This Can't Be That Hard

Do you ever wish you could raise your prices but fear that your local market can’t or won’t support what you need to charge? If so, this interview with Elke Van den Ende is a must-listen. 

Elke is a wedding and portrait photographer is based in Western Europe, where most portrait photographers charge just a few hundred pounds for their services. But when Elke ran her numbers and saw that those numbers wouldn’t work for her, she decided to go out on a limb and charge more - close to five times more - despite the fact that she was new to business and smack in the midst of Covid. 

Today, she’s sharing how she did that and the (amazing) results she’s had.

Elke’s website: https://www.elkevandenende.com
Elke’s instagram: @elkeVDende
Simple Sales Masterclass: https://www.thiscantbethathard.com/simple 

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

I recently polled a big group of photographers asking them what three words or phrases they would use to describe their feelings about money. The responses were overwhelmingly negative, and filled with words like stress, shame, scarcity, guilt, and insecurity. And maybe it seems that since I teach photographers about how to price and sell their work, and since I come from an in-person sales background, and since I openly talk about the fact that my photo business makes six figures, maybe it’s easy to assume that things like money and sales and charging higher prices have always come easily to me. 

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Although these days I feel pretty confident when it comes to money and all the things surrounding it - earning it, saving it, and spending it - it DEFINITELY hasn’t always been that way. So today I want to share a bit about my own journey - where I was, where I am now, and how I got there.

Simple Sales Masterclass

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Back in Episode 117, I shared that I had decided the time was right to switch from dSLR to mirrorless, and that I was in the process of researching my camera options. I decided to share that research and decision-making process on the podcast in the hopes that it may provide a less techy, more practical approach to gear decisions in general and mirrorless cameras specifically. Although it took me a bit longer than I’d originally anticipated, I’ve made a decision and am ready to share it (along with all the factors that led me there)!

Special thanks to B&H Photo for answering my many, many questions and supplying rentals for both the Canon & Sony bodies. Special thanks also to Stacey Moore and Fujifilm for talking me through (and loaning me!) the magic of modern-day APSC and digital Medium Format) cameras!
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Like my approach and interested in diving deeper on the business side of things? Sign up here for instant access to my free masterclass to learn my hybrid IPS/online sales strategy that's achieving predictably profitable sales for hundreds of photographers around the world!

Canon EOS R6
Fuji X-T4
Fuji GFX50R
Sony Alpha 9ii

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

What is going through someone’s head when they hire a photographer? Sure, they need to like the photos, and yes, they need to be able to afford the pricetag, but assuming both of those things are true, what makes someone choose one photographer over another? There are ten major drivers that motivate purchasing decisions, and once you know which one(s) are most relevant to your ideal clients, you can build a business and a message that will set you apart and make you the only option they want to consider. 

As we head into the busy season, a quick audit and a few tweaks could mean a boom to both your inquiries and your booking rate!

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

We’ve all seen the thread: a photographer gets an inquiry, sends off a response, then gets an angry response from this would-be client who is shocked and outraged at the prices they’ve just been presented with. These posts often get dozens or even hundreds of responses, and some of them, inevitably, push the original poster to “educate the client.” Today, I’m here to tell you that trying to educate that person - at least at that point in the game - is an exercise in futility. Instead, I want to talk about the steps you need to take to eliminate those emails from your inbox once and for all. 

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

Three years ago, fine art portrait photographer and body positivity advocate Amanda Thorson got an idea for a photo book. As of two weeks ago, that idea officially became a reality when she crossed the goal line on her Kickstarter. The photos are made, the book is designed, the funding is there… now all that’s left is to go to print! I chatted with Amanda about the whole process - what’s fun, what’s hard, what she’s learned and - of course - how much it actually costs to self-publish an art book!

Be sure to check out Amanda Thorson on Instagram! and reserve a copy of Amanda Thorson's book here!

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

I have long preached phone calls and videos as important tools in any photographers communication arsenal, but I’ve never been able to perfectly describe the difference between when a text or email is appropriate vs. when you should pick up the phone or hit record on your camera… until I heard an interview with Juliet Funt. Funt is the author of a book called A Minute to Think, and while many of the book’s topics sounded interesting to me, it was a short aside in the interview that caught my ear. She talked about the difference between 2D and 3D communication, and how thinking in those terms could help people decide what means of communication would be most appropriate in a given situation. Today I’m explaining the idea and hoping it will help you navigate the sometimes-confusing question of how to best reach people in your own business.

Links:

A Minute To Think by Juliet Funt
Revenue on Repeat

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

When it comes to email marketing, do you ever wonder what your emails should say? How often you should send them? How you can grow a small (or non-existent) list? How you can tell whether what you’re writing is resonating with your audience? Or even just why you should bother with email marketing at all? Then this episode is for you!

LINKS

Flodesk
Flodesk University
Flodesk’s Facebook Community
Quiet Like Horses (Sobrina’s content strategy site) can be found at http://www.quietlikehorses.com/

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

This is Part 1 of a two part series. In this episode, I interview Gabriel Biderman from B&H. We talk through the general arguments for mirrorless and the more specific nuances of what I want and need as a family photographer. Whether you’re a mirrorless fan already or just casually considering a switch from DSLR, I hope you’ll find this series educational and entertaining.

LINKS:

B&H Camera

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!

A well-done photography client prep guide is a thing of beauty: it is a fantastic, professional way to represent your brand to your new clients, it helps reassure them that you know what you're doing and are going to be a trustworthy guide through the process, and it helps you avoid lots of time spent answering and addressing common questions and concerns. But putting a good guide together is also a HUGE investment of time and energy, and it seems like a waste that it only gets seen by those people who actually hire you.

What if your beautiful prep guide could be turned into a great marketing tool, too? A way to help prospective clients find you and trust you before they ever reached out. And what about the parts of the prep guide that no one ever seems to read... is there a way to strategically drip those out so that your clients are more likely to actually follow your guidance?

In today's podcast, I'm giving you some general pointers about prep guides - what they should include and how they should be structured - then I'm giving you five recommendations for how you can take the content that you've already created and put those to good use in other parts of your business... the goal - always - is working smarter, not harder.

Resources:

• New to the podcast? Go to thiscantbethathard.com/welcome to get access to 3 of Annemie's best free resources.
• Join our community! We'd love to welcome you into our supportive, business-focused private Facebook group. Go to facebook.com/groups/thiscantbethathard to request access.
• Long-time listener? Leave a review!