On October 17th at noon central, I am hosting a free live brand new masterclass called the three secrets to booking brand photography clients. Whether you are booking your first brand photography client or your next brand photography client. If you currently do not have leads coming in every single day, every single week for brand photography, and you want those leads, you want to be booking brand photography clients. You need to come to this masterclass, it's going to be about 90 minutes. I'm going to go through the training and I'm also going to leave plenty of time for Q and a. So you can ask any questions that you might have. On how we can be getting these brand photography clients. And I will be there with you every step of the way to answer all of your questions. At the end of this masterclass doors will be open for my group coaching program. Rebrand rebrand is now a 12 month group program. That means you're going to come into the program within the first 90 days. We're going to get you your first four figure session or your next four figure session for brand photography. And then you have the remaining however many months that is nine months. You have the remaining nine months. To be in this community, be supported. Learn how to take your brand photography business to the next level. Historically rebrand has been 12 weeks long. And my clients get amazing results in 12 weeks. It takes the average student 74 days to charge four figures for brand photography. But I was noticing that I want to be there for you longer. I want to be able to not just help you hit that first four figure session I want to help you do. I want to help you book a five figure session and I want to help you. Create a six figure brand photography business. Reruns moving to a 12 month community is going to allow me to do that. And I am so excited for it. So you're going to want to be in this masterclass. You can go to Maddie. sean.com/masterclass to register. I'm going to send you the link and I will also be sending out the replay after if you can't make it live, but you have to register in order to get the link. And in order to get the replay. Okay. Onto the episode.

You're listening to Take It Personally, a podcast for photographers about the personal side of business and the art of standing out. Here I'll help you build a business and a brand that is uniquely you. If you want to attract dream clients and stop looking at the competition to decide your next move. If you are ready to show up as a confident branding authority to help you serve your clients and consider your goals and priorities too. If you want to make your mark in a new underserved niche of photography, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Maddie Pachon, South Dakota brand photographer and educator. I'm a straight shooting, Instagram obsessed, Diehard Swifty who has built a multi six figure business on the back of brand photography all while raising a family. And I know you can do the same. Let's get ready to take it personally.

In 2022, I doubled my photography prices. I raised my prices by 100%. I had been shooting brand sessions comfortably for about a thousand to $1,500. And now I did not start doing that. The first sessions that I booked were about $350. But I did that, uh, using a portfolio building process that I now teach. And so after I shot those initial $350 brand sessions, I pretty quickly raised my price to $800. And then I just kept phrasing it. And when I hit about 1200 to $1,500, I was feeling really good. To be honest with you. I didn't really feel like. I needed to raise it much beyond that. I was kind of like, cool. I've arrived. Four figures. It was great. But then, because I was working on developing my personal brand and my reputation was growing and people were talking about me and referring me all good things. I was booking well in advance. Like we're talking three, four months in advance. And when that happens, it is a signal. That something needs to change because my clients didn't necessarily want to wait four months or six months for a photo shoot. It was nice to be booked in advance, but I wanted to be able to get people on my calendar sooner. So this Toby. Something needed to shift. And it was probably my pricing. I had also been working on my client experience and I wanted to spend more time with each client. I wanted them. To see me, not just as a photographer, but almost like a full production house. I wanted to be able to help them, not just with photography, but with getting the models and doing the timeline and. Helping with any props or saying, and I wasn't going to be able to do that unless I had more time to spend with my client. And if I wanted to spend with my client. I needed to be making more with every client that I was booking. So even though I thought that I would be really comfortable at that four figure, mark, it became pretty clear in 2022. That, that actually was not going to work. And I decided that instead of just raising my price a hundred dollars here and a hundred dollars there, like I had done in the past, which is a great method. And I like it a lot. I decided to just rip the bandaid off. I was like, you know what? I could probably be taking half the amount of clients that I am currently taking, and I probably should move toward that. I have young children. I have found over the years that I am not a high volume photographer shooting, fewer sessions does just work better for me. So I was like, whatever, we're going to rip the bandaid off. I'm going to double my prices. So here is how I did that. These are the three things that I worked on in order to be able to double my prices. The first thing is that I worked on my mindset. I know that if you're like me, You know, a few years ago, you hate this answer. But it was probably the biggest thing. And the first thing that I had to address. Because again, once I crossed that four figure, mark, I had this idea in my head, I think. I for so long, wanted to charge four figures for any sort of session that wasn't a wedding that once I did it, I was like, oh my God, I did it. I've arrived. I am here. And we're done now. That is not how it goes. You have to constantly navigate what it looks like to raise your prices, whether you're just giving yourself a raise you're over a year, whether you are increasing your prices, because your costs have increased. You can't just set it and forget it when it comes to your price. It's ever evolving, but at the time I didn't really realize that I was like, oh, four figures. Okay, cool. We're good. Now. And that was not the case. So that was the first thing that I had to do. I had to really talk myself through. Okay. What does it mean to be a brand photographer who charges $2,500 starting. What does it mean to be twice the price of any other brand photographer in town and not have a team. I want my clients to see me as this production house and I was doing a lot of those things for them. I still do, but I am a team of one. I will loop in partners as I need, but it's me. And I'm charging starting $2,500. I had to work through those thoughts because honestly, the idea of charging anything over $1,500, it made my skin crawl, even though I knew. It was where I needed to be headed. This is a good problem to have, but it can still be a problem if you're not working on the mindset part of pricing. As you improve your client experience. And as you serve your clients better and better, you're going to have more people referring you. Your reputation is going to grow. You're going to get more and more people who say, Hey, I want to work with you. And only you, I'm not looking at any other options. I'm not interested in your referral. You're going to get that more and more, and it can be a really good thing, but it also means that you have to constantly be thinking about the issue of pricing. And if you're not working on your mindset alongside that it can be really draining. So that was the first thing that I worked on. The second thing is I positioned myself as a high end brand photographer. And I struggle even saying that because I think in the world of online business, you hear a lot of like, high-end photographer, luxury photographer, that sort of thing. And I kind of roll my eyes when people refer to themselves as that, because in my opinion, it is a. Show me don't tell me, you know? The reason that I say this, I positioned myself as a high end brand photographer. Is because I want to really point out that I did this in a way where I wasn't just saying I am a high-end brand photographer because that's not enough. It's not enough to call yourself luxury. It's not enough to call yourself high end. You have to walk the walk. So for me, this involved working on my own personal brand, it involved hiring some help. I hired a brand designer who helped me update my brand and update my website. We did a full website redesign. That was quite a large investment for me. This was also when I started getting more serious about getting my own photos done and realizing that this was something that I was going to have to revisit. Every year or multiple times a year to make sure that I was really putting my best foot forward and presenting myself in a way that. My clients could learn to trust me and that they would want to work with me. Branding is one of those things that is more of a feeling than it is something that you can like point to or touch. And that was what I wanted to convey. I wanted people to be able to look at my work and look at my brand and the way that I presented myself and know that I was high end without having to have that, like slapped all over my website. Cause I I'm not, I wasn't interested in doing that and I'm still not interested in doing that. The last thing that I worked on to be able to double my prices and still remain booked. Was focused on my client experience. Now this is separate from positioning myself as a high-end brand photographer, but the two really go hand in hand because a stellar client experience is also how you get the reputation of being a high-end brand photographer. A high-end brand photographer is high touch. They communicate well. They answered their client's questions before their clients even ask them. They are constantly surprising and delighting. They are simplifying things. So things are easier for their client that all happens in the client experience. My goal at every shoe is to make it so good that my clients can't help, but talk about me to their business on our friends. As photographers, we do so much work to get the client, but we honestly could use some improvement when it comes to getting clients to rave review and refer. We kind of dropped the ball in that area. And when you have a really solid client experience, your current clients can help you get your next client. So it's a really detrimental mistake to be making that. I see all too often. And I have struggled with this too. I have had seasons of life where I'm not delivering photos as quickly as I should be, or I am lacking in communication. I miss an email or I forget to send an email, like stuff like that happens, but being able to pick yourself back up to apologize, to own your mistakes and to promise yourself that that's not going to happen again, that you're going to learn from it and make sure that every experience is consistent and. Consistent and also better than the last, like that's what you need to be doing. With every single client. That is a luxury experience. I hear so often from my photography clients, that brand clients are not willing to pay for figures. They're not willing to pay a thousand dollars or $3,000 or $5,000. But these clients do exist. I improve my clients are proof. I have a client who just this week in the last, not even four months that she has been inside rebrand. It's four months at the end of October. She has made over $30,000 with Brenton photography services. That's headshots that's personal brand sessions. That's commercial sessions, $30,000. Just about every session that she has been submitting has been four figures or like mid four figures. Like she's doing such an insane. Job. And she's based in Iowa. Like she's not in LA, she's not in New York. She is near a large city, but she is in Iowa and she continues to get these incredible clients who are willing to pay her prices. And it's because of the focus on these three things, your positioning, your marketing and your client experience. And this is exactly what I'm going to be going over on October 17th at noon central in this live. I've masterclass called the three secrets to booking brand photography clients. These are the three things that you need to understand about your brand and how you can set yourself up for success to be able to be booking B's four figure plus clients, because if you are not visible and reputable, they are going to look right past you. You can go to Maddie, push on.com/masterclass to register. And I will send out the replay afterward, but you have to sign up. See you there.

Thank you so much for listening to Take It Personally. If you haven't already, would you head over to iTunes and leave us a review? This is the best way to let other photographers know about the show and help keep us creating content you crave. And if you want more tips and tools to build your personal photography brand, head over to my website, MaddiePichon. com. Here, you can access my downloadable ultimate personal brand session shot list to get your clients singing your praises and browse my blog for more trade secrets to help you hone your craft and grow your business. Love to learn while you listen, visit MaddiePachon. com and click on podcast for all things. Take it personally. From show notes to recent episodes and incredible guest profiles. Remember friend, the most important part of any brand is the people behind it. Branding and business is personal, so let's take it personally.