Stay Out of the Shallow End!

Comments to previous posts were 100% updated as of 10:37 ET this morning

Did you read the Featured Comments from yesterday? There's a lot there.

I didn't mean to get on to the topic of day rates and reminiscing about professional work in Washington D.C. in the 1990s, but that's how it goes on a blog—something gets mentioned, questions get asked, and off we go.

And it's interesting. "So, OK" as David Vestal used to say.

First thing to point out is that Kirk, and pro-photographer readers such as John Gillooly, know far more than I do about the business side of professional photography, and have far more real-world experience. So believe John and Kirk and others like them (and Kirk's book) over me. I'm just talking to people and reporting back, is all.

...And drawing on limited experience. I worked with three other photographers in the Paul Kennedy studio in the late '80s and early '90s. Paul is now retired from a career in graphic arts, teaching, and professional photography. But here's a thought that occurred to me during a lively conversation with Paul yesterday. If you are working (and charging) at the lower end of any market, you might have more business problems, more trouble getting work, and more arguments with clients—not fewer.

One minor case in point, just as an illustration. When I was Editor of Photo Techniques magazine (the title Darkroom & Creative Camera Techniques gently simplified into), Ilford, the film and paper manufacturer then in Mobberly, Cheshire,  advertised in most issues. And we never had the least little problem with them. They'd buy a full page, pay full weight ($3,000 I believe), and had only one request: they didn't want their ad to appear near any article that mentioned their products, to avoid any appearance of quid pro quo.

Then there was the guy who manufactured a little darkroom widgey in his garage. He sold them for $15 or so. He bought the smallest classified ad every month, for something like $60. Well, the ad department had to give him all sorts of attention! He wanted to know where his ad would appear, which other ads it was going to be near, what it would look like, whether it could be redesigned at the last minute, whether he could get a discount for this or that reason, on and on. He thought we should send him a proof of the finished page, rather difficult because the classifieds were seldom settled until right before the issue went to the printer. Our ad salesman had to do ten times as much hand-holding for that $60 guy as he did for Ilford.

One more little data point. Personally, over the years, I've had the most trouble with portrait clients I was working for for free! Not all free clients are troublesome, I don't mean that. But all the most troublesome ones were people I wasn't charging.

My experience, just as an observer, is that most people who are willing to pay a lot of money for something just want to be assured of a high-quality product and a high-quality experience. They want to know the person they're hiring knows exactly what they're doing and will take care of everything. They don't want to haggle and bitch and nag and worry and complain. It's the people who are trying to get the cheapest possible deal who will do all that!

I'd be interested to know your thoughts about that. If it's true, though, then beware what part of the market you're targeting or placing yourself in. People think the shallow end of the pool is safer and more of a sure thing. Often, people think they'll have fewer problems marketing and fewer problems with customers at the cheaper end of the spectrum, but that's exactly where most of the problems reside. The deep end is better to swim in.

I'll have one more post about this topic—I heard from another old friend from those vanished days in D.C., Bruce Katz, and he had a lot of interesting things to say.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Nicholas Hartmann: "My experience over 40 years as an independent information services provider (= translator specializing in German patents) closely resembles that of other commenters: at the top end, the clients who understand and require the highest quality don't care what you charge. What they do want is to work with someone as expert and professional as they are, in every way. They have no tolerance for sloppy work, stupid mistakes, blown deadlines, or excuses. So yes, getting out to the deep end with the big kids can be very rewarding.

"Only thing is, you need to be a very good swimmer; if you're not, go find a different pool."

Kirk: "Good Old Adages about business:

"20% of customers make 80% of the problems. (If you are good at qualifying your customers it can be more like 90:10).

"You don't become successful from the clients you gain; success comes from the clients you fire. I routinely fired problem clients. The fewer bad clients the fewer headaches and the more room on the schedule for better clients. The belief that leads to most art business failures is: The deck is stacked against you/the clients have all the power. Not true. If you are good at what you do you'll find the clients need you at least as much as you need them.

"The other imperative for a healthy business is that you have to raise your rates every year. Have to. Get your clients used to it each year instead of trying to spring big changes on them every five years.

"Never charge by the hour. Always charge by the job. 'You don't get paid for the hour; you get paid for the value you bring to the hour.' If you get faster, more efficient and better every year but you keep charging by the hour you'll make less and less money every year. That's why it's important to bill based on the value of the job.

"It's okay to itemize on a bid. It's silly to itemize on an invoice. Line items give overly picky customers something to argue about...('but we didn't eat all the grapes, so why do we have to pay for the whole bag...').

"Just a few things that my successful peers taught me."

Jayanand Govindaraj: "I agree with your premise 100% from my experience of running my own business for 20+ years. The biggest advantage of being at the top of the range as far as rates are concerned, in any business, is that you would require far less assignments to break even, and, indeed, to earn a good living. The second advantage is a reduction in the number of egoistic and demanding clients to handle. The flip side is that to achieve this, service quality has to be meticulous, professional and top notch. I have generally observed that this is beyond the reach of many self-employed professionals, for whatever reason."

JOHN B GILLOOLY: "One of the important distinctions that I notice as I read through the comments. My personal philosophy is that I am not interested in assignments or one-off jobs. I am interested in clients that I will work with steadily for years and decades. And these are almost exclusively commercial clients where I am dealing with professionals. Business to business relationships. When you are negotiating with a one-off client, you do need to be very vigilant - contract, deposit, very specific deliverables, etc. New clients require a decent amount of work to onboard in terms of photographic workflow and banking. If it doesn't really have potential to grow into a steady client, I am not very interested."

Kirk: "John Gillooly is absolutely correct! Long-term clients are the goal. The five projects I've done since the beginning of May are all for clients we've worked with for ten, fifteen or twenty years. Large law firms, medical practices and technology companies. One of the firms has been a client for over 30 years. You build trust. And consistency. And the repeat business means financial stability. They are much more interested in the end products than they are concerned about price. They are paying better for not having to worry about each job. We know what they want and they know how to ask for it. The relationship is good for both. Less and less friction of trade makes the work much more profitable. It's why we've consistently steered away from the retail photography sector (consumer portraits, weddings, etc.) where each client requires a lot of education and handholding while having far, far, far smaller budgets. Work for the people who can write big checks. A lesson I learned working at an advertising agency...."

Comments

[G Dan Mitchell]

Your point about what serious clients, "people who are wiliing to pay a lot of money for something," matches my (somewhat limited) experience.

I've gone back and forth occasionally with some person who wanted to buy a modest sized print for a few hundred dollars. "Are your prints sharp enough?" "Are you prints as good as those by photographer X?" "What sharpening settings do you use?" "How many MP is your camera?" My "favorite" of these (fortunately rare) clients was one who went through all of this, ordered what was a perfectly fine print, then wrote back to tell me that it "wasn't sharp enough" and he wanted his money back. (I refunded him, of course, and asked that he simply cut up the print.)

On the other hand, I've dealt with serious clients who were purchasing large numbers (scores" or prints of hotel installations, restaurants, architectural offices, hospitals, or who wanted to license an image for use in publications. My impression almost universally has been that they were willing to pay a fair price for work that met there standards and needs and worked for their project... without any drama.

[Steve Rosenblum]

Regarding fees and customer behavior: During the last 10 years of my medical career I inadvertently became a part time consultant in the areas of healthcare IT and healthcare quality improvement. Some people I had worked with years before knew I had some knowledge and experience and asked for my help with a few things and one thing led to another. At first, I wasn't sure what to charge as my hourly rate so I picked a number that seemed like a pretty generous salary to me. I ran it by a friend who had been in the industry for years and at that point was a CEO who both hired consultants and served as one himself, and he said, "Oh no. You are undercharging. Triple that amount." I was kind of shocked by that number and questioned it, but he said, "If you charge them more they will believe you are more capable to be able to charge that much, they will want to hire you more and put more importance on what you recommend. Besides, you are worth it!". I still was reticent to ask for that much, but I did raise my fee substantially, and it turned out he was right. The organizations that wanted my help didn't bat an eye at the fee and clearly thought it signaled I provided a higher quality "product" which is what they wanted and expected. Of course, I had to deliver on that perception, but, it turns out that perception and expectations affect these sorts of transactions a great deal.

[Mike Chisholm]

Selling prints as an amateur is a very different thing from being a professional, obviously, but I've had much the same "shallow end" experience. A few years ago I got two prints into the Royal Academy Summer Show, which, to my amazement, sold out their editions of 50 instantly. There was even a waiting list for cancellations! So this couple, having seen the picture they wanted was already sold out, asked me for a "proof" print, on the grounds that these were what they really collected. I explained the difficulty of this concept in the digital context, but said I'd see what I could do. Although I was slightly bemused when they said they would usually expect a proof print to be much cheaper than one from the edition. Um, no...

By the end of that busy summer I had forgotten all about it, but then they contacted me again. Again, I explained that I had no "proof prints" as such, but would sell them a copy of an edition I had made (identical, but smaller) for "friends and family" at the much cheaper price of £50. I attached an image of the print to the email as a reminder. They agreed to buy it. Only to send it straight back for a full refund because they were "disappointed" with it. The only people to do so out of 100 buyers, and this after people had made bids between £300-400 for two cancellations I had offered to people on the waiting list.

Of course, the real difference between me and a pro is that this success has yet to repeat itself. Thankfully: mailing out and collecting payments for 100 prints was far too much like being at work...

Mike

[William Lewis]

It's been interesting to read these stories of a pro life. Back in 1982 I joined the Army and became a tanker, went to Germany and there bought an AE-1 & a 50/1.8 at the PX because that was the best I could afford on a private's pay. It and the darkroom on base taught me the basics.

I've lived my life while being an amateur photographer and getting, I think, pretty darn good at landscape photography over the years.

Every so often, though, I second guess myself and think:
What if I'd signed up as a Photographic Specialist for 4 years? I could have still gone to Germany, gotten a $2,000 to 4,000 enlistment bonus (A very nice Nikon F3HP, 28/2, 50/1.4 & 105/2.5 instead of workhorse Canon) and probably gotten a job as professional news photographer out of the army for a paper or even AP.

Would I have been any happier? Hard to say. I might not be divorced - or at least not from the same woman! And I'd regret not having the son I adopted from Vietnam along the way.

And perhaps most importantly, I'd have probably never come to learn and love the art of the land, the trees, the barns and skies of Wisconsin that inform my photography now. I think, in the end, that was probably the correct choice for me.

[Robert Roaldi]

I know nothing about running a photography business, not what I did for a living. But I used to read the wedding section of "photo.net' years ago for entertainment and remember wondering why anyone would put themselves through that misery. I'm sure that's unfair though, it's probably simply the case that people only wrote about the most egregious stories.

[Alan]

People are more likely to complain and become irritated far more at a fast food establishment then at a mid to higher level restaurant. I believe for the same reasons you noted in the article.
It seems counter intuitive but it's true.

[Christer Almqvist]

I am not a professional, but still I am glad to learn that I am not alone (Personally, over the years, I've had the most trouble with portrait clients I was working for for free!").

Well it has been the other way too, like this guy

https://www.calm57.net/piotr

whom I only met briefly, but who wrote back to tell me he got a job because the job application picture appealed to the new employer.

I have generally stopped offering prints for time to people I would like to portrait. I pay cash. I call the shots.

[Joseph Kashi]

Private law practice works in much the same manner as Mike describes and Kirk is certainly correct about the importance of screening out bad clients. Unreasonable and/or overly demanding clients keep one up at night and too often cause personal, financial, and professional problems. It's so much better to deal with reasonable people.

[Hugh Lovell]

Please forgive the "me too-ism" but I want to reiterate the importance of charging proper fees for your services. Many years ago I was friends with "Mike", an older man who had emigrated to the the US with his mother to escape Nazi Germany. He'd had a lot of jobs over the years (oh, so many stories), but when I met him he was (amongst other things) an expert witness in everything railways and rolling stock. He told he always charged a very high fee for court appearances because the fee reflected the value of his time and testimony. That stuck with me as I navigated a period of unemployment and self-employment. I believe it's as true today as it was some twenty years ago when I heard Mike's advice. Charge your true worth, and fire the lousy clients!

[JOHN B GILLOOLY]

I've always enjoyed Kirk's content, advice and opinions and followed his blog for years. I was on the New England Board of ASMP early in my career and much of what he says mirrors the ASMP philosophy.

But to be honest I always had a certain disconnect with the ASMP in certain ways. I think a large part of that was that my work and client base doesn't really fit into the editorial or advertising markets and I think those were the sweetspots.

At ASMP, there was always a badge of honor to "saying no" and I think people less skilled and business savvy than Kirk sort of swallowed that kool-aid blindly - to their own detriment.

My initial starting point is that the answer is always YES, but everything comes with a cost.

My career got a huge kickstart in the late 1990's when I had a meeting with a large footwear brand about photographing their "community service and social justice work." These were events with employees doing various forms of community service. That client quickly turned into a $60,000-80,000 per year steady revenue source (for about a decade) that also spread into other work.

About a year into the work, I was at an ASMP meeting and was chatting with a fellow photographer who let me know that she was offered that work but flat-out refused to grant "unlimited usage." It was a non-starter. That photographer was struggling to earn $30,000 per year as a freelancer for the Boston Globe and involved in a lawsuit where the Globe was forcing stringers to give away their rights.

I was young. My expenses were low. The reality is that there really was no "usage" to be concerned with. So I said I would charge my usual day rate, then add an additional 60% for the unlimited usage. So if I was charging $1,000 per day, there was another line item for $600 for usage. And in those days you were making money on film, processing and contact sheets as well. Maybe I was earning $2,000 per day.

That may have been low for some people at that time. Not for me. Not for a newspaper photographer. Probably not for an event photographer. That was a huge account for me for the first ten years of my business. The answer is yes, but everything has to have a cost attached to it.

I don't doubt that Kirk's message is probably the best advice for most people. I agree with almost everything he says, once I interpret it to my market and my language. Not rules but more of a fundamental way of thinking about monetizing your work and protecting your time.

[Gary Nylander]

I can't say with any accuracy that anyone who has hired me for higher pay has been less easy to work with than someone wanting to pay less. I think it all depends on the characteristics of the person I'm dealing with, some people are easy to deal with others are not so easy to deal with. It doesn't seem to matter if they are paying more or less because they often don't control the purse strings anyway unless I'm dealing with a private individual. So far I have found that everyone has been pretty good to deal with during my recent freelance career. During my years of working as a photographer for newspapers, I have had a few difficult managing editors to deal with, but I can thankfully say they were in the minority.

Also to add to my other comments left for previous posts on this subject I have found in general in today's market that there is less and less call for hiring a professional photographer. I still have my old invoice books for work going back 35 years. I picked up quite a lot of freelance work (with the blessings of my management) while working on the paper. These jobs flowed in on a regular basis because when someone needed "editorial type" photos they phoned up the local newspaper. In the mid-1990s, the paper I worked for the Kelowna Daily Courier had a staff of three full-time photographers. I did work on the side for The Canadian Press, MacLean's Magazine, The Toronto Star, The Globe & Mail, The Vancouver Sun and others. I did photography assignments for the local college. Twenty-five years ago I was earning $400 a day for my day rate. I would be lucky to get that today, although I have had a few freelance jobs that have paid that and more however those are few and far between. One large newspaper where I did freelance work now pays less than what they paid me 25 years ago.

A lot of the good-paying freelance jobs are gone these days, I'm sure there are probably a few good photographers making a decent living, maybe they are working in the field of corporate or architectural work. I can only relate my experience as a long-time newspaper photographer (often considered on the low end of the pay scale). I think people's perception of what a professional photographer is has changed over the years. It's no longer considered a specialized kind of job that calls for someone with creative, visual and technical capabilities.

We are in the age of the camera phone, everyone has one. The phone camera has certainly skewed the way we think about and take photos. Like the fellow that once asked me what my day rate was and when I told him $300 a day, he responded by saying it was too high and he would take his own photos using his phone. Twenty-five years ago I would never have heard such a thing, and I'm not the only photographer that has encountered people stating that they would rather use their phones than pay a photographer, to them "It's good enough".

[Kye Wood]

Saying "no". No. That's not a project I can help you with.

No apology. No offer of an alternative. It's a business, not an opportunity to make a best new friend.

And if you do accept a job, you lay out the contract clearly. We'll meet X times. Once you decide to proceed, we'll get you to sign the contract and commence.

Have it in the contract that you'll own the work/rights if there's an issue that can't be resolved and that their deposit will be refunded. That's the get out of jail option that you can enact at any time.

Then you give them one of two choices - "Would you like to pay the full amount upfront? Or make a 50% deposit and pay the balance on delivery?"

The first time you might be awkward at this approach. Once it's second nature, you firmness and confidence will make you wonder why you were ever such a people pleaser in the first place.

[Farhiz]

This post (and comments) deserves its own bookmark.

[Yes doesn't it though? I agree. The insights of readers who have so much firsthand knowledge is invaluable. Big thanks to Kirk, John, Nick and the others. --Mike]

[Malcolm Leader]

Look at the concept of perceived value. It turns out, the more you charge, the more it appears to be worth. This always worked for me - the more I charged, the more business I got.