Best Business Practices for Photographers [148]
That photograph would look absolutely lovely in a frame. Shall I show you our framing options? I can offer you a reduced price on the frame since you have already decided to buy from us.
Okay, though, if you're not in the retail photo business, what can you upsell as an editorial or corporate/commercial photographer?
Answer: Online galleries, retouching, e-mails, additional CDs, rush turnarounds, onsite printing, a second photographer, makeup services, and so on.
Clients who used to want a CD of the images can also be enlightened as to the benefits of an online gallery. When you have a client who is in your locale, but their client is across the country or around the world, being able to view and download the files is a very attractive offer. More and more, my clients are excited about the opportunity to view and download images from an online system.
Retouching is integral to many portraits we do, and many a client has expressed concern about bags under their eyes, pimples, facial blemishes, and wrinkles. Although we include a nominal/baseline amount of retouching for portraits we do for clients, extensive retouching, such as the removal of double/triple chins, tie changes, and so forth, are upsell options, and clients welcome this flexibility.
E-mails may be one of the many services that photographers simply give away. When we conclude an assignment, our work on behalf of that client ends until we sit down to do their post-production over the next 48 hours. (Our delivery commitment is that the post will be done in two business days.) However, many clients need immediate access to one to five images, meaning that our work for the client does not end when the camera is put away. We need to make time to immediately process the best images from the event and e-mail them. That extra work carries an additional charge—$65 for each image transmitted (and these are transmitted individually), to be exact—and many a client is more than happy to pay that. We often counsel the client to only request one or two because that's all they really need; however, I have had clients request as many as 27. You do the math.
Speaking of rush services, that, too, is a service we offer. We put the images in our queue and process images in the order they were shot. As you know, post-production takes time, even with the fastest computers. If the client wants to hop to the front of that line, that will incur a rush charge. For commercial/PR events with a normal turnaround of two business days, if the client wants it turned around in one business day, they add a 100-percent surcharge of the post-production charges to that. For same day/ASAP turnaround, they add 200 percent.
Extra CDs? No problem. Heck, design departments at ad agencies and design firms charge their clients $100 to make a copy of a CD. I charge comparably—50 percent of whatever the charge was for the first CD. So, if CD output of an assignment incurred a $75 charge, then it's $37.50 for a second CD. If the CD charge was $175, then it's $87.50. Just three days ago, a client ordered two additional copies of a CD. "No problem," we say.
Onsite printing, which is a staple of many an event photographer, is something we do only upon request. It's not something I regularly do or offer; however, we have the capability and do it upon request more than as an upsell. It can be cost prohibitive for the client, but if it's needed, we'll do it.
Sometimes an event is so large that one photographer can't do it alone. Rather than have the client search and shop around for a second photographer, we offer to provide one ourselves. There are many more reasons to handle it ourselves than the upsell, and that deserves its own blog entry—or you could read about it in Chapter 15.
Makeup often