there for us and not something that's going to be our whole lives, basically. So what are your thoughts on having a sustainable business?
[00:05:36] Speaker C: So it's interesting you say that. And I think you can come at it from two different angles when you're first starting out. I think the mindset of a sustainable business is something that in an ideal world, you are working in this photography industry that we are now. You're working and you're building your business, you're building your awareness, you're building your client list, but you're also working. So you're actually building that sustainability. Because if you, I did quick too soon, I will tell you that.
But I also priced myself correctly. But in this market, where the pricing is so rampantly low or just disproportionate to what will actually make someone an income, you can't actually start a business that is sustainable, really without an investment and the pressure of going full time really quickly. You then lead to low prices and all this stuff. And then secondarily, things take time.
It takes time to build a business. It takes investment. So sometimes if you were to go to a bank and get a business loan, you can hire a website designer, you can hire marketing agency, you can hire this, that and the other. This is what normal businesses do. But as photographers highly recommend, you have a little bit of extra income while you're building your business. So to sustain yourself while you're building it is different than once you've gotten your client base, your SEO, your website, perfectly designed so that client will book you and you've got your systems in place, you've got your workflow, then that needs to be more of a sustainable business.
So it just really depends. But for me, sustainable business is I bring in an income from my business that is regular income, that is almost not guaranteed. But I've built myself enough of a brand that people know me and I will get referrals and my website has amazing SEO and I'm going to get enough inquiries that sustains me to have my pricing where I actually can have a life. And so whether or not sustainable is you can replace your current income or whether you can do this on the side where you can balance motherhood, whatever it is, it means different things to different people. I'm sorry, I didn't answer that exactly succinctly what it meant for me, but I think it means different things for different people.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I really love what you said about how it might mean something else in the beginning because that's something that a lot of photographers don't necessarily think about. It's like, oh, I want to start this business, but I want to do everything myself. I don't want to invest in anything. I want everything to be just to take its time, and then it's going to take a really long time. And no other business would start out that way. You'd need that first investment to just get started. And I think it's really nice that you pointed that out.
[00:08:58] Speaker C: I will say that actually, I don't think that they know that they need to do everything on the. There's a difference between being like, we make it look so easy on Instagram, we make it look great, we make it look glamorous. Everyone's having fun. You don't see the wedding photographer who's like, collapse on the floor Sunday because they can't move and they're tired all the week. And then editing. We don't show the back end work enough as an industry of what it actually takes to be a photographer. So elopement photographer come into it thinking, oh, this is great. I just shoot. I don't spend 60 hours of editing. I don't have to do social media, I don't have to do a website. So I think also it is a little bit a lack of awareness on their part that this is the reason why you need to really price yourself correctly from the start in order to invest. And what I recommend, the first person I recommend investing in is an accountant, bottom line.
And then if you're great at website, fine. But if you also, I'm not the best of. I've messed up on my Google. I've done way too many things on getting blocked by Google. I recommend having a website designer that knows SEO local, SEO, not national, because I made that mistake. And those two things will really help you because, one, your account is going to help you price yourself, your website.
I'm not going to go on Facebook and Instagram yet, but your website will help build. You can work with a designer that can help you build your brand, but start getting that SEO. SEO, for me, I'm obsessed with it.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Me too.
[00:10:42] Speaker C: If you get found by Google, it's much more important than Instagram and Facebook. And the time, time is money, right? So the time that you have on Facebook or on Instagram versus, hey, I'm going to update my website. I'm going to write a quick blog post. I'm going to update my Google profile. Completely different. Oh, and by the way, you own it versus you could actually get shut down on Instagram. And I've seen that quite a lot this year, which is unfortunate. And they lose all their followers. So, yeah, definitely price yourself correctly from the start.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Absolutely. Couldn't agree more, but let's say that the person listening hasn't done that. Yes, their prices are too low. Whether it's that they're too low in terms of making what they want to have the life they want, or if it's just too low and they are seen, there's more potential in most of us. There's something holding us back from increasing our prices. I can feel it. I'm sure you've felt it. I'm sure pretty much everyone listening have a fear of increasing their prices at some point.
[00:11:52] Speaker C: Everybody.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: So how can we do it? How can we have the right mindset to just increase the prices?
[00:12:01] Speaker C: First of all, recognize that pricing is so difficult. I mean, I love talking about pricing, but when it comes to me raising my prices, I want to puke. Right? Number one, you can always go down. So just take that off. I'm going to raise my prices. I'm going to give it a month if it doesn't work or give it to me guarantee. Anyone that I've mentored that has raised their prices have never gone down, but they love the fact that they're like, yeah, you're right. I can always go down or I can always discount if someone's like, but I think for me, where it really helps people is knowing the numbers. So knowing actually what costs you have, what time it takes you to run your business. Because I have had people saying, oh, yeah, I worked 10 hours. And I'm like, oh, no, I was just doing that while I was watching television. Oh, no, I was doing that while I was watching the kids. I'm like, but that's work, right? That's you not being present with your kids or you not being present with your husband. So just because it's fun at this point in early on in your career, it's fun editing. When you're not getting paid for that time in a couple of years, you're going to resent it. And that's when you sort of get burnout. But the one thing that I say is, know your numbers, know your pricing, and unfollow if you can. Any other people in your area that are unprofitable or what you need to do is follow that. For me, I'm newborn photographer. Follow that newborn photographer that's in my area that's charging $4,000, go out and find those people. And people are like, no one's in my area that's charging that. Guaranteed. They are. Guaranteed. They are charging a profitable rate.
They've been in business maybe 20 years but you know what? They don't care about Google because they've built up, they don't care about Facebook. One, they probably not on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok because they're older, but they've also built up their brand and their relationships with the wedding vendors and this, that and the other. So that is the one excuse. People are like, no one charges that around here. Yes, they do. You just don't know where they are. I mean, I haven't updated my website in four years, five years. I'm sure I rank low in my area for newborn and family photographers. But guess what? I don't need to update it because I have a client base. I have a great referral network that my clients refer me, and I have a great email list and so I don't need it. So please understand that, yes, you can charge that. And people do charge it in your area.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think it's important to just be aware of the fact that a lot of the people you're following, they're not charging profitable rates. No, they don't have a profitable business and they're not the ones that you should look to. Look at those who are profitable. Look at those who are charging what you want to charge or more.
[00:15:07] Speaker C: Yeah. It's actually quite interesting because I've spoken to photographers that have been in business and 14 years and they struggle, still struggle raising their rates. And one was a newborn photographer. And I just sent her three links of these photographers ranging between $2500 to $4,000. And this is newborn photography, guys. This isn't weddings. This is a newborn session. Digital, lonely. And she was like, wow. And I was like, yeah, but that's why these people have been in business and you're having to get a second job because you haven't been pricing yourselves. And so the real thing is to really figure out why you want to do this too.
Do you want to do it to make zero money?
Do you want to make nothing at the end of your tax season? Because by the first year you'll get the tax. You'll be like, oh, I'm building my business. I was just starting out. Second year you're like, oh, well, I invested in XYZ. Third year you're like, actually, I'm not making any money from this. And so knowing that I have mentored people, literally making $0 and losing money each year. So if you don't value yourself enough to make at least minimum wage, because you also get, I'm not good enough to charge. Okay, you are good enough to charge. If you looked at my work for charging $1,000 a photo shoot in 2010, you would definitely think, I couldn't ever get a client. And I did, and I got repeat clients. It's not that they like my work. They paid it. That was the price that they paid for it. So. And especially wedding photographers, you are booking out two years in advance. You need to raise your rates. You need to calculate your rates. Wedding photographers, of all people, need to be profitable. Have profitable rates at the beginning. You know what? You're first starting out. You got like, ten weddings under you and you feel like, oh, I need more experience. Fine, give them a 10% discount. It's always great to have those prices on there, and then you have a discount. Because if someone then books you for 2026, then you're not unprofitable. Yeah.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Because I think often we find ourselves thinking that if I just had a little bit lower prices, then more people would book me. And then it's like, but there's no point in having those lower prices and having people book you if that means you have to work way too much to make ends meet, because you have to be profitable. That's where it all begins.
[00:17:48] Speaker C: Or you're working more for nothing. I mean, I just see these prices and I'm like, you're not making any money. Because also right now, when you're first starting out, you don't realize in three years you're going to replace your camera, you're going to replace your computer. That's $7,000. Where's that money coming from? That money needs to come from your shoots right now. Yeah. So you think that you're making a little bit money, but you really aren't longer term, and it's an investment in your business, but you're not the cheaper one. You're not the expensive one. Then you're like, I'm going to increase my prices gradually. I wouldn't recommend doing that. Just get to your profitable prices. I will say, don't go crazy. I mean, on my software, we have a great calculator that anybody can use. Just sign up for a free trial, pixelo.com, and use the calculator. What I wouldn't recommend is somebody coming in there and making negative $20,000 this year and be like, oh, I'm going to make 200K after taxes. Okay, let's be realistic about how much you can earn. Because then people are like, well, I can't charge twenty k a wedding. And you're like, okay, so let's be realistic about your price, what you need to earn. And I found that people that on a platform that I've mentored that are like, I am in Iowa, I'm just using Iowa as an example, and I need to make $45,000 a year. And when I ran the numbers through the calculator, the prices were exactly where they needed to be. And she went from. For family, she went from 150 to 750, and she couldn't believe it, the time someone booked. And I was like, yeah, there you go. You've got the sustainable income that you need. So same thing with other people. Like, yes. Why are you giving away all your digitals when you can have a package for ten and then upsell?
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:19:38] Speaker C: And then assess how it goes. If you're so price conscious or sensitive, you can always not necessarily offer that $5,000 album. You can offer a shorter package or offer the elopement weddings.
Just making sure that you're not then editing 60 hours for a wedding.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:20:00] Speaker C: People are paying over $1,000 for family shoots, and you're too cheap for them, but then you're too expensive for those ones that want to go to a groupon and not be. They want to go to the cheapest person. So you're better off actually raising your prices, focusing on how you get those clients. Think about, like, okay, where does that client live? Where do they go?
Who is that person? Make an ideal client profile and really think on it. But it's not all pricing, right? So your brand is not pricing.
It's the experience that people have with you. It's the photographs that you have. It's like where you're showing up, it's your brand awareness. If you're showing up everywhere and people are saying, oh, my gosh, she's the best. I love her. She's great with kids. I love the photographs. We use her every year. Doesn't matter what price you're at, right? Or like a wedding photographer getting a million reviews on Google.
This person is the best. I absolutely love them. And it's hard when you're starting out and you don't have those reviews, but they're not booking you because of your pricing. When I first started, I used to. Absolutely.
I think I probably cried.
I'll admit it. I like to cry. I'm a crier. But I would get an inquiry as I was first building my awareness. I call it my awareness stage, like marketing four piece. It's like I'm in the brand awareness stage and I would get a lead. Get so excited about the lead. And I'd send my information, I'm like, tailor it and be like, oh, my gosh, I've got a booking. I already thought I had a booking and then they didn't book and I would, like, cry. My twin sister is actually in sales and she's like, you just got to get more inquiries. It's a numbers game. And now it was really.
I still get upset when I don't. I just don't cry and curl on the water. But the focusing on how can I get the volume of inquiries up to let those numbers not annoy me when they don't say no. So I found I would probably have a good 20% ratio, right, if it was a certain market where they found me on Google, it was close to 100% booking. But if it was from an Instagram, maybe it's like 1% booking. So you start monitoring of where these people are coming from, where they're booking, and then you can really tailor your marketing based on, like, I don't understand why they're coming from this one town in my area and they just love me. So guess what? I ran Google Ads in that town. The ROI, the return on investment for that was amazing because that's what happens is you value yourself and that comes through. I'm telling you, it comes through on an email, it comes through on your confidence, it comes through on, wow, I'm going to spend money on my marketing because it's in business.
And framing it. It's not a job, it's a business is helpful, too.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: I think a reason why we're scared of raising prices is because we think, what if that means I'm not going to get any more clients?
What if this is the time no one is going to book me? What can we do if that's what we're thinking?
[00:23:33] Speaker C: So take a look at your bank account.
Right? I'm being serious. Take a look at your bank account. How much money are you bringing in?
And so at your current prices, probably yes, you're getting the extra cash, but in terms of in your cash flow, in your business over a year, you're really not profitable. So look at it. If you're a mom, you're like, okay, if I take that job, I have to hire a babysitter. Xyz time, that is x amount of money. What are you missing out on? And I've also mentored people that are like, well, I'm not booking now. Why would I book if I raised my prices? What's the harm?
Well, if you're not booking now, raise your prices, right?
[00:24:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:20] Speaker C: So raise your prices. And there's one woman, and I actually had to give her a deadline. It was like, by Sunday at 05:00 you haven't booked in three months. So please. She raised her prices on the Sunday night, and by Friday she had got three bookings.
Because it's the mindset. It's also people look at your work and they value it because there is something where you're like a little too cheap.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.
[00:24:48] Speaker C: And it's also, like, for family photography, it's still not an insignificant amount of money, a $400 session. But are you like, oh, am I going to risk it or am I going to invest? And I know I'm going to get great images.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:25:03] Speaker C: So I'm going to have to get great images again. I'm going to have to pay twice.
You have to think, and also guess what? You can reduce them.
You're not set in stone. Guaranteed you won't.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: That's a good point. But do you think you usually have to change something else if you change your prices, if you increase them, say that you're okay, so I have a profitable business. I'm making enough money, but I want to work less.
[00:25:35] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Not because I have to, but I want to. Can I double my prices and not change other things? Usually, or does usually a price increase come with a change of brand, a change of ideal client?
[00:25:50] Speaker C: Well, I think if you have a profitable business and you already have clients, right now, what I would do is I would look through my current client base and know who would have bought that package if I'd had it. And then go after that. Yes. I mean, if you want to work less and make more, you could actually run ads targeted at that audience that is like, okay, well, my audience is a working mom. She doesn't have time to research. Okay, great. I'm going to do Google Ads and I'm going to own that one keyword, exact keyword. And I know I'm going to have a return on investment on it. Or you are like, okay, I'm a wedding photographer and I really want to raise my prices. I'm doing okay now making money. But I'd like to, like you said, work less. Who is in your relationship network that has other clients, not yours, because you're charging $5,000 and you want to charge $10,000. Oh, those four stylists, those four planners, wedding planners have a lot of clients that are doing XYZ weddings and those photographers are charging 15,000. Okay, well, I'm going to take this person out to lunch. You can't just raise your prices, really, without doing it. I don't think you need to change your brand. I mean, you can maybe change some of your imagery to cater to those clients, but I'd look at not ripping out all of the infrastructure that you've built so far. If you're profitable, right? Yeah. If you change genres and you're like, oh, now I want to do XYZ. Yeah, totally different story.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:32] Speaker C: But if you're. I'm a profitable wedding photographer, I'm this. I would look at who would pay that. All of the locations that have high end clients, and that's what I would do, is just really hone in on that ideal client. And then where do they get married? Where are they researching it? Who are they hiring for hair and makeup? Who are they hiring for DJ or a band? That's what I would do.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: Do you think it's a confidence thing? Do you think, in general, we need to have more confidence in order to erase our prices?
[00:28:05] Speaker C: Absolutely. We all do. We all do.
We get into this business because we love photography and we love the art and we love people. Or if you're a product photographer, maybe not so much, but getting into this is not for the, like, great. I've got to run my quickbooks and talk to my accountant right now. It's not. So. I don't say it's a lack of confidence. I mean, sometimes it's confidence, but sometimes it's like, I don't want to deal with it, just don't want to talk about it. Just not interesting to me. I'm going to ostrich. I'm going to stick my head in the sand. I don't want to talk about it. And I don't know sometimes if that's confidence.
I don't know if it's not just not interested in it, but sometimes it's confidence. But sometimes it's like, I'll deal with that later type of thing.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Just something that we're putting off because it's something new and different.
[00:28:58] Speaker C: Yeah. Or uninteresting.
[00:29:00] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe.
But as a photographer, I've done weddings for many years. I don't anymore, but I've done it for such a long time. And to me, it's pretty clear that as a photographer, I do so much more than just take photos. And I'm sure that's true of any kind of genre of photography. But how can I make sure that the value that I give my clients, that that's reflected in my pricing and I don't know, all my packages, everything that I do when I talk about it?
[00:29:34] Speaker C: Well, I think one of the things that you can talk about. So for me, I'll give you an example. As a newborn photographer, I think when I first started out, I started describing to people, like when we're on the shoot, right? I do about 20 hours of editing of a baby. So it's going to take me three weeks, maybe four, depending on. And if the baby has baby acne, looks like their face is on fire, I'm going to tell them it's going to take a little bit longer, but you have to explain the process and you have to kind of outline what it is involved. And if you're a wedding photographer and you talk about maybe you meet with them, or maybe it's talking about you hand edit every image and they know that that's time intensive. I think the more that photographers can talk about what goes into running their business as well as what goes into running their shoot and prepping for the shoot, I'm going to be there on the day and this and the other in the amount of hours and explaining the fact that it's not just $500 an hour.
I've got two weeks after that of editing and then I've got XYZ and then I've done this beforehand. Don't be afraid of talking about the work that's not photographing, because that's where I think a lot of photographers don't realize that people want to know. People actually want to know. They think that you just come click a button, then click like they do on Instagram, click a filter and then give them the images. No, they don't. They want to see the behind the scenes. And wow, it's taking them so long. And it helps because they're not going to nag you where your photos are. Well, they probably still will. But.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: If your business isn't really where you want it to be, where you know where you hope that it one day can be, now's your chance to sign up for the sustainable photography program. It's a one year program where we go through different facets of your business step by step. So we talk about everything from pricing and confidence mindset, branding, marketing, dream client profile planning, goal setting. I mean, there's so much we go through, but since we go through it step by step, then you don't have to feel that overwhelm where you just sign up for something, and you never really have the time and capacity to stick with it. And since it's such a loving community, and since we're doing it together and you get so much support, then you have so much accountability to make sure that you actually do the thing. Because I know only too well that when you sign up for an online course that's completely DIY, you might not follow through. I don't know how many times I've signed up for something like that. But this is different because it's not a course. It's a program. It's a place where you not only can ask your questions, but you get the strategies, you get the accountability, you get the follow up that you need to follow through and do the thing that you might know that you have to do, but that you're too scared and too unsure of how to. And if and worse than all the things that you're just not doing it, let's make sure that your business is even better.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Let's do it together.
[00:33:12] Speaker A: Go to englishcullness.com sustainable to check it out and to secure your spot.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: I think one thing that I hear a lot is that whole thing of, like, what if I don't get enough clients? What if someone chooses someone else? Like, everything with prices is difficult and scary because what if? What if, what if? And to me, it's pretty apparent that they have a scarcity mindset that they're afraid of, that there's just not enough.
[00:33:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: What role do you think your mindset when it comes to these things come into effect in terms of our.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: You actually, for a photographer came to me, I would say just unfollow absolutely anyone in your area. Right. Number one, unfollow any other wedding photographer. Who cares? It's not.
I'm lucky that my name's Jane. I'll be like, stay in your lane, Jane. I don't care about anybody else. I care about me and my clients. And that's it. Because the one thing that if you start looking at everybody else and they just got this and this and this, and it just starts trickling in. Trickling in. Now just go back, look at all the clients that you got. Ask them for referrals. Make them your best friends. But also the best part is, how about you look in your area or your state, county, wherever you live.
How many weddings happened that year?
Just look at that number. How many weddings happen in a year in the US? You're a travel photographer. 2 million.
Go look at how many weddings you actually need 25. An average full time photographer does 25 weddings. I think you can get 25.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: And then you look at all the numbers and you start, look at the abundance in the world. Look at the abundance of wedding planners, look at the abundance of DJs, look at all the amount, and they're still in business after 2025 years. There's enough clients for everybody and you can be in middle of nowhere. But okay, well, when you're a business, you do tend to look and see if there's going to be a market around it to support it. That's what Starbucks says. Location analysis. How many people live in that area?
So if your town has 10,000 people and they're all 55 and older, your town is not your target audience. So where are you looking? Around.
I guarantee within an hour drive of you is a bigger city. Might not be huge, but there's enough people getting married each year. If you're a wedding photographer and you only need 25, how are you going to get 25?
Pretty simple.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: Do you think you need to have that kind of abundance mindset for it to work for you to be able to stay in business and have a profitable business?
[00:36:17] Speaker C: No, you don't need the abundance mindset for that, but you need the abundance mindset if you're saying everyone else is going to get the clients, and I'm never going to get clients because you don't. Right now I'm just happy because my clients just come back to me every year. Everyone has different goals, right? So for me, it's like, I don't want new clients, I want repeat clients. I want to find the best clients. So for me, my focus was building a sustainable business. For me meant I have newborns, I have maternity, I have family. Some people just do newborns and maternity. I'm like, okay, well, you're going to have to keep finding new clients. I don't want to find new clients. I'll photograph that kid's senior photos.
I'll photograph them when they're in college. I'll do their headshots for them. I do that. But for me it's like, where do you want to focus? Some people are great at relationship building and really making best friends with this, that and the other. I'm like, I just want to know that 70, 80% of my clients are coming back every year. So I don't need the abundance mindset at this point. But you do when you need to raise your prices. And you're like, I can't raise my prices because I won't get any clients.
[00:37:28] Speaker B: Yeah. But you need to believe it's possible. You need to think that it's going to work, because then you make the decisions that you need to make to make it work.
[00:37:37] Speaker C: And looking around, don't get me wrong, I've been in those situations. I had photographers coming up that were very talented, and they were charging, I don't know, maybe 10% of what I was charging. It was ridiculous. I was like, and I just had my daughter, so I was very postpartum. Well, it went in the black space. And then I was just like, I don't know. I listened to a podcast on abundance mindset, and it was interesting because they said, we'll look around you for things, numbers of things. Like, for me, I'm like, I need families, and I need families that will afford to be able to pay me. So. Okay, well, I'm going to look at my local school district. How many families are there? The other towns around, I came to like, crazy amount, like 50,000. And I'm like, I only need 50, right families. And then how many babies are being born in this area? And if I need more, I've got New York, got Manhattan, but I'm outside.
Okay, that's a lot. And then I started noticing, oh, there's my client. And then what I did was actually went through my client list of my favorite clients of being like, where do they send their kids? What are their kids buying?
What are they doing? And I just started seeing all this abundance around. Like, oh, they're sending their kids to camp. They have a nanny, and they're also sending their kids to $1,000 a week camp. And they have three kids. Yes, they can afford $1,000 photo shoot. So it's all about shifting it in little pieces. But again, unfollow people that aren't charging. For me, it was really hard. I was like, it was a tough time, but that was not necessarily me related to.
That was all about finding clients and the doubt that I was having. And then do I lower my prices? Do I this? And then I was just like, no, I actually raised them. Yeah, I'm going to get far away from you as possible. I'm just going to be, and I care, but I'm not the most expensive, so I'm just going to be me.
[00:39:36] Speaker B: Yeah. That's the best way to go about.
[00:39:39] Speaker C: It, I think so.
[00:39:41] Speaker B: We briefly touched on it in the beginning, but when you're starting out, it's really hard to do that without making some investments. So what do you suggest to someone who's new, want to start out. They probably already have a camera, but not much else. How can they start making money now instead of waiting for another three to five years?
[00:40:07] Speaker C: Yeah. One of the things is you've got to realize is that's why I recommend someone having a part time job or not necessarily giving up their day job until they've got reached through this, where you're investing in it and you're investing in your time and you're investing in certain things. You're investing in a great computer, you're investing in if you have studio lighting, but you're also investing in the time it takes to build relationships. So that's an investment, right? So it's not going to happen every day. You're not going to be like, hey, I'm new, going to be my best friend and you're going to refer me a million clients. No, it doesn't work that way. You're going to have to build a relationship, do some things for them, follow them on social media, like write a blog post about them. So the investment at the beginning, a lot of it is in the business, building time. Highly recommend investing in an accountant.
My first was an accountant. My second was a website person. And then I'm like, back in the day, we didn't really have social media. Back then, we didn't actually. Well, you had a Facebook page, I think you had a Facebook account. I don't think even pages were around and definitely not Instagram. But I wouldn't invest too much time of it because you've got a lot of other things to learn.
I will say invest in figuring out your processes.
Do you have a CRM? Do you have marketing campaign? How are you going to build emails? How are you going to deliver galleries to your clients? What albums are you going to invest in those things? But I would also look at whatever industry you're in and invest in education.
Okay, here's the deal. Yes, invest in education of the art, but invest in the business side. I see so many people, like, they're a year ten and they're still taking, spending $10,000 on all these art. I'm like, come on, you're not going to be Annie Liebowitz. Where's the business side? You're charging nothing. How about you have a mentor or business coach or even life coach or anything like that? Doesn't really have to be photography related, but like someone that's going to really help you or therapist. How about that? I need to raise my prices. How can my therapist help you. Sometimes I feel like it's like you got some money blocks here I can't help you with, but really it is accountant and lawyer, outsource your lawyer, get your contracts together, very important website, all that SEO stuff. And then I would, depending on you, just got a camera. Are you confident enough? Probably not. You're never going to be confident enough. Like, I spoke to photographer the other day, she's an amazing newborn photographer, well known. I have impostor syndrome all the time. I'm like, how can you have impostor syndrome? And she does everybody. I think people are always going to doubt themselves. So the more that you can focus on the business side and seeing if it is going to be right for you sooner rather than later. Because guess what? You can always second shoot for somebody. You can get your passion of weddings and photography by being a second shooter and likely making more money by second shooting for someone. My intern, one time 2012, she interned with me and she was like, I'm not running my own photography business. And then second shot for a wedding photographer, she's still doing it. And so there are other options out there that people can do. You don't have to start a business right away.
[00:43:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I think maybe we're too impatient in the beginning. We want everything to start flowing right away, to make enough money right away, and then we're not necessarily willing to invest what it takes to have a professional business. It's more like a hobby that you're trying to charge more than you really should when it's a hobby, but not enough to make it really appear professional.
[00:44:16] Speaker C: Well, it's also, again, I don't know when you started. I started in 2010 full time. And I think photographers nowadays have it a lot harder than we did. A lot harder, because there's a lot of bad advice out there and they see a lot of other people undercharging. We didn't, we didn't have Instagram, Facebook groups, we didn't have all that information. We had Google. And by the way, Google ranked you pretty based on domain ranking. So 2010, someone's going to have been in business a long time. And by the way, their prices are profitable nowadays. You can look on Google and like someone's got on, they're really good at website design and they're ranking high. And that's, oh, that person is number two ranking in this area. They must be profitable. Nope. So I'll give New York photographers a little bit of a break there, but I think it's assessing it. One time I listened to this podcast woman, she doesn't run it anymore. It's called, so you want to be a photographer? And she said it's actually five years. Until she was like, in an ideal world, you do this on the side for five years and then it can be a sustainable business.
Which looking back on know, because I did invest a lot of money back in my business, even though I was profitable, I'm like, okay, well, I'm investing in Google Ads, I'm investing in marketing collateral, I'm investing in someone to write my blog post because I don't know how to write SEO blog posts.
It's all about building a sustainable business. It's different if you're like, hey, I just want to do this for a few years. Completely different.
[00:45:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
So we've been talking about having a sustainable business, a lasting business, and money and finances is pretty key to having a sustainable, lasting business. So are there any habits, anything that you would recommend someone taking on early and just stick with to have the.
[00:46:10] Speaker C: Best possible business, as in habits for spending money or like around mindset of money?
[00:46:19] Speaker B: It can be either. Whichever you think is important.
[00:46:23] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's interesting. I think, again, an accountant, they're going to annoy you and hire a bookkeeper. I mean, my bookkeeper and accountant, they're in the same office. I hire both of them together. It's like they'll annoy you every month. What did you spend this on?
Did you really need that 15th wrap this month, Jane, for a newborn shoot. So really trying to assess just knowing your numbers along the way. Knowing, and again, if you're seasonal, like, I'm seasonal. So I have a second business that different branding for headshots because family photography, no one wants to do it in my area during January, February, March. And it's very good for headshots during that time. So figuring out, yes, I don't want to do headshots. I don't love headshots, but it pays the bills, it pays the studio. And so I try and know that it's seasonal. And then if you know your business has a seasonality, just don't spend it all over here on Black Friday. The sales are crazy. And then people are like, I have no money in January. And you're like, well, you just spent $20,000 on new gear and you didn't need it.
Be mindful of the sales, but be mindful of the ebb and flow of your business. And also definitely get, I used to say three months business savings account. Like now I say six because of the pandemic. And while the timing for me, well, I still would say six, I had just renovated my studio, so, like, half of my business savings were gone. And then I had to refund and then I had no shoots for like three months, so still have ptsd from it. So I had nothing. Right. So I had no income that I could draw on. But really trying to build your income enough to have that emergency. What happens if you needed surgery? What happens if you needed to take time off because someone that you love is sick, you have to have that or you get pregnant. And the best, like, one tip that I would say is when you get the money for a shoot, don't spend it until the shoot is over. So put it in a separate. You can have where your.
It depends on your business bank account. So I only have two, but I'm also weird about money, so I know where the money is. I would never spend a deposit and I would get paid the day before the shoot for mine. So it's 50% down. 50%. I did not spend it until it was delivered because what happens, especially wedding photographers. Oh, we broke up. Okay. So can we have our refund back, our retainer and our six months? And whether or not, legally or not, you still want to be able to not spend it. So working out enough in advance that you don't spend it. And then what I like to do is put 30% away for income tax, 30% away for costs of my business, and then 30% I can spend. But I'm also an S corp, so it's a little bit different. But it's not all coming to me, right? Like, oh, yeah, I did $1,000 shoe. It's great. I'm just going to go spend $1,000. No, you can't do that.
[00:49:53] Speaker B: Yeah, you definitely can't do that. But, yeah, that was great. And I think it's good to have a good overview of the money that you get into your business and what you should and shouldn't spend it on. I think that's really important. It's so easy to just think of that money as yours and spend it while you really shouldn't.
[00:50:13] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. I mean, I remember the one year I bought the canon five d Mark three, and I was like, and then three months later, they announced the mark four coming out. I'm like, I'm going to wait.
Do you know how long I waited? Eight minutes on Amazon. I was like, I'm going to wait.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait. Yeah.
[00:50:34] Speaker C: No, I couldn't wait. But for me, it was an investment because I could use my mark three as a backup camera. I still needed a camera, but didn't really need that at that moment. I had enough money. It was fine. But you definitely can prolong things unless it's impacting your business. Same thing with, like, a computer. If your computer is a dinosaur on donkey dying and it's taking you forever to edit, time is money.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:06] Speaker C: Upgrade it.
[00:51:07] Speaker B: That's also very true. Yeah. You need to be mindful of what you need and what's worth investing in. For most people, it's easier to spend money on camera equipment, and it's harder to spend it on maybe the things that's actually going to get you a step further. Like you said, education, web design, an accountant, but even computers.
[00:51:30] Speaker C: One of my very good friends, we're in this building, and she's a photographer, and she has this donkey old laptop. And I was like, you got to get a new laptop because something's not working. Something happened, and then she had to get memory. I was like, anyway, she had three shoots, basically, where she lost and then showed up with a brand new mirrorless Sony. And I'm like, where's your computer? And she was like, I still got the old one. I'm like, okay, but you just had to pay $3,000 for those shoots because you lost their images. So that's the deal.
Definitely. Computers, please. And backup. Spend on backing up. Spend on backblaze. You got to back up those images.
[00:52:14] Speaker B: It's really important. The unsexy stuff, basically, the important, boring stuff. Yeah, definitely prioritize those. I agree. So where can the listener go to learn more from you and to check out your software?
[00:52:30] Speaker C: So my website is just janegoodrich.com, and I'm at Instagram at Jane Goodrich. And then my software is Pixello. It's picsello.com. And our Instagram is just at team Pixello for Instagram.
[00:52:50] Speaker B: Thank you. I'll be sure to add those to the show notes so that they're easy to click.
[00:52:54] Speaker C: That'd be great.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: Thank you so much for wanting to talk with me.
[00:52:57] Speaker C: Thanks for having me. This has been great. I love talking, pricing and mindset.
[00:53:01] Speaker B: Me, too. It's one of my best things to talk about. So much fun, money and pricing.
[00:53:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:53:07] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
[00:53:08] Speaker A: Thanks.
[00:53:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:09] Speaker C: Bye. Bye.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: You just listened to an episode of sustainable photography. Please share this episode with a photographer you care about.
