Pricing isn’t the issue when it comes to you being ghosted or getting crickets in your bookings, and it’s not your issue for why you have an empty calendar, this is…

Buckle up, because we’re going there.

Time and time again, my students come to me with how they have been getting ghosted, how they’ve had X amount of leads, but none of them are converting into bookings. (This usually happens when people first join the blueprint because they haven’t had time to really implement everything yet, it’s typically the first obstacle that we try to overcome)

Pricing isn’t the issue, this is…

So, I always asked for the screenshot. I want to know what you sent them. Take me through the process, pretend I’m your client and take me through the process. From there, I will just do a little audit of what happened.

There are multiple things other than pricing (pricing matters, it absolutely does).

Side note: We’re gonna have a ton more episodes about pricing, probably for the lifetime of this podcast. It is something that there’s 100 different angles to come at, 100 different ways that you could teach pricing, 1000 different mindset issues tied to pricing.

For now, let’s say that your pricing is exactly where it’s supposed to be. It’s set to your market and your cost of doing business, you feel good about it, and you know that people will pay that. Awesome, you’ve got solid pricing.

Getting people to understand the value

A lot of times, the problem is that people are not understanding the value. If they are having sticker shock, it’s because we’re not doing a good enough job talking about the value. I will tell you right now, is 100% usually never about the money; 99% (there’s 1% where I feel like I would give an excuse and it would come down to the fact that I just don’t have the money in my bank account). I also know how to save up for something that I really want, and I would never communicate to the person I want to hire that I can’t afford it I literally would make a way to make it happen.

Knowing that it’s our responsibility to tell this person without saying it directly that we are their best option, and we are exactly what they’re looking for. Also understand, every person that reaches out to you to work with you, is not meant to be your “yes”, you’re not failing just because people are saying no or are ghosting. At some point what we can do is get better about converting our leads into actual bookings and clients. That is one thing that we really work hard on in the blueprint program is figuring out how to do that.

Pricing isn’t the issue, you’re missing this…

First up, I want you to assess what you’re doing. There are little tweaks you can make to where it will go so much further. I want to encourage you not to send someone a long novel; don’t copy and paste all of your information and send it over to somebody who’s asking for your pricing.

Number one: it is overwhelming to see that amount of text.

Number two: you’re doing a terrible job of actually allowing your client into the experience; you’re not allowing your client to see themselves visually in what you’re explaining. Which is why I recommend having an investment guide.

An investment guide (services guide, pricing guide, etc.)

And investment guide works because it does all of the things that clients are looking for. Clients need to see your work. They need to know and recognize your style, they need to know what your posing looks like, they need to know what your editing looks like, and they need to get a sense of, “if I book her, I can expect bold, colorful, bright images”.

Client Testimonials

Your clients also need to know that you do what you say you’re going to do, which is client testimonials. There should be at least one other person that can vouch for your experience. Inside my guide templates, we have three to nine spots where you can put different client testimonials, it depends on which guide you download.

You want to have that validation, you need a third party saying that you are the best out there.

You have an opportunity for them to visually see your package options, where you could put a description about what that package is meant for, who it’s meant for, what they can expect, what kind of pictures they can get, how they’re going to get those images, are their prints and products involved, etc.

It answers a lot of their questions, but it does it in a beautiful, easy to read, easy to digest, easy to visualize way.

If you’re copying and pasting your pricing, or you’re only talking back and forth through texting, or spelling things out, tweak number one is: stop doing that. Create your investment guide to send to your leads.

Let’s say you’re sending them your investment guide, but you decided to design it yourself instead of purchasing a template & you’re it’s not consistent throughout with font, font size, images, types of sessions, editing, etc. You’re causing confusion for your potential client.

The last thing we want is a confused lead.

Take a look at your investment guide, and ask yourself, did all of the images I use show a consistent editing style? Every package you offer needs to have a separate page. It needs to read easy. It needs to be simple.

Pricing isn’t the issue, it’s this…

It’s the way you’re presenting your information, the way you’re showing the value.

Want to go more in depth about all things pricing & client experience? Tune into the Book More Client Photography Podcast.