[00:00:00] There's one reason someone pays for your creative services, r O I, or Return on investment. In this podcast episode, I'm teaching you how to increase your return on investment when working with clients. I'll teach you why some photographers can land a lot of clients while others struggle to land. Just one clients need to be able to make their money back, and then some with your photos or videos, or they'll regret working with you and you won't get any referrals, any case studies, any testimonials, and retain your clients won't happen.
The biggest mistake creatives make when pitching their services is pitching the actual photos and videos instead of pitching the dream outcome. Welcome to the Creative Biz Launch Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your creative business and scale to six figures. Whether you're a photographer, filmmaker, or designer, you'll find something of value here.
Clients don't care how pretty your pictures are or how awesome your video is, or how sick the lighting is in a scene. They care about how that image or video is going to convert and the ROI of working. This is especially [00:01:00] true for product photography clients. When you're working with the brands, they wanna pay you part of their budget and then make all of that back and then some.
So why does it seem that some photographers can land clients easily while others struggle to land? Just one or two. It all comes down to. When a potential proc photography client is looking at a photographer or a photographer, they're looking at it in terms of roi. How do they know they'll get their money back, and then some if they choose to go with one photographer over the other, I'll teach you exactly how to pitch your service in a way that will ensure you have a high ROI with clients.
But before we do that, let's take a look at where I started and the mistakes I made so that you can avoid. When I was figuring it all out back in 20 16, 20 17, 20 18, I was having a lot of fun learning the ropes of photography. I picked up a camera for a trip to Japan. I just fell in love with the process of photography.
Photography combined the right amount of technical knowledge and creativity that I was missing for my life during those [00:02:00] years. I would go out and photograph the Chicago skyline and the streets of Chicago every single weekend. I would learn more and more about photography, and my images would look better and better every time I went out.
I was in love with this hobby. Then around 2019 I wanted a change of pace in my career. I was working at a corporate job and quite frankly, it was the only part of my life that I was not satisfied with. I love the idea of working for myself. Entrepreneurship was calling me. I was watching videos from Casey Ni Stat Gary V, and reading La Tim Ferris at the time I wanted to give starting my own business.
I was good photography, so I figured that was the best option to start a business. So in October of 2019, I decided that I'm gonna make this work. Others have done it, so why can't I? Right. During the next six months, I was waking up early in the morning before my nine to five. I was working during my lunch break, and I was putting in the hours after the workday ended so I could launch my photography business.
The more research I did, the more I realized that the niche photography I was [00:03:00] in wasn't going to make me any money. I was doing cityscapes and street photography. This had a really low roi.
If I wanted to pursue this niche, I'd have to do it for years and years and years before someone hired me. When you think of city scapes and street photography and landscapes, what is the return of investment for this? What's the return investment when someone hires me for this kind of thing? Well, not much.
The work I did was good. My photos got a off praise on social media and for my friends and family. But what value do they provide other than looking really. Pretty pictures are nice to look at, but unless you're at the top tier doing galleries, there's not much money in it. And yeah, I tried selling prints and I did sell the occasional print here and there, but that was maybe a few hundred bucks a month.
Nowhere near enough to live off of. . I knew this wasn't it, but I wasn't gonna give up making this work. I was stubborn. I looked up all the ways people made money in photography. There were headshot and that was looked appealing. There was some [00:04:00] ROI in that if people used the headshots to land a job or to land themselves a date, there was real estate and I was already good city scape.
So real estate seemed decent, but I found that people charge close to nothing for a lot of these shoots. And realtors didn't always have a big budget.
Nice stumbles across product photography. I've never shot in a studio saying before, but I figured I'd give it a shot if I could learn cityscape photography. I could learn how to use lights and set my own scenes inside of a studio. I dive deep into learning everything about this niche. Best of all, I realized that in product photography, the photos are directly tied to the sales of the products themselves, meaning that when companies use my photos, they generate revenue.
That was where a light bulb went off in my head, and I knew this was a niche I wanted to. Profit photography is great because when a brand hires you, they're hiring you with the end goal of profiting off your photos.
If you can convince the brand that your photos will make them money, then they're gonna wanna work with you. There is going to be an ROI with [00:05:00] their investment and you, let's say a coffee company is launching a new product, some canned cold brew. Well, the assets they used to launch will either make or break that product if they invest a couple thousand in your work.
And your work is really good. Well, they will be able to sell out of their initial launch and maybe make back two or 10 times their investment. That's a high ROI that makes convincing brands to work with you that much easier. Same thing goes if a company wants to run Facebook ads or Instagram ads, they can run those ads with a terrible photo or video, and that ad probably won't convert that.
But if they spend the extra few thousand on your services and that ad goes from being a flop to driving traffic and sales to their store, well that sounds like a high roi to me. That makes convincing them to work with you like a no brainer for them. Now, these are just a couple of examples here, but you can start to see how companies see ROI.
By spending money with you, they're guaranteed to make some of their investment back or even all of their investment back or even profit [00:06:00] on their investment. If they can profit on their investment with you, then that's gonna be an easy sell for you. Now, this isn't true for all genres of photography. But by thinking in terms of roi, you'll be able to better find your niche and design a better offer around your services.
Once you begin to realize what ROI is, and once you know that your services have a positive roi, then that's what you pitch. You always wanna pitch the dream outcome of the client, which is a positive ROI in their investment. And the actual results I'll get from working with you, what sounds better from the client's perspective?
I'll take super creative photos of your coffee or how. My photos will drive sales for your company while raising awareness. Now, in both cases, the photographers may have the same photos, but the way they present their services will help one gain clients and one stay stagnant. I don't know about you, but if I were to spend a couple grand on photos, I'd like to know that I'd get my investment back.
Now, I just went through the ROI of product photography and that's pretty clear. [00:07:00] I take good photos of your product and that leads to more. A positive ROI isn't just linked to Prague photography, though. Let's look at headshots. Actors need good headshots. People looking for jobs need good headshots. When actors are trying to land a gig, the decision makers are looking at those headshots and making choices.
And who they want to try out. The difference between a low end photo and a professional headshot can be huge here if you charge 500 bucks a headshot, but that headshot can lead the actor to landing a thousand dollars gig while you've demonstrated that there is a positive ROI with your headshot. Now, I know it's more complicated than just a photo that lands these gigs, but having a terrible photo means the actor won't be even considered for the.
How about head shots for dating profiles? If you can make people look good, they're gonna land more dates. Now, this isn't a financial ROI unless you're after a sugar mom or a sugar daddy, but the ROI is that person finding happiness. Now, I've had clients use my photos for all kinds of things. They've used them for raising money during investment [00:08:00] rounds.
My photos were instrumental in them pitching themselves to investors and actually getting. I've had clients print my photos as big as a wall and use 'em in their booths at conferences to attract new customers. There are a lot of ways that your creative assets can help people and companies.
Money isn't everything you need it to live. And if people only cared about money, they wouldn't go pay wedding photographers, school portrait photographers or engagement photographers. Why is the ROI of a smile? It's really priceless having photos of your loved ones. Photos of your pets and photos of your kids growing up are all things you can't really go and look at the ROI of.
People are always going to pay for this kind of stuff when you're capturing an engagement shoot. The couple paying for that shoot isn't concerned about what their return on investment is gonna be financially. They just want that special moment captured so they can have it for the rest of their lives.
Pricing, this kind of photography is much harder and it's pretty competitive out there. This kind of pricing is a balance. What you value your work at and what people are willing to pay for it. You [00:09:00] can't throw around ROI in this kind of situation. That does mean that you probably won't be able to charge as much as someone in a niche that has a clear roi unless you're a super high-end photographer in the wedding niche or engagement niche.
Your income is limited, but if you're a product photographer that can clearly demonstrate your value for brands and the results that you bring for an ad campaign, then you'll be able to make a lot of money. But like I said, the happiness of your photos you provide for those other people will be priceless.
Remember when I talked about the dream outcome earlier? Let's keep that in. As an engagement photographer, don't say you'll take pretty pictures. Instead, say you'll take photos that the couple can look back on in 10, 20, 30 years and remember that special day in their lives. You're being hired to capture priceless memories.
Knowing all this, go and analyze your niche. If you're in proc photography, what ROI do you offer? If you're in wedding photographer, what are you pitching? Start with a dream outcome in mind. Don't pitch pretty pictures and don't [00:10:00] pitch awesome photos or videos. Pitch the dream outcome of your client. If you ignore all us in this video, just do this one thing and you'll see some results.
My name is Chris Pieta. This is the Creative Piss Launch Podcast. If you have an extra 10 seconds, please rate the show. It really helps spread the message to more and more people. Other than that, I will see you next time.
