"What do you charge" is a quesiton that can immediately generate a lot of panic for any photorapher. The fear is that the client is immediately trying to frame your pricing so they can find a potentially cheaper service provider. And likely, you may not be wrong.
But what about those times when a genuine client approaches you with a real project? How do you help ensure you are best equipped with all of the right information to help you make an accurate price proposal and bid so you ultimately win more work?
In this episode I talk about specific questions you should consider asking your prospective clients before you send over a price.
Connect with me at https://jamespatrick.com/ or https://www.instagram.com/jpatrickphoto
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Charge, and it's easy to understand why that question would precipitate some fear. It's because we're worried that when someone asks what do you charge that they are immediately trying to qualify you, are you cheap enough to afford? And you're not wrong to have that fear, and you're not wrong to think that they're qualifying you, the fear is justified, and yes, they are, in fact, qualifying you. And you might respond with something that sounds really nice, such as, well, I work with clients of all different types of budgets from big to small, but that really leads into a universal truth, which is every client feels they have a small budget. But what about those times where a client does have an actual project, and they do want an actual proposal, an actual bid from you? Here are the questions that you need to ask, that you need to know, so you have the information to probably equip yourself, so that you can make a proposal, a photo bid that can win you a project. Are you tired of the endless stream of fantasy marketing and vanity metrics? Yeah, so am I. My name is James Patrick, and I'm an internationally published photographer, media specialist and marketing strategist. As a creative entrepreneur, I face the same exact frustrations you have, being bombarded by generic advice that promises success, but never lives up to the height. We need to move beyond the posturing, beyond the facade, beyond the image, to navigate the unique challenges we face as creatives. Together, we're going to dive into real stories, real strategies, and the real work that can lead to the real results. This is the Beyond the Image podcast. What is going on, and thank you so much for tuning into this, our latest episode of the Beyond the Image podcast. I mind that you could take some time to get a little information and get a little inspiration to help you in your creative entrepreneurial journey. I want to talk about photography proposals, and more specifically, how to properly equip yourself with the information you need to craft a proposal. That can win you more work. So this whole process starts with you getting an email, or you getting a phone call, or you getting a DM, you getting some inquiry of, hey, we're interested in working with you, your business, your photography business, on our project, or on our campaign. What do you charge? And it's such an open-ended vague question, because there's a lot of facets that can really impact the fees that you'd be assessing a client. More often than not, what I'm going to want to do is I'm going to want to jump on a phone with a client. If a client is not willing to jump on a phone call, that tells me they're not actually interested in hiring me for a project, that they're just "collecting bids." Maybe it's an agency and they're just trying to collect three bids, lowest bids going to win the project, or maybe the middle bid wins the project, or they are just price shopping, in which case your chance of winning the project isn't that big. But if a client is willing to get on a call with you, that shows that they're actually invested in working with you and what you can bring to this potential project. They saw something in your work, in your book, in your marketing materials, and they want to work with you. So, the first really go-no-go process for me, when it comes to bidding on a project, is that potential client willing to jump on a call to talk through the project. Once I'm on the call with them, I first ask them to describe kind of what they're looking for, give me an overall idea or scope of what you're trying to achieve with the project. I just want to get their bird's eye view vision of what they want this campaign to be and include, and that right there is going to start to help me come up with some specific detailed questions on facets of the photoshoot. Like, I might deduce that, "Oh, is this going to be a one-day shoot, a half-day shoot, a multi-day shoot? Are we going to need hair and makeup for this? Are we going to need to hire models for this? Are we going to need to shoot at different locations? Do you want to shoot at my studio?" These details come out just by understanding what the scope is for the project. Then I start to drill down, and I'll ask about deliverables. What specific imagery do you want to, or videos, do you want to have at the end of this? Are there specific shots that you want to make sure you get? Where do you want to be using those shots? That helps me to understand, "Oh, we need shots for web," which are more often than not horizontal. We need shots for magazines, which are more often than not vertical. We need a mix of both. We're running ad campaigns. We're running digital ads. It helps to understand what they intend to use the photos for, as well as what they want the actual images to be. You can ask specific details like the style of the shoot, how many numbers of shots that they're looking to have turned around, which helps you estimate your post-production time, it helps you estimate your usage, asking what they intend to use the shots for, where the shots are supposed to go, helps you refine your usage fees, also trying to understand how much retouching they want. There are certain projects where I have very, very, very minimal retouching, and thus I'm not going to be charging a lot for retouching on these, and there are other campaigns that are very detailed, and the post-production time is going to take a copious amount of energy, and thus my proposal should reflect that. So, asking about how much retouching they want, asking about due dates. Yes, you want to know when the project is, but what turnaround time does a client anticipate that they need? Do they need the images turned around right away, and thus are willing to pay for a rush fee? Or do they have time to have these images worked on when you can fit them into your cure, into your backlog? What format do they want the imagery in, is something you could deduce. Also, then just going back to contractors and expenses that you could have, are their models being used? Are you required to source the models, or do you need to go through an agency? Are there more than one locations being used? Do they want you to source the locations? Do they want you to scout the locations? So, do you have to spend more time going out to a location to scout it? Are there other team members that you need to bring on your team? For example, do you need an assistant? Do you need a digital tech? Do you need a hair and makeup artist? Do you need a stylist? Do you need a secondary grip? Are there specific types of equipment you need or gear that you need in order to do this project outside of what you may already have? Are they looking to have anything done that is outside of what your area of expertise would be? You want to have a full understanding and scope of this project because, one, asking these questions shows that you've done this before. You have experience in proposals, in bidding, but also shows that you're invested in what you're looking to create for this client. And that attention to detail also helps the client get on the same page with you in regards to what the end result is going to be or what the end deliverables are going to be. So this is a crucial part in the proposal process. So if a client is willing to get on the phone with you and talk through the project with you, help you understand what their goals are, what their needs are, this will equip you with the information not only to properly price out your proposals, but also the inside details of what they consider to be a win, what they consider to be the success factors that will make this project work for them. So the biggest thing I can say is when someone says, "Hey, what would you charge to do this project?" Say, "Hey, I would love to chat with you about this project. Can we jump on a call?" Because I have a few questions. I really want to get the full scope of this project so that I can provide you a bit so that this project is done successfully. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. If there are other topics you want me to cover on this show, shoot me a DM @jpatrickphoto on Instagram, jamespatrick.com is the website. Appreciate your tuning in. Appreciate your five star reviews on the Apple Podcast app. We'll talk to you on the next episode. Take care everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in to The Beyond The Image Podcast. As always, we appreciate your reviews and for sharing this podcast with a friend. To learn more or to connect with me personally, please visit jamespatrick.com. Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my hundredth mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited to premium wireless for $15.00 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mid mobile.com/switch, whenever you're ready. $45.00 up from payment equivalent to $15.00 a month, new customers on first three month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of CDTails.
