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Month 1, Week 2 (Sept 15-21) - Feedback & Weekly Review

Lesson 14 from: Group Mentorship: Grow Your Wedding Photography Business

Susan Stripling

Month 1, Week 2 (Sept 15-21) - Feedback & Weekly Review

Lesson 14 from: Group Mentorship: Grow Your Wedding Photography Business

Susan Stripling

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Lesson Info

14. Month 1, Week 2 (Sept 15-21) - Feedback & Weekly Review

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

Mentorship: Introduction and Overview

20:49
2

Mentorship: Business and Marketing

30:42
3

Mentorship: Shooting & Post Production

15:21
4

Social Media Marketing

13:07
5

Google Analytics

29:16
6

Targeting Your Market with Social Media

25:54
7

Social Media Marketing Q&A

10:21
8

Common Issues and Problems

20:01
9

Student Questions and Critique Part 1

26:18
10

Student Questions and Critique Part 2

20:41

Day 2

11

Month 1, Week 1 (Sept 8-14) - Assignment Video

10:28
12

Month 1, Week 1 (Sept 8-14) - Feedback & Weekly Review

53:10
13

Month 1, Week 2 (Sept 15-21) - Assignment Video

09:43
14

Month 1, Week 2 (Sept 15-21) - Feedback & Weekly Review

43:05
15

Month 1, Week 3 (Sept 22-28) - Assignment Video

07:12
16

Month 1, Week 3 (Sept 22-28) - Feedback & Weekly Review

39:17
17

Month 1, Week 4 (Sept 29-Oct 6) - Assignment Video

06:41

Day 3

18

Office Hours Overview

13:42
19

Name Your Business Review

31:41
20

Where are You Running Your Business Review

09:41
21

Get Set Up Legally Review

16:12
22

Personal and Business Finances Review

26:58
23

Banking and Paying Yourself Review

15:42
24

Pricing Problems and Case Studies

35:12
25

When the World Isn't Perfect Review

23:56
26

Mission Statement and Target Client Review

25:46
27

Shooting: Macro and Getting Ready

17:26
28

Shooting: Portraits of the Bride

14:24
29

Shooting: Formals, Ceremony, and Cocktail Hour

16:30
30

Shooting: Reception and Nighttime Portraits

18:46

Day 4

31

Month 2, Week 1 (Oct 6-12) - Feedback & Weekly Review

57:47
32

Month 2, Week 2 (Oct 13-19) - Feedback & Weekly Review

55:04
33

Month 2, Week 3 (Oct 20-26) - Feedback & Weekly Review

57:13
34

Month 2, Week 4 (Oct 27-Nov 2) - Feedback & Weekly Review

47:48

Day 5

35

Details Critique Part 1

28:49
36

Details Critique Part 2

23:57
37

Getting Ready Critique

29:38
38

Missed Moments Critique

11:44
39

Bride Alone Critique Part 1

12:39
40

Bride Alone Critique Part 2

21:04
41

Ceremony Critique

12:36
42

Wedding Formals Critique

19:18
43

Bride and Groom Formals Critique

24:23
44

Reception Critique

18:33
45

Introductions and Toasts Critique

18:14
46

First Dances and Parent Dances Critique

17:47
47

Reception Party Critique

20:08
48

Night Portraits Critique

15:38
49

Month Three Homework

18:45

Day 6

50

Month 3, Week 1 - "Office Hours" Checkin

43:05
51

Month 3, Week 2 - "Office Hours" Checkin

28:11
52

Month 3, Week 3 - "Office Hours" Checkin

36:06

Day 7

53

Get Organized

30:40
54

Editing Q&A Part 1

28:57
55

Editing Q&A Part 2

32:18
56

Editing Critique Part 1

33:32
57

Editing Critique Part 2

31:48
58

Editing Critique Part 3

28:43
59

Editing Critique Part 4

29:33
60

Editing Critique Part 5

21:51
61

Final Image Critique

36:28
62

Album Design and Final Q&A

21:57

Lesson Info

Month 1, Week 2 (Sept 15-21) - Feedback & Weekly Review

Hi, guys. Um, this is week twos, questions and your video for the week. I am coming to you from my living room. I am in Haddonfield, New Jersey, today. My husband has a studio out here and we go back and forth between here in Brooklyn. I am not upstairs in the beautiful studio area because he actually has a meeting. So I'm relegated to the downstairs area with the fat overhead lighting. But I wanted to get the video out for you. So it was either record here in front of my sofa or record. Not at all. So here we go. I usually record these videos on Sundays, but this weekend I was in Louisville, Kentucky. I was gone for an entire weekend, um, family that I'd worked for before. I had shot the, uh, son's wedding a few years back, and now their daughter was getting married. So they brought me out to Louisville. I shot for 10 hours on Friday. We did a golf outing, a bridesmaid luncheon, and then the entire rehearsal dinner, which was really long. And on Saturday, I shot the longest wedding da...

y I've ever shot mind Her life, which was 16 hours. So I am tired. Hi, I am sore. There is no amount of working out in the world that compare prepare you for standing on your feet for 16 hours. But I did, actually. I've been cheating the D 8 10 on. I shot two d eight tens on Saturday, which definitely helped arms a little bit. I also just got a 72 204 husbands and kind of going on and on about how much he likes Hiss so he can't be the only one in the household with that toy. So I picked one up for myself and the combination of that 72 200 F four on that d A 10 in situations where I did not need a D for eso where I did not need the to eight of the 72 200 to 8 really kind of helped me be less dead today, but I'm pretty dead. Last time I came to you on this video is still in my creativelive makeup and looking all fancy, and this is really more of what it looks like. I've got coffee, bring in the background, and I just made myself breakfast at 1 30 in the afternoon. So this is Mondays or the new Saturday's. Right? Um, so let's get to it. Let's get to the questions of the week I've got pulled up in the Facebook group in front of me. So the first question, Ah Lim Ji pricing. My husband is always on me that I don't charge enough, but I don't feel like I'm good enough to charge more. Also, for prints and albums, a fair amount of my client's pocket cost times too much less cost times three. So I guess my question is how to make it all work. Pay my bills and get things like pro bodies on new lenses. Fallen still entry level price. I've managed to eke out to full friend bodies and pro lenses, which is keeping me going, but I get frustrated. We listen a lot of the questions this week or people who are very frustrated with pricing, and I understand that because pricing is very frustrating. It can be incredibly daunting, especially in your first couple of years, when you know full well that your prices are low, you're really struggling to get by, and it's it's a very difficult time of building any business, much less a photography business. But I feel like there are really four or five different questions being asked here in this one paragraph questions one who to address them kind of one at a time. First of all is my husband is always on me that I don't charge enough, but I don't feel like I'm good enough to charge more. I mean, that's kind of a personal hurdle that we all have to get past Where I'm at right now. I feel like I should definitely be charging Ah, lot more than I am for what I can do in kind of the ability level that I bring to every single wedding. But you have to keep a lot of things also in mind when you're looking at your pricing, and that some of the stuff I talk about is, you know, what do you do when you're not in a perfect world? So I really love to be charging $8000 for eight hours and files and no second shooter, but I know that my market can't bear that, even in New York, for that type of price you know, even at that skill level, you do eventually reach a point a point where you're kind of priced out of your market or where people just aren't gonna pay those prices. But if you don't feel like you're good enough to charge more, it's going to be very hard for you to raise your rates and believe in them, even if you're absolutely worth it. If you kind of him and Hall when you state your rates to clients or your kind of unsure or you're really ready to back them down when you negotiate, I don't want to sound like a you know who, life coach. But you do have to have confidence in your ability. Otherwise, how in the world or perspective client supposed to have confidence in you as faras prints and albums Kind of the second part of this question. A fair amount of clients balk. It cost times too much less cost times three. I mean, unfortunately, you have to charge enough to make these products worthwhile if you're doing cost times two. By the time you figure in taxes on top of everything, you're not making a profit, and if you're going to be a viable, long term, long lasting business. You can't send products out the door at either a break, even or out a loss. That's not a business. That's a hobby. My clients balk all the time at pricing. Even clients who booked me for their wedding. We've shot their wedding. Now we're doing their album and they want to upgrade, and I'm sending them cost times three for their upgrade costs. And they're like, Wow, this is really expensive. I say, Well, you know, those are the prices. I don't say it rudely like that and much nicer about it. But I can't sell things to people unless I'm making a profit at it. So if your clients are balking at cough times, too much less cost times three, you can't back those prices down. Otherwise you're basically giving them away to the clients. And how do you make it all work and pay your bills and get things like pro bodies or new lenses? Well, it's just gonna take time on. I hate to say that, but I'd say the salt the 1st 3 or four years I was in business. I was barely breaking even. I was in the red for the first couple of years because I took out a loan and I was buying things that I needed for the business, and I wasn't making enough money to pay them back, and I was very lucky at the time. The man I was married to did have a full time job, but his full time job didn't pay for my business. It helped us with our living expenses, but he didn't buy any cameras or anything like that. So it took a really, really long time to get to a place where I felt like I could just kind of buy things on. And I bought a lot of gear in the past year. But I bought a lot of fear in the past year because I also looked at my business finances for several years prior, and I had bought almost no gear at all. There was a point where I have bought my D three ass. My lenses were really where they wanted to be, and then a little while later, I bought one before, and then I just shot a deformity three s for a long time and then in the past year you've been seeing on social media or anything. I bought a lot of things. It's also cause I kind of ignored my gear bag for a while. But if you are in your first couple of years and you feel like God, I'm never going to get past us and this is taking forever. Well, yeah, unfortunately, there are a lot of workshops out there, and teachers out there will tell you you know how to do this in just a week or how to do this in just a year. You know how toe market to the high end bride right away. And those of you who are sitting down and you're doing the math and you're running the numbers, you realize there is no way to do this right away. It is slow and steady, and it is painful. I mean, I didn't open a single investment savings account until I had been in business for, like eight years, So there was a long time where it was God. Is this ever going to provide for my retirement? Or will this ever give me enough money to live on, you know, without having to count every single penny and eventually it it did. It's still not easy, you know, I'm still hustling for every booking, but, you know, how do you make it all work? Pay your bills and get things? You just have to keep going at it over and over and over again and making sure that the things that you're selling your not out of los for when you're selling them. Okay, I realized that was kind of a long answer to the very first question of the week. So let's get to the rest of them. All right. I'm terrified of pricing. The photographers in my town have the same crisis. Me around $2200 for a full day and top wedding photographers in Sweden all 8 10 hours drive away, charge around 5600. I think I'm better than the ones in my town, but not as good as the top ones. And I have only shot seven wedding so far and only 3 to 6 our wedding. So I'm still new in this business. I don't have anything booked for next year, and I'm hoping it's just because of not marketing myself in the right way, but I'm wondering if I should stay in the same price ranges. The ones in my town is I see until I see myself getting booked up, or if I should price myself more like the top ones because that's my goal, even though I don't have their experience yet. Also, my goal is to shoot some destination weddings, and it seems like the ones who are booked for that charge a lot more than I do. Sorry for such a long question. That's OK. I don't mind long questions, but again, there's kind of two questions going on in your question. Now the first question is about your rates and whether you should keep them where they are or whether you should raise them. Teoh match the level of the photographers that are more expensive, and this is the part of the mentorship. That's kind of frustrating, because I can give you advice as to what I would do, but I can't tell you what to do, and you shouldn't take anything that I say. As you know. Well, Susan said this. I have to do it this way because that might not work for you. Now, without seeing your work without doing an analysis of the other photographers in your area. It would be really hard for me to tell you whether you should stay priced like the ones in your town or whether you should price yourself more like the ones that are further away from you. I would actually recommend you table this question for a few weeks because what we're going to be doing in the coming weeks is we're going to be analyzing your competition and you're gonna be looking at every single one of those photographers both locally and you know, 8 hours away. And you're gonna kind of look at what they're charging. You're going to see what you're doing better than they are and what they're doing better than you are. But for me to speak towards the destination bit of it, what I would recommend you do is not price yourself too high. If you're a brand new, I would give it some time. And within the first couple of years of being in business, I knew that I wanted to raise my rates. But I also knew that I did not have the experience behind it to command the same type of rates as people who charged Mawr, even though I felt my work was comparable and could stand up to theirs. Now I do have separate pricing. So if I'm going to shoot a wedding and it's going to be in New York or it's going to be in Philadelphia and I realized that New York and Philadelphia, you know, for those of you who are in the US, you know that those air not exactly neighboring cities. But I have a home in both of them. My husband's out here. My apartment is on in Brooklyn, so I price both of them is if they are my home base, which they are for me. But when I travel for a destination wedding, my pricing is vastly different. So where you're at right now, you could start off with two tiers of pricing. You could have your local pricing, which is for me. It's anything that I get to wake up in the morning in my own bed and go to bed in my own bed at the end of the night. That's considered local for me and then anything that I have to drive Teoh that involves a hotel stay. For example, This weekend my assistant and I are going up to the Hudson Valley to shoot a wedding, and it's It's about a four hour drive. We're going to stay over the night before, so my rates for it are a little higher on gets to cover my time. It's to cover my travel. It's to cover my hotel rate, and the clients don't know that it's just simply built into that price list. So if someone enquires in the Hudson Valley and I say here here are my rates, they don't know that it's really, you know, 500 to $ more than if they were getting married in New York. They just know that they're not paying a separate travel fee on top, because I've already built today now for a destination wedding. Like the wedding that I shot this past weekend, it's anywhere from $ on top of my regular rates. So let's say I have a local package that is $5000 but I'm going to go to a destination wedding. That same package is going to be 7500 or $8000. And on top of that, they have to pay for my airfare of my assistance Air Affair, our Hotels day on our rental car for the duration Tuesday. And the reason I do that is because if I'm going to go a long way away, I need to be compensated for not being able to book more than one wedding in a weekend. So shell of the first part of your question until we've analyzed your competition. And then if this is still an issue, hit me up with the question again with some more data on top of it and the second part of it local versus destination rate. I hope that sort of help clarify that for you. Next question. Bethany. I've moved countries, and I was a little surprised to find that the prices for wedding photography in my area in the UK are considerably lower than the price is where I'm from. In New Zealand, I already know how much I need to charge. And in New Zealand I would feel completely comfortable charging this amount with my level of experience, as people happily seemed to pay this amount here in the UK, charging what I need to charge is bordering on quite expensive. Comparatively. Should I proceed with charging what I feel I need to charge and just see what happens? I'm hoping that the kind of clients that I want to target won't be price shoppers anyway. If I charge what seems to be the average price in my area, I won't make money. But I also want bookings, so it's a hard one. So again, multiple questions in one question. First of all, I understand completely wanting bookings. I want bookings to I want way more for next year that I have right now, but I know that if I lower my price is right, I start competing on Price. I'll get more bookings, but I don't make very much money. So as wedding photographers, we tend to get very obsessed with the number of weddings that we have for the following year. And I've had to learn to be less obsessed with the number of booked weddings and more obsessed with the average of each booking. So I would rather have two bookings for $6000.3 bookings for $3000. You know, I might. That was really terrible math. You can see I can't go back on a Monday morning. So if I'm doing to winning that $6000 I would need to book three weddings at $4000 to make the same amount of money. But then I'm shooting an extra wedding, and that seems hardly fair. Now. I'm not an advocate of doubling your prices and shooting half be weddings, because that usually tends to backfire. That is a huge jump for most people, but I would worry more about what you're making per wedding and less about the number of weddings that your booking, if you see your booking, start to go down. Every time I raise my prices, my bookings go down. But between 2013 in 2014 I went from shooting 53 weddings to shooting 46 weddings with my price jump. But I'm making more money at those 46 weddings than I did at the 53 weddings the year prior. So you know, again, be a little bit less obsessed with number of weddings that you have for next year and be more obsessed with making sure that you are profitable. Every single time that you shoot away, and I would recommend if you're new in your area, sticking to the number that you know that you need to charge in order to pay your bills and to live your life and then revisit that number again when we get to the end of this month after you've analyzed your competition and analyzed your market, if you still have the same question, bring it back to me. Like I said for the question before this one. Bring it back but have more data points so that we can analyze it a little more thoroughly. All right, Next question. I was wondering about contracts. Do you send them via email or your website? Can they find it? Elektronik Lee. This would be the easiest way for me, but I would not know what software to use to ensure that it is legally binding and was wondering whether you have any advice. If you happen to do it this way, the way I used to do it is my contract would be in a PDF, and I would attach it to an email and the clients would have to download it. I told them to either sign it and mail it back to me or print it, sign two copies and send them back to me. If they signed it electronically or just signed it, scanned it and sent it back to me that I would sign it, scan it and send it back to them if they mailed me to copy is I would sign both copies and send one of them back for their records. But I decided that I would much rather send these things out. Elektronik Lee. It's easier for me. It saves time for me. And there's no more of that whole the checks in the mail or Oh, no, we totally sent it to you when you know they didn't send it to You know, they're stalling and you got another wedding that wants a book. You can't let them book you because you're waiting for the first wedding I've been using. Shoot Q. It's just S H O T. Q. The letter q dot com, and they allow you to create an electronic contract that you send out that people consign online. I checked with my attorney to make sure that it was legally binding that they find Elektronik Lee. And it is I would highly recommend you talk to yours in your state, in your country, wherever you're based, and make sure that you could do it legally. But I have been having people sign their contracts of the issue queue for several years now and have not had any problems legally with it at all. Next question. I'm on my ninth wedding and I have just started raising my prices, but I'm still under the market margins for my area. Question is, am I selling myself short and not selling the type of weddings needed to raise my profile? I'm not sure what this means. I'm really sorry. I want to read out every single question So everyone knows that I am looking at their questions and I am reading them. But I'm not sure what the question means. Um um, I selling myself short and not selling the type of weddings need to raise my profile. I'm not sure what you mean by type of weddings. If you could rewrite the question, give me a little bit more details, come back and hit me up either in office hours or in the questions for week three, then I can definitely know what you're asking in and didn't answer it fully. All right, next question. So far, it seems like the magic number in my area is $2500 for all day ways. I raised mine to $ it seems so much harder in this market. I also see brides and grooms not wanting to pay extra for an album, but two included in the Price in. I would love to find these magical brides who would pay more for prices plus albums. I mean, wouldn't we? All right, like, it's hard, you know, you're never gonna hit some magic number where people just come in and look at the number and say, OK, that seem totally reasonable. There are always many people who think that you are too expensive or that think that you were too cheap or that don't want to buy things all a cart or that don't want to buy things and packages, so there's there's no perfect way to please everyone if and I don't know what you mean by the magic number in your area, have you been a 25 $100 that was working really well for you. Is that what other people are charging? It's really hard to believe that raising it to just an additional 300 raising an additional $300 is stopping all of your bookings. But my question for you. If you can answer this and hit me back up with the question again, you're $2800. Is that a base price, or is that a price with an album? So I would love to know that. Next question. Felisha. Pricing and profitability. Um, where does my own time get reflected when evaluating the package costs and expenses? I kind of answered this already, but again, I want to reiterate I do my cost times five to help me get Teoh, a number that I am comfortable with now. Felicia here has done her base times three, and her price is really low because she doesn't have an assistant. She's an outsource for post processing. She doesn't do online, proving I'm. Apparently she doesn't believe in going for pre event coffee, and so her expenses come to $60. When you do your well, that's actually not true. Her expenses are $40 so her based times through you should be $ because it says total cost. Wedding is 20 but she's got 20 times to use. A. Technically, it's 40. Obviously, you can't go out and shoot a wedding for $120. And this is where you know, congratulations that your costs are incredibly low. This is where you can go forth into your market analysis. Look at what your competitors are doing. Look at what your market can bear and maybe your number is based. Hunts. 50. Maybe it's based times 10. Mine happens to be based times five because that's what works for me, but that this is the element where I can't, um, I can't tell you exactly what is going to work for you without really getting into your market. So for some people who are really wondering, should I do times 3 to 5 times? Five times 10. Let's get through the month I finished all of your homework assignments for the month and then reconvene back on the same question to see if answering some of the other questions over the next two weeks helps you come to a better number, and I'm not trying to ignore your question. I think it's extraordinarily valid, but I do want to make sure that we're bringing in all of the elements into play that will help you come up with that final number. Okay, Susan is piggybacking on a question here for expenses like printer ink paper, pixie set business cards, Web site. What's the best way you found to incorporate that into the pricing? So again, I would recommend If you are looking at expenses, you know you're looking at your personal expenses, and you find the number that you need to make per year to sustain your life. Then run your business expenses and find the number that you need to make per year to sustain your business and then go in with those two numbers together to find your final number. Next question I have to package is the 1st 1 doesn't include a second shooter, but it could be an ad on the 2nd 1 does include a second shooter for the second package. Should I be adding the amount paid to a second shooter in there and multiplying by five, or should that be added on with a smaller multiplier. It would be super weird in my market toe out on $1500 for a second shooter. Or maybe I should either included in all packages or have it as an out on for all. Um, if you're not comfortable multiplying your second shooter by five, multiply your second shooter by three instead of by five. But you can't take $500 from a client and give your second shoot or $500 call it a day because the second you taken $500 that client you have pay taxes on it, and then you're going to have to account for how much time it's gonna take you to go through and edit your second shooter's images. So if you take $500 from a client and give that $ to the second shooter, you're gonna find out that you're actually taking money out of your own pocket to give it to the second shooter. And should you have your second shooter in all of your packages, or should you have it as an add on for all I can tell you for that, I can't tell you what to do for that? What do you want to dio for that? And more importantly, when you run all of the numbers, what do the numbers tell you you should do? And then what does your market sort of dictate that you dio? I have my second shooter as an add on for all of my packages. I've been toying with putting a second shooter into my top package, but that such a new ad on that I don't know how people are responding to it yet. Next question for video. Almost all of our packages have a second shooter because it's much more involved. Are second shooter makes a percentage of the base package price before add ons? How should I add that in the spreadsheet? I don't know. I don't profit share with whoever worked for me. I paid in a flat amount, but if your second shooter makes a percentage of the base package price before Adeline, then you should be factor in your mouth with that percentage of the base price. Next question, um, you say in the workbook that you sell your images now that you used to what? No, I think it's a misunderstanding. You say in the workbook that you sell you images now that you used to include that in your packages because we're talking hundreds of photos. Do you have a formula you use for this two price your DVDs or is this part of the X five off based formula? Um, I do include my Okay, I'm trying. Figure out Answer this. I do include the digital files in my package, but I am including that in the consideration of the packages. It's not like I included them before, and now I'm doing it in a different way. That is part of the day's times five. But part of my decision to include the digital files in the packages because I simply was not selling, um, any sort of reprints, no matter what I did, no matter what I did to sell them, and I decided to include it in the rates. But I also decided to make make sure that my rates were high enough that I felt comfortable selling them as part of the package. If that sort of helps make sense, all right, my situation is that in your three of a commercial photography degree, I have a part time job that I used to supplement my income while I go with my business. The problem is, is that my time management is awful. Do I bite the bullet and stop my part time job and focus on my business? No. Uh, no, you shouldn't do that. You should work on your time management. I would hate to see you go out and drop your part time job, which is a source of your income to continue to manage time poorly in the areas that you have left. I would recommend doubling down on improving your time management in keeping that part time job. That is just what I would do next. Pricing and profitability. I may be wrong, but instead of offering a discount off the album, you add time to the package to make it more desirable. This is the area I struggle in. I feel that I actually lose money when I when people upgrade to my higher packages because I'm giving too much away. Well, you will know if you are losing money when people upgrade to your higher packages. If you run the numbers and they show you that you're losing money and offering a discount off of the Alban, adding time to the package to make it more desirable. It's something that I will only do when I am negotiating and negotiating. It's something that I will Onley dio for certain periods of time. For example, if I have a collection that's $6000 I'm not just gonna give them two free hours of photography to get them to book me. If their wedding is on an extraordinarily popular wedding weekend now, maybe I'll give them an additional two hours to get them to book me for, ah, Friday in January, because that's not going to be, ah, popular date. But I do not just start throwing in additional time for packages just randomly. And, um, if you are losing money when people upgrade your higher packages, you need to revisit those higher packages because you shouldn't be giving anything away at all to the point at which you are losing money. Okay, next question. Um, uh huh. Where was I? Sorry. Pricing profitability. I currently include the digital images. I have had occurrences where family members also want to purchase the full gallery and zero clue how to price this. I don't price that if I give away the digital files to my clients, they can give them away to whoever they want. Like, I think that it would be really hard for me to sell a 55 $100 package to a client and then turn around and hit their family for $500 to get the gallery when all they have to do is get the files from the clients. So the gallery is actually open for downloads. So anyone who wants to go in and snag a picture out of it If the bridegroom give them the pass code, they can do that. I don't sell it separately for families. Okay, I saw my GP A today. I have to pick a business name. Are you Susan Stripling as your legal business name? Are you Susan Stripling? Photography as as your business legal name. I am Susan Stripling. Photography healthy. That is what I am all right. Pricing and profitability just to comment on this one. I'm detail in my pricing on albums. I have found that the vendor I work with allows me to imprint my logo on the back of the album. Do you print your logo anywhere on your client's album? Yes, I put my logo on the inside of the back cover of the album. Unless the album design is really terrible, like you know, when a client gets in and they want to make a bunch of changes to their album design, and all of a sudden everything is low opacity, and it doesn't really represent the work that I normally do. Then sometimes I may or may not forget to put my logo in their album. All right, Windy. I feel like I spend too much on marketing. I mostly spend this money on wedding expos, but last year I book 10 of my 35 Weddings from Expose. So I'm not. I'm afraid not to spend that money. I know that, my wife said, is not Seo friendly, and I did sign up with good gallery. So I'm hoping that helps also. Okay, I gotta do these bits and bits of it. Um, if you book 10 out of your 35 weddings from a wedding expo, that's not bad. But what I see here is you said that it's 15 from past client referrals five from other vendors and five from other photographers and zero from the Internet. How you How are you counting past client referrals as things that came from an expo? I'm kind of unsure about that. Um I know my website is not friendly, and I did sign up with good galleries. I'm hoping that health, it does help, but you have to follow all of their tips. You can't just get a good good gallery website and throw your images up there and say, Yeah, now it s so friendly, You actually have to do the captioning in the key wording and everything that they suggest that you do. Alright. Also have been trying to network with vendors I purchased in hung canvases at a local bridal shop and photograph the staff headshots for their website. Is it? Thanks for letting me display my work after a whole year. Not even one call for that. Unfortunately, that happens. I created three stunning and extensive albums to display at a local venue and met with the coordinators. And only one venue has sent me to brides. After one year of display, that happens. What am I doing wrong? It just seems that when I worked so hard to connect with the venue, that person leaves the company and act to start all over again with the next one. I mean, unfortunately, that that does happen. You know, I've spent a lot of time. I sent a lot of time building the relationship of the coordinator in my area and he left and he moves more ups and that kind of sucked. But you just buck up, pick it up and keep on moving on and start building a relationship with the next person. And, you know, it might seem like they're not sending your referrals, but maybe somebody went and met with this venue and saw your album and then went home and was doing research and found you on the Internet and then talk to a former client of yours. Oh, my gosh, someone I work with, You know, you shot their wedding. You don't really know that Some of the things that you're putting out there aren't indirectly helping you. But is it frustrating? It's absolutely frustrating, and it's something that takes years and years and years to keep plugging away at and this venue, this coordinator, that I worked with that moved somewhere else. He was always a reliable source for three or four weddings every single year. And now he's gone. So I just have to double down on my next referral. It's a lot like dating and that really fucks I don't like dating. Um, okay, I have trouble letting go of the clients who can't afford me. Should I shoot any budget wedding? Since I'm just starting out? Or do I stick my pricing and wait for the right client? I'm afraid I will slow my growth if I refused to do lower budget weddings. My goal is he busy and build my portfolio, block full weddings and get referrals. At the moment, I'm shooting a lot of weddings for another studio, but I can't really call them my own wedding, since I can't build a relationship with this client. However, if I do shoot lower budget weddings that might attract more lower budget letting any advice well, yes. No, you should not just shoot any budget weddings. Since you're starting out, you should stick to the pricing that you have determined will make you profitable unless it's crazy and I'm telling you to stick to the pricing that will make you profitable. But I don't know if you are mismanaging your personal expenses. I don't know if you have a lot of debt you're trying to pay down. I don't know if you are in an area that can support a 25 $100 wedding, but you're trying to charge $5000 like I don't know the answer to all of these things. Your goal is to be busy and build your portfolio. But first of all, you can't lose money on it, which that's not gonna get you anywhere. That's just gonna get you more in debt. That's just going to cause more problems. Um, I would recommend that you stick to pricing that you know will be profitable. That isn't crazy and that you just get out there and you plug at it over and over and over again because it's going to take a long time. It's just going to take time talking to happen overnight and do lower. But do lower budget weddings attract other lower budget weddings? Of course they dio, but you just have to keep on working through it, and I found that I reached a point where I was shoot shooting, lower budget weddings, that I was making them look fancy. And then that brought another level of client and that I was going to take those weddings and shoot them and make them look fancy, are brought in another level of client. And like I said before, this isn't gonna happen overnight. You just have to keep getting out there and getting out there. Next question Charlotte Right now I don't have a second shooter is I don't feel that I need one, but it seems to be hurting my hook. My bookings enquiries. Ask if I have a second shooter, and when I say no, I never heard back from them. I do not plan. I do plan on getting an assistant and wonder if I could combine the two assistant second shooter and not make it break the bank. How do you deal with potential clients that request or wonder why you don't have a second shooter? Well, the first thing I do when someone says you know this other photographer I talked to said, I need a second shooter. I send them over to some of my featured galleries I tell them to take a look through them and tell me what those galleries are missing. And if the galleries were actually missing things that you think that a second shooter would help with, then we can talk about how we can add one on to their packages. But most of the time, people go through and they look at the galleries and they're like, Oh, wow, you did that all by yourself. I'm like, Yeah, I did. And they're like, OK, we totally understand. The other thing that I do is while I don't have a second shooter, Sandra is capable of taking pictures. And so I will tell them, You know, if what's really important to you is that you have a few pictures of you and your dad before you go down the aisle. That is one of the things that Sandra does shoot. She stays in the back and she shoots, You know, you and your dad before you come down. She's not a second shooter, but she does shoot a little bit. We don't split up. I don't send her somewhere else or to another than you or, you know, to the cocktail hour while I'm with you doing the portrait because I need her. Her her job first and foremost, is to assist me. But if he if it's just one thing here there that you want to make sure gets covered, we can see if we can do it between the two of us and then offer them a second shooter option and see if they take it. I don't think that you should have to have a second shooter If you truly believe that your work doesn't need one, you just have to learn how to pitch your work to prospective clients so that they can get an eye. You get a night on the work and realize that you did that all by yourself. Next question week to I decided to register as a sole trader, both checking and savings that if I have a no credit card, so I feel like that poses a challenge as to online shopping for photo gear. Um, no, I mean I before I had a credit card. I just use my debit card to buy things online. What do you think about the following approach? After I've identified my item in Price, I withdraw the money for my business account, place it in my personal account credit card, and then use the credit card to purchase the item online. Uh, that seems overly complicated. You don't have to have a credit card to have a debit card for your business checking account, and you can use your debit card to make purchases online. Um, number 10 when people Nicole number 10 when people want to add more to the album than on the package. Okay, when you want to add more onto the album that is already on the package, how do you price it per picture? Or Perseid? I price it for picture. It's $25. Perfection. All right, Michelle, I've evaluated my local market, and I have an idea of what the margins are for pricey and what you get for that price. Average 1200 full day signing frame and digital files. Top market prices 2000. So I'm going to produce three collections and having all apart option because we have a lot of brides trying to get the price down. As I have the big number now set from the spreadsheets. I need to shoot weddings a year. I only have two for next year books. Should I price lower than the market average? I'm new to the market, and I've only shot nine weddings myself. But I've done loads of second shooting. My question for you would be if you price lower than the market average. Are you losing money? For example, if your market averages $1200 you decide to price yourself at $1100 are you going to lose money doing that? If you're going to lose money doing that, do it. If you're not going to lose money doing that, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being priced below the average as you're building your business, as long as you are still profitable when you're done. OK, next question. You guys have so many questions. This is good. All right, Felisha. No perfect world. This may sound odd, but what if to local wedding planners are undermining my pricing and saying a photographer cannot cost more than our whole wedding planning? Oh, if prices are too high, couples won't come to our island to marry. Our island is not beautiful enough for higher prices and adds just shooting burn don't do editing and give less photos. Uh, try to figure this out. This gives you the idea, the prices of the two local photographers and wishing me to stay within. So then flee should give me two photographers, several photographers and what their pricing options are. There are only three wedding planners in total. They get basically all enquiries directly since their established for many years, and they're usually the ones mediating. The two photographers are directly including them in their complete packages for destination weddings. There's no way for me to make profit from the prices above the way I work as well. I feel like I would have to keep servicing my clients the way I do and delivering retouched photos. I would love myself. What would be your advice on how to deal with this established price barrier monopoly situation? Well, the monopoly situation really, socks like that. There is no way around that that's really, really difficult to get around. My question to you would be Can you go to those wedding planners and sit down with them and meet with them and say, Hey, listen, I do things a little bit differently than the other photographers on. I'd like to meet with you so that I can show you what I do. Explain to you how I work and then explain how you can have a really wonderful additional fourth option to share with your clients who might want something above and beyond or something a little bit different. And I would be very curious to see how that approach would would kind of end up working. And that would be what I would try myself. That would be the first thing that I would definitely try myself. But you're right. That's a really difficult situation to be in Dana raising rates. I've been at a price point last year that though I booked a good amount of weddings, I felt that I was not getting the bride they wanted to attract. I thought that I was low for the brides who truly wanted to invest in their photography. They would look at my rates and feel I was too cheap. That happens, but I would get other brides getting married, a glorious, expensive venues that looked at my rates and said I was out of their budget Earlier this year, I jumped the gun raised rates to starting at $ I got zero bookings. I found that many brides budgets were no higher than 3500 even though the 28 even through the days with you my numbers came to $4500. I ended up dropping down to $3500 which is Onley $250 raise for last year. How do you know when to raise and what gap should one expect? I've heard many say there might be a dry spell, but eventually the clients I won't will come around. And when do you consider readjusting your collections? I've had three brides come in that I totally connected with and even after a follow up, have not heard from since when I was twice there Max Budget and the other two? I don't know. How do you feel like how do you not feel like giving up in an area that's very saturated? Dana? I feel like giving up every single year. Honestly, I really do, because I live in New York and I can't think of anywhere more saturated than New York except maybe L. A. It's insane. There are a 1,000,000 photographer's here. They're like three photographers on my block, and it's really, really, really tough what I did when I read. Like when I realized that if I somebody ran the numbers in the group earlier and found that if I was only going to book 45 weddings a year at the amount of money that I needed to make, I need to decidedly close to $10,000. Now I know that there's no way that I could book 45 weddings. Excuse me at $10,000 so I don't. So I've chosen to diversify, and I like diversification because it allows me to not put all of my eggs in one basket, which is really important to me. And I also like diversification because it gives me other areas to work on creatively. So my question for you would be, you know, it sounds like you're doing a really good job. You're looking, you know? How many weddings did you say you booked? 28 with him? No, that's a different number. It sounds like you're booking a good amount of Okay. You said your booking a good amount of weddings. I would be curious to see if you either could diversify into either boudoir or family or something like that to raise the amount of money you're making without having to push so hard at weddings. Or if diversification is not something that you want to do, what you can do to sell to your clients after the wedding to get your averages higher. And you know how do I know when to raise for me? I usually raised my rates when I hit a certain number at a certain time of year. Like, for example, my husband and I both have a goal, which is by the first of September of every single year. We should have 20 weddings for the next year and if I don't have 20 weddings, and I need to take a look at what I'm doing wrong, and I need to look at things other than just the pricing, you know, as my customer service slipped a my not maximizing my referrals. Am I not networking with vendors? What can I be doing other than just bringing why prices back down and, sweetie that and I usually raised my rates maybe once, sometimes twice a year Sometimes I bump them up a couple $100. Sometimes it's simply reconfigure. The packages just depends on whatever I feel like doing. At that point in time, I used to have a much more hard and set, you know, every time I book X number of weddings. I raised my rates $200 but more and more now I just kind of toy with them. And, yes, there might be a dry spell. But if I have gone two months and I haven't booked anything and that's not normal, that's what I'm gonna look at, possibly bringing my rates back down again. I have no problems if I put them up and I put them up to higher. I tried something too ambitious and it doesn't work. I have no problems whatsoever putting them back down. Next question, Michelle. My area is saturated. We have a great network group that meets of every couple of months for drinks. Then we have a Facebook group for helping referral, so I know my competition well. However, there are many different styles and finish to the end edited images, and I want to give my bride's more customized deal as a lot have one set price. As for raising, I want to get more experience but will raise them yearly because the price of living raises your so I think that's a good approach. I think that whatever you come to that works for you is a good approach. There's nothing saying that you have to raise your prices multiple times a year, and if you want to raise them once a year, raise them once a year. There's nothing wrong with that, all right, Denise. I bought my 1st 1 in $1000 but my second at 1800 book My Third at 2800. I'm now priced at 3888. That's for 10 hours to shooters, all edited images. Plus, I gift a 16 by 24 gallery rap. I don't have packages. I like the way Ryan Braun Isar does only one price. Also, I like to keep things simple. Should I have booked a few more 2800 and then moved up? Or should I stick to my guns and stay at 38 88? Um, I can't tell you what you should do because I don't know how things are performing. How? Um it sounds like you Book one at 2800. I want to know how many you booked at 3888 before I can really determine a good answer to that question. So if you can write back next week or even just in office hours and let me know and I will help you as much as I can. So these are all of the questions for this week. Uh, thank you for bearing with me sitting in my living room. Since my husband has decided to, I don't know, meet a client upstairs on can't use our studio. Ah, promise. Next week, I'll try to find something with a little better lighting may be. And I hope everything is going great for you guys. I hope you're not too daunted by the spreadsheets. And I will see you next week. Bye. This

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Mentorship Launch and Social Media Keynote.pdf
Susan Stripling - Study Packet Spreadsheets for Numbers.zip
Susan Stripling - Study Packet Spreadsheets for Excel.zip
Susan Stripling - Month 1 Mentorship Assignments 1 - 7.pdf
Susan Stripling - Business and Marketing Workbook.pdf
Susan Stripling - Study Packet Spreadsheets - PDF.zip
Susan Stripling - Month 1 Mentorship Assignments 8 - 14.pdf
Susan Stripling - Month 1 Mentorship Assignments 15 - 21.pdf
Susan Stripling - Month 1 Mentorship Assignments 22 - 28.pdf
Susan Stripling - Month 2 Homework.pdf
Susan Stripling - Month Two Introduction Keynote.pdf
Susan Stripling - Month Three Assignments.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

A couple years ago I attended WPPI and sat in on Susan's class. Out of all the classes I sat in on that year her's was in the top 2 for actual information and not just fluffy feel good hype. So I figured her Group Mentorship course would be a good one and it definitely has! A bit of background on me, I've been running my own wedding photography business for the last 6 years, 5 of those full time. I've taken tons of business courses and have circled back around to taking more classes to improve my craft. Susan's class focuses on both business and improving your craft. The big warning I have for this class is that there is a lot of homework, A LOT!!! But that is not a bad thing at all. I was swamped with weddings as the class started and was late to get to my homework but I'm so glad I didn't skip it because there was a lot of things I learned about my business just in answering her questions. I believe there were homework assignments every single day and while some are quick others will take awhile. So my recommendation is to take this course in your off season and use that down time to really concentrate on doing the homework and putting together questions to ask during the weekly chats. I was not able to do that as much as I wanted because of my schedule and I feel I did myself a disservice by not taking full advantage of what was offered. As another reviewer stated there were a lot of basic questions that were asked like how to get proper exposure in an image, etc. If you aren't sure how to do that then this class is not for you. I believe this class is geared towards those who are past the portfolio building stage and are looking to set their business up for success on the back end while improving their craft. Remember to ask questions, keep a notebook and write them down while doing your homework. Don't focus so much on what she uses for everything but why she uses it, if you understand the why you can apply that better to your business vs just the what. Again I would say to properly allocate time to take this class, treat it like a college class with weekly homework and study required. Don't buy it to watch later as you will lose out on most of what this class is about which is access to Susan for questions and feedback. Do the homework, I found the questions she asked us to answer led to a lot of revelations for myself in my business. Her questions led me to ask my own questions and review a lot of historical data for my business to get a better grasp on where I am. Luckily for me I'm doing way better then I thought ;)! Also I recommend for image critique to not just submit your best images, while we all like a pat on the back that won't make you better. She requested a mix of your best and areas of struggle. The images I submitted that I was struggling with are the ones where her advice will improve my craft.

Carissa
 

Susan, simply amazing photographer, amazing woman, amazing business woman! If you want your but kicked then this the course for you! A kick start for your 'business', awesome .. honest .... brutal.... critique.... don't take it personally.This is a course for beginners and for those been in business for 4 + years. I have been in business for 4 years and this helped me seriously start from the beginning again on the business side of things and fine tune my processes. I learnt so much.... but was also great to know I was on the right track. For those beginning - oh I wish I had this as a guide 4 years ago!!! Enjoy! worth every penny! cheers Carissa www.capture-t-moment.com

a Creativelive Student
 

I found this course helpful - but I also did all (well most) of the homework and I think to get the most out of this class you really need to be prepared to do the homework - which does require a reasonable time commitment. I found the business information (month 1) invaluable, and Susan was very, very active in the Facebook group, constantly answering our questions, which was great. Month 2 was a big image critique and I also found this very helpful. Month 3 was about editing and it was also a critique, which was helpful as well. Susan, Sandra (her assistant), Jen (her post production person) and CL worked very hard for us so we could get the best out of this course and I really feel I did get the most out of it that I could have gotten out of it. It is definitely worth it if you are willing to do the work. All of my questions were answered and I feel like my work is going to improve for the better now. If CL run any more mentorships such as this one, I would highly recommend them as I found I learned a lot more than in a regular class - because of the homework and the feedback (direct from Susan) on the homework. I am so glad that she was honest about my images because now I am seeing them in a new light (no pun intended).

Student Work

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