Convincing potential clients that you’re worth what you charge is a scary prospect. It means believing in yourself enough to stick to your guns. If you’ve had a hard time convincing clients to pay what you charge, here are a few ways that may help raise your success rate when asking for a sale.
We all know the wedding photography industry is competitive. There are photographers in every local market charging next to nothing, and others are charging tens of thousands of dollars. When you’re starting your wedding photography business, it can be hard to figure out where you fit in the market. Once you’ve decided what you’re worth, it can be even harder to find clients who are willing to pay what you’re charging.
It all comes down to a few factors. Assuming you’ve gone through the process of learning what your cost of doing business is, and have researched your local wedding photography market and are pricing yourself appropriately, a few questions to as yourself are:
- Are you adding value to yourself?
- Are you attracting the type of clients willing to pay your prices?
- Do you know your worth as a photographer?
Why It’s Important to Add Value to Yourself
When you’re charging prices for wedding photography that you know is more than what a significant number of other photographers are currently charging for the same type of services, you need to make sure you’re adding value to yourself in order to show potential clients why you’re worth what you’re charging over the other photographers in your market.
Having a professional wedding photography business that is worth higher pricing means you’ve done the work of setting yourself apart as an actual professional. Getting clients to pay higher prices begins with having a business that is perceived as having a higher level of service worth more, though you’re offering the same types of services as other photographers.
A Great Experience Equals More Worth
Knowing how to communicate with clients and setting proper expectations correctly helps to add value to your services because it enhances the overall experience clients have with you. Moreover, whether they know it or not, the experience they have with you is what they’re paying for.
When it comes to service-based businesses like wedding photography, clients are looking for the experience. That’s why clients want to meet with you before they hire you. They’re looking to see how well they mesh with you. When they look at your photography and like it, that is just the first step to getting a bride and groom to book you. How you interact with them, and how they perceive you and your business, will ultimately make or break a sale. That’s why it’s important to know how to professionally interact with clients while focusing on providing a great experience.
Beer and laughter: including images wherein past clients are having a great time within your portfolio will be a further indicator of the good experience potential clients will have with you. This can add significant value to your services in the minds of future clients.
What to Do if a Client Asks for a Discount
Adding value to yourself means being able to navigate sales conversations, mainly when clients ask for a discount of your services or compare you to other photographers offering the same thing for less. A good tactic for this type of scenario is to provide more, to make clients realize your higher prices are worth paying.
An example of this would be if, when confronted with a discount or comparison of pricing, instead of caving to offering a discount offer instead additional coverage, or a wedding album credit, etc. The idea is to add to yourself instead of taking away value.
Psychological factors are deeply ingrained in successful pricing and sales strategies. On a subconscious level, offering a discount off your services devalues your worth in the mind of a client. So while you may think you’re doing yourself a favor by offering a discount to clinch a sale, you’re devaluing yourself to a client who may have ended up paying your asking price had you provided a bit more to “sweeten the deal.”
Finding Clients Willing to Pay What You Charge
Knowing that a great experience is worth more than just great photos, and knowing that you need to find ways to add value to yourself are great tools for getting more clients to pay your prices. Ultimately though, if you’re not attracting the types of clients who are unwilling to pay your pricing, then you need to reevaluate your brand and whom you’d like to have as an ideal client.
If you look back at past client interactions, you’ll have a good idea as to if you’re catering to your ideal client. Are most past interactions positive? Have most of your past clients been willing to pay your pricing, no questions asked? If not, then you may want to consider the type of person who’d be willing to pay what you want to charge, and start rebranding to speak to that type of client.
Not all clients that enquire with you are the right client, and you need to be willing to walk away from clients who don’t see your worth. This is, of course, after you’ve done your due diligence in making sure that you’ve conveyed your worth adequately—then walking away when you know it’s a lost cause.
These are just a few ways that you can help increase your chances of getting brides and grooms to book you at the prices you’re asking. Don’t be afraid to charge more for what you feel you’re worth. If you want to jump full-time into wedding photography, then you need to be able to charge what you’re worth, not just to sustain a living wage, but so you don’t get burned out from doing something you’re passionate about.
What are some other tactics you’ve used to get clients to see your worth? Let us know in the comments!
Lead Image by rawpixel.com via Pexels, used under Creative Commons.
Some great points :)
Hi Danette,
This is such a good post and so true. I loved this topic you made about how to convince wedding clients you’re worth what you charge. The points you have mentioned over here are great from the point of view of growing one's business. Many companies are facing the difficulties related to client satisfaction as clients need high standard services at low prices which is difficult to be done. Let's take an example of The Addison catering Broward https://theaddisonofbocaraton.com/catering-broward/, they are offering professional catering at affordable prices. But the main thing I like about their company is that they always look for clients who are willing to pay what they charge as mentioned in your post and I feel that is important. Well, thanks for sharing this great post and keep sharing.
These are very great tips. We are asked all the time for discounts at our wedding venue and instead of caving in, we say well we are providing a host, security, and a bartender for your event. All of this is required for their event, and they say "well we don't need all that." But they do and if they were to hire a 3rd party for those services, they would end up wasting time and money to do so.
At Hollywood Events https://hollywoodevents.biz they offer security, a host, and a bartender for events booked at their venue. Their prices are really affordable!