I hope everyone had a rad weekend!  Brayden rode on a pony for the first time (and he loved it!) and we got to go to Disneyland to celebrate our favorite 4 year old, Emma’s, birthday!  It’s crazy because I can remember exactly where I was (in a Baja Fresh grabbing lunch before flying to Las Vegas for a convention) when I got word that Emma was born.  It’s been such a gift to be apart of her life as well as her brother, Owen’s.  To get to see two babies grow up into such amazing kids is awesome.  We’re so lucky to have them in our lives!

Okay, enough sappiness.  Onto this weeks tip for you Pro Mom*togs out there.  I know I said I wasn’t going to be discussing pricing on this blog.  And while I’m not going to discuss my pricing my tip this week does involve looking at your own pricing structure.  I know a lot of  you are concerned with working too much.  I personally try to only take 1 (maybe 2) shoot pre week.  It’s not just the time it takes to go out and shoot, but also the time you have to spend editing that you have to take into account.  When I first started out I was shooting two, three, four, five times a week while also working a full time job.  But, that was before I had Brayden and that was also when my prices were much lower.  I’ve priced my packages (both portrait sessions and weddings) at a price point where I don’t need to shoot 5 shoots per week.  I would rather shoot 12 weddings this year at a higher price point then 24 at half the price.

Look at your own pricing structure.  If you are charging $50 per session, for example, can you charge $100 instead so you only need to shoot once per week rather than twice?  Maybe add something unique and customized to your session that may not cost you a lot, but will add value to your package.  Is that something you can do?  Think about it.

Someone once told me that when you keep booking your highest package over and over again then it’s time to raise your prices.  And that has totally worked for me!  It’s been a great indicator as to when to increase my prices.  Hopefully that little tid bit will help you out as well!  Happy Monday everyone!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 1:00 am and is filed under Tips & Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.