One of the first things Sheryl Bashore does when she meets with a new price-coaching client is to take one of her paper price lists out of a drawer, show it to the client, crumple it up, and throw it away. “It’s stupid. Get rid of it,” Bashore, owner of Sheryl Z Photography and a price coach in central Pennsylvania, says of paper lists. Bashore, an Imaging USA 2025 speaker, appeared on the “Professional Photographer” podcast episode, “Fix Your Price List.” “You will make more money online than you’ll ever make on a paper form,” she adds. “If you’re using a paper form, please, please, please let it go.”
Most photographers are hesitant to accept Bashore’s frank advice about raising their prices, she says, because they are used to being undervalued and therefore start undervaluing themselves. “How many people ask a photographer to shoot their family pictures for free because it’s your friend? Would you go into a store and ask for a free shirt because you knew someone who owned the store? You wouldn’t,” she explains. “But people devalue photographers and it’s done every day.” If you are stuck in a price rut, it’s time to remind yourself of your worth as a professional, Bashore says. “People think pricing is so hard. It’s not,” she says. “It’s believing in yourself a little bit.”
EVERY TIME
Bashore is primarily a volume photographer for dance, cheer, and gymnastics, but her advice applies to all photographers: Constantly review your pricing. Price changes should be incremental and acceptable to your marketplace. For example, she says, “Every time I [photograph] a team, right before I am ready to post it online, I look at it and go, ‘Eh, I could add a dollar here, a dollar there.” The justification is that photographers need to pay for parts of the business that cost more—such as editing, printing, and marketing—and the cost of living itself has risen. “Are you still getting gas at the same price you were five years ago?” Bashore asks. “No, you’re not.”
After crumpling up your paper price list, she says, it’s time to slash the number of packages you offer. Bashore suggests photographers “dumb it down” to four or five packages, with the goal of having the client “buy all.” When a client goes online to see their images, they may be thinking about their budget. But they see your work and they’re excited, and “all of a sudden, it’s a better experience to start with. … She’s wowed and she wants all of them.” Wading through so many packages could temper that feeling. “The idea is to make your pricing work so [the client] wants to buy everything or almost everything.
“If you give people too many choices for lower money,” Bashore explains, “they don’t need to spend more money.”
OFFER INCENTIVES
What about water bottles, magnets, and keychains with clients’ images on them that seem to be popular? Bashore says she offers them to clients—as they are great advertising—but they won’t make you money. A sales strategy that does work is coupons. For each session, Bashore offers a coupon for 10% off and free shipping for $100 spent, and the client has two weeks to use it. The coupon creates urgency; they don’t want to miss out, and she sends reminder emails and texts during that time. It works, according to Bashore—the highest selling day is the day the coupon is going to expire.
How else can photographers raise their prices and make more money? Aside from reviewing and raising your prices incrementally, doing away with paper price lists, and condensing the number of packages offered, focus on the client experience, she says. Most of her clients are girls and young women in competitive sports such as gymnastics and cheer, and the goal is to make them feel comfortable and empowered. Interacting positively with the young clients and their mothers, who typically accompany them to the sessions, “means the world if you’re going to sell,” says Bashore, adding that seeing a girl naturally smile and enjoy the session is one of her favorite parts of the job.
Another favorite part is helping her price-coaching clients understand the importance of keeping up with their craft, with trends in the industry, and with what clients need and want. If you love your work and keep your business at a high level, it is likely worth more than you think—and you should charge as such, Bashore says. “I genuinely love what I do. I make a lot of money at what I do, which makes me love it even more,” she says. “If I was making no money, I don’t know if this conversation would be the same.”
Melanie Lasoff Levs is director of publications.
Tags: pricing