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Pricing Problems and Case Studies

So let's talk about everybody out there and your pricing problems, Okay? I'm really stuck on pricing packages Air seemingly the most common amongst photographers both in my area and what I can tell from sampling photographers across the UK I'm struggling to work out what I shouldn't including my packages or even where my pricing range would start. I'm not new to photography by any means, having started in fashion over a decade ago. But I'm new to weddings. I've been concentrating on my portfolio and second shooting as I struggle with confidence. I'm absolutely fine working with clients and don't lack confidence in that aspect. But I struggled a place value on my work, and I'm aware that this will impact the value that others will assign. I've been given a very conflict ing advice and some or establish photographers both in and out of my area, and this is just left me more confused. I want to aim at the higher end market as I think my fashion style would resonate more with this type of ...

client and the personality, physical and purchasing profile for this demographic. Well, a couple of things with this, um, struggling with confidence, as I said at the very beginning of this one, is something that you absolutely have to get over. It is okay to have insecurity issues, but you can't let issues with your confidence cripple you to the point that you can't make decisions or that you can't make valid decisions. The other important thing here is yes, it's great to have a community of photographers that you talk to, but you can't let other photographers tell you how to run your business right? Like in here where it says, I've been given very conflicting advice from some or established photographers. We'll sort through that conflicting advice and make the decision yourself. And yes, it's easy to get very stuck on pricing. And if you are this person right here stuck on pricing, I get stuck on pricing, right. I've done this pricing increase, and maybe it'll work and maybe it won't maybe have to bring it back. There is no point in your career that you will ever get to that. You're not stuck on pricing. All right, Theresa, I don't know if this has already asked when I pay my assistant. Is she considered an independent contractor and I give her a 10 99 for tax time. It depends on how your business is set up that I as an LLC when I pay my assistant. I just write her a track every single week and then at the end of the year, she's 10 99. I've been charging clients $200 for a second shooter and paying my second shooter $200 does so stupid. I up that to $500 charged to the client and will start paying the second shooters 203 100 depending on experience and hours needed. Very smart, if you are. If you have a second shooter, if you have an assistant in your contract and you're taking X amount from the client to pay that person, and then you're giving that money directly to that person with no padding on top for you to break a profit off of it, you're essentially paying your clients toe. Have a second shooter because you're gonna need you're gonna need to process their images. You're gonna need to sort through their images that, you know that's a valuable thing. So a couple of these lightbulb moments were going off for people when they were doing pricing and profitability is realizing that they weren't pricing high enough for people that they were paying on the wedding day, which is very smart. This one's itty bitty, So I will read it to you based on research I've done in my area. Most studios were choosing all the carte pricing for their wedding packages. I've been doing this for the past year, and it's been successful. People don't want to be pulled into a package that might have options they don't care for. I choose graph E for my albums Working with Graff. He's been very easy, and I love the quality for album designing use album Stomp album Stomp is intuitive for me to use because I already used Blawg stopped very frequently for Normal Prince. I go through Miller's I like Miller's because I've always been happy with their quality and clients seem pleased for fine art prints. Use Lin's art. I've decided to sell HH Boogie boxes. This year is an alternative to normal albums. I do have an assistant. Having an assistant is invaluable to me. I cannot do weddings alone anymore. I pay my assistant to 50 per wedding for a full day. For now, I've decided not to outsource my editing. I'm so afraid of letting that part of my job go. Plus, they do not have enough weddings or profit to make outsourcing feasible. I would rather spend the money on having the assistant the part that I want to focus on with this. Besides the fact that Elizabeth is doing a great job here is the part of the very end. And this was something I was seeing a lot, people who were almost obsessed with figuring out how to outsource their weddings. And I'm talking about people who have never shot a wedding before or who shoot five weddings a year or 10 weddings a year. How can I outsource who I outsource to? If you're shooting five or 10 weddings a year, wire you outsourcing like you can definitely do that yourself and keep that money for yourself. Outsourcing is not something that you have to do. Outsourcing is like hiring an employee. You do it when you need to do it. It isn't a prerequisite. So deciding not to outsource my editing, I don't have enough weddings or profit to make outsourcing feasible. A lot of people are coming to that decision, and I think that's a very smart decision. So if you're in your newer days and you're trying to figure out how to cut costs down and you're already trying to outsource when you have 10 weddings a year, don't outsource. Take it back in. We're going to spend months three trying to make you as efficient as we possibly can with your workflow, and maybe you'll find that you don't need to outsource. All right. My husband is my second shooter, an assistant, and he gets paid in food and wedding cake. He's starting to get tired of having to photograph so many weddings, so I'm talking to a few other second shooters who would serve as an assistant. This is another reason I plan on taking the second shooter out of my mid package. I plan on starting my second shooters at $25 an hour so that they would be paid around $ for an eight hour wedding. I and listen I mean, this is cute, like I get it, But if having somebody who worked for you in your business even if it's your husband and they're not getting paid at all, it's really hard for you, then down the road, to have someone who is paid for that position. So if you price your packages out with having a free assistant in, I highly recommend, even if you are gonna have your husband come along with you every once in a while and do it for free that you have paying somebody in there as a line item because what if your husband can't make it right? Like what if your husband can't come to that wedding with you or he's sick or you need them to watch your kid or he's got work that day or something else happens? You need tohave what you would pay an assistant in that package already, so that if you do have to hire someone, you're not losing money on it. All right, Next one. I'm doing my own processing. At this point, I'm having a hard time giving up control of that, but I know that eventually I'll have to concede. It just takes up so much time. I think I might be inclined to hire someone to do it. My way rather than use a service. But I'm not sure at this point I will definitely need to raise prices at that point to cover the expense. I've priced out the unlimited option for about 3 70 a month at one of the editing service companies, However, I may opt to hire someone to help around the home because that will go a long way and allowing me more time to work. I'm also thinking of hiring someone just to be in a office assistant part time to free me up from paperwork and emails at or $15 an hour. I've not yet priced the household help. So this is smart, right? Realizing that listen, this takes a lot of time, but maybe I want to do it myself. And I need help in other arenas, right? Like my next step. Before I hired a full time employee, you would be to hire a personal assistant because I would need somebody who could not only answer some emails every once in a while, but who could also help me take trash out who could run errands for me, right? Like I am very efficient in my business. But it gets tripped up when I have to do personal life stuff that I'd rather pay somebody 12 or $15 Dio I'd rather pay somebody to take my laundry out for me, then pay somebody to do something in my business that I can do myself very efficiently. So that's where you sort of have to find your own comfort level about outsourcing doesn't necessarily mean that you have to outsource the actual work. You can outsource other things as well. But the thing in here, they're a couple things in here. Um, you have to be careful with these unlimited options at one of these editing service companies, and you have to be careful in general about editing service companies, because if your work is not going to the same person every single time and is not going to be consistent when you get it back and 3 70 a month might sound really reasonable for an unlimited option, but it is still too much to pay for crap, right? Like if you're getting really bad stuff back that you're having to re edit, that's not worth it. So I know that when I send my stuff out the sidecar post. My stuff goes to Gen. Every single wedding, everything wedding. It goes to Jen, and one time it had to go to John, who used to edit my weddings for a really long time. And we actually had to tweak a few things with the final product because it had been so long since we'd work together. Some things have changed, so I would if you're going to use one of these editing companies, test them before you start trusting them. If that helps, yes. Question from Amanda Cox, Do you? Can you recommend how to outsource when you're under 10 weddings a year? But hate editing the money spent on editing would be well spent in freeing me up for my marketing business for marketing my business more. Ah, lot of the good quality companies I'm interested in have a threshold that is above what I do now. Any suggestions? That's probably the your only option at this point, if you if the editing is taking you a really long time, not because you're not good at it, but because you hate it so much, you're not gonna be able to send it out to somebody who like a higher end editing company who need the volume of work from you per year. But a lot of these editing service cos she's not gonna get quality that she's looking for. I would look into having somebody come in part time and do it for her. That might be the best next bet or to find another studio that needs. Like if the high end editing company you're looking for needs 20 weddings a year out of you, find a buddy who is also doing 10 weddings a year that you can go to them and say, Hey, listen, if I bring you 10 and this guy over here brings you 10 will you consider us is one client? That's another option, Thank you. Of course, Instead of deciding the amount of money per year I need to make, I'm planning to book 12 weddings next year. It's my second year of business. I'm still buying equipment and getting wedding experience, and my husband pays the bills. If I had to have a number, it would be $6000 for an awesome vacation. 12 weddings would cover that. Um uh, she's going to say what I want to say and then let me follow it up. This doesn't sound like a business. It sounds like a hobby, right? And I'm not saying that to be offensive in any way at all. But if you're basically working to make money to fund a vacation, uh, it sounds like a hobby business. And it if you don't know the amount of money per year you need to make and you're just like, Well, I'm gonna make book 12 weddings next year and, you know, make whatever money on that and spend it on fun stuff. I don't know how to help you with this, because this is not a business model that I'm even remotely comfortable with. It doesn't even sound like a business at all. It sounds like doing a little work on the side to fund your personal life. And that's fine, right? Like there's nothing wrong with that. It all if that's what you want to do. But I'm still buying equipment, getting wedding experience, and my husband pays the bills. Well, what if one day your husband can't pay the bills? But if he loses his job, what if God forbid, something happens and he has to go on medical leave. What if What if What if What if down the road? You know, I just I don't know what to say about this other than to say that at this point, this sounds a little more like working to fund a lifestyle which is completely and totally fine. But that's different than working to pay the bills, if that makes sense and I'm not meaning to offend. But, you know, when I get stuff like this, I don't know how to critique it, because I can't critique it with any sort of business help. Because this isn't a This isn't a business question. Do you know what I mean? So okay, continuing move on. Packages are all a car, man. Did this take me forever to figure out when I was only shooting American weddings? I was packaged, girl. But I had no problems creating custom packages and even offering services and products on all a cart menu. When I got in the South Asian weddings, well, that was a game changer. I struggled with packages simply because each event is so different. You have anywhere between one and four days events and not everybody wants the same coverage. Since I primarily due South Asian weddings now every packages custom created. I guess I technically have an ala carte menu. But really, I do a lot of communication with the Prospect and cinema proposal through Shoot que. This has had an incredibly wonderful response from the community. See, this is the exception to the rule. Right packages are all a card only goes so far, but what Kimberly is realizes that she's serving a niche market that needs a specific thing, and she is adjusting herself accordingly. So if you find yourself in this instance, or you're shooting Indian weddings, it could be anywhere from 1 to 4 days. Are Asian weddings or Chinese banquets or anything like that? You know, a traditional business model might not work for use of something like this might. So while I'm up here and I'm talking about, you know, the best way I see about doing things, there are always other ways to do it, and as long as you're doing it like Kimberly is, which is very intelligently and understanding the needs of her community as long as the numbers air working for you go for it. Next, employees I actually just hired when? A couple of weeks ago. Wait, didn't I just say that the wonderful thing about my new girls, that she's extremely flexible in versatile? Not only did she attend events with me, but she also helps with a lot of the office work. Since your projects are mostly Web based, I don't have to have an office space for her, which allows me to delegate or projects to her. We're still in training mode. There's a lot of prep on my end that still needs to be completed to get her going on certain projects. Who knew hiring help would create so much work? Bonus for me, though. She's also amazing with my son and comes in once a week to play with him in the morning so that I could get work done. The take away for this one is who knew hiring help would create so much work. And that is true whether you decide to outsource something or hire someone to help you with something. There is always a learning curve. There is always a training curve, so if you think I'm gonna wait until I'm super busy and I'm gonna hire somebody. That's gonna be awful, because then you're gonna be super busy and you're gonna be super busy trying to train that person to. So if you think that you're going to need help, I recommend getting help put in place before you get super busy, because then when you do get busy, the training period is over. Think these next ones there are huge, so helpful. Since I often all a cart menu, this is Kimberly again. I took the average package I sell to complete the package cost spreadsheet. There's so many variables that I'm anticipating. This will be enough information to determine how many weddings I need. The book, My current package baseball album Markup, came to 15 and between my husband and I, we need to pull in around 55,000 year. Thankfully, my husband brings home the bacon. We surely need myself to bring home a paycheck every month, but on a fraction of what he brings in to meet our current lifestyle, this means I only need to buckle nine weddings at our to package prices 63 15 to bring in the whole 55 K While I truly believe nine is not a large number after this year, it seems daunting. Switching over to South Asian weddings has not been an easy task, especially for a white girl with no ties to the Indian community. The past year I've been working my butt off, making connections and building my portfolio. Reputation is huge in this community, and my efforts have been in building relationships with vendors. And now for me, I believe it's all about exposure to bring in the bride's of the budget to match my price point. There's definitely a demand for it. I've lost more contracts than I care to count to other established South Asian wedding photographers in my market, The charge more. It's simply because they've dunmore Indian weddings. Honestly, I would love to do nine each weddings next year. My husband, on the other hand, really wants me to wait until our son is in school before I go full board to bring in design weddings. Right now, we just need me to bring in enough to pay my salary and cover business expenses. That's why I'm concentrating more on building my reputation. The community the end of last year and into this year, I book some large weddings to my work has paid off. Now I just need to keep pushing and it will grow. Right, right, absolutely right. This is doing it right. This is partnering up with the other person who's helping in your household, making decisions together and doing it right. This is basically in there for a way to go. You're running the numbers. You're looking at everything you're looking towards the future you're looking at. Now you've got a plan. Kimberly is gonna be fine already. Next up, I feel like my work and service in relation to the time that I spend justify the numbers as well as from the personal attention and care I give each assignment. But that's just the sideline. And it's about the photography, right? Honestly, at this moment, I feel like my retouching adds a lot of qualities. I feel my straight out of cameras lack partly because of exposure or harsh sun and shadows on the beach. If I can't control the location beforehand, but mainly because of skin issues, shining red faces and people have in this heat, it's a big problem. I have is urged to correct this, as well as to carefully retouched areas that women are unhappy about. Win battle hair, tan lines, simple slimming arms, a bit backgrounds. If I can't work around it, that cost incredible tons of energy draining time. Actually seeing this, I'm way on the underpaid side Each time. I swear next time I don't do it just to end up retouching for days and nights again, I really need to find a way to balance that. I just feel without retouching my photos like that. China, you have got to cut that out Honestly, if you sit there and you re touch every single picture from every single wedding that you shoot, you either have to be compensated for your time or you can't do it honestly, if what you want to do is edit every single picture to its perfection, then you need to charge enough to cover that time. Honestly, you you can't do this. You can't edit every single picture when I see things that go out of the door in my studio, I see clients who are bigger girls who are wearing dresses that are not flattering. I see girls that are super skinny, that air wearing dresses that aren't flattering. I see pimples on faces. I see wind blown hair. Guys, I can't retouch every single picture that is logistically, I would have to charge $50,000 a wedding and it would take me four months to get them their images because we would sit there editing every single one. You don't have to do that. But if you do, you must be compensated for your time or else you're not gonna be profitable. Ever. Yes. Wonderful idea. What are your thoughts about giving a specific amount of edited images with each package? Do you specify that? I mean, all of my images air edited, But there's a difference between edited and retouched, right? Like we're maybe pulled 10 or 15 like of the super super close ups. And just do a quick 1 to 2 minute like skin smoother. But if you know if your if you want to give them 50 retouched images, go for it. Just make sure that you're compensated for your time in doing it. Great. Thank you. You know, I have a friend that gives preview. She gives like, 100 previews for wedding, and they're all really well retouched. But the time that it goes into making those previews that she considers that in the the monetary side of things as well okay, already next. Right now we only need to take in per month is a paycheck from our business in order to meet our current daily living needs where debt free and have lived on a tight budget for years in order to afford the things we really want. So we eat out less, but we have the house you want. My goal is to pair ourselves four k per month by September 15 were at a place right now where the only new equipment will need will be the normal stuff will spend each year to keep the business equipment updated With the 2800 per month increase, I want to continue to live within the same budget we have and put the extra towards savings and retirement. We will also be taking a family trip to Disney, so that will be taken out of the savings as well. The next school for us is to bring home 8000 month, tentatively my goal for that in September of 2016. And I haven't run all the numbers yet again. Doing it right. This is the point of all of this. This is what I want to see. We've run the numbers. We know what needs to come in and we're putting a plan in place. Both with our personal expenses are business expenses and our pricing to meet those goals. All right, I will always call myself. I set up my wedding prices to cover outsourcing editing. If I want to do it, I might do it myself. Though I also shoot yogis and families, which could be which could busy at my time in front of the computer. My choice to outsource will probably be on an as needed basis. Add sample sent out to multiple companies earlier this year, I made a spreadsheet comparing them and decided to go with La Ballu for quality. They're very good. I haven't sent them a wedding yet, though I'm very open to a more boutique studio if the quality is consistent again doing it right. All right. This is somebody who is putting together their pricing, wedding clothing and dry cleaning double a batteries. They've listed all of their things. And then at the bottom, it says I'm sure there's something I'm missing. Well, you're not done right. You can't take this list and start using it as a basis for your pricing. If your if your last line I Your last line item is, I'm sure there something I'm missing, right. You need to make sure that there is nothing that you're missing before you start running these numbers or else they're going to be incomplete. I have no assistant, but I'm working with my husband so that he could be my assistant in weddings. Should I consider to increase my rate so that I could pay him or rather keep them as they are right now so that my prices aren't too high compared to my competitors, as I've mentioned before, you should definitely price in an assistant even if your assistant is unpaid, because if one day your unpaid assistant couldn't make it and you have to hire someone, you need to have it built into your pricing so that you could afford to hire someone, give your husband money. If you're working with your husband and he's like just keep the money and put it back into your business. Do that. But what if your husband is like, you know, hey, if Sanders watching this one's very applicable. What if your husband's like, Hey, today is my fantasy football draft. I really don't want to go to a wedding with you because it's my magic football draft day, right? Um, so then you can't then turn around your husband say, Oh, my God, you have to come. I can't afford to hire somebody. You could then say, OK, cool. I'll find somebody that I could bring with me and you have the funds in their to hire someone. Good. All right, so right now my salary is 22 494 per year with my taxes already paid, so that amount of money is entirely mine. My desire number would be 30 K As my husband's salary is not likely to change, we would have to have an income of nearly 50 K per year, and that would fit our needs completely. I have no intention of quitting my current full time job. Well, I'm trying to have my business to succeed, but despite this decision, I'm making my math is if wedding photography were my soul income, I wanted to stop right here. The rest is great. You know, if you want to read that, go to town. But the main point in this was I'm making my math as if wedding photography were my sole income. And that is very smart that way. If you ever do want to leave if you have a day job that you ever do want to leave, you are fully cognizant of how much money you need to make up in your wedding photography business to be able to walk out of your day job, which is what a lot of people want to do. Ideally question. How do you pay your assistant when you travel overnight? For example, this weekend we are going to a wedding in Saratoga Springs that is going to involve a night of hotel stay. So I have a set rate that I pay my assistant every single time we shoot a wedding. However, I usually give her an additional 102 $150 per wedding if it involves going away somewhere, right? Like for example, it makes $300 wedding this weekend. We're gonna go. We're gonna shoot a rehearsal dinner for two hours and then we're going to spend the night. So I'll get for 450 for the weekend, $50 for that rehearsal dinner, because it's only to about two hours and then an additional $100 for her stress of travelling if she has to take a train, if she has to use her car for anything, I reimburse her for that. And of course, I pay all of her meals and everything while she's with me. Hopefully that helps answer that. Alright, Right now, I'm very fortunate that my husband not only supports me in my goals of being a full time photographer, but also shares in the hobby of taking photos right now. Since I cant afford an assistant, he's my unpaid help. He does a fabulous job in when I need him. Serves a second shooter. If there's somewhere I can't be, I thought about someday once when I have my own business hiring an assistant that can help me and again, I put this in here because back to the whole point of yes, your husband might be working for free, but at some point in time, you will probably need to pay somebody unless you take your husband on as a partner. So you need to have that money figured in to your pricing. Now I have an assistant at every wedding, and I paid him $200 a day. I sometimes have a second photographer, but that's not a part of my base price. Right now, I charge $500 for the addition of a second photographer, and 400 of that goes to the second photographer. I call their images and have edited by the above company along with my images. So if you're spending time pulling your second photographer's pictures and you're also having to pay them, you pay your post processing company to process them. I'm guessing that you're not making enough of a profit off of having that second photographer. Ah, $100 is probably not enough, in my humble opinion for your time on the calling side and on the post processing side. So if you are capable, I would suggest charging a little bit more for the addition of a second photographer so that you're not losing money on that part of the endeavor. Okay? Number of weddings per year. This is, you know somebody else. Number of weddings for your 35 number of portrait's. For your 30 we can look at all of the mass here. They have done all of the math, which is great. And then we come to the very end thoughts. I can't charge this much. I could stick with my current part time job. But then that cuts seriously into my available time for editing and marketing, including, I mean, for me 35 weddings a year and 35 portrait sheets are a full time job, and I cant afford yet to hire an assistant or pay for childcare. This feels like a stuck point. I'd love to say I do more weddings, and I might be able to manage more than 35 a year, But at the same time, I think 35 is overly optimistic at this point because I'm not yet well known. I'm not getting anywhere near this number of bookings. This is where when you find yourself in a situation like this, you have to jump forward to what's gonna be our next section, which is what we do when we're not in a perfect world. Ah, lot of people were coming to this. This problem. I can't charge this much money. My market can't bear this. I'm not new and you know I'm not established enough. I'm not good enough to charge this amount, Which is why I you know it says your current part time job cuts seriously into my available time for editing and marketing. But you might still need that part time job for a while longer, and there's no shame in that. All right, I switched my pricing the packages this year, and it's not really working for me. When booking clients, I encourage clients to book the digital package and decide on albums. Later is This is what I've done in the past, and I believe they should be booking the based on liking my photographic style as these air the memories. I can always sort the different album if they want. I've only been selling my cheapest package as it's such a good value to the client. I'm going to redesign my pricing structure as it was before getting clients to book first time an album time person than albums. Client packages could then be customized based on what each client wants. I see a lot of problems with this. A lot of problems with this. First of all, why are you encouraging clients to book the digital package and decides? Decide on albums later. If you're not trying to at least sell albums from the very beginning, you may as well just not sell them at all. It is very hard when you pushed a client into a digital package and then you try to sell them an album later. That's going to be a hard sale. Um, I believe they should be booking me based on liking my photographic style off course. But you also still need to be profitable, and liking your photographic style doesn't mean that you shouldn't be selling them. Albums like those two things don't really go together. I can always source a different album if they want. You need to be careful with that, because then that puts you down the road of having 10 different album vendors and constantly being certain, you know well, we want an album that has this is this in this, then you're wasting your time chasing this album that they want, which is cutting into your profitability. And I have been on Lee selling my cheapest package as it is such a good value to the client. You've got to stop thinking that way. You have got to stop thinking that way. Um, and I hate to say this I don't care if it's a good value to the client. I want to sell my clients. What is the most profitable thing for me and every client has a budget, and I totally understand that. And I'm very respectful and very conscious of that. But it's not my job to provide them like some awesome value as a goodwill service. I'm not a goodwill service on a business. So if you're on Lee trying to sell your cheapest package as it such a good value to the client, that is really hindering you from becoming profitable. So I would I would really, if you don't want to sell albums that all don't sell them. But this mindset of going about the pricing is really holding you back from achieving more profitability. So then we've got some sort of case studies. I just wanted to show some of these. I didn't put a name on this because they talked about their personal income, which I think is a very brave thing. But this is showing doing it right. They figured out their costs. They figured out how much for wedding. They figured out their costs for wedding. They figured out their cost of living, and then they have figured out the cost of every single one of their packages. When you do it like this and you can look at it all in one place, all of those numbers in front of you it paints such a comprehensive picture of your business that this is doing it right. So now let's talk about when we talk about some individual priceless. We're gonna wrap up pricing and profitability. We're gonna go to lunch, and we're gonna come back. We're gonna finish up the months homework, and we're gonna talk about some shooting. Okay. Okay. So Amanda was so kind to send in her pricing information for us. And I have absolutely nothing to critique with this. If you are watching this later, if you download this to watch later, I suggest that you posit and take a look at it. This is a perfect example of doing it right, pricing out every single bit of everything that goes into every single package and being conscious of every single cost. Nicole also did exactly the same thing, pricing it all out, every single package, the wanted, all the perfect fit, the comfy and the simple hours. Paying the photographers, paying everything gifts, expenses, marking it all up, putting it all in front of you. Knowledge is power. I keep saying this over and over and over again. Here's another one. I decided to try out a hybrid package in all a carte pricing system as a way to stand out from the crowd. I haven't yet decided if this system will include a base shoot and burn package, but it's something I'm considering from what I've gathered. Everyone in my area offers packages with digitals and as an add on, I would like to include digitals for the start. Unfortunately, I feel as though this isn't a hard and fast answer. I have no idea if it will catch on, but I'm willing to give this model six months before I decide whether it is to be tweaked or trashed. I'm going to design my albums myself in in design and photo shop, and I feel it a disservice to my graphic design background to let someone else do that for me. I've requested membership with Madeira Books but have yet to hear back from them. In the meantime, I'll be purchasing my books from White House. My assistant insists on not being paid. I'm not exactly sure how to tackle this other didn't pay her any way. I'm starting her out at $ per hour of coverage, and this is where I'm going to stop. You can read the rest of this if you would like go for it. But the main thing in this thing from Amanda is the very middle my assistant insists on not being paid. If you have an assistant that insists on not being paid, you still need to put in the cost of an assistant into your packages and just bank that money because what if it some point in time, this assistant who is working unpaid isn't working for you anymore? You don't want to be paying out of your pocket for an assistant. Another example of a priceless to take a look at Michelle was so kind to send it in. And here we go, riding out her package costs, figuring every one out, knowing these things is so incredibly important and back to the person who's like, I'm sure there are other things, but I don't know what they are yet. These are examples of people who know what they are. And if I'm not critiquing the price list that you sent to me, it's because you're doing it right. And a 99% of the people here following the spreadsheets, following all of everything. You're doing it right. Like you should be very confident in your ability when you're following the numbers like this, right? Other questions about pricing and profitability before we move onwards. Anything way. Break everybody out there. But we do have a couple just this kind of oddball one. Do you split tips with your assistance? If I ever get a tip, we split it directly down the middle. And if we can't split it down the middle like if someone gives me like something that is unspeakable or splits weirdly or I get like ah, $150.101 50. I give her the 100 like it's money that I didn't see coming. I try to go above and beyond taking care of my assistant so that she's happy, but we definitely do split tips for sure. Okay, on this one. Ah, good question. From Christy Green photo. I would like to add an assistant. I have weddings, contract ID for this year and next year. How should I handle adding assistant to a wedding where the contract has already been signed? Go about it one of two ways. You can either pay for it out of your profit to do it, which again that if that's how you want to do it, that's fine. Or you can approach the clients and say, You know, I have I have a new ad on. I would love to start bringing start bringing an assistant to weddings. We do not have an assistant in your contract, but if you would like to add the assistant onto your contract, the cost will be X. How would you like to proceed? And then, if they take it great, your assistant is paid for. And if not, you either can't bring them or you have to pay them out of your own pocket. Great. Um, what we do this is from D J ones imagery. What we do when in the meantime, we're building our business and our social pages and websites and email templates. Persons are calling us with enquiries. What do we tell them about prices, collections, online portfolios? While we're still trying to build our our business, make a base, make something really basic and simple, right? Like, don't go crazy with albums, you know, like at this time, you know, we're about to open our doors for business. We do have one very simple package that hopefully will meet your need to make him an eight hour shooting burn for whatever amount you're not gonna lose money on for going out there and then say, You know what? This is what we're doing right now. We would be glad to ford our album price list on over to you as we get further down in the process. But make something very basic that, you know, is profitable and stick with that and then figure everything else I would I would rather have you have one package that you know will be packed, profitable and not show them anything else than to send out a bunch of different packages, only to find out six months down the road, that the one that you sold them, you're actually losing money on. And that's what I did When I was very first in business. I had one package. It was eight hours and your files, and that's all it waas I end anything else because I was still figuring everything else out. Um, and then the same the same person. Different question. How do you factor in things like Internet printing paper printing a telephone bills? Okay, different. That's not when we're doing package pricing calculators. That is simply the cost of goods in the cost of sales off putting that single package together. So when I'm looking at my business expenses every single year when I'm looking at my profit and loss sheet from QuickBooks, the first thing that it shows you is your cost of sales, and then it shows your shows you your other expenses. You can't estimate cost of sales per year because that comes out of the price of selling every single package, right? If you don't have any clients, you don't have any cost of sales. Internet paper stuff like that is a common business expense. So that's why you do a personal income sheet. Ah, personal asset sheet. Ah, personal expenses sheet, a business expenses sheet. And then all of those numbers come together to create your final numbers. Like if we back up here taking a look at where is it? This person right here cost to run my business cost of living. How much per wedding cost to shoot a wedding package package package. All of these things have to come together. And when you're looking cost to run my business utilities, things like that, like cost to run my business like my car was purchased by my business because I really only drive it for business. Personal things, like for business things, right? Business expenses in one column, personal expenses in another personal income in another right. Like you need to do all of the work. But you can't put in like telephone and Internet and whatnot as a cost of sales or cost of goods per wedding that you shoot