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NEWSLETTER
for MARCH 1984 This
is not going to be a "How-to-do-it" or
a "Do-it-my-way" lecture - We are far from being authorities
on this subject, but we wanted to share with you a little experiment
we carried out for our own satisfaction.
Every
year at Conference, John carries out a Price Survey, and writes
up on the board the prices everyone is charging for their work.
It
is always very obvious in the price comparisons that our Studio
is, if not the most expensive, at least a lot more expensive
than most others.
This
set me to thinking - If we are charging so much more than other
people, why aren't we rich?? Are we being dishonest with our Clients, by taking their
money for very little service?
We
have always taken pride in our honesty and integrity with our
Clients, and always felt that we were giving good value for
their money - but were we??
My
way of looking at this problem may have been a little "back-to-front"
to the
usual
way of approaching this - but the exercise I carried out may
be interesting for you to try - using your own prices.
We
all run our Businesses differently, and we all have different financial commitments - but in our case, photography is our SOLE SOURCE
OF INCOME and therefore I felt that for the hours we worked,
we should be looking for an hourly rate of at least somewhere
in the vicinity of the average wage earner.
It
is extremely difficult to generalize about the portrait sales
you can expect from a Sitting. They are all different, and we all know - You Win Some
- You Lose Some!
Around Christmas Time, we get a lot of Sittings that are kids who decide to have a Family Portrait made to give to Mum and Dad for Christmas, so I decided to use for an example: "what if we do a sitting and sell one 20x16 enlargement" At
this point perhaps I should explain how we operate our business:
We
have the space to have a 'consulting' room, and we prefer to
have a consultation with all our clients, regarding their portraiture,
a week or two before we actually photograph them. We show them examples of our work and find out their
particular preferences, and discuss clothing and make-up with
them. (We always suggest at least three changes of clothing). In general we get them to feel VERY INVOLVED with the
making of THEIR Portrait.
Our
Sitting Fee is $25.00 and our price for a 20x16 portrait (unframed)
is $1148.00. If
that is ALL we take from a Sitting - how much money are we making
per hour for the time we spend on that particular Sitting??
To
work that out, I had to count up the time spent with these Clients
as well as the financial outlay on film, developing and printing.
Our
Sittings start with the initial enquiry (either by phone, or
by the prospective client calling in to the Studio). The time taken in quoting prices and convincing the client
of the worth of a 'pre-consult' is generally about 15 minutes. For their Portrait Consultation, we generally allow another
hour.
Their
actual Sitting takes approximately 2 hours (Of course we don't
ONLY take the Group photo they want for Mum and Dad - we also
take 3 to 5 exposures of each individual - with various changes
in clothing - and, maybe some that would make a nice present
for the boyfriend, etc.)
For
the 'Viewing Appointment' (for choosing their enlargement),
where we use the innerscope or slide projector, we allow at
least 1.5 to 2 hours. Add to this the time in the Work Room by us or our Staff, for
ordering the previews, the masking and ordering of their chosen
negative, then the mounting time, artwork time and time to protector-spray
their Portrait - and the total Studio hours of producing one
20x16 enlargement comes to approximately 5.5 hours.
We
usually use at least 2 rolls of 120 film per Sitting (film at
$4.40 per roll) and at the moment are using the 'pre-paid envelope'
system - so it costs us $8.50 each roll for the 5x4 previews
- and the Lab cost for one 20x16 is $23.85 (including tax).
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The
money received from our client was:
These numbers DO NOT ADD UP...they must have got lost between 1983 & now with the change of computers & he scanning etc one day when I have time I will reverse add in the mean time the message is still there.... When
I deducted our costs from the money received, we then had $123.35. From this $123.35 I deducted our Cost Detailer working 1 hour
at Casual Rate, $8.41 per hour, which left $1114.94.
To
work out our hourly rate I divided this amount by the 14.5 hours
which we put into the Sitting. This came to $25.514 per hour.
Now
when you consider of that $25.514, we have to pay our Studio
Fixed Costs (25% of gross), we are now looking at $19.16 per
hour. This hourly
rate might give quite a high standard of living if we had continual
new Sittings all day all week - but there ARE NOT that many
Clients!!
A
Photographic Studio is not a cost efficient industry. We usually do 150-200 Portrait Sittings per year which
is 3-14 per week. If
50% of our time is used on our Weddings, that leaves 20 hours
per week for Portraiture which is a potential of 11 Sittings
at approximately 2 hours per Sitting.
Therefore
our Studio Efficiency Rate for doing Portraits is about 30%. This means the overall hourly rate drops to 30% of the $19.16,
which equals $5.95 per hour. Not 'big biccies' by today's standards!! (Perhaps we need to put our prices up). Also as a matter of interest, the current N.S.W. Award
for an employee photographer is $251.140 per week which is $6.29
per hour for a 140 hour week.
Of
course, you will argue that from most sittings we all sell MORE
than just one 20x16 - in our case, quite frankly, we HAVE to
($5 to $6 an hour just will NOTE maintain the standard of living
to which we would like to become accustomed!). Oh, and by the way - our average Portrait Order is $2140.
The
whole objective in our spending so much time with our clients
is so that they will buy more - and thankfully, they usually
do!!
As
an incentive to further purchases, we have evolved a 'second
print' price system.
Our
Pricing Guide reads as follows
1st PRINT ADD PRINT
20 x 30 2610.00 2210.00
20 x 30 2120.00 1195.00
20 x 24 1195.00 1148.00
20 x 16 1148.00 1108.00
14 x 11 195.00 170.00
10 x 8 148.00 135.00
7 x 5.5 135.00
126.00
5 x 14 125.00 112.00
We
use our 'Pricing Guide' in this way:
for
example, if a client orders 1-20x16 plus 2-10x8's, the price
for the 20x16 we would take from the '1st print' column and
the 10x8's from the 'add print' column. His order would then read:
1
- 20x16 at $1148.00
2
- 10x8 at $ 35.00 each All three prints can be, and usually are, off
different negatives.
Also
if a client should order in quantity - e.g. 3-14x11's (again
off different negatives) we would more than likely charge them
ALL at the 'Add Print' price.
As
you will have realized, we use our 'Price Guide' as just that
- A Guide! We may
vary our prices depending on the size of the order (and the
attitude of the client).
We
have found, the more CARE and TIME we give to our clients, the
more they will buy - and by the time they collect their finished
order, they certainly don't consider us expensive.
You
may find it an interesting exercise to sit down and work out
how much time you put into your work, and how much money you
actually get per hour for your time.
You
may not NEED to make as much money as we HAVE to, because you
may have fewer commitments, or some kind of supplementary income
- but, are you making as much as the average wage earner??
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