Podcast Episode 344 - Your Pricing is The Problem

In this episode of the Flourish Academy podcast, Heather Lahtinen dives deep into the often misunderstood topic of pricing. Learn why profitable pricing is just the starting point and discover how shifting your mindset and focusing on action can unlock the growth you’ve been seeking.

Heather shares insights from her recent mastermind session, where photographers explored what might really be holding them back from achieving their goals. If you’ve ever felt stuck or unsure about your pricing or strategy, this episode will inspire you to take confident action.

Show Notes:

• The concept of profitable pricing and its importance in building a sustainable photography business.
• Why photographers fixate on pricing as the root of all problems and how this mindset limits growth.
• What else could be impacting your bookings and revenue?
• The role of a one-page marketing plan in driving client inquiries and revenue growth.
• The importance of discipline, consistency, and faith in your pricing and marketing strategy.
• Why social media isn’t always the cornerstone of a successful marketing plan.
   

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Connect:

Heather Lahtinen: Website, Facebook, Instagram

TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to the Flourish Academy podcast and today we are talking about

pricing. My name is Heather Lahtinen and I'm a photographer, educator and entrepreneur

and I founded the Flourish Academy as a resource for photographers of all levels.

We want to help you pursue your passion on your own terms because we believe there

is room for everyone. In this podcast, we focus on creating breakthroughs with your

mindset to Cover the things that are really holding you back in business and life.

We are currently in the middle of our mastermind week, which was something I put

together designed to help photographers kickstart their year with clarity and strategy

and support from their fellow photographers. It's designed to be a really immersive,

collaborative environment. We meet every day for at least 90 minutes.

I mean, it was designed to be an hour and a half, but yesterday we worked for

closer to two hours and that's because we were talking about pricing. I think I

mentioned the mastermind in a previous episode, but it actually filled immediately. I

wanted to keep it to a small number of photographers. So I never published it or

marketed it publicly. But what I wanted to share today was something I picked up on

yesterday. Our goal when we were talking about pricing was making sure that we have

professional pricing in place. I define that as pricing that is profitable.

We know our numbers in great detail and it's pricing that fits in our season and

genre, et cetera. But really, if I had to boil it down, what I would say is

professional pricing is profitable pricing. You know what your cost of goods are.

You know what it costs to run your business. You know what you want to earn, what

you want to take as an owner's draw from your business. So it's just very clear

what the pricing needs to be in order to meet this criteria. Yeah. It's essentially

a couple of equations and you multiply and you divide and you figure out what makes

the most sense, but it's math. It comes down to math. The funny thing is people

will say, well, but Heather, I'm not any good at math. Oh my gosh. That is just

such baloney because you can add and you can subtract and you can use a calculator

for everything else. So what we were demonstrating in the mind was that everyone in

attendance already has, for the most part, profitable pricing. A few photographers

realize that they need to make their pricing a little bit more profitable, but the

point was, if you go through any type of pricing course or even read an article

about pricing, watch a few videos, you can figure out how to craft profitable

pricing for your photography business. So we spent the first part of our call just

making sure everyone understood what is profitable pricing and, you know,

do I have it? Okay, once we determined that that was the case, I took a pause and

I said to everyone, okay, if we know that our pricing is profitable, then what is

the problem?

What's wrong with the pricing? What's the problem with your pricing if you know that

it's profitable? Well then it got really interesting because of course we had into,

well, if people aren't booking me, it's because of the pricing. If I'm not making

money, it's because of the pricing. If the sky is blue, it's because of the pricing

and everybody gets really fixated on their pricing as being the end all be all for

everything in their business. If things aren't working, it is always 100 % of the

time because of the pricing. Therefore, I must become fixated on my pricing and

messing with it and shifting things and changing things, sometimes in small ways,

sometimes in big ways, because that's the problem with everything. We know that that

is not true. The point I wanted to get to yesterday was this,

if your pricing is profitable, then I want you to put a period at the end of the

sentence with a checkmark that says my pricing is done and I'm not, I'm not going

to alter it for at least six months. Because then this will force you to look at

other areas of your business as to why you aren't hitting the numbers. You aren't

getting the clients or you're not getting the revenue that, that you would like.

You're not hitting your goals, essentially. Every photographer, okay. A lot of

photographers think if they are not hitting their revenue goals, it is always because

something is wrong with the pricing. If people aren't hiring them, it's always

because something is wrong with the pricing. And I disagree. I think that the

pricing is an easy, your pricing is an easy scapegoat for why something might not

be working, which is why I encourage them to make sure it is profitable and then

move on to other areas of your business that you might need to work on in order

to get more clients and hit your goals. Wow. But Heather, I had all these clients,

these inquiries that didn't book me and it had to be because of the pricing to

which I reply, how do you know that? Are you sure? And in one case, the

photographer said to me, yes, she told me it was because of the pricing and I

said, okay, so that means that it's always because of the pricing because one person

said it. No, of course not. But then the photographer was like, well, but it could

be because of the pricing or maybe I'm out of her budget or she doesn't see the

value or want to spend the money. And I said, yes, and also that's the easiest

thing for a client to say is, well, you're out of my budget or or I can't afford

it because what person is going to say, "Well, I just hate your photos.

I think they're ugly. I don't like your face. I don't like the color of your hair.

I don't like what you posted on social media. I just don't like you." Who's going

to say that? Of course, they're not going to say that. So the easiest thing for

them to point to is your pricing. And furthermore, if it couldn't be your pricing,

Just go along with this. If that weren't a possibility, then what else could it be?

And those are the things you need to start to explore. Maybe I need to get better

at marketing, at selling. Maybe my photos need to improve. Maybe I need to gain

more clarity on my ideal client. I don't know. It could probably be a million

different things, but when you're fixated on it has to be the pricing. The pricing

is the problem for everything. You just miss opportunities to improve elsewhere.

And if you're changing your pricing every five seconds, you're never quite sure

what's going to move the needle. How do you know what's going to make the

difference? It reminds me of learning the exposure triangle. You should probably just

change one thing at a time so you can see what impacts the image. But if you

change all three things at the same time, you'll never know what made the

difference. So in the mastermind, it was actually, I said it was yesterday, it was

two days ago. What we decided is that our pricing is profitable and we're not going

to touch it for six months. It forces us to work on other things and we're not

allowed to ruminate on it or spin in fear and confusion.

The is profitable. It, it works. I just need to learn how to make it work.

And then yesterday, we worked on our one page marketing plan. So we got really

clear, laser focused on the things that are going to get paying clients in front of

our lens. And we, we essentially checked the box next to marketing. So what I had

them do was like pricing check marketing check. If you were confident and believed

complete

and wasting their brain power on pricing and marketing when it could be something

else, well, certainly their efforts could be spent elsewhere to help them achieve

their goals. So if you knew that your pricing was good and you knew that your

marketing plan was set and it was going to work, what would you do? I think you

would get busy executing on the marketing plan, you would do what it takes in order

to get paying clients in front of your lens in order to increase your inquiries, in

order to meet more people and get out into your community. And if you did all of

this with belief and faith, I promise you it will work.

You will get more clients and you will increase your revenue. The problem is when

the doubt and the fear and the scarcity creep in and you think you need to change

all of these things in order to move forward. So then it just becomes,

it's just the mental game, right? It's just managing your mind over that doubt.

You're always going to have doubt and you're always going to have some fear and

scarcity, but could you make your faith, your belief in what you've created greater

than that? So it's like, I know, I know these things are going to work. So I'm

just going to keep doing them with discipline and with consistency in the faith that

I am going to see the results. You've got to try to overcome the doubt. Again, the

doubt is going to be there. So yes, oh, I'm not sure if this is going to work,

but we reviewed it, you know, they reviewed it with me,

with their peers, we have the pricing, we have the one page marketing plan. I want

you to just stick to those things for six months and try not to think about them,

but just focus on action, execution and strategy. Interestingly enough of all of the

one page marketing plans that we went through yesterday, not a single one had

Instagram, Facebook, Reels, or anything related to social media on them.

No one's marketing plan had that. I did make sure to say, if you have this one

page marketing plan, it's three to five things that you're going to focus on. It

doesn't mean you can't do those things. It's not to the exclusion. It's just, here's

where I'm going to focus my time and effort. And if I enjoy posting on Instagram

and tagging my clients and sharing and creating real by all means you can do all

of these other marketing activities. But when you feel confused and you're not sure

what to focus on, you go back to your one page marketing plan and you just execute

when you are in doubt and you question yourself. That's when you feel frustrated or

defeated and you ruminate. You don't take the best action or any action because

you're like, "Why would I do this? I'm not even sure if this is working." But when

you are thinking, "I know what I'm doing, I've created this plan, I know the

pricing is profitable, I know the marketing works," and you're in belief, you start

to feel really excited and then you take a ton of action and that action will lead

to results. I hope that you found this useful. I'll see you in the next episode.