Having a successful business means you are often changing, learning, and creating a better path to success. In this video, I'm discussing four habits that I have seen with many photographers actively participating in.
Pricing Your Competitors
One habit that I've seen photographers admit to, is the method in how they get competitors' pricing. Photographers will call them and ask for their rates. I heard a photographer give this advice on the popular audio app, Clubhouse. He said, "call your competitors and pretend that you are a customer looking for a photographer. This will give you their rates."
After he shared his pricing tactic, I presented another method and shared my concerns. Calling your competitors and taking their time might seem like a harmless tactic, but it is unethical.
Calling your competitors to give them false hope is bad karma and not something anyone deserves, especially while many creatives are hurting during a pandemic. It's theft because you stole their time and you stole their trust in other people. This is one of the four practices that photographers should end right away! Let me show you a better approach.
A Better Method to Price Your Photography
Then what is the best way to price out your competition? How can you possibly get this valuable data as a new photographer?
My suggestion is to practice transparency with your peers. Call your competing businesses and introduce yourself as someone new in the area. Express to them that you would love their assistance in understanding the local market, and that you do not want to undercut anyone else in the community. That would damage the market and you would rather come in as someone who understands collaborations.
Most photographers would understand your good intentions and give you great respect. They would more than likely entertain the meeting because you spoke about coming in with respect for the market and the local photographers. It's in their best interest to work with you and help you succeed. Maybe a small fraction may reject the idea but the majority of photographers are incredibly kind and smart people. They will work with you, respect you, and they'll probably become a friend.
This is better than calling your peers and pretending to be a client. The video goes into three other bad habits that photographers should really consider stopping. I hope all of the other tips in the video help you have a smoother road.
Lol so price collusion is more ethical than "time theft"
No disrespect to the creator of the video, but I am looking forward to the day when this style of info vlog is dead and buried. We know the topic of the video from the title, but the video (understandably) begins by telling us the topic of the video. And right after that, when we are ready to hear about point number one, we hear, "But first, let's get some coffee" Huh? Not one person who clicked on this video had an interest in coffee. Next hear some music and we see some random scenes of fruits and signs and doorways.... And I suppose it is sometime after those scenes that we actually get down to hearing about these mistakes. Personally I bailed at that point.
Again, not trying to call out this particular creator, he's just following the format that many other vloggers use. But for me, it's not an enjoyable format to view when I'm curious about the topic that the video is supposed to cover. (I'm fine with someone doing a Casey Neistat vlog, btw. I'm just not a fan of information being delivered in this unfocused manner).
Those who run sites like fstoppers apparently think their viewers prefer video content over written pieces. I, for one, do not. Four points can easily be made in a short article,