How To Survive “These Times”
by Michael Imus
(Part 2 of a 3 Part Series)
In part 1, I spoke about your business racing towards ‘the wall’ of failure, ridicule, lake of money, etc. and how to keep yourself as far away from ‘the wall’ as possible. Without planning long-term you will crash into the wall eventually. I listed several things to do to keep your business not only running, but running smoothly. This 3-part series continues now with part 2 where I will discuss costing out your weddings to better price your clients out. This will help you see where you are charging too much, and where you are charging too little; to help you book the perfect bride and groom for your business.
Part 2
Costing: Learn how much a wedding costs you so you know how much to charge.
If you are charging using the “shoot from the hip” method, or the “other person is charging that” method, stop now! This method of running your business will expedite your meeting with the wall. The only way to know what you make is to start costing.
Just take a recent wedding for example, in your head figure out how much time you spent on that one event, what it costs you for each product associated with that it, from the email or phone call to the last contact. Then make a spreadsheet or notebook and take your next wedding and write down the exact time, costs, etc. You will find your costs are more than what you think.
Do this with your next three weddings to get a real average number. Then start your pricing. One fact that our industry forgets to cost for is the time it took you to learn how to create that product, from images to cakes to videos. The time it took for you to learn to do this has to be charged in there as well.
Sure ways NOT to survive “these times” or any other time for that matter
1: Lowering Your Prices - With no long-term plan, that is your first gut reaction. It is also a gas pedal toward the wall. Let me give you an example – If you are starving you can catch a rabbit and eat it. They are pretty slow and abundant. But did you know that if all you ate were rabbits you would die of protein poisoning? Rabbits are so low in fat that you would literally starve yourself eating only that. It’s the same with lowering your prices. Your costs stay the same, but you are giving it to them for less. Where does the lost money come from? You may increase volume, get too busy to plan and end up at the wall sooner than you think. If you have been doing the “shoot from the hip” pricing, lowering a guess number is even worse. Lowering your prices just because you feel you have to = rabbit starvation
2: Blaming Others - there truly is no one to blame but ourselves. ‘I went out of business because of the economy.’ Just change the word economy with phrases like “digital camera age” or “the iPod took over the DJs job” or “color film”. Sound familiar? If you have ever read Dane Sander’s book Fast Track Photographer (if you don’t have it, get it! He has great business ideas even for those who aren’t photographers) he talks about the “grumpies”. These are the people that blame others; take ideas without giving back, etc. These types of people always fail. Remember, we only fail because we give up! That’s the hard cold truth.
3: Worrying About What Others Are Doing - “My competition is doing this and doing that, so I have to do the same” Going off this way of thinking, will only drop you into a barrel of apples with all the other apples. You will have less competition if you become an orange in a sea of apples. If you want to be like everyone else, you will hit the same wall at the same time they do.
4: Waiting For The Phone To Ring - Doing nothing is worse than anything (except for the above statements). Yes things have changed from last year, but they will always change. Work on your plan, look at those roadblocks, but do something.
(Editors Note: You can enjoy the first installment of this series by visiting PART 1, here on the Nevada Wedding Network. Michael Imus Photographers is a multi-award winning wedding photography business that is noted for their very unique style of photography. See more at www.michaelimus.com)
