077: Pricing Yourself for Profitability with Mike Morby, Part 2

Episodes The Bearded Tog

March 13, 2019

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.

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 1 if you haven’t already!

Tips from Mike on Pricing Yourself for Profitability

There’s a lot more than just this basic formula when it comes to pricing yourself for profitability, but do this first. Figure out how much you want to make, and how much it costs to run your business. Once you do that, divide by the number of weddings you want to shoot.
Keep in mind, there’s several other factors when it comes to how much you make. Costs of albums, business costs, etc. are harder to consider when running this simple cost of business. It helps to have data from past years to look at.
Once you figure out that basic number, you know what you should charge as a base for your packages.
Keeping good numbers year over year is very important! This will help you improve every year.
You should have 1-4 packages for your clients to choose from. Over 5 will overwhelm them and distract them. People make emotional decisions on what to spend on their weddings, you don’t want to bring their focus to numbers and practicality. Also, you are not a diner! You don’t need 10 packages for people to choose from! Keep it simple.
Make each package really desirable. Think about cutting back and only focusing on what’s important. Build value in albums, and anything else you offer. If you don’t believe in what you sell, why should your client?