So in this post, I thought I would share 3 tips to help you price and package your wedding photography better, and hopefully answer many of the questions I hear every day when it comes to selling your services.

1. Quit confusing your potential customers.
I randomly chose a wedding photographer out of Google (I see the same type of wedding packages everywhere) – here was his pricing structure.

Wedding Package 1

• Up to 5 hours of photography.
• Over 200 4×6 professional prints plus the same images on copyright-free CD
• 11×14 Portrait Print – choose any image from your wedding photos
• Choose $50 in additional prints
• Online gallery of your wedding photos to share with friends and family worldwide.

Wedding Package 2

• Up to 5 hours of photography.
• Over 200 images in print and on copyright-free CD
• 20 page 8×8 or 8×10 album
• 11×14 Portrait Print – choose any image from your wedding photos
• $75 in additional prints
• Online gallery of your wedding photos to share with friends and family worldwide.

Wedding Package 3

• This package includes six hours of shooting time on your wedding day plus a 20 page custom designed album.
• 6 hours of photography.
• Mix of color and black and white, creative effects.
• 250+ professionally processed wedding photos, in print and on copyright-free CD.
• 20 page custom wedding album – all prints on archival quality Kodak Endura Pro Paper
• Album is top quality, elegant and built to last a lifetime.
• 11×14 Portrait Print – choose any image from your wedding photos
• $100 in additional prints
• You wedding album is displayed online as it is created so you can comment on it as it is designed

Wedding Package 4

• 6 – 7 hours of photography.
• 300+ professionally processed wedding photos, in print and on copyright-free CD.
• 20 page custom album.
• 16×20 Portrait Print – choose any image from your wedding photos
• Choose $125 in additional individual prints
• Includes your choice of the Engagement Photo package, or $100 in additional prints

Wedding Package 5

• Includes everything in Wedding Collection 4  plus……
• Wedding albums for Mom – one album for each of your moms.  Same photos as the bride’s album
• (2) additional 11×14 copies of your portrait print

All five packages ranged from $1000 – $2100. Now lets analyze them. What’s the difference between 1 and 4? 2 and 5? How about 4 and 5? Difficult to tell, right? Sure, it’s a few photographs here, and an extra hour there. But if its hard for a photographer to tell the difference, how can your prospects tell? Do they really understand the difference between 50 photographs? And does one extra hour truly mean that much? What if they book the bottom package, and need an extra hour – they won’t even ask. They usually just book and let you deal with it the day of the event.

Don’t create too many packages that it leaves very little difference between them. Instead, focus in on huge differences, and make your customer instantly aware of what they need.

2. Watch your words.
Let me give you a set of words. Think of the meaning of each set, and which one appeals to you more.

Shoot  -  Photograph
Images  -  Pictures
Collections  -  Packages

See the difference? Watch an ad for BMW, or look through ads for elite stores like Nordstrom. They speak differently about their products and services than companies like Kia and Walmart. Because they are charging more, and reaching out to a different clientele, they speak in a different manner.

The same goes for your photography. I read comments by people all the time wondering who would pay $10,000 or more for wedding photography. If a bride is having an original Vera Wang gown (not dress) created for her, would she really hire a photographer who’s only charging $1,000? Of course not. The math doesn’t add up. If she spends $5,000 on her bouquet, and $7,500 on her cake, why wouldn’t she spend $15,000 or more on her photographer?

But she also would never hire anyone who is going to “shoot” her. She wants an elegant collection or original images that capture the beauty and grace of her special day.

3. Restructure the order.
In the above example, the photographer listed his cheapest package first, and proceeded to build from there. As the price goes up, the bride gets more confused, she shuts down, and quits reading forward. Why should she pay any more for a package – why not just take the first one and get it over with?

Instead, start with your top package and work down. Stick with 3 of fewer collections, and again, make a dramatic difference between the two. Now look at the following collections, and see what you think.

Collection One

• Unlimited amount of time, as our goal is to give you complete coverage from beginning to end.
• Unlimited number of photographs – how can we count your images as they are being taken? What if we hit 200, and you haven’t cut the cake yet? We wouldn’t be professional if we didn’t promise to capture every detail, from beginning to end.
• $2,000 credit to apply to any of our products, from album design, to framed portraits, to gifts for your parents and attendants
• Full online viewing to make your selections.

Collection Two

• Perfect for small, intimate gatherings with less than 25 guests.
• Four hours of coverage, one location only.
• Unlimited number of photographs during our time with you.
• $500 credit to apply to any of our products.
• Full online viewing to make your selections.

By putting your most expensive collection on top, they start big and work their way down. They often come up with a compromise towards the top of your price list instead of at the bottom.

image source

Related posts:

1. Take advantage of today’s technology using online sales with your photography business.
2. Wedding Album Design – Is It Up To You Or Your Customer?
3. Wanted: Wedding Photographer with The Credentials of Annie Leibovitz and the Price Tag Of Wal-Mart

Rain is an amazing resource.  Rain can alter the mood of a landscape. And it can inspire you to look a little deeper for romantic images. People will hide under umbrellas or dance under a falling shower. The view out a window can be reshaped by droplets creating intricate patterns.

After a rain shower, venture out and check out the vegetation and flowers. Capture the drops as they lay and how they create reflection and magnification.

Raindrops on a flower

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Cloverleaf with raindrops

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Venture out and see how rain affects people. Watch as they stand with their umbrellas or how they run for cover.

Street scene in the rain

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Running in the rain

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Running in the rain

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Walking in the rain

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Rain can also add interesting patterns on a window.

Raindrops on glass

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Related posts:

1. Photograph Water – How to get Inspired with your Photography #6
2. Photograph Emotion – How To Get Inspired With Photography – #14
3. Photograph the Wind – How to Get Inspired with your Photography #11

They dedicated a large portion of the magazine to franchises, and showcased the top 500 franchises that are available for startup.

Did you know 8 of their top 500 franchises are in the photography industry?
Does that tell you photography is still very profitable?

And now for the most shocking thing to me – people are willing to invest anywhere from $15,000 to more than $300,000 to get involved in one of these photography businesses. And on top of the franchise fee they listed many more thousands of dollars in startup costs (buying equipment, leasing office space, etc). Wow.

The great thing about buying into a franchise is you get a pre-existing business. They have the business model, the marketing, the advertising, the production – everything is included in the system. You’re never left wondering what you should do next – the system is there to help you every step of the way. People that invest at this level understand the type of support they are getting, and value it highly.

Yet doesn’t that seem amazing? Invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in a franchise to start up a photography business? (Six of the eight were portrait related, one in video, and one in real estate) Especially when there are tons of other ways to get the support you need?

So what are the most important parts of having a business system in place?

1. Seeing the big picture. Having something in place that allows you to look at how a photography business would run at the level of income you are trying to achieve.

2. Identifying your ideal customers. There’s more to marketing than saying you’re looking for anyone from 18 to 80. You have to be specific about who you’re trying to photograph.

3. Understand marketing. Marketing isn’t something you do in your spare time or when things are slow. It’s something you have to do all the time, as long as you want your business to thrive.

4. Become better at selling. The only way to profit is by selling. That doesn’t mean you have to become a used card salesperson. But you do have to make the selling process easy.

5. Think business. You may be thinking photography right now, but in order to succeed you have to think business too. Business can be fun, once you understand how to put all the pieces together.

And in a nutshell, that’s it. If you become the best you can be at these five items, you’ll end up a very successful Six Figure Photographer.

Every day I get emails in my inbox, and see signs on the street corner promising instant wealth if I call a phone number or visit a website. I read about people that tried out a system for 30 days, and put five figures in their pocket. Sure, I suppose that happens once or twice here and there. But for the rest of us we have to take the time and dedication to put a system into place, and work at it until it works.

A system makes it easier. Whether you choose to develop the system yourself over 5 or 10 years, or you invest in a franchise for hundreds of thousands of dollars, its all about the system.

Or you have another option. If you have decided now is the time you want help on becoming a Six Figure Photographer, I would like to welcome you to my newest release for 2010 – my Fast Trak Six Figure Photographer system. People have been asking for a quicker way to get through my Six Figure Photographer program, and for 2010 I decided to make that a reality. The Fast Trak program isn’t a 12 month process – it’s three. In 3 months you can have all the information you need to understand each nuance of building up your business. If you are ready, or would like to read more, visit my Six Figure Photographer site and look for my Fast Trak option. You’ll be taken to the Fast Trak section, and will have immediate access to a full month’s worth of course work.

What are you waiting for?

Related posts:

1. Add photo gallery to current wedding photography website
2. How to Target 5 Magazine Clients For Your Photography This Week
3. It’s Not The Picture, It’s The Presentation

Kijiji
Kijiji is a free classified site that allows local ads based upon what State or City you live in. Kijiji offers both U.S. and Canada classifieds, and will allow you to put up more than one ad at a time in different sections. Kijiji is a division of eBay, and as a part of their terms of service, your ad may be run across one or more of their classified ad sites – bringing even more business potential to you. As of June 2009, they attract around 7 million monthly unique visitors – so the potential is huge.

SuperAds
SuperAds is a free local classified based in the U.S. and Canada. Choose your location, and start posting. Creating an account lets you monitor your listing. And you can add up to 10 photographs with every ad – a big plus to show off your work while you’ve making an offer.

Oodle
Oodle expands classified advertising beyond the U.S. and Canada, and also allows you to make offers in the UK, India, Ireland and Australia. Once you advertise on Oodle, it expands your ad to other ad networks – opening up even more opportunity to you.

ListPage
ListPage is a free local classified community for businesses and consumers in the U.S. You can post both ads and events, with events being showcased on their event calendar.

LiveSimon
LiveSimon is a free auction and classified community. Sign in to keep track of your listings along the way. LiveSimon also has a featured listings area that keeps your ad front and center during the search process.

Google
Google’s LocalBusinessCenter is another free service you should make sure you are listed in. The LocalBusinessCenter controls Google Maps, which places your business own the map in certain search terms. Its easy to fill out, and you can be up and running in minutes. Also work at having testimonials and comments placed on your page, and you’ll rank even better in the future.

Related posts:

1. Getting Exposure Through Photography Directories
2. How linked is your photography studio’s website?
3. Increase photography studio sales with a quality website presence

There’s something fun and inspiring about being able to shoot anything you want, whenever you want, knowing it has no implications on your business.

But as a photographer, it’s also no fun showing up with thousands of others, and getting boring pictures with a ton of other tourists in them. If you’re going to shoot for “fun”, how can you do it the best way possible?

Even though we head out and shoot for fun on all of our vacations, we’ve found several tips that will help you shoot at more than an amateur level – and maybe help you get some dynamite images that you can sell on stock sites, or create your own art and set up your own art gallery.

Here are 7 tips to help you plan your next shooting vacation.

1. Use your children’s breaks and long weekends.
If you have kids, you probably travel during their off times. Which means you’ll be vacationing with large crowds of people, especially at the more touristy locations. Look at your child’s schedule, and plan for shorter trips on more non-traditional times. For instance, my daughter’s school district gives them a fall break around the last week of October. This is a great time to still pick up some of the fall colors, and avoid large crowds.

2. Plan trips at the beginning and end of summer.
School systems are changing. More schools are going later into June, heading back into school in early August, or having year round school systems. Plan trips at the beginning of June and end of August to still have great summertime weather, yet decrease the amount of people visiting the same locations.

3. Head to the best locations on off hours.
Families tend to tour areas at set times of the day. Mid to late mornings and afternoons will be the most crowded times, and will also be the worst time to photograph. Instead, get up before dawn and grab breakfast on the go. You’ll find amazing sunrises with little traffic. Also grab a picnic dinner, and watch the sunset too. Again, while families are heading back to the hotel and having dinner, you’ll be able to capture beautifully images – and if you do have the kids along, they’ll enjoy being able to explore a little more with less people in the area. We spent a week in Moab last summer, and we’re completely surprised by the lack of tourists after 5pm. On one hike just before sunset, we were the only people on the trail, and took some amazing photographs as a result.

4. Make people a part of the scene.
In some cases, tourists may actually add to the image. Get creative with your portraits, or with creating a scene. How can you tell the story? If there’s a group of people, that’s what you’ll remember, so include them in your image.

5.Be a part of a tour.
If you’ve never been on a cruise, I would highly recommend it. You can head into multiple ports over several days, and find some amazing opportunities while you’re there. If you stick to the tourist ports, you can get the colorful life of an area, and find some amazing opportunities with street vendors. Or take a shore tour, and head into remote places where you’ll find very few people – just natives offering you a world of opportunity. We found some gorgeous photo opportunities on our trip into Panama and Mexico a few years back, and other than the 30 people on the bus with us, we could photograph to our hearts content with no one other than the local villagers in the photographs. And it also allowed us to find some places we will travel back to in the future – without a cruise ship.

6. Find opportunity in your own area.
I love quick trips where I can spend a day or two, head out away from the office, and enjoy something new. Your area is filled with vacation opportunity. Grab a tent and head out into the back woods. Or find a quaint bed and breakfast, and spend the day viewing through the eyes of a tourist. This can also help keep you motivated, especially during busy times (like summer wedding season). Put those dates on the calendar now – you’ll thank yourself later.

7. Just have fun.
Shoot as a tourist, and have fun with what you do. We spent a day at Disney World a couple of years ago with our little point and shoot, and had a blast. Because we understand angles and how to find unusual shots, we took some amazing images that have become some of our favorites – and helped us build an incredible album that we’ll always look back to remember a great day. We didn’t sell any of our images – we just had fun.

And realized why we love photography so much in the first place.

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Related posts:

1. Digital Photography – Recharge Your Business By Taking A Vacation
2. Plan For Tomorrow To Create Sales For Today
3. Yes You Can Sell Your Pictures For Extra Cash

I’ve touched on a lot of issues in two of my posts:

What Should I Name My Photography Business?

Choosing The Right Name For Your Photography Business

But there are several other things you should think about when you’re deciding on a name, and a few resources you should keep in mind.

Will you be trademarking your name?
Twenty years ago, your photography business would only be in competition with other photographers in your local area. Not true anymore. Now you’re in competition with photographers from all over the world. If you travel regularly as a wedding photographer (as we did starting in the mid 1990’s) your branding extends well beyond local lines. Trademarking your name gives you added protection of having someone come in and choosing something similar, and trying to ride on your coattails. It’s also important as you expand into multiple areas: books, gift products, artwork, etc.

You can trademark your name and any branding material, such as a logo. While there are many companies and law offices out there that will help you with the trademarking process, two of my favorite sites are Nolo and the USPTO. Nolo is a legal site filled with all kinds of help for small businesses. You can order books, legal forms, and even find a lawyer in your area if that’s your next step. They have a great book on Trademarking that gives you everything you need to know about the trademark process and protecting your name. The USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) has a ton of information on trademarking. They have an online search function that allows you to put in your name ideas, and see if anyone else has trademarked it. And once you file for trademark status, you can follow it online as well.

Check out domain names.
I mentioned this before in one of the above articles, but because of its importance I’m expanding here. In this online world, the most important thing you need is a strong domain name. If your company name is ABCPhotography, and another studio already has the domain, just by promoting yourself as ABCPhotography will cause some people to head online and type ABCPhotography.com to find your site. If your competition comes up instead, you may loose quite a bit of business.

Also think about different spellings of your name, and how other people may choose to find you. How about your name? Just because your studio is ABCPhotography doesn’t mean they won’t try to find you by your name – especially if you are the only photographer there. I’ve had LoriOsterberg.com for years, and change it all the time to give people an overview and link them up to my various sites.

Make it a winning name.
What if I told you my business name was Lost Images? What comes to mind? Why would I trust a photographer who loses images? A business name must match the industry, and provide quality assurance in what you do. A moving company would never choose Babyland Moving. You’re mixing two different ideas, and confusing your potential customers.

Also watch for hidden meanings, or names that people ask about the opposite. A name of “Creative Focus Photography” or “In Focus Photography” leads to the question, “Is focusing going to be an issue with this company?” What looks good on paper may have a whole different meaning when you say it out loud. Ask your friends and family about your ideas. What questions come up when they hear your name selections? What visuals come to mind?

Words have positive, neutral and negative connotations. Putting different types of words together can bring on entirely new meanings, and affect the way people look at your business. For example, Mom is typically associated as being a strong, positive word. When you think of Mom, it brings out the positive emotions in most of us. Mother, however, is more neutral.

Also watch for word inventions. Places like Amazon or Chryticlania are perfect examples. Amazon is now associated with online shopping, and they spent millions branding that, and making sure you associate Amazon with shopping. Chryticlania is a word I made up, and it probably took you a few seconds to sound it out and try and decipher how to say it. And that’s where your focus went – how do I say/spell it? That was above and beyond trying to decide what it is. As a small business, you don’t have the opportunity to spend millions branding. People have to know instantly what you do and what you offer. Don’t make it difficult. Keep it simple. And most of all make it memorable.

Related posts:

1. Choosing The Right Name For Your Photography Business
2. Photography Business – Competition or Collaboration
3. 4 Ways To Prepare Your Photography Business for 2007

Check out this Adobe Photoshop Tutorial on Healing Brush Tool and Patch Tool to see how simple retouching can be.

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Even though he’s speaking about finding the love of his life, the same holds true for business.

If you’re in business now, it’s not an easy road. You might have to wait at times for things to happen, business to find you, and things to pick up. But a true entrepreneur – a true businessperson knows you can never give up. There’s always a way to get where you want to go.

They know that half of it is timing, and the other half’s luck. You have to do everything you can to market your business, get your information out there, present yourself in a positive manner – and then wait for the “luck”. The luck is prospects coming across your information, and choosing to connect with you to do business. Can you control this “luck”? Definitely. If you spend your time really focusing on how you market, your “luck” will find you.

Which leads to the rest of the tune. Wherever you are, whenever it’s right, you come out of nowhere and into my life. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world. If the timing is right, you’ll find each other through the many cool tools the Internet has brought us and come together. If you’re in Australia, and your client is in California, no problem if the timing is right.

You no longer have to think small with your business. Think as big as you dare. You can travel anywhere in the world to reach out to customers. And your customers may travel in from anywhere in the world, as you learned about with Karma Hill’s business.

So, how are you going to be building your business this year?

Related posts:

1. Selling Your Travel Photos – Turning Vacations Into A Business
2. 4 Components Of A Virtual Business
3. Photography Website – Evaluate your impact on the World Wide Web!

To help you through the selection process, take a look at Snapsort – a brand new search site that finds the best camera for you by comparing any two cameras, giving you the stats, and ranking the winner accordingly.

I compared the Canon EOS-1D Mark IV to the Nikon D3S. Snapsort gives you both the differences and the similarities between the two cameras.

Once you’ve reviewed the differences and similarities, Snapsort declares the winner based on the camera that provides you with the most features.

I like that the site provides you both with its “winner” and “loser” and gives you a variety of specifications to allow you to judge for yourself. It also ranks the pros and cons, and gives you links to other cameras that have compared to this particular camera.

While there are a variety of ways to compare cameras online, this is one of the cleanest and user-friendly ways I’ve seen to get a quick overview of cameras. I’ve searched for the Canon and Nikon here in this post, by Snapsort compares a wide array of cameras, including Pentax, Olympus, and Leica.

Related posts:

1. Nikon’s Newest Digital SLR Arrives With A Host Of New Features Aimed At Professional Photographers
2. How To Mark Up And Price Your Photographs
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The newest Office Depot commercial showcases this well. When a new chain hair salon moves in across the street from a small barbershop, and offers a $6 haircut, the small business owner doesn’t get worried, he adjusts his marketing. With a simple sign, “We fix $6 haircuts” he soon puts the chain hair salon out of business.

Unrealistic? Maybe. But the concept is a great one to learn for your own business.

If you’ve never had your portrait taken at a chain location, I would highly suggest heading out and living the experience. Bring in a coupon from the newspaper or your mailbox, and head in for the experience. Don’t go during off hours, head in during peak time, like Saturday afternoon. Take mental notes along the way of how you do things differently, how you can improve in certain areas, and how you can market yourself to overcome the experiences at this chain location.

For example, how long did you have to wait for your portrait? If you sat in a crowded room for over an hour, watching small babies get fussy and cry, you just found your first marketing benefit.

You’ll never wait in a crowded waiting room – our work is by appointment only, and we make you the center of our attention.

Take the bad from what people normally experience, and turn it into a positive.

By doing this, you’ll find so many ways to jump ahead of your competition, especially the large chains that can’t react quickly without bringing head management into the picture. Remember, they just hire minimum wage workers to snap a picture and sell as much as they can. You’re in it to build a relationship for life, and be customer focused through it all.

Related posts:

1. How To Manage Your Digital Photography Business
2. Is A Studio Necessary To Start A Photo Business?
3. Tips To Using Photography To Record Memories