008 How to become the no-brainer choice as a brand photographer

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In this episode of the Profitable Creatives Podcast, I'm sharing how I elevated my brand photography services from a $600 photography-only session to a $4,000 comprehensive brand experience. 

We're talking about how to make this an easy YES for your clients so that you become the no-brainer choice of brand photographer. 

00:40 How my pricing went from $600 to $4,000 for LESS work

01:51 Creating an elevated client experience

02:21 Success on my recent sales call

04:50 Why you should consider having a team of referrals

07:49 Building your own dream team

10:00 The Premium Pivot

Thanks for listening!

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Chapters

• 0:00 intro
• 1:20 how my pricing went from $600 to $4,000 doing LESS work
• 2:31 Creating an elevated client experience
• 3:01 How this worked on a recent sales call
• 5:30 Why you should consider having a team of referrals
• 8:29 Building your own dream team

Transcript

0:40

So I have been a brand photographer since 2019. And the very first full brand photography session that I offered was for$600. It included four hours of photography. Uh, planning call and that's it. So my client, we would have a planning call and her only deliverables from me would be the photos that we got during that four hour session. Now fast forward to today. We're in November of 2024. Today I charge$4,000 for a three. Our session. So that's one less hour of my time onset. Now, this does include both photography and short form video as well. That's not really the point of this episode, but it also includes hair and makeup and a studio rental. And honestly, it's less work for me. Now only because it's a three hour session, but because I have hair and makeup on set as well. So how is this possible? I know, it sounds complicated like, oh, hair and makeup and a studio and you do video too, but it really. Isn't that much more complicated and that's what we're going to talk about today. So today's episode of the profitable creatives podcast is really for my brand photographers, but if you offer another creative service, what I really want you to take away from this is how can we elevate our services by creating an experience for our clients versus quote unquote, just offering the deliverables. So only delivering the photography. Only delivering website design, only delivering copy. What else can we do to elevate that experience? So I'm going to tell you another story that happened to me very recently, about two weeks ago. I had a discovery call with a potential client. She found me on Google. I start off the call, the sales call, discovery, call, whatever you want to call it. I always say, you know, tell me about you and what made you want to reach out for brand photography? So it's a typical story. My client, she was in the middle of a rebrand. She's updating her website, she's launching a podcast. And this is also typically when they'll mention that, you know, if they're talking to a few other photographers, this is when they mention it. So she did tell me like, yeah, you know, you're my first person. I have a few calls lined up with other photographers as well. This used to really freak me out. It would put me on edge. I would get really nervous during the sales call, like, oh my gosh, I have to like, A win out over other photographers. And I really don't want to foster a sense of competition, but the reality is, yeah. You know, if someone is talking to multiple other photographers, We kind of are competing. The difference now is that it doesn't freak me out anymore and I can answer. With a sure. That sounds great. You know, I'm glad you're talking to all of these other photographers. I want you to feel out your options and make sure that you are making the best decision for yourself. And now I can say that and actually mean it. And we'll get into why. In the rest of this episode. So, blah, blah, blah. I go on with my sales call. I give my spiel on the process, my brain photography process, the planning call, how we do things, outfits, blah, blah, blah. And then at the end, I always end my spiel with the total investment is$4,000. And I usually leave it at that. I don't say anything after that. And I wait for them to respond. And this client said. Oh, that's it. And like mind blown my mind. It is blown. Because not only did she say that, but she's not the first person to have said that to me recently, I've been feeling really comfortable at the$4,000 price point. Sometimes I'm like, oh, is this too much? But now that I. I am getting these responses from these aligned clients and like, no, this is a pretty good service and it might be an indicator that I need to raise my prices soon. New years coming up. It's a good time to do that. But then she also told me, so after she said, oh,$4,000, that's it. She said, you know, I have these other calls scheduled with other photographers, but I think you make the most sense. You covered all of my bases. You're including everything. I think it just makes sense. And then she booked and her shoot is next month. Now the reason I have been able to raise my prices, the reason I'm able to book what feels pretty easily on sales calls now is because I feel so confident in my offer in my rate. And it's because I've built this team. When my clients come to me, the entire brand photography process from a to Z is taken care of. It's covered. You come to me, we talk about hair and makeup. I have a trusted hair and makeup artists that comes, she does your hair makeup and she'll stay onsite to do look changes. You don't know what to wear. Don't worry. I have a wardrobe stylists that I can refer to you. It's not included in my services, but I will make an intro to you right now. I also take care of locations, the studio rental, you need a place to go. Don't worry. I'll find it. I'll book it. I will just add it to your invoice. I'm a one-stop shop for my clients. Now let's say I didn't offer these things, or I didn't have these resources available to my clients. Let's say all I do as the photographer is. Offer the deliverables, AKA the images or the photography. Well, that sales call could have gone a lot differently. She probably would have asked. Oh, well, what about hair and makeup and what should I wear? And when do I get my hair and makeup done? What time do I need to get it done? When do I need to have my outfit? How many outfits do I need where are we going to do the session? What do I need to bring? And you can see how quickly that becomes overwhelming. Especially for someone who doesn't do photo shoots often, like most of my brand photography clients, this is either, you know, first or second time they're in front of the camera. Maybe they've done a family session or a headshot session here and there, but they're really new to this world. Most of the time. Another benefit to having a hair and makeup artist and wardrobe stylist onset is that that is something that you no longer have to worry about. And the result of that is that the images are better. I cannot tell you before I started bringing a hair and makeup artists onsite, how many times I would pull open the photos in Lightroom and be like, oh my gosh. If I had just moved her hair out of the way, then I wouldn't have to sit here and edit all of these things. When you work with a professional makeup artist. That is what they're there for. They are there to look at that so that you can worry about the posing, the lighting, the composition. The actual photography piece of it. And the photos come out so much better. Same thing with working with a wardrobe stylist, instead of trying to make the shirt look right, because your client bought it. It's maybe a little bit too big, but she thought, oh, well, what if we just pin it in the back now, instead of you trying to make that work. You already have a wardrobe stylist who is either making that work or you're not even in that situation in the first place. Because of the stylist picked out clothes that fit and got them tailored, or they are taking care of the fitting portion for you. So again, You can just worry about the photography. It's amazing. Now, I know the next thought if you're a brand photographer is probably like, okay, well, Emily. This sounds really complicated, and I don't want to coordinate all of these moving pieces. I just want to show up and do the photos. That's fine. I know a lot of photographers feel that way. But I can honestly tell you. I've done this probably a hundred or more times now. it's not that complicated. All you need is a system. And people that you trust to refer to. The added benefit of, working with the team regularly with a hair and makeup artist and a wardrobe stylist is that it feels like you have coworkers. I work with pretty much the same two or three makeup artists all the time. I only work with one wardrobe stylist in the bay area. And the last time I was in town, you know, we had our sessions and we went and got lunch after our shoot. And it just was so much fun. It felt so natural. Most of the time we're behind the computer. I love having a team for this reason. Another added benefit of having a team like this. Is that not only can you refer them and elevate that experience for your clients, but they can also refer you. So my wardrobe stylist I'll have her on the podcast at some point. Her name is Abby. We have referred tens of thousands of dollars of business to each other. I. Probably one day we should sit down and really put together a spreadsheet about this. Maybe we'll do that for her interview. When I have her on the podcast. But just as an example, the last session that I did in California before I moved to Boston, came on referral from Abbey. It was a full day session for$7,400. I took home 6,400 of that, and the other thousand dollars went to the makeup artist. So I seriously, I can't rave about this enough because it doesn't have to be. Daunting and scary to build out a team of referrals. I started with only adding on hair and makeup, and then I built out from there. You can build out a system that works for you. You can create a package that works for you. And that's what I love about this. So, if you want to learn exactly how I elevated my brand photography services by curating this team of referrals, and also how I position my services to become the no-brainer choice for my potential clients. You definitely want to get on my wait list for the premium pivot. It is a five day telegram workshop where I'm going over my exact process for how I built out my brand photography dream team. every day inside of a telegram group, I will be dropping new insight and there will also be time for Q and a both within the telegram app and live coaching on zoom at the end of the workshop. So you can basically think of this as a private podcast for brand photographers who want to build out this experience and learn how to sell it easily. But there's also an added benefit of Q and a and live coaching with me. So, this is one of my black Friday deals I have two. And honestly, I am so freaking excited about this because every single brand photographer should know how to do this and should have a team. Honestly, I can wholeheartedly believe that because when you have a team. Your photos become better. You free up your brain space by doing more work on the front end, but then during the photo shoot, you can really work your magic and leave room for creativity. I will leave the link to the waitlist in the show notes. Tickets will go live basically, as soon as I am done with the sales page. But again, this is my black Friday deal, one of them. So it'll be available all of next week. You can get on the wait list now to be notified when that page goes live, it'll be an early bird deal. So this is a virtual workshop. It's not in-person. Um, it'll be$37 if you join during next week. And then it'll go up to$47. After that this live telegram workshop kicks off on December 16th. I would love to work with you inside of this workshop. And I'll see you in the next episode.