Had a clueless guy accuse me of taking away his business

I find most rants by photographers about 'GWC's' tiresome, and so I was bemused to meet one such complainer in the flesh a week ago. It also made me think for a moment. The main problem was that this guy actually does not understand my business model. Also - I think his approach to the business side is not too good.

I'm not posting this to suggest that I have the only model that works or that anyone else is a poor photographer. I just wanted to point out that I see a lot of people on here who complain about part timers, and then I see people out shooting full time who are not really doing everything it takes to improve their product - and I don't mean the photos. I mean the product.

To start, I am a full time professional who pursues photography mostly as a hobby and a little as a business. For the business side, I shoot strictly youth sports.

My model is simple. I have cultivated a group of parents at a few locations who know me. I shoot sports for complete teams on contract, and I deliver a package of posters and a slideshow for the team banquet. At the banquet the parents all get to see the product on the slideshow and they can buy additional photos from my site at what most photographers around here consider to be too low pricing. My advantages:
1) Parents of younger athletes see my product and replace the parents of the older kids who graduate the next year.
2) The banquet drives traffic to my site, especially because I let the kids download web sized images for Facebook for free.
3) I've already been paid a reasonable rate without having to sell anything from the website on spec. The website sales are a bonus. I used to try to sell at what seemed normal prices around here. Then I lowered my prices and doubled my profit by actually selling some photos.
4) I can shoot few total games, reduce my time and maximize total revenue per game.

All other youth action sports photographers I see around here are shooting completely on speculation. They work for free and then hope to drive traffic to their site by handing out cards in the stands etc. I've watched this business model and the odds are against each game generating more than a handful of sales. It's easy to shoot two hours and make $80 because nobody bothers to even visit the website.

It also doesn't help that most of these photographers feel they have to cut their process time in anticipation of so few sales. So they do what the young man I met did last week. He dumped 452 photographs of a single soccer game on his site, 100 of which were probably saleable. Who will wade through 452 photos looking for a good one of their own kid?

I'll post 100-150 shots total from one team and I always arrange them by jersey number.

So in our conversation this young man told me that guys who price like me (based on my website) are killing a full time photographer such as him. I just shook my head. Don't blame me, improve your product.

Good read, theirs alot of usefull information I pulled from this. Thanks=D

Well, your prices are insanely low, that's the price of the guy here undercutting now - but he still hasn't figured out there's a focus button or shutter speed actually can freeze the action, and exposure, who needs the right exposure?!?! Day fee, I really don't think he knows what that means. Your stuff on the other hand is worth way more than what you have it priced at, doubling the prices would still be low nationally speaking. If the guy here had images like the ones I just seen on your site there would be absolutely no way to compete and his undercharging would send me right out of business locally.

Professionals complaining are not doing it for no reason, many really have no reason to and do it anyways while others have legitimate complaints. It is literally killing them in some markets - just as Wal-Mart killed thousands upon thousands of mom and pop stores, but they did it big while for photography it's a bunch of people doing it small.

Even with my day fee secondary sales are something I rely on to stay in business, but at your prices that just wouldn't happen, no way $5 for an 8x10 is even remotely close to worth it after costs and taxes paid, so that day fee or the contract for the league would have to be majorly significant, and I mean MAJORLY SIGNIFICANT!

So yea, you can put him in a pretty rough spot - but the way he's doing it is a pretty bad business model in itself, so you're not the only one to blame for his bad business - his model sounds like a lot that I've seen and it completely sucks! Real pro will move on to another market, change things, do whatever it takes. So, they'll adjust - but that doesn't mean others - like yourself - are not having a hinderance, but what can you do but change what you do, can't go around telling others to change**

**Though I did have a talk with a local guy, a guy I work with a lot and he went and changed his pricing structure and amazing thing happened - started selling more, he copied mine but a little less (2-3?). Funny to listen to him talk about he gets all these orders now but back in the day he didn't, even at really low prices.

Commenting as a parent of a child active in sports - I wish you covered my sons school sports

Jeff,, sounds like sour grapes on his behalf.

Competition in business is healthy. If your competitors are out competing you, you improve your product, marketing or whatever.

Mate, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it!

No worries Yogestee, I wasn't losing any sleep.

I think MJPhotos24 had some good points. The real money in sports is probably T&I work. Most of the guys I see shooting action photos either have a day job like me or are wedding / portrait / T&I shooters who are picking up extra work. From what I've seen here it would be difficult to support a full time photographer doing just this.

And MJ has a point - perhaps guys like me are one of the reasons this is not enough to support a full time shooter. On the other hand, I think I extract more revenue per game than most of the other guys shooting here. They look at my pricing on line and would never believe that, mainly because they don't realize that I've already sold the whole poster set.

So back to my main point, I think every photographer who wants to shoot this kind of work needs to think 'how do I get people to come to the site, and once there how do I get them to buy?'

I see far too many photographers who are just handing out cards. Parents are busy and they probably cannot really picture how your photos are different than the ones they take with their P&S. And then if you make them work too hard sorting out the pile, they will bail.

My wife competes in triathlons. One time I watched the official photo company post five photographers around to shoot the 800 person field. When we got home I checked their site. They had 5400 photos posted online in straight chronological order. I don't know what the solution to that is (maybe number recognition software to read bib numbers?) but it is a rare customer that will wade through 5400 photos.

I think the point made here is that hobbies are expected to cost money, businesses are expected to earn a profit (at least that's how the US IRS views the difference).

I would agree that if all business expenses are considered, you're losing money on a $5 8x10. Now, if you are considering that particular activity to be purely hobby activity, case losing money is the expectation.

I would not call that other person "clueless" because he presumed you were operating purely as a business rather than part-business, part-hobby.

When I set my prices, there's only one opinion that matters: Mine.

Am I less expensive than many? Absolutely. Am I more expensive than many? Without a doubt.

If I can lower my prices and realize double the profit, I think I would have a difficult time finding a negative there. Again, it's my business. If I find a model that works for me, that's all that matters. If my business model doesn't work for another photographer, I'm not gonna' lose much sleep over that...

He's clueless in the fact that he doesn't know how to communicate his value to the customer, it just about price, and that is what he will lose on every time. Photography is not a commodity, it only become such when there is no difference between photographers, or their products.

If you lower the price, you can't double your profit. See a good CPA for an explanation!

TopHatMoments wrote in post #12327388
If you lower the price, you can't double your profit. See a good CPA for an explanation!

Business economics 101. I will never drop my prices (unles I am giving deal for a friend). Every penny you drop off the price comes right off your profit.

TopHatMoments wrote in post #12327388
If you lower the price, you can't double your profit. See a good CPA for an explanation!

Very true!

I had a guy once tell me that if I raised by prices just 10% I could do 20% less work and still make the same about of money. WHAT????? I said 'who told you that?'. He said he learned it at a business seminar. After I did the math for him and showed him it was not accurate he had a very dumbfounded look on his face.

Some of the stuff people just take on faith cracks me up.

TopHatMoments wrote in post #12327388
If you lower the price, you can't double your profit. See a good CPA for an explanation!

I shoot the games on contract, and what I sell on the website is above and beyond. It is additonal profit (minus cost of prints) on work I have already done and been paid for.

At the $25 per 8x10 that I see suggested by most people here, I typically sell between zero and one photo per game. I profit $23 per 8x10 at that pricing, so I will average $11.50 additional profit per game with that pricing.

At $7 per 8x10 that I charge I might sell forty additional prints. I profit $5 per 8x10 at that pricing, so I will average $200 in additional profit per game at that pricing.

You can run this by your CPA, he will cheerfully show you that $200 is more than $11.50.

But seriously - What I have found locally is that there is zero market for prints at the kind of pricing people keep telling me is what I should be charging. Zero sales = zero profit.

Your business model is flawed as you have no overhead, no IRS or other expences involved. My statement was directed at the " squabbling " working pro's.

But since you ventured in, for a part time, non invested in life's expences from the photography you do. It's all profit. Now if the quality and demand was there, you could charge the prices you suggested. The only reasion they purchase from you is that they really couldn't do it any cheaper themselves. Plain and simple. Why should they struggle about on a field, when they can sit back enjoy the game and still have photographs of their young ones.

Again it's your hobby plain and simple. You could not purchase health insurance, car insurance or payments, home and life including all the expences to go along with it.
So for you to say your business model is one of intellect is flawed as it is based on hobby standards.

Run that through your CPA and let them explain the vast difference.

I care not what another photog does, hobby or pro but, if you do it for a living with all the costs associated, you can not cut prices and double profits!

Well simple mathematics says you sell more cheaper than you do more expensive, if the price is relatively close, the end result is more money in your pocket. However also have to take into consideration such as you're doing more work and spending more time on fulfilling orders, paying more in taxes, and every business expense in each print sold cuts into the bottom line and TopHat is right. Bottom line is a pro running a full time business has a lot more expenses to think about plus a salary - hobbyists and part timers do not have this to worry about and can offer cheaper, it's all extra to them. Again, going back to Wal-Mart, if they had better benefits for employees and bought higher quality stuff to re-sell instead of crap made by 12 year old slaves in China, well prices wouldn't be "rolled back" so much.

$25 for an 8x10 around back home is overpriced, mine are $15 and I get some saying it's too cheap and others that think it's expensive. I've tested pricing more than anyone I know, have gone cheaper and have gone more expensive before settling on what they are at now. Cheaper vs more expensive did not really have an affect, and profits and sales all went up (as mentioned) with the prices I currently have. I'd bet if you added $3 to every print making it $10 for an 8x10 - you would not see a dip at all in sales. If you went up drastically to what you're being told, of course you'd see it.

As for T&I vs action - yes T&I is far better than action photos! T&I can hire an assistant for the day and get things done, action no way that's happening. T&I is bulk so you can make a good amount if you do it right and have it priced right, it's a ton of work so under pricing there is a REALLY bad idea. Most full timers do both, but there are a lot of companies who focus only on T&I and do just fine. For some reason they all want the basic poses, especially if the quality is better than most, but that great peak action shot goes untouched in many cases.