Why I'll NEVER Offer Packages for Wedding Photography...

hey there today we're talking about pricing and we're specifically talking about packages and whether or not you should have them or not i personally have not offered packages for 10 years of being a wedding photographer and it has worked so well and i'm going to tell you why hey there i'm caitlin welcome to my youtube channel this is a place we like to empower photographers to build both profitable and purposeful businesses while also letting you in on the behind the scenes of our day-to-day life today we're talking about pricing and pricing it can be something that is just very polarizing there's a lot of opinions a lot of people have different thoughts i don't want this to be polarizing i want you to watch this knowing you have the freedom to do whatever you need to do in your business but i want you to hear what i've done hear what has worked for me and then take the whole thing take pieces and parts maybe just leave it be like that's not for me i don't believe in that so in this video we are not getting into the nitty gritty technical stuff we're kind of talking about the 30 000 foot view of pricing and philosophy and pricing but if you would like to learn more about the nitty gritty if you want to know how i present my pricing to my clients we actually offer all of that in the kj pricing kit and you can access that uh at the link below we'll talk about it a little bit more towards the end of the video so when it comes to pricing there are three main things that i'm thinking about when i'm trying to decide on pricing structure and how i lay that out for my clients first things first i am thinking about what would my client want like what would a couple want for me as a bride um i know that i wanted simplicity i had so many decisions that i was trying to make as a as a first-time bride most people are first-time brides and i realized there's so much going on in planning i wanted simplicity i just wanted to know what i needed to get my dream like what do i need to have to have my dream photography experience i wanted simple second thing i was thinking about was back to the simple concept how can i make this easy for my clients to understand how can i create a pricing structure and display my pricing and present it to my client in a way that is not going to overwhelm them but instead very simply educate them on what they need in order to have a great photography experience with me third this is most important i was also thinking about what do i need to offer to them to give them the absolute best experience possible so thinking about those three things that is how i came to the conclusion that i only wanted to offer one package and once i made this shift in my business over a decade ago i never went back so this is what i offer i offer eight hours of photography coverage a second shooter digital files which i know is controversial for some but i will explain and then i offer them an engagement session a complimentary engagement session these are non-negotiables okay and i'm gonna break down why each one of these is a non-negotiable which then leads back to why i have one package and i can't stray from that all right so let's talk about eight hours of coverage what i have found is that a lot of photographers think i need more bookings i need more clients so i'm going to get people in the door by saying i'm going to do a four hour package and that's only going to be 2500 or 1800 and people are going to be like oh i can afford them and they're going to inquire and then i'm going to show them all the packages and they're going to choose my high package this is what happens photographers offer these type of things but it's offering a recipe for disaster they offer four hours or then six hours and then a client comes in and they say oh you know what i really like the price of the six hour package i'm gonna make six hours work like let's do the six hour package and the photographer thinks oh good well it's not my top package but at least they booked and then the wedding day the timeline preparations start to happen those conversations start to unfold and the client is like so how am i going to have you to shoot details and get the exit or i just want you to show up for the ceremony and i want you to fit in family formal bridal party and all of our portraits 30 minutes after the ceremony and then be there for all the dancing and you as a photographer are left thinking what the heck am i gonna do i can't fit everything into six hours and you know what happens you stay for free this happens oh it draws me crazy we have photographers in our kg education facebook group that are like well i just decided to stay for an extra three hours do you know what you did you gave them a top tier package that was two thousand dollars more you gave it to them for free and you didn't get credit for it like that is what i wanted to protect myself from so when i say i have to offer eight hours of coverage and no less i know that i need eight hours to go from two to ten pm to show up two hours before the first look or to show up two hours before the ceremony and get those details get comfortable with the bridesmaids get bridal party portraits done do all that i need to do in order to have a full visual story of the wedding day i can't offer any less than that and so if once i learned that and once i understood that it was very clear to me that like i cannot offer a four hour package if i truly want to be known as the photographer that can fully capture the full story now if you're someone that doesn't care about capturing the full story then maybe a different scenario a different setup would work for you but for me i just realized i don't want it's going back to point number one i don't want my client to have to sit down and think wait how can i take six hours or four hours of coverage and fit everything in that's stressful it's stressful and so instead of putting my clients in that position i removed that temptation another thing to consider just a thought is if you book a wedding on a saturday for four hours you have the eight hours on that debt you're not going to book another wedding in the morning i i i wouldn't hope um that would be very stressful maybe you would i don't know but if you have four hours of coverage then why not you're dedicating that day you're getting child care you're not booking anything else why not offer a great full experience that's not stressful what happens is the photographers think i'm going to offer less get people in the door but what you do is you attract people that have budget low budget budgets people that don't have the money or the ability to invest what you want them to invest but you're attracting them hoping they'll spend big bucks and for some people they will some people will convert but for a lot of photographers their their clients don't convert to the high package and they end up with a stressful situation with a client that they never wanted to work with from the beginning and it's a trap really it's a trap you get stuck in and then all of a sudden you're not fulfilled in your job and you're stressed because people don't cherish you and value as an artist or as a creative they just want someone to show for the ceremony real quick and take a few shots and if that's a photography you want to become there is a place for that in our industry but for a lot of photographers they don't desire that and they feel stuck and that again i could do like 16 videos about this but um we we won't do that we're gonna keep going so another thing to consider why do i have a complimentary engagement session well because that is not something that i want to give up i have done a few weddings so i've done several weddings where i have not done an engagement session they it included they just didn't book one because maybe they lived you know on the other side of the world maybe they lived in la and they couldn't get over here and i couldn't get to them you know it's always more stressful when i don't get them in my in front of my camera beforehand when i can't teach them the four core poses when i can't let them know like hey michael and i are actually nice people and it's really fun to hang out with us i mean i think it's fun to hang out with us i think people think it's fun to hang out with us i want people to experience being in our presence being in their presence and get to know one another so that we can show up on a wedding day and feel like oh good like our friends are here it goes back to simplifying the day of experience right i don't want to have to have a bride do a first look and then just bee line into like let me teach you how to pose you're getting married in an hour don't think about that let me teach you all my posing techniques in like 25 seconds it's gonna be so stressful so i don't want that um let's break down another thing i'm not going to get in the weeds of this but in the 21st century and the way that i run my business i have high prices i have a profit i i make a profit on every single wedding and it's a it's a it's a lot of profit but ever since i started even when i was a 1600 photographer i offered digital files now some people i know there's so many different thoughts on this but the the truth is there's always going to be different points of view so if you are someone who loves in-person sales and you do not hand over digital files for wedding photography that is totally fine i think that model works amazing for a lot of different people but for me and my lifestyle my personality i do not like being a sales woman i don't want to give up another day to do that i like giving people digital files they can save on their own and that is a whole other conversation but for me that honestly that decision to include that in a package price was thinking about my bride and what she would want and also thinking about myself so i'm attracting the type of bride that desires that and a bride who doesn't desire the files as much and they want more of that fine art printed product experience they're photographers for them last but not least second photographer it just seems really scary to me to photograph a wedding without any help and i did it i did it for several years actually and once i got close to missing things and i had those big scary moments of like my battery died i didn't have someone else shooting that could have been a disaster once i had um some wedding days that were like so many things are happening different parts of the property and i can't be in all places all the time i realize i cannot keep shooting by myself and once i realized professionally i just i cannot keep risking this i realize i am not ever going to offer a package that does not include help that does not include a second photographer so this goes back to i don't want this decision to be on my client so think about it this way if you took away any of the elements that i include in my one package it would have a negative ripple effect not just on your client but on you it would have a negative effect on me i my reputation is on the line like so i don't want to experience um the negative ripple effect of not having enough time or not having a second photographer to capture the kiss you know when they dip on the dance floor like what if i'm not in the right angle i don't want that on me like i want to set myself up for success in every single area and so these non-negotiables um it really saves me a lot of stress and a lot of worry and a lot of angst about being a wedding photographer because i know i have only offered the recipe for a good wedding day experience and that's your job to create great images and a great experience you have to offer a really great package that will allow you to do just that i could create packages and actually still get what i'm talking to you about like i could still maintain control these would just be larger packages so my clients add things on all the time they add on additional like a bridal session they add on more coverage time they add on um you know albums for their parents for themselves there's ways that you could take those selections and just piece them into packages and encourage more product sales right i could easily do that but what i will not do i will never take away ultimately what i know i need to create a great experience just to have a cheaper package to get people in the door that has never ever worked for me and it rarely works for other people and i know it works for some again this is just my way it's just the way that i've chosen to do things but if you are someone that's struggling to not you can't find your ideal client you have stressful wedding days you can't fit everything in you end up staying longer than you're supposed to to fit it all in and then you're not being compensated you're getting ripped off constantly and it starts all the way back with your pricing structure you know it's not that your clients planned a bad day it's not that your clients are trying to get everything from you it's because you didn't say to them hey if you want this i got to be there for eight hours if you want this i've got to be there for seven hours 10 hours whatever they need you've got to set the stage for offering them what you know is going to create a great experience so you may be thinking like this is a lot of information you can re-watch this video but if you would like me to deep dive even further into some of this information and to help you figure out like are you in the pricing dead zone never heard of that term like i talk about that all the time i can help you figure that out if you want to know more closely like what are you worth when is it time to raise prices um if you want that information plus access to my pricing template to use for your clients we're talking the design and the words like literally use my words just change out my name for your name um you can have it it's a part of the kj pricing kit the kj pricing kit has my pricing template that you can change it's an indesign file it's in indesign format and then it has a what you're worth ebook that breaks down my pricing philosophy and it goes more in depth into what i just shared with you in this video so it was just recently redone i love it it's beautiful the design looks really pretty and i'm using it for my my own clients i'm booking weddings with this pricing guide and i'm making it available to you so the link is below you can check it out and if you want to learn more about pricing you want to be a part of those discussions we talk about this a lot in the kj education facebook group and there's a link for that below as well you do not have to be a paying student to be a part of it we just ask that you are a professional photographer who is looking to grow and become more professional in your career so thanks for tuning in if this was helpful let us know be sure to like and subscribe because we are doing new videos every single week um i'm glad that you tuned in and i know this is not it's not a gear review um it's not editing it's not behind the scenes footage it is literally strictly business content but this is the type of stuff that allows artists creatives like ourselves to actually make money and make this profession work financially so i hope you enjoy this tune in next week i will see you next time [Music] bye oh i do i thought you said it first how about you question said you said it first oh bye you say you say it first oh my god i need some lunch you

Channel: Katelyn James

Views: 38,310

Keywords: kj all access, Katelyn James, Katelyn James Photography, katelyn james photography, wedding photography pricing, pricing wedding photography, wedding photography business, wedding photography, kj education, photography pricing, how to price wedding photography packages, Wedding Photography Education, how to price photography, what to charge for photography, photography pricing and packages, wedding photography tips, How to price wedding photography

Id: 8zoxajwouD8

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 28 2021