Uncategorized
...now browsing by category
Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Hi all … Here is the last of my 3 articles on Pricing and what you should charge for your great photos. This articles deals with the concept of value added pricing. This strategy is widely promoted in the B2B (Business to Business) Sale, particularly in the delivery of complex systems. It is based on the principle of fixing your price based on the value it delivers your customer e.g. Let’s say you develop a specialist purchasing software that can save the potential customers company 200,000 a year. At what price do you pitch your solution? 5000, 50000, 100000 what about 200,000 over 3 years? They save 600,000 over 3 years less the 200,000 they pay you, meaning the still have a net saving of 400,000. Could you sell this system at this price? Why not?, is every one not a winner at this price. This method of determining prices needs highly trained sales people and the more complex the solution the more effective it is. So as photographers what can we learn from value added pricing strategies and how can we used value added pricing for a wedding album or indeed a quality portrait?
Well let’s think about this one… what is the value of quality wedding photography? … Precious memories that will not be repeated again … a timeless keepsake reminder of the day a woman dreams about since being a little girl … and if that was not enough probably the only memory spark she will have of one of the most hectic days of her life … Think about it, If you are married how much of your wedding day do you actually remember? If you are like most I have talked to … very little. So in fact your great photos are in fact priceless … I have spoken to many a bride after getting lousy photos taken by unprofessional photographers who still cry when they think about their wedding album keepsake.
While you may not be able to use value added pricing strategy to fix your price at crazy figures you should be able to use the principle of value added pricing to justify why you charge the price a professional album sells for. Why not show the bride the difference between what you supply and an amateur will supply… Show her the value of what you as a professional provide. Use effective questioning to determine her budget and show her how you add value to ensure she has quality lasting memories forever of her dream day which is typically a forgotten haze without the memory spark of quality photography.
I hope you have gotten something from my 3 articles on pricing and I look forward to your comments and suggestions. If there is a sale’s or marketing topic you would like me to address please post a moment here or email me at pvphotoman@photovalue.com.
PV Photoman
Posted in Uncategorized | No Responses »
Tags: business, effective questioning;selling process; photographer;selling wedding albums; wedding album videos, gem collection, great communicators, I nobili, I Nobili Modern wedding albums, marketing tips, negotiation with the bride on wedding album package, perceived value, Photo books, photo presentation products, photographers england scotland wales and ireland, photographers in UK and Ireland, photographic folder, photography, photovalue, professional photographer, PV Photoman, Rubens, sales tips, slip-in-folders, strut mounts, wedding albums, what do i sell my photos for, www.photovalue.com
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
Hi All Again. Following my last article answering the above great question… here is the second article on pricing in the series of three. Hopefully at the end of these articles you will have all the possible pricing strategies
So the second pricing strategy is Competitor Analysis Pricing. Competitor Analysis is a tool often used in strategy development particularly with the Strength & Weaknesses dimensions of the SWOT analysis tool. Strengths and Weaknesses are internal business considerations targeted at your internal company. To qualify to be a “Strength” it must be something that you are better than your competition at… For example Ryanair are known to have a much lower cost base than much of their competition and is therefore a definite Strength. For something to be a weakness again it should be measured against the competition… Right now Willie Walsh the CEO of British Airways probably regards the unionised culture within BA as a weakness when comparing BA to Ryanair. I hope this explains the S&W parts of SWOT. So what has this to do with pricing?
Well often some companies do “Competitor Analysis Pricing” by looking simply at what their competition charge for something and then just matching or indeed beating it. Have you done this? … I have in the past … and what a fatal mistake when done on its own. Why is it a fatal mistake on its own? Well it takes no account of measuring your actual costs which could result in you selling below cost … Even worse what if your costs were higher than your competitors and you pitched your prices lower? What then … Well you could start a price war against a competitor who can beat you in this price war will eventually put you out of business.
Another strategy often employed is “Asking the customer what they are willing to pay?” Again accepting these prices without knowing your costs or indeed your competitors pricing can cause you to do work at a loss or again significantly undercut a competitor and start an unnecessary price war. I am not saying not to ask the customer what they are willing to pay as this can be a great way to identify their available budget but make sure if you ask them this that you know what you can offer them for this price and still make a profit.
The above of blindly just doing something reminds me of something my Mother used to say when I used to use my Brother as an excuse to justify doing something wrong … My Mother used to say “If my brother jumped off a cliff would I jump off after him” … Guess she didn’t know I was a superhero who could fly … eh!
Next week we will discuss Value – added pricing in the last of these pricing articles.
Bye for now
PV Photoman
Posted in Uncategorized | No Responses »
Tags: business, effective questioning;selling process; photographer;selling wedding albums; wedding album videos, I nobili, I Nobili Modern wedding albums, marketing tips, negotiation with the bride on wedding album package, perceived value, Photo books, photo presentation products, photographers england scotland wales and ireland, photographers in UK and Ireland, photographic folder, photography, professional photographer, PV Photoman, Rubens, sales tips, slip-in-folders, strut mounts, wedding albums, www.photovalue.com
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Hi all … it’ great to be back following a break in this blog due to a very busy stage in the Masters I am currently doing in Sales Management, which is focusing on the quality of online customer service at the pre-purchase stage of the buying process from the perspective of the buyer. Anyway back to this first article on pricing policy resulting from the above question put to me by a photographer in the last few weeks… I take great photos but what should I charge for them?
This question is a very broad question and can be affected by a whole number of other issues. However for now let’s visit the types of recognised pricing strategies which include the following four core strategies of: 1.Cost plus pricing; 2. Competitor Analysis Pricing; 3. Customer request pricing and 4. Added value based pricing. So let’s have a quick look at all these four pricing strategies. This week’s article will focus on the first of these which is Cost plus pricing.
Cost plus pricing – This is the method promoted by most accountants and works on the principle of knowing your total costs for a year, how many units you expect to sell adding a profit margin and fixing your price from there. So to look at this in a simple let’s say you do weddings only, you only have one wedding album package on offer, expect to sell 50 weddings a year and have total costs of £75,000 a year to cover all my costs for the year including salary, lighting heating transport and whatever 50 albums are going to cost me. On this basis your album package would need to be £75,000 divided 50 weddings which is £1500 per wedding. You should add a profit margin to this which you keep as retained profit. Most small businesses do not build a retained profit reserve for those rainy days that always happen as our economy as it works through the standard economic cycle of boom-bust. So let’s say we are going to add 10% for retained profit. Then our average package price for 50 weddings a year is £1500 plus 10% which is £1650. So I hear you say that I have more than one package well then your average package price must be £1650. So how can you ensure this… well firstly lets introduce 4 more packages including the dreaded but increasing disc only wedding. So let’s price these options up … but first let’s decide what the cost of the album including prints is for our £1650(incl. vat) wedding. Let’s set this at £350 (incl. vat). So what should our disc only wedding album cost for us to keep our margin? The answer is £1650 less £350 which is £1300. So Disc only will be £1300. Our next package will be £1650 and let’s say our top package album which will be say the Magnum which costs £720 then this package as a minimum should be £1650 plus (£720-£350) which is £2120, however this would be a minimum and I would add a few hundred to this to reflect the higher album cost and say £2400.
The advantages of doing your pricing this way is that you are guaranteed to cover your costs on 50 weddings regardless of how many of each package you sell with the added benefit (cream) on every top package you sell.
The disadvantage of this pricing policy is that it is making the assumption that you will sell 50 wedding packages; that your competition is selling much lower or perhaps higher for a similar offering or worse still you customer perceives this as very good value and would be willing to pay more for your offerings so you are leaving money on the table.
In my next article I will look at the other pricing policies and then we will look at various selling strategies that might allow you achieve the highest price possible for your great photos.
Would you like photoval.com to create and publish a FREE cost plus calculator to help you calculate your pricing? Remember to allow for Vat in your pricing calculations or you could find yourself down an unexpected 17.5% when your accountant gives you your vat bill for the year.
Bye for now.
PV Photoman
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Responses »
Tags: business, cost plus pricing, effective questioning;selling process; photographer;selling wedding albums; wedding album videos, gem collection, great communicators, I Nobili Modern wedding albums, marketing tips, photo presentation products, photographic folder, photovalue, professional photographer, PV Photoman, sales tips, slip-in-folders, strut mounts, wedding albums, what do i sell my photos for, www.photovalue.com
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Hi All,
PV Photoman here… It’s very hard to believe that it is 8 weeks since I started this sales & marketing blog with the aim of delivering you thoughts and ideas around sales & marketing. I have attempted this every week so far but only you can judge. This week however I will depart a little and help out my boss Ronan Ryle Sales & Marketing Director of Photovalue.com who indeed was my creator and employer… This is one of his biggest weekends of the year … the SWPP annual convention where Photovalue are a Gold Sponsor.
So back to my boss… I know he spends allot of time preparing deals that might appeal to our customers for the coming year. Before we analysis the marketing thoughts behind these deals and if there is anything we can learn from or transfer to a photography business let’s look at these deals open to photographer’s across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Here they are:
Free Blocking on Folders & Mounts
Ok so what was going through my bosses marketing mind when he created this? Yeah I can see the win:win for both the Photographer & Photovalue. The win for the photographer is a FREE way to promote your business … by blocking your folders & strut mounts allows you to present your photography in photographic folders and strut mounts that carry your name. This means every time someone sees your work they see your details just like when someone views a painting and the artists signature is there… and the advantage to Photovalue? … well provided the price is no more or indeed better you are probably going to be more loyal to Photovalue rather than changing. So my question to you is how can you make your customer more loyal? (Why not see my blog on the LTV of your bride…)
OK so what other offer do they have:
I like this one… what does it try and achieve? Firstly it try’s and make it easier on you to offer the Photovalue.com offering … however it also has your customer in mind or as already referred to in a previous blog we need tom think about our customers customer. Ronan try’s to achieve this in this offering by allowing your customer (the bride) have access to the all the possibilities. I know he is my boss but the 10/10/10 offer is genius… the benefit to you as a customer is obvious … you can get your already heavily discounted £350 in studio samples back but to achieve this you must become a loyal customer. So how can you do this with your customers?… and make sure you achieve the LTV.
So his next offer is what?
Again from what I can see … not one or two but three win:win situations. You as Photovalue’s customer win in that by buying from photovalue you get rewarded for being a loyal customer by getting albums for FREE, Photovalue gain’s by having loyal customers, win:win. What can you do to create win:win scenario’s for your customers?
How can you create win:win in your business?
Hope you enjoyed this slight departure from my usual blog topics. If you can visit Ronan & Hannah at SWPP 2010 in the Novotel London West between 15th & 17th of January. Unfortunately I cannot be there in person … You know us superhero’s … busy flying here and there … doing our best to save mankind.
Talk to you all again next week.
PV Photoman
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Response »
Tags: business, Da Vinci, effective questioning;selling process; photographer;selling wedding albums; wedding album videos, gem collection, great communicators, I nobili, I Nobili Modern wedding albums, marketing tips, Photo books, photo presentation products, photographers in UK and Ireland, photographic folder, photography, photovalue, professional photographer, PV Photoman, Rubens, sales tips, slip-in-folders, strut mounts, swpp 2010 london, wedding albums, www.photovalue.com
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
Doesn’t every profession have its sayings and unique lingo that mean’s something to that profession. So when the marketers talk about LTV or Lifetime Value of a customer … what do they actually mean? Well my understanding of LTV is … how much a customer or opportunity may be worth to you over their lifetime. What relevance is that to me … Sure most brides get married just once or maybe a second time? … I hear you say … and I agree.. but what LTV means is what other opportunities might arise and how do you place yourself so that you can get further business from each opportunity you create and therefore maximise the LTV from your customer base… and ensure a bigger pay packet from each of your customers.
OK before we start on these possible opportunities to maximise the LTV …just one thing… The hardest and most costly part of getting a new customer is acquiring them in the first place … so we should absolutely do everything in the most professional way we can to ensure we get repeat business from them … another reason to maximise the LTV… OK but how? … Well here are a few ideas and I am sure you will have many more … If you do please add them as a comment on this blog so everyone can benefit from them.
Idea 1 – How many of you give each Bride and Groom a voucher of a sitting for their first child? OK not everyone have Children but allot do. At what stage in a person’s like is spent most on Photography and by whom? … Have you guessed yet? … After the birth of the first child and by the new proud Mother … It might take a few years for this to come to fruition but I bet the Bride/New Mother will remember she has the voucher you gave her when they collected their album and that she uses this voucher as the reason why … in her negotiation with her husband … that there should be professional photography done.
Idea 2 – Leading on from Idea 1… when they partake of this ‘first child’ sitting and order loads of framed pictures … bet they do … what do you do … Well depending on their religion or practises is there anything there you could give a voucher for? You know your culture and religious practise best so think about that one… and yes of course you give another voucher for the possibility of another new child sitting… or family portrait … or first birthday … or anything else you think is worth a try.
Idea 3 – What is likely to be another major event and not trying to be morbid or anything but probably death of someone close to your past customer. In fact I know a Photographer who at every wedding takes a very good shot of any grandparents at the wedding … What I hear you say … well yes it makes perfect sense after he explained it to me as follows … Who on the law of averages will be the next one to pass on? … Yeah the grand parents … and when they need a good photo for the memorial cards guess where they come … in fact guess who supplies them the memorial cards? Right the photographer who took the quality shots of the grandparents at the wedding and he sells lots of them… now that photographer really understands LTV. I suggested to him that they may in fact like to have a memorial book on the life of their dearly loved one and he could offer them the additional service of producing this for them from old photographs etc. I believe he has plans for this in 2010.
There are hundreds of other things you could do and the best person to come up with these is you. You know your customers best … you know your culture … your market … your countries customs way better than me. So take some time to think about the concept of LTV for you and come up with ways to maximise the LTV opportunity of all your customers.
Go for it … and in so doing create a bigger pay packet with more money for yourself rather than the poor guy in the cartoon above.
For those of you who are attending SWPP 2010 in London next week, come along and see the wide range of photographic slip in folders and strut mounts, traditional I Nobili wedding albums, modern digital I Nobili albums and our range of memories photo book albums including the Rubens & Da Vinci. I may not be there in person myself … us superhero’s can never plan anything as you never know when someone needs to be rescued but my colleagues Hannah Radhi & Ronan Ryle will look after you well.
Happy Snapping everyone
PV Photoman
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Responses »
Tags: business, effective questioning;selling process; photographer;selling wedding albums; wedding album videos, gem collection, I Nobili Modern wedding albums, Lifetime value (LTV), marketing tips, negotiation with the bride on wedding album package, photo presentation products, photographers in UK and Ireland, photographic folder, photography, photovalue, professional photographer, PV Photoman, sales tips, slip-in-folders, strut mounts, swpp 2010 london, wedding albums, www.photovalue.com
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
It’s New Years Eve and quite often at this time of year we get quite philosophical. We review the year just gone by … the highs and the lows … sure were surrounded by it on TV and Radio with everything from the top news stories of the year on sky news … to the top sporting moments of the year … to the top 40 music hits of the year. Then we quickly turn to the plans for 2010 and the speculation as to what might happen in the coming year … This ranges from everything from the Macro level of “in Q3 2010 the economy will come out of recession” to personal goals and speculation of “I’m going to lose 1 stone (14 pounds) by my summer holidays”. We also think about our personnel expectations and fears.
So when I started to think about my expectations and fears I think about … who am I reliant on? … In sales & marketing training you are often thought not just to think about your customer but your customer’s customer … It is claimed that thinking this way enables you to better understand your customer’s present and future needs.
So in my present job I am dependent on Photographers for my living. Is this a good place to be? I think it is … Why? Well to me Photographers do something really special. They capture special moments in time … probably never to happen again… and preserve these special memories for the owners to view at any time they choose … which help bring them back to visualise that very special memory. Will people continue to want this service … I think so … So what other profession can do this for people? I can’t think of any sure quite often a brain surgeon cannot help people recall that special memory.
Do people want help in capturing those special memories in life? Absolutely … will they always do so? … I think so … so never underestimate the importance of the job you do. As far as I am concerned helping to preserve people’s memories of events … that will probably never be repeated … is a very special and important job…so I urge you to portray this in everything you do… make sure you do everything possible to be the best pro you can be… Enough for now … it’s time to celebrate the year gone by and the new one that starts at midnight.
That’s all for now as we approach 2010…I leave you with my thought for 2010 … that Photographers are in fact memory doctors.
Everything going well I will be back in 2010 with more sales and marketing tips but before I go I wish my sponsor Photovalue.com a very happy and prosperous new year. Photovalue.com provides photographers across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland with wedding albums, photographic slip in folders and strut mounts. Check them out at photovalue.com or talk to my colleagues Hannah or Ronan or better still if you are going to the SWPP conference in January go visit them at stand 196/197.
Bye for now … but once again I wish you a Healthy & Prosperous New Year.
Happy Snapping in 2010
PV Photoman
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Responses »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
From my experience dealing with Photographers there seems to be just two main ways a Photographer sells his wedding packages. The first is via a range of wedding packages starting at a particular price point with three or four price points. From my experience all photographers might charge these at different rates but I have seen packages start at £800 going up to £5000.
£5000 I hear your say… I couldn’t sell that. Think about it … If you offer it do you actually need to sell any … you will still sell more because it will up-sell your Bride. How will it do this? I will answer this with a few questions which I will answer myself:
Who makes the decision to order a particular album? Answer: The Bride heavily influenced by the women in her relationship.
Who has no say or very little? Answer: The Groom … however he is generally there to make his new wife to feel that he is really interested or if he was really honest to make sure she does not spend too much.
I am sure you will agree with me that watching this buying process can be really fun. Watching the reactions of both of them, keen not to annoy each other, this early in their life together. So what generally happens… You tell me … you see this interaction more than I do … but this is what I have seen and think this is probably typical. Let’s say for simplicity sake you have three packages … One the entry level at £1000, a middle package £1700 and your premium deluxe package at say even £2500 (if £5000 makes you uncomfortable). So tell me which one sells most? Don’t tell me… let me guess the £1700 middle package. Did you ever ask yourself why the middle package sells most? Here is the reason… The Groom would be happy with the £1000 package … The Bride would love the £2500 package … So where do they compromise … you are right the middle one .. so they spend £1700. All the talk about having a budget etc is total baloney … This is just used as a negotiation tactic between them and you and each other.
So what happens if you stop at the middle package and never offer a Deluxe Premium Package? You are right you will sell less of what should be your £1700 middle packages.
So what do you do? I would suggest you always have on display you’re Premium De- Luxe package with the expectation you will sell few of these but that it will sell more of your next package down. This is what I call strategic positioning of your offering to up sell your customer. In a recession this is even more important as the Bride is much more likely to feel the pressure to compromise more and not go for the De-Luxe album option.
So if you agree with me what should you do? Contact Hannah or Ronan at www.photovalue.com and order an I Nobili Magnum Modern album. I guarantee this album will help you increase your sales next year and if it doesn’t I’ll eat my hat.
By the way a final tip… always show the Bride the most expensive package first. This way you set in her mind the need that she really likes … and if she gets her way she may even just place that order for one.
![b-8_1[1]](http://www.photovalue.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/b-8_11-300x300.jpg "b-8_1[1]")
Hopefully the negotiation dynamic your bride and grooms work through are far more subtle than the two on the left.
Season’s Greetings to you all and I wish you all a Healthy & Prosperous 2010.
Happy Snapping
PV Photoman
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Responses »
Tags: business, effective questioning;selling process; photographer;selling wedding albums; wedding album videos, marketing tips, negotiation with the bride on wedding album package, photo presentation products, photographic folder, photography, photovalue, PV Photoman, sales tips, slip-in-folders, strut mounts, wedding albums, www.photovalue.com
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Hi All,
Many Thanks for all who voted for my superhero costume. Outfit number 1 got 13.5% of the votes, The winner number 2 got 33% of the votes, Outfit 3 got 20% of the votes, Outfit 4 – 18% and Outfit 5 – 15.5% of the vote.
See my new outfit below
Next post will be on “The Art of Communication – The OPTICS solution.”
On thursday I will announce the winners of the 3 x £100/€100 vouchers for all those who entered by registering their vote.
Bye for now!
PV Photoman
Posted in Uncategorized | No Responses »
Tags: marketing tips, photography, photovalue, PV Photoman
Friday, December 4th, 2009
Hi all… welcome to my blog.
After lots of persuasion (and a little bribery) from the good folks at Photovalue.com I have decided to start this blog. I am hoping that it will become a useful tool for any photographer and as the photovalue.com tagline goes it’s all about “adding value to the photographer”. I will try to offer some good sound advice on sales and marketing, helping you all to build your business –the more successful you guys are, the more successful the guys at Photovalue.com will be. Value is about much more than just price and includes many facets such as customer service, responsiveness, range and quality of products & services and much more. This blog is another way for Photovalue.com to deliver on its mission and ethos of delivering greater value to the photographer.
If this is to be a success and to become the valuable tool to photographers that I know it can be, I will need your help. This should become a forum where conversation is encouraged, a two way dialogue where comments and feedback will always be appreciated. Help me to help you. Let me know which elements of your business are problematic. Where do you need help? Are there particular areas which you find difficult? I do not claim to know the answers to everything but I do have extensive experience in sales and marketing, strategy development, change management and my academic qualifications go up to Masters level. I am excited to learn from your experiences and to work together for a collective good. This blog will not concentrate on the technical aspects of Photography since I am no expert in that area (I am only learning how to take decent shots now after years of practice).
If like Photovalue.com you are a running a small business you might have to wear many guises on any given day -looking after; Marketing, Financial, Technical, Administration and PR elements of the business as well as being chief photographer. The photography industry is quite unique. An industry one where creativity is encouraged but there can be little support for the other commercial aspects of the business. I want to help you to reap the rewards of your hard work and to make your business more accessible and profitable.
I know you are very busy people but if you could take a few minutes to register your comments or any topics that you would like discussed in the coming weeks that would be great. Next week I will start the process of bringing some Sales & Marketing thoughts to you via this blog.
Click on the links below to follow me on Facebook or Twitter.
Happy Snapping,
PV Photoman
PS: Please vote for which superhero outfit you think I should wear. All entries will go into a draw to win one of three £100/€100 photovalue.com vouchers. Follow the link here: http://photovalue.com/pvphotoman/
Posted in Sales & Marketing, Uncategorized | No Responses »
Tags: business, marketing tips, photographic folder, photography, photovalue, PV Photoman, sales tips, slip-in-folders, strut mounts, wedding albums
