Make every portrait session a $2k+ session

Click here to register for the FREE, LIVE workshop: https://christarenephotography.com/2k-training

Summary

In this episode, Christa discusses how photographers can achieve consistent $2,000 portrait sessions by addressing mindset blocks, understanding pricing strategies, and creating high-value experiences for clients. She emphasizes the importance of clarity in business goals and the need to shift from a competitive mindset to one focused on value and service. The conversation also highlights the significance of attracting premium clients and the upcoming live workshop that will delve deeper into these topics.

Takeaways

• You need to have a mindset shift to charge your worth.
• Pricing is relative; people will invest in what they value.
• Running a photography business involves significant costs.
• Clarity on income goals is essential for success.
• Creating a high-value experience can attract premium clients.
• Mindset blocks can lead to resentment towards clients.
• It's important to serve clients at a higher level.
• Attracting new clients requires understanding your client avatar.
• Past clients may not return if they perceive low value.
• Live workshops can provide valuable insights and coaching.

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Transcript

Christa (00:00.6)
To kick things off, you guys get a special invite and I'm gonna share more about this soon to a free live workshop I'm hosting on November 19th. It's gonna be great. It's actually gonna be about the title of this podcast episode. So if this is interesting to you, be sure to sign up. How you can have regular 2K portrait sessions on repeat. So everything you know going into that, the link will be in the show notes. I'm gonna be doing some live coaching. It's going to be incredible. Would love to see you there or on Instagram at Krista with a C-H underscore Renee, R-E-N-E.

just DM me the word or I guess the number two in the letter K for 2K and I will auto send you the link to that. But let's go ahead and dive on in because in this episode I'm going to be breaking down even more how to have those consistent $2,000 sessions regularly. And you might be sitting there thinking, are people paying for this? Where are these people? Will all my clients leave me? Trust me, y'all, I hear this all day long in the DMs. And so I wanna break down some steps for you.

to really get there. So when you're looking at setting your pricing, so much of it, so much of it, you guys, is mindset. It's something huge that threw me off guard when I realized this year more than any other year, the biggest thing that gets in photographers' way are themselves and their mindset. So let's go ahead and address what is actually holding you back from charging your worth. So something being expensive or a lot, it's actually relative, right?

People, if they want something, they make it work financially. Think of even ways that happen for yourself, of something really big you invested in and you found a way to make it happen. People are doing that with photos. Now, it's not by competing with all the other $300 to $500 photographers in your area, all doing the exact same thing with the same looking work and the same experience and the same PDFs that are being auto-sent and the same online gallery settings. That's not how you're gonna stand out. That's not how you're gonna get to these pricing. There's a better way to do it.

And so I always ask photographers before we even start saying, are people paying this? Where are they? Will all my clients leave me? These are all like 100 % mindset blocks. Instead, let's like just disregard that. Let's disregard literally what your town's median income is. I've had that thrown at me or like what you've spent on photos. Like let's just take that off the plate for a second and off the table. Let's take all the emotion out of our business and look at it like a business owner. And it's really hard to do. This is one of the hardest things.

Christa (02:24.408)
for me to do, I get very emotionally attached to my business, okay? So I'm right there with you. But I want you to know, are you clear on what it takes your business to run, energy-wise, financially? Are you clear on the costs that come out of doing your business? Because guys, running a photo business, it's expensive. There's no such thing as a free shoot. You're always losing money. There's a lot that goes out. And are you clear on how much you want to work? And I've coached

There's a photographer I can think of who did really, really well on my program. And I coached her because she got clear on that, that she wanted to make more, but she didn't want to always have to be booking more and more and more shoots. Guys, I'm sitting here in this big beetle just flew by in front of me in my office. my goodness, I hate bugs. I have an office in an old building, so it threw me off there. Let's get back on track. So you need to be clear on like how much you want to make and how much you want to work.

Right now, is it possible for you to double your income? Could you actually physically shoot twice as much as you do now? And is that sustainable? Do you want to do that? And before we base it on others, but Krista, they're charging or my clients won't pay or this or that, stop. How are you feeling? What do you want for your business? Because there's ways you can get there for sure. Maybe it's, thought I had to do weddings because that's how you get to XYZ. Is it? Do you have to do weddings?

Do you want to do weddings? If you want to, that's great. If not, maybe you want to and you want to hit a certain amount. And then what I like to do is just calculate, again, emotion taken out of it, take out your calculator, what you want to make each year, find the monthly goal on average, divide that number by 12, divide that by what you're charging per shoot. It's very eye-opening. A lot of photographers don't realize that. Wow, I really want to hit six figures. I don't want to do 20 shoots a month. Yeah, no kidding, I don't either. That's way too much. Or on average, right?

I take someone's off that shoots I have to make up later. So before that, those mindset blocks come in, what can happen y'all is if you start running your business based on just feelings and past clients and what your friends are charging and all these things, it can lead you to resenting your clients, which would be terrible. And feeling like they're not paying you your worth, could lead you to resent your business and not even want to stay in business? And that doesn't serve anyone. So really that mindset shift for me,

Christa (04:49.336)
Maybe this isn't mindset as much as like it starts with looking at the practical side first and understanding that and then working on the mindset side of like, okay, now how can I get there and feel good about this? So let's talk about that now, okay? So first step was like that mindset shift for those higher pricing. Now let's talk about the practical side. So here's what feels ick is just jumping your prices up without really like having anything in the experience you're adding or.

doing the exact same thing over and over and it's slightly different each year, right? Like that feels kind of ick. Wouldn't you agree if you, you know, went and got the exact same thing you've gotten before, exact same service, exact same product, and it just kind of jumps up sporadically? It really isn't our day and age with inflation, everything needs to increase. But if you're doing big jumps, maybe you do that exercise and you're like, I need to think I need to double what I'm charging. It's gonna feel weird to still like do that off the get-go. So once you're clear on what you want your average to be, you either just need to charge that.

where you can upsell via products. And that's what I did. And that's what I'm incredibly passionate about. And what I did is I created this high value experience that attracted premium clients. It still served my current clientele well. I had a lot of past clients who loved this. And it served them at a higher level, higher than all the three to $500 photographers in my area, because there was like a bajillion of them, right? And they're wonderful, but all kind of doing the same thing for the same price and kind of the same look even.

It's really hard to stand out with that. And instead stepping up and creating a much higher level experience that my competition couldn't afford to because I get to meet with my clients before and after and really guide them through this and really just help them. And here a lot of photographers say that where they're like, I would love to do that. I crave that Krista. It just doesn't make sense practically. And like, yeah, I get it. It didn't either when I was charging a few hundred dollars. But when you can open that door to share the value to these multi-thousand dollar sessions, it's so worth it. Your clients leave happier.

and they get to walk away with more from their session, and you get to walk away with more income and get paid your worth. And for me too, guys, before I shifted to this and was shoot and burn, I was shoot and burn for six years. I would have clients come to me years later saying, hey, do you still have the link? We never got any prints years after. And instead of looking at it as like, how dare they, right? No, I missed out on serving them that way. I should have seen, wow.

Christa (07:09.24)
There's a gap here that I can fill. I can take care of this for my clients so they can have the digital to share, but they also have a product for their home to see and enjoy because this session was so incredibly special to them. And so I was able to take that step and serve them a step further. So what you can do is offer more than what others around you are charging, and then you can offer better service than all the other photographers around you. Now let's talk about clientele.

So often if I hear photographers say, well, my past client only spent $400. And I'll ask like, well, what were you charging for a session? Well, $400. Yeah, of course they're spending $400. That's what you were charging. Well, didn't buy from the online gallery. No kidding. Like I wouldn't either, right? Like it's DIYing it. It's kind of like going to Hall's Chophouse and being handed like a kiosk board, like at Panera that you order from. Like it just doesn't really make that much sense. It's not done for them. The service isn't taken care of for them.

So instead, what you can do is just share the value with your clients of what you're doing and why you're doing it how you'd love to help them. You can also attract new and more clients. for all my students, I've coached students two years in, I've coached students, I had a student this year who had been in their business for 20 years. And it's still really important to look at your client avatar and it's okay if it shifts through the years. But what can happen is if you're not open to that and just think it has to be the exact same client over and over again, like y'all, I lost clients when I went from $25 to $50.

in $50 to $100. Can you imagine if I let that stop me? I would have closed up shop years ago. But instead I got clear on the goals that I needed for my business and found it a way to get there by serving my clients better. And guess what? Some clients came with me. I had clients who had spent $199 before come and I had a client spend over six grand with getting Waller and all these products and prints because they loved it so much. I had other clients respectfully decline and that was okay because I was so clear.

on my goals for my family and what it cost me to be gone for this shoot. And so I don't want to resent those clients at all and walk away from a session thinking, I poured so much out there and it was not compensated my worth. Or wow, I really like serving my clients so fully, but I just can't afford to do that. No, instead I can serve my clients more fully, past clients, current clients, and even bring in future clients. And if this sounds interesting to you,

Christa (09:33.518)
I'm gonna have a free live workshop November 19th. The link is in the show notes. And I'm so excited. I love going live. I love teaching live. It like lights my fire. I feel like it lights the fire of those there. Recordings are awesome, but there's just something about being live. I love that energy. Yes, we'll send the replay out after, but I'm really going to go into depth on all of these points and how to be really strategic in having those regular $2,000 sessions. So if you've thought,

Krista, I see other photographers doing this and I know what I have, what it takes. I just don't know how or like, I don't want to feel icky about it or I'm afraid about like my clients or it's not gonna take like a lot of time. Like all these things that you might be thinking we're probably gonna cover. And if you're not sure about something, you can send me a DM but I would absolutely love to see you there. I'm even going to be doing some live coaching on it. It's going to be so wonderful at the end. I'm gonna share something really, really special that we haven't done in a long, long, long time.

So I hope I get to see you there and thanks for joining this episode.