Best Business Practices for Photographers [60]
What, then, is the added value of an 8×10 with an actual high-level elected official? They do political fundraisers all the time, and the stakes are even higher, no doubt.
The next time someone tries to place a value on a print of himself with a VIP—whether political or celebrity—realize that it's worth much more to that person than the cost of the print plus a nominal markup. It could be worth hundreds (or thousands) of dollars to that person for the wall of fame in his office. And, by the time he calls you because you just
happened to be in the right place at the right time to capture it, he has probably already got the space picked out on his wall for it.
I appreciated how highly regarded photographer Bill Frakes made a point during an event where we were both speakers in Atlanta a few years back. Frakes recounted a story where he was asked to shoot a particularly challenging assignment of a sports facility with the sport in question happening. A friend of Bill's had been contacted initially to do the shoot, and he knew he couldn't pull it off, so he passed it on to Bill. Frakes recounted that because the client arrived at his door in that fashion, his first estimate was extremely reasonable. For what the client wanted, Frakes quoted a figure of $10,000 for the assignment, and the client went off, calling into question Frakes' pricing, and just how overboard and beyond the pale it was. The client said they'd hire someone else to do the work who was more reasonably priced, and Frakes thought that was the end of it.
After a few weeks, the client called back, saying that they'd hired another photographer whose work just didn't cut it—the images just didn't work or were otherwise unusable. The prospective client now wanted Bill. Bill responded that the cost for the assignment was $20,000. The client was, as it was recounted, near speechless. How could it now be $20,000? Hadn't he just quoted $10,000, the client wanted to know. Frakes said, "Now you know how difficult the assignment is, so that's what it really should cost." He went on, "I didn't do it for spite. I had the additional information gained in our initial conversation that this was going to be a difficult client to please."
The client paid the new figure.
It helped that Bill's original estimate was only valid for three days, which gave him the leeway to make that adjustment. Not placing an expiration date on an estimate might have created a different—and $10,000 less—outcome in this situation.
Far too often, we make things look easy and really make things run smoothly for clients, and we forget what a significant value that has for clients. We are far too quick to diminish the contributions we make, either in getting it right the first time—or when it really counts—and delivering what they want, when they want it.
What Are You Worth?
There's an oft-repeated quote about pricing:
"Good, Fast, and Cheap. Pick Two."
Think about that for a minute and work out the permutations. You want the photos good and cheap, you'll have to wait until my spare time, which is otherwise non-billable, and when I get around to them, I'll get them to you. Fast and cheap? The photos will look far less than the quality we normally deliver. It's akin to calling an architectural photographer, known for their "shot at dusk, light balanced just right, framed perfectly, and so on" work, and asking for it cheap. The result will be an image they take out the window of their car as they are sitting at a stoplight in front of the building on the way to their kids' soccer practice—and if it's a cloudy afternoon,