From over 10 years of coaching experience, I have found that creatives, artists and wedding photographers alike underestimate their business expenses and feel guilty, not worthy or talented enough to charge sustainably. They often choose to break even, or even worse, lose money, instead of finding the confidence to charge what they need to sustain. They are unsure of how to price their wedding photography packages to make a sustainable income.
I want to create change in the wedding photography industry. I want you to succeed and learn how to run a sustainable business.
In order to run sustainable businesses, you have to believe you are worth it. My hope is to give you the information to help you start believing you are worth it. By relaying that worth to the world, you will have it mirrored back at you.
When I first decided to quit my job and go full time, a few of my friends and family expressed concern. “You’re giving up health insurance, benefits, and paycheck security,“ “Everyone is a photographer these days,” “What are you going to do in the winter months when there are no weddings?”
I found myself wondering,
WAS I SURE THAT I COULD MAKE THIS WORK? OR WAS THIS A HUGE MISTAKE?
I didn’t know many other self-employed artists at the time. And all of the wedding photographers I admired locally seemed to be photographing 30-40 weddings per year and shooting what seemed like 30-40 “other” portrait sessions per year. I decided if they could do it, so could I! I jumped in head first and started photographing weddings and saying yes to any portrait work that came my way. My first year in business I lost over $5,000 with the cost of expenses! I knew there would be an initial investment, so I didn’t give up just yet and I decided to learn pricing strategies to help raise us to a sustainable level.
Before I knew it, my husband had quit his job too. We found ourselves photographing 39 weddings and countless portrait sessions to keep our business afloat. Soon, we crossed the $150,000K mark in revenue but it wasn’t without giving up A LOT of other things in our life, (and not to mention, our business expenses were through the roof that year!).
We eventually hit burn out and we decided there had to be another way to make this work. We decided to put on blinders to what others in the industry were doing, asked ourselves, “What did we want to create for ourselves?”, and eventually found a way that worked for us to create a sustainable business that also aligned with our values.
I also learned how important it is to honor the artist in you and work from a place of love and passion, but also KNOW, that if you continue to not be compensated in some way for what you are providing to this world, you will eventually burn out. That is why this pricing course for wedding photographers is so important.
The bottom line is…