[00:00:00] Real quick. Do you remember how you found this podcast? Maybe it was a tweet, maybe a friend sent it to you, or maybe you saw it on Instagram story. This podcast only grows through word of mouth. I don't run ads. I don't have sponsorships, so I don't make any money off of this episode. So my ask of you is to please pass this on to another creative out there.
A podcast review, a post on your story, a mention to a friend. It would mean a lot to me and it might help another entrepreneur out there. Thank you. The first money I ever made from photography was 20. And my biggest projects were well into the five figure range. How did I go from 20 bucks to five figures?
Now I've helped a lot of freelancers with their photography pricing. And I've noticed three big mistakes that most people end up making. Now these aren't obvious mistakes at first. And I've also made these mistakes in the past myself. There are three key things you need to be doing in order to be able to make the most from your freelance business.
If you're making these mistakes, this video will teach you, sorry, this podcast will teach you how to shift your [00:01:00] pricing so you can double or triple what you're currently making. Welcome to the Creative Biz Launch Podcast, where we talk about how to grow your creative business and scale it to six figures.
Whether you're a photographer, filmmaker, or designer, you'll find something of value here. Now, if making two to three times of what you're currently making sounds too good to be true, this Let me tell you, I'm living proof that this is possible now that 20 bucks was for my first gig. But soon after that, I was starting out charging 500 bucks for most projects.
And now every project is between two and 5, 000 on average. By the way, if you're new here, my name is Chris Pieta. I run a production company and teach creative business online. All right, let's get into it. Right off the bat, this is a big mistake that I see Pricing hourly. Pricing hourly is the wrong way to go about it.
The reason is that your time will be directly tied to how much you can make. If you charge a hundred bucks an hour and a typical project takes you 10 hours. You'll make a thousand bucks, right? On the surface, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this. If I charge a thousand bucks a project or a [00:02:00] hundred bucks an hour, it's all going to even out at the end, right?
Well, not exactly. Like anything in life, the more you do something, the better you'll get at it and the more efficient you'll get too. By charging hourly, your time will be directly tied to how much you can make. Let's look at two photographers. Photographer A charges a hundred bucks an hour. A photography shoot takes him 10 hours from creative direction to getting the final edits to the client.
At the start, as a beginner, he's making a thousand bucks each project. Photographer B doesn't have an hourly rate. Instead, he tells clients he charges a thousand bucks a project. Like photographer A, he's making a thousand bucks each project. But over time, both of these photographers are getting better.
Photographer A is getting more efficient at how he works. So a few months down the road. His project's only taken five hours. He's only making 500 bucks a project now. Photographer B also has gotten better and his project's also taken five hours. But he's still pulling in a thousand bucks for the same project.
And unlike Photographer [00:03:00] A that charges hourly, Photographer B isn't getting punished for getting better because he's gotten better. Over time, he's able to make more money. In fact, twice as much as photographer a, I can say that photographer a should just raise his rates, but how are his clients going to feel when he keeps doubling his rates on them?
You can explain that his process is better now and he's improving. So he has to charge for that, but then he's at serious risk of losing that client. Photographer B doesn't have that same risk.
Most clients don't care how you get the final assets to them. They just want results. They're not paying you for the process. They care about results. You can hopefully start to see why charging hourly is a mistake here.
Charging hourly also starts to get a little messy when you start scaling your company. We start hiring contractors to work for you. You'll be easily able to distribute funds to them. If you charge per project. If you know that contractor you have charges a hundred bucks per ten edited photos and you charge a thousand bucks to the client for that project, you know that you're going to [00:04:00] have nine hundred bucks in profit here.
Writing the numbers this way becomes super easy. But when charging hourly, these numbers are going to get messy fast. When scaling, it's important to keep things as simple as possible. So you can focus on the client experience and not the messy details under the hood. So in summary here, charge per project, not hourly.
If you're confused on how to build out a project for a client, go listen to my previous episodes, talking about offer creation a few episodes ago. And you, if you want a really big, deep dive into this topic, I've got a free 60 minute workshop that's linked in the show notes down below. Check that out.
Okay. Now mistake number two mistake. Number two is selling individual deliverables. At this point, I hope that you're thinking of how to switch over to pricing per package rather hourly. You might also be thinking that you can just charge per deliverable and set up per package though. Right. If you charge a hundred bucks an hour before.
Why not try a hundred bucks a photo while this train of thought is really good. It could be slightly better mistake. Number two is selling individual deliverables [00:05:00] instead of higher ticket packages. And I used to make this mistake for years when I was starting out,
I used to price my product photos around a hundred bucks each. And I thought that if I gave the client the option of how many photos they wanted. It would lead to a better customer experience. After all, if they have the power to choose, they could fill their needs perfectly. The problem is the client doesn't always know their needs.
A lot of the time they're going to ask you what you recommend because you're the expert. You've worked with dozens of clients before, so you know what most people want. When I was giving clients the option to choose, I would always pre fill the proposal with 15 photos and tell them they can select whatever number they want.
What I noticed was that 90 percent of the time, the client didn't adjust that number from 15 photos. They just signed the proposal. And this got me thinking, maybe most clients don't know what they need. This made me realize that I should start selling higher packages to clients. That's higher ticket packages, larger packages.
By selling larger packages, you're going to be able to make a lot more money per client. You can offer [00:06:00] two different types of packages. Maybe one has 10 photos, one has 25 photos. One costs 2 grand, the other costs 5 grand, right? And by having types of packages like this, this means you'll be able to help clients more and more.
You'll have the resources to use better equipment because they're higher ticket. You'll have the resources to hire people to help you on. And the best part, these high ticket clients are usually super easy to work with because you charge a lot upfront. They assume you're the expert, which you are, and they won't feel compelled to micromanage you.
They'll be a dream to work with. I'll tell you right now that I won't sell as many clients as before since I switched to the high ticket packaging model, but if I charge appropriately, I've been able to make the same or more money by having fewer clients. This is the beauty of selling higher ticket packages.
You charge more, you have less clients, but you're able to make more money because of how much more you're charging. And the clients that you do work with are super easy to work with and make everything a breeze here.
So mistake number two, [00:07:00] selling individual deliverables, stop selling deliverables and start selling high ticket packages. Okay. Mistake number three, it's being firm on your price. So you've switched to hourly pricing. Sorry. You've switched from hourly pricing to package pricing. And now, and now your packages cost a thousand bucks.
Let's say you're on the phone with a client and they really want to work with you, but your pricing is just a little bit too high for them. Do you stick with that price? Because that's what you're worth and you won't work for anything less. Or do you actually engage in their negotiation and find a way to make this work so that both people are happy?
Well, you're a business and just like any other business, negotiating is part of the game, especially when you're dealing with higher ticket packages like Discussed.
Now there are a few ways to negotiate without selling yourself short, and my favorite way is to pitch a retainer instead of a single package. When a client asks you for a discount on a photo package, you can try saying, we don't offer discounts on individual packages, but we can offer 10 percent off a six month retainer.
Sound fair? Now, yes, you're offering a discount [00:08:00] off what you normally charge, but you're getting that client's business for a longer period of time. And in my opinion, a discount like that is always worth it because it saves you from dealing with extra client acquisition work. One client like this can add up to six smaller clients really fast.
Now, retainers don't need to be complicated. You can just take your package and then offer those assets on a monthly basis, just as smaller discount here, right?
Now, if the client doesn't want this retainer, what do you do? Well, there's really three options. Option one, instead of giving them a discount, say that you'll throw in a free extra asset or two or three. Into the project. So if they ask for 500 bucks off, maybe counter saying that you can't discount, but you can throw an extra four photos.
This helps drive up the value of the package you're trying to sell. Option two, agree to the discount, but also say you need to take off assets from the project scope. You can say you're happy to discount 500 bucks, but the scope and timeline will need to change to reflect the new budget. A lot of the time, clients will backtrack and meet you closer to your number because all [00:09:00] they want is the 10 assets they initially agreed to.
And option 3, and a lot of you won't like this, but it's to give them the discount. But only do this if you actually need the client, or you're really excited to work with them, or you're just starting out. If they ask for 500 bucks off, counters saying you can do 250 off. At least try and negotiate a little bit here.
But in my opinion, having a client is usually better than having no client. And you never know where this opportunity might lead. That's all I got today. If you got any value from this, please give a show a rating. It really helps me out and helps another creative entrepreneur get their business off the ground.
Thank you.
