076: Pricing Yourself for Profitability with Mike Morby, Part 1

Episodes The Bearded Tog

March 13, 2019

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Pricing Yourself for Profitability with Mike Morby

The number 1 thing small businesses wonder, especially photographers when they’re first starting out is “what do I charge?” and most of the time they get there through guessing. How do you go about pricing yourself for profitability?

With Mike Morby of Morby Photography, it’s about more than guessing. It’s about being able to be confident, knowing your worth, and being able to spend time with your family. In this episode, we discuss the proper way to determine your fixed and variable costs, as well as pricing yourself to clients.

Be sure to listen to Part 2 as well!

Tips from Mike on Pricing Yourself for Profitability

Pricing and profitability can be the chicken or the egg scenario, so you should start with what your expenses are and what you need to make.
What do you need to live on? What does it take to run your business?
Consider your fixed expenses, which are the expenses that don’t change whether you shoot 1 wedding or 100 weddings. A good example of this is business insurance.
When you’re just starting out, just shoot rather than worrying about what to charge. You need the experience! Shoot weddings for free, and charge the couple for gear rental or just something like $500. This will give you the experience you need to charge what you want in the long term.
You don’t fully have to price yourself based on your market! You want to make sure you aren’t ridiculously over or undervaluing yourself, but your pricing should be based on your expenses and profit goals rather than what other people are charging.
In the beginning especially, you need to work very hard to build your business. Down the road, you can set boundaries and live the lifestyle you want to live, but you need to put in work to get there.
Focus on getting great at one thing, rather than trying to be good at a lot of things.
The most important tip Mike shares is figuring out how much you need to make and how much you’ll have to work to get there. Start there, and you’ll be set up for success in your business and pricing yourself for profitability!