Hiring a photographer

That's how it is for every business. Customers want to get it as cheap as possible and perhaps free if they can...

Selling to the customer....

The customer doesn't care about your overhead, your travel time, your taxes, your training or your equipment. The customer wants to buy something from you (maybe), and their purchase decision will be based on whether or not they deem the cost of the thing to be worth it (to them) for what they will be getting.

They will also be looking to see if they can get what you are selling from someone else for less.

That's it.

Dude, thanks for that

Perfect!

Was just popping over here to post that. Good job.

JeffreyG wrote in post #15647806
Selling to the customer....

The customer doesn't care about your overhead, your travel time, your taxes, your training or your equipment. The customer wants to buy something from you (maybe), and their purchase decision will be based on whether or not they deem the cost of the thing to be worth it (to them) for what they will be getting.

They will also be looking to see if they can get what you are selling from someone else for less.

That's it.

Yep, this. I understand that there are costs associated with it. But the fact is that if customers don't think it's worth what you're charging, then they're not gonna pay for it. End of story. It's the same with anything. I'm sure the pricing on a new TV is set at that price for a good reason. To me, it doesn't matter. I either think it's worth it and buy the TV, or I don't think it's worth it and spend my money elsewhere. But it's not the customer's duty to cover the photographer's expenses. If you need to charge X dollars in order to make a profit (or break even), and I don't think that what I'm getting is worth paying X dollars, then tough cookies. Either provide more value (probably in the form of better photographs), find a way to cut down on expenses without sacrificing its value to me, or forget about me entirely and find someone who IS willing to pay what you're charging.

JeffreyG wrote in post #15647806
Selling to the customer....

The customer doesn't care about your overhead, your travel time, your taxes, your training or your equipment. The customer wants to buy something from you (maybe), and their purchase decision will be based on whether or not they deem the cost of the thing to be worth it (to them) for what they will be getting.

They will also be looking to see if they can get what you are selling from someone else for less.

That's it.

Jeffrey gets it. The key to any business is convincing your customer that what you sell is worth what you charge, not how much you deserve to get paid.

Yeah, as a customer I really don't care how much your expenses are, I only care about the quality of the service you can offer me and the cost to me.

When you sit down and order a nice dinner somewhere, do you worry about the unit cost of the roach traps in the factory that made the boxes the tools were shipped in that went to the factory making the chain saw used to cut the tree that became your chair? Technically it was an expense that went into providing the dinner you just paid for, but I sure don't care.

I had a "customer" instead of offering experience or exposure was going to "give me the honor" to shoot pictures at their party. How could I pass that up? : )