The Profit Blueprint: Most brand photographers start by trading time for money, but that creates an immediate ceiling on your income. Sam explores the tiered structures and psychological shifts needed to move into the premium market.
The Sales Gap: A high-stakes technique for the final 10 seconds of a sales call that prevents you from negotiating against yourself
The Goldilocks Strategy: Why offering three specific choices is the most powerful psychological tool in your pricing arsenal.
The “Outcome” Premium: The specific shift in language that allows you to charge for results rather than just files.
00:00.98
Marcus Ahmad
Hello there, Sam. How are you?
00:03.10
Sam Hollis
Excellent, excellent. How are you, Marcus?
00:05.36
Marcus Ahmad
Very good. As you can see, remember singing there but a melody coming out there, I think, when I was sort of singing.
00:10.23
Sam Hollis
Out of where? Are you singing?
00:13.32
Marcus Ahmad
It was just it was a spring sing.
00:16.73
Sam Hollis
Very good, Marcus.
00:20.09
Sam Hollis
So, um listeners, we have a webinar coming up. So I don’t know if you’re aware, but we have a webinar and it’s linked to what I’m going to talk about today, which is titled Stop Competing on Price and Become a Premium Photographer. We are going to talk about all sorts of things linked to that. It’s on the 2nd of April. You can book in on the website commercial-photographer-podcast.com. That’s a big button there. book yourself in. It’s free. There’s all sorts of extra extrater things you get, as well as a podcast, which, Marcus, I will tell you about a little bit more through the show. But for now, I think we probably need to start.
00:52.59
Marcus Ahmad
OK, let’s go for it, Sam.
00:54.20
Sam Hollis
So I’m going to be opening up our branding season talking about pricing for brand photographers.
00:58.90
Marcus Ahmad
o
00:59.76
Sam Hollis
How do you price your work?
01:00.02
Marcus Ahmad
Good place to start.
01:02.14
Sam Hollis
So for me, there’s four basic models of pricing. If you come up with another one, do tell me. But there’s four basic models of pricing. And we’re going to go through them all well apart from one. So there’s the packages model.
01:12.74
Marcus Ahmad
Mm-hmm.
01:13.52
Sam Hollis
There’s the time model. There’s the value model. And the one we’re not going to go through at all is the making it up on the spot model, which I don’t recommend. ah But it’s one that some people follow.
01:24.25
Marcus Ahmad
Okay.
01:24.54
Sam Hollis
um
01:24.70
Marcus Ahmad
All right. Okay.
01:26.49
Sam Hollis
So which do you think you follow use of those markers?
01:29.21
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, i very I’m in the package. Well, for my personal branding, personal branding, which is one-to-one solopreneurs, rather, packages, um and then for my commercial marketing you know clients, bigger companies, it’s a combination of time and value.
01:47.74
Marcus Ahmad
Okay.
01:48.41
Sam Hollis
Yeah. OK, excellent. So we’re going to go through time first, which is kind of the simplest and probably as a new photographer, it’s where most people start. It’s kind of helps you find your feet in some ways if you’re not quite sure. um So, you know, I mean, it is very simple. You sit down and you think, how long is this project going to take me?
02:05.91
Sam Hollis
And then you get your hourly rate and your times the two together. And that is what you quote people, which is kind of nice and simple. um Obviously, if you’re thinking about the time, you need to also include the post-production as well as just the turning upon the day in your time. And you also need to think about what is your hourly rate, which you’ll see is a bit of a big question. That’s, you know, relatively hard. You might want to talk to other photographers locally, look on weather photographer’s website. You might want to think about what you want your income to be, how long,
02:36.12
Sam Hollis
how many hours a day you’ve got and divide it up all sorts of different ways. But the hourly rate is kind of, it’s a simple way to do it. Now, if you’re a new photographer, you will probably massively underestimate how long jobs going to take you to start with. But once you’ve been going a while, you know, people have a pretty fair idea of how long a job’s going to take them, can work it out, do the maths, job done. um Tends to be kind of more the bottom end of the market doing this. Um,
03:02.77
Sam Hollis
It’s kind of tends to be for slightly lower, the lower price stuff as a kind of general rule. But you know, the there are always exceptions. There are those that do it hourly and have a very high hourly rate.
03:11.74
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
03:14.58
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, I mean, I guess um if you talk if you’re shooting products, as opposed to photographing people, that could be, you might be able a base it around the alley make rate because you sort of know what’s going through. Maybe, or it could be a unit price, but there’s different ways of doing it. Certainly for events, I price it on an…
03:36.86
Marcus Ahmad
on an hourly rate that’s i think that’s the the norm in the industry for doing events uh you know and the first hour i charge more just in case they go for like one or two hours so the first hour i bump up and then after that i charge at another rate plus a hundred pounds an hour or whatever it might be
03:38.42
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
03:40.86
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
03:46.68
Sam Hollis
Yeah.
03:52.12
Sam Hollis
Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. And the next much, I mean, not it doesn’t seem much explaining. hourly rate, does it It’s pretty self-explanatory.
04:00.22
Marcus Ahmad
no
04:01.22
Sam Hollis
The next one is packages. Now, packages can work really well for all sorts of reasons. ah A lot of it is psychological in the way it works with the clients. And one of the reasons packages work so well is you’re giving the client impression of choice.
04:09.70
Marcus Ahmad
Hmm.
04:13.70
Sam Hollis
You know, would you like to go for my bronze package or my silver package? Now, she’s not now your client isn’t now thinking, should I get my photograph done with Marcus or with Giles?
04:24.92
Sam Hollis
So you’re giving them a choice, but both choices are having their photo done with you.
04:29.30
Marcus Ahmad
m
04:29.66
Sam Hollis
And clients always want a choice. So if they’ve not got a choice with you, they’re going to probably have two or three photographers are making that choice. But if they’ve got a choice with you, they’re making a choice. But both those choices are you. So that actually is quite a powerful psychological kind of tool because people do like to make that choice and have options. So that’s really good. And then the next thing is the kind of the three price model, which lots of people know about where you kind of go, I’ve got this package, say it’s my, this is my kind of standard packages for brand photography and I’ve got bronze, silver, gold, okay?
05:01.85
Marcus Ahmad
yeah, the goal,
05:01.73
Sam Hollis
And you make your bronze fairly cheap and you don’t get a lot for it. You make your silver the one in the middle that most people go for and it’s pretty good and it’s at a price where you’re going to make a reasonable profit. And then you make your gold, you can get a fair few extras and bells and whistles and you can charge a lot more for that and that can be super profitable.
05:18.46
Sam Hollis
OK, and basically it just goes off statistics. Most people will go for silver. You know, whenever you buy stereo, you buy your washing machine, you buy a new guitar.
05:28.86
Marcus Ahmad
yeah the co guest
05:29.83
Sam Hollis
Oh, I won’t get the cheap one. Oh, that top one’s a bit crazy. I’ll go for the one in the middle. It’s ingrained. Most people will do it. And so you’ve got to have the other two. So they go for the middle. It’s as simple as that. Now, the bottom one, you will always get some people go for a small amount and they will usually be the pain in the ass clients because they’re trying to get as much value as you can for as little as possible. So be really careful on that with what you get.
05:53.88
Sam Hollis
You know, make it very, very clear and deal with them fairly carefully because they will generally be your awkward clients. The problem. gold one, some people will just always go for gold and say, I want the best.
06:04.94
Sam Hollis
So you may as well charge a bit more and make a fair bit more profit because whatever you put, those people are pretty much going to go for it.
06:11.08
Marcus Ahmad
They’re going to go for it, yeah.
06:11.51
Sam Hollis
So, you know, you don’t have to get twice. You could put the price two and a half, three times more than the main package. You do not have to give two and a half, three times more stuff or two and half times, three times more.
06:22.33
Sam Hollis
You know, they just want the premium thing and there you go. They can have it. But it’s a really powerful model.
06:27.13
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yes, I think with this sort Goldilocks formula, and it is the one that I follow, so that’s the one I’ve sort invested in. But I think the the difficulty I found in it is just to make sure that as you increase, the price is easy to work out, you can get one, two, three, but you’ve got to make sure you’re adding, you know, that more photos as you go through or…
06:51.22
Marcus Ahmad
if you’ve got your your top package, are you to be doing something else? going including video, GIFs or whatever? So you need to be clear. ah It’s not just what…
07:00.60
Sam Hollis
Oh, yes. Your packages need to be 100.
07:01.52
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. ah
07:03.04
Sam Hollis
Yeah, you don’t just call them Bon Silva. Oh, absolutely. You have to have effectively a bullet point. ear We’ve all been to the websites. Which software do you want? And you get this, this, this, this this did and you’re comparing them. You’ve got to have the super clear, be absolutely transparent what you get 100%.
07:18.71
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
07:19.90
Sam Hollis
The other thing you can do with packages is avoid price competition. So if you’re doing an hourly rate, if you’re doing a daily rate or whatever, people can just look between photographers and and compare. So one of the things I suggest with packages is you structure your packages different to the other people around you so that they’re not comparable.
07:37.45
Sam Hollis
you’re not offering the same thing. So they can’t just go, I’m going to compare Marcus’s bronze package to the guy next door’s bronze package and his bronze package.
07:39.13
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
07:43.97
Sam Hollis
And they’re all, you know, okay, maybe Marcus’s, I get two more photos and smells, I get half an hour less, they’re going to take the same structure it differently, come up with novel alternative ways to structure your packages. So they’re just not comparable.
07:55.29
Sam Hollis
And then people can’t compete on it.
07:55.80
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
07:57.01
Sam Hollis
And then you can’t, people can’t price compete. And then you’re offering something unique as well. um You’ve got a clear price and it’s kind of take it or leave it. They can’t just go, oh, well, Fred Bloggs is 10 quid cheaper because Fred Bloggs isn’t offering the same thing.
08:11.83
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. and you know you can all And then you can, with my CRM that I use, you’ve got the three packages, you and you simply can just send it on to the client and they can make their decision from there.
08:26.26
Sam Hollis
That’s it. Yeah, yeah. and So, yeah, that’s fine. Yeah, exactly right. um I’ve got here, make the deliverables really clear, but you’ve already talked about that. And also the outcomes.
08:35.80
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
08:36.65
Sam Hollis
So this is the, I talk about this a lot with photographers. They do get 14 photographs, two hours, you blah, blah, blah. Actually, that’s not what they want. What do they get? A headshot that means people will take notice of them. Yeah. What are the outcomes? Yeah. um You’re an estate agent, your house, you know, you or you own an Airbnb. You’re a Airbnb is twice as likely to to rent out because of the photos that I take. you Outcomes, that’s what people are buying. not the and people really And you’ve got to have those deliverables and they’ve got to be there, but that’s not the focus.
09:09.78
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah, that’s right.
09:10.50
Sam Hollis
The focus is the outcome. That’s what sells it. The deliverables are there and they’re there so that you can say this is what you get and it’s very, very clear. But the outcome is what sells it. That’s what people want.
09:21.74
Marcus Ahmad
That’s exactly, and that’s the hard bit.
09:21.85
Sam Hollis
um
09:23.02
Marcus Ahmad
That’s the hard bit to come up with. That’s not, you know, the the rest is fairly straightforward, really.
09:27.64
Sam Hollis
Yeah, so yeah and it it depends what the type of photography you do. So, for example, with the Airbnb, you could follow it with customers and you could then really clear. It’s like after somebody got me in to photograph that Airbnb, their occupancy rent up from 40% to 80%.
09:42.04
Sam Hollis
Bang, clear deliverable because of my photos. I mean, maybe the market suddenly changed. Of the moment i did the photography, a bit random, isn’t it? It’s not, you know, they changed the photos.
09:50.02
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
09:50.80
Sam Hollis
People saw it on Airbnb. It’s that simple. um So, you get yeah, sometimes it can be harder, like, yeah, with a general brand shoot, it could be hard.
10:01.21
Sam Hollis
You could talk to clients, go, right, if you put the photo on the website, have you had an increased inquiry? So you can follow it with clients and try and see if there’s been some measurables that you could talk about from previous clients, having used your work.
10:11.51
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
10:12.37
Sam Hollis
Did you have more engagement on social media, having used my photos, that sort of thing that you can ask.
10:18.07
Marcus Ahmad
I think it’s just worth mentioning as well that you can have too many packages, too much choice, and that is equally is worse.
10:23.86
Sam Hollis
Oh, yeah, no, two, yeah, definitely. I think the three is that golden.
10:26.23
Marcus Ahmad
for
10:27.22
Sam Hollis
Yeah, no, you don’t want millions.
10:27.67
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
10:28.82
Sam Hollis
And you want, you can also, if you have lots of options, you can also do it. So, right, they’ve chosen the package, great. Now there are some add-ons and you can discuss those, but after they’ve chosen the package and that’s kind of fixed.
10:40.04
Sam Hollis
So, yeah, don’t have 43 packages, in yeah, but you can have, it’s like if you buy a, Apple laptop I’ve never had, but you know, if you go through, you choose the basic type, but then do you want the extra fancy screen?
10:51.92
Sam Hollis
Do you want the extra memory upgrade, but you’ve already chosen the basic package and you can do the same. You’ve already chosen the silver package, but then, Oh, do you want the extra 20 photos extra?
11:04.38
Sam Hollis
Do you want the extra printed sticker for your wall? Whatever it is, you can have extras then that bolt onto the package.
11:09.05
Marcus Ahmad
yeah yeah i mean having i sorry Yeah, yeah.
11:11.58
Sam Hollis
Um, that’s right.
11:13.58
Marcus Ahmad
I mean, having looked through, I look at a lot of branding photographer websites, and I would say overall, they’re in pretty in pretty good shape.
11:25.18
Marcus Ahmad
People do tend to do the package system. They’re fairly clear what they are. um I guess that’s a part of the business of being a branding photographer. You are, you know, the the marketing side is so important.
11:38.33
Sam Hollis
Yeah, I definitely agree that probably they’re the best photographer websites I see generally other other branding ones because I think they are aware of that.
11:44.28
Marcus Ahmad
Right. Yeah.
11:46.61
Sam Hollis
but But still, you do get the focus on the deliverables, not the outcomes. Always. That’s just so common. um
11:54.46
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yeah.
11:56.02
Sam Hollis
So the next…
11:56.50
Marcus Ahmad
Okay. nice
11:58.52
Sam Hollis
So the next pricing model then is the value pricing model. Okay, generally that’s for the more premium end of the market.
12:02.30
Marcus Ahmad
okay
12:05.41
Sam Hollis
So i mean, the basic question is, if you need something signing by your doctor, why do they charge 100 quid? Or you need something signing by a lawyer, why do they charge 200 quid? It’s value pricing. They’re charging for the value of what they are giving. They’re clearly not charging for their time. They don’t charge 10,000 quid an hour because they could sign an awful lot of things in an hour. They’re charging for the value of what they give to you, with what that allows you to do.
12:29.46
Sam Hollis
And the same can go for the photos. What is the value of the photo shoot you are delivering? Are you delivering a photo shoot that means somebody is far more likely to get a job because their LinkedIn profile looks so much more professional and they’re going to stand out?
12:45.66
Sam Hollis
Are you delivering photos of a property that means it’s twice as likely to sell because people are going to stop on it as they’re scrolling through. Right move and that house is going to really stand out due to the photography.
13:00.50
Sam Hollis
um And so that is worth an awful lot of money. Obviously trying to actually think about the price and that and get that across is more challenging than just doing a quick price calculation for your hours.
13:06.03
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yeah.
13:15.42
Sam Hollis
but you can charge a lot more because you’re going, what is this really worth? What is getting a new job worth, you know, from that LinkedIn profile picture? A huge amount, that is a huge amount of value.
13:24.44
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
13:25.88
Sam Hollis
ah
13:27.22
Marcus Ahmad
So are you saying, Sam, this is more for top-end clients where you’re going to have much more of a call and discussion about what they need and about where it’s going?
13:36.89
Sam Hollis
Yes, yes, that’s it exactly.
13:39.13
Marcus Ahmad
And then you’ll say, okay, I’m going to get back to you with the price on this.
13:42.26
Sam Hollis
Yes, exactly. This is not packages. This is bespoke. This is every time bespoke.
13:45.96
Marcus Ahmad
Hmm.
13:46.94
Sam Hollis
What are you looking for? i could Okay, so then you can think about what value you can provide. I’ll provide, you know, and you do need tell the outcomes will be 10 photos, but that’s not the key.
13:57.10
Sam Hollis
The key is the value I’ll provide. I’ll do your headshot photo session for you. This will double your chance of getting the new job that you’re looking for. And you can see from previous clients, look, they’ve all, you know, the last three clients I’ve got, got new jobs within a month, having me redone their photos. um And so, yes, it is more work and you’ve got to kind of show in everything you do, you are more premium, which is back to the webinar we’re doing.
14:23.63
Sam Hollis
How do you show you a premium photographer?
14:25.14
Marcus Ahmad
Exactly.
14:25.23
Sam Hollis
It’s part of that. You’ve got to show that you’re able to deliver that value.
14:26.03
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
14:29.46
Sam Hollis
You’ve got to get across that you have the skills to deliver that value.
14:29.78
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
14:32.74
Sam Hollis
You’ve got to have the testimonies to show that you’ve delivered that value before and kind of um and understand yourself what that value is. But if you can then get that across and give them the price that’s relevant to that, then, you know, and you’re talking about the outcomes, then you can charge much higher prices based on the value for what you’re doing. The value of a headshot that gets somebody a new job is huge.
14:57.59
Marcus Ahmad
and Indeed, Sam. And looking and talking about premium clients um and how you work with premium clients, how you get them is very much this, i for me, is about having good ideas. And at the moment, I’m writing a book about how photographers can get ideas. It’s not just branding photographers, but it is about general photography, but it certainly applies to branding photography. Yeah. And I’ll be giving away some copies of that on our webinar, which you just mentioned.
15:29.91
Sam Hollis
Amazing. Not the reason to book onto the webinar, Marcus. um So, yeah, you do need, so a few things you need for this value pricing. You do need a clear niche. You can’t show you’re providing value to too many different people.
15:43.99
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
15:44.12
Sam Hollis
You know, you’ve got be niche to show that you’re providing value in that area.
15:45.05
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
15:49.08
Sam Hollis
And you’ve got to be seen as premium on top of your game. And you’ve got to be different from your competitors to be able to charge those premiums.
15:56.95
Marcus Ahmad
Exactly.
15:57.10
Sam Hollis
prices and value prices. um So yeah, they’re the three, they’re the kind of different models. As I say, there’s the time model, there’s the value model, and there’s the package model.
16:07.42
Sam Hollis
As you say, you don’t have to, you know, be wedded to just one. You can be a little bit of ah a mix and match. You could start to move. You could, while I do pricing now, but maybe I’ll add a bit of value and go, okay, if they’re getting more value from this shoot.
16:18.88
Sam Hollis
Maybe I’ll have a slightly different rate and add it. And you can mix and match a little bit.
16:23.32
Marcus Ahmad
exactly
16:23.26
Sam Hollis
But I think knowing those models mean you can bring them all together and work out, well, what works for me with what market and how. But if you want those kind of, yeah, if you want the higher the higher income and the higher paid work, then the the value is the way to go. And the podcast will definitely help with that.
16:39.52
Marcus Ahmad
Brilliant.
16:39.69
Sam Hollis
I’ve had a couple couple of thoughts about sales very quickly at the end when you kind of deliver this stuff. um So I think when you are selling this, I think definitely you do need to talk about deliverables. A phone call is always good, I think.
16:51.63
Sam Hollis
You said you can send details people on email. That’s great. But I think your sales call really good input in person or as a call.
16:58.74
Marcus Ahmad
Oh, 100%. 100%.
17:00.06
Sam Hollis
Talk to them.
17:00.76
Marcus Ahmad
hundred percent
17:00.78
Sam Hollis
So definitely talk about the deliverables, but you know don’t go into every detail. So I can send all the exact details in writing. You don’t want the whole conversation about, you get 10 photos.
17:08.52
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
17:10.59
Sam Hollis
you get You want to talk about the outcomes.
17:10.74
Marcus Ahmad
yeah
17:14.46
Sam Hollis
You can talk about previous clients. And then you share the cost. And then you stop. And you shut up. And you wait. Now, most people don’t. They say, and this will cost £2,000.
17:28.82
Sam Hollis
And then there’s a gap and they want to fill it. And that’s because of this. And don’t forget because of that. And all because of that. No. Just that will cost £2,000. How that sound? how does that sound
17:42.83
Marcus Ahmad
That’s exactly right.
17:44.06
Sam Hollis
ah Marcus has already broken because he spoke.
17:45.62
Marcus Ahmad
you
17:46.30
Sam Hollis
They they will break and say something because because nobody likes that gap.
17:48.12
Marcus Ahmad
Yes. Yes.
17:50.62
Sam Hollis
And don’t fill it with waffle because everybody does. Just wait. Yeah. And don’t negotiate on the price. Now, if they can’t afford it, you’ve got a couple of options.
18:01.88
Sam Hollis
And I don’t buy the don’t negotiate on the price. I don’t mean if they say I can’t afford that £2,000. You say, well, bugger off, mate. You can say, OK, so what can we take out of the package? What could we remove from this?
18:12.97
Sam Hollis
So by all means, you could talk about price and maybe they’ll end up with a photo shoot that costs a lot less, but it should also deliver a lot less. There’ll be less outcomes and there’ll be less deliverables.
18:26.06
Sam Hollis
And you’re still, you know, you’re making reasonable money. You’ve you’ve compromised because, you know, you might give that price and like, well, that’s well beyond my budget. And sometimes it’s so beyond the budget you give up. Sometimes you can help them, but you don’t help them by going, oh, well, I could just give you 20% if You could go, well, could give you 20% off and you’ll get 30% less. And you wouldn’t say it that way, but you go, okay, so let’s look at all these deliverables and outcomes. What could we maybe bring out to make it affordable for you?
18:52.57
Marcus Ahmad
Yeah.
18:55.00
Sam Hollis
Excellent. So think about your pricing. Think carefully. Think about where you want to sit in the market. Think about all the models, understand all the models, and then work out what is best for you.
19:05.08
Marcus Ahmad
Nice one, Sam. Very well put.
19:07.61
Sam Hollis
Excellent. Well, Marcus, I will see you next week then.
19:11.48
Marcus Ahmad
See you next week.
