Discussion on Pricing

So, it's time for some meat, enough fluffy newsletter stuff. What about pricing? Next to my bed is a basket of books, a novel or two but mostly business books. Pour your heart into it-the Starbucks story by Howard Schulz, Small Giants, Blog Marketing and the Art of Pricing all currently have bookmarks. After over 16 years in business I am still a student looking for teachers, especially when it comes to pricing.

What do all these books have in common? They represent my search for the answer on how to grow and sustain Mugshots Photography. Common knowledge in the school photography industry is it is all about price. How cheap can you go, still survive and compete with the "big national". Some companies do this by restructuring the commission structure basically by retailing prints. Some do it by undercutting, or bottom-feeding which usually leaves them with a higher gross and a barely survivable net, this usually works on the schools that the "big national" has identified as not profitable. A few companies, the most successful ones have worked out a formula that matches price and stretches for as much volume as they can wrestle in the contract season. These contracts tend to switch back and forth between these 2 or 3 companies when that year's temp hires were disappointing. The bottomline on this is that school photography business has become a commodity.

Here's what Rafi Mohammed Ph.D, director at Simon-Kucher & Partners, in his book "The Art of Pricing" has to say about commodities:

"Mention the word commodity and most people almost reflexively start moaning about "low prices" and "no pricing power." Commodities are products that are identical in every aspect (characteristics, service, distribution, etc.) to those of your competitors...many competitors experience the unpleasant reality of their products becoming commoditized-they face market enviroments in which their products are losing pricing power. In this situation, companies selling commoditized products end up having their products prices dictated to them by the rivals who are selling similar goods. If you don't match the competition, your customers disappear."

Now that is the school photography industry in all it's glaring truth. Mohammed goes on to say, " If your product is becoming commoditized...you have a strategy problem. Pricing cannot remedy this. You have to develop a new strategy (e.g. differentiation) that will distinguish your product and thus free your prices from their dependence on those of your competition.


Ah, there it is the opportunity... differentiation. Now while Mr. Mohammed goes on to discuss a multi-price structure as a short term prospect he sees the long term prospects as poor. The only way out of a situation like this is to recognize customer's different valuations and meet those needs. So in photographer language... you can only use complicated print packages so long to trick the client into spending more money. This is especially true in our new digital world where scanning is as easy as a copy machine only much better quality. Not to mention my pet peeve, why are we commoditizing our children? Again, why are we commoditizing our children? Why wouldn't parents want to spend more money on better photos of their most sustaining legacy? My experience with Mugshots has shown this fact to be true but it is still an uphill battle as it regards a massive re-education program for school administrators. Is this pricing restructure necessary? Absolutely! For many reasons all of them good- most of all for the parents, kids and community-based photographer.


Now that we have properly identified that school photography has become a commodity requiring a new strategy, "...a significant and time-consuming endeavor" it is important to look outward for inspiration. I chose coffee. Enter Howard Schultz. One day while ordering a Mocha (I only drink coffee drinks with chocolate and foam) in a Starbucks in Redding on my way to a school photographer's summit, I realized, in a much different financial market than my home-base Marin County, I was paying the same $3.45 for my Mocha. Then the next day,while breakfasting with my collegues, I mentioned I needed to walk down the street for my much needed Mocha and 4 women joined me walking by pots of freshly brewed FREE coffee because they too need foam at the top. Coffee, the commodity, had been transformed into a daily luxury item! The model for transforming our industry was right downstairs, around the corner...Starbucks!

Love them, hate them, Starbucks has been a boom for coffee. No longer a commodity it has re-energized an industry in more than caffeine. Read "Pour your Heart Into It" and "The Art of Pricing" and think School Photography. And of course.. contact Mugshots so we can use our combined energy to break the price barrier.

Mugshots On the Move!

5432...We are close to blast off with the Mugshots Expansion Plan! Our marketing material is ready and in hand-new yearbook brochure, CD Flash presentation...Join Us parent kit is at the press. Mini- How to get Mugshots in your School card shipped yesterday and the new website is in process. Now all we need is "excellent photographers" ready to make beautiful images and mo money! Where are you???

Great News!

Today I received some exciting news regarding duplication of the Mugshots model. Last February I spoke at an Excel PhotoLab sponsored summit exploring Mugshot's remarkable success. One of the summit participates went home and implemented our preview program and in his first Spring Shoot is seeing a 33% package increase in the first few days of his launch. Yahoo!

Back from WPPI-2006

What a wild trip! 2 days of tradeshow mania. Kathleen Harrison (right) and I caught the first flight out of Oakland on Sunday morning, returning late Monday night.

I found a few new and exciting items for Mugshots as well as my portrait photography business. On the school photography side was the Westcott Scrim Jim light panels with the aluminum sides. This set up, will allow me to photography all day long without worrying about sun. If all goes right they will also block wind...the two major challenges of outside school photography. These panels were designed for the video and film industry and I am very excited about testing them. Here is a quick link to Westcott where you can see how groovy they are. They were designed by a South Beach shooter who needed to work in the wind. More about them when we begin field testing.

Other great possiblilities:

Gina Alexander Photo HandBags
Very high end, Nordstrom quality handbags with photos on the sides. These are going to be a winner for my portrait business. I can also invision them as a incredibly cool teacher gift with our beautiful student portraits. A group of parents could all contribute to the cost. This would be a fabulous and useful end of the year gift. What teacher/principal wouldn't want to work with a school photographer who was able to provide them with something personal and classy? I can already see the Mugshots graphic styling all over this!

Renaissance Albums
There were a TON of album companies at WPPI. I remember when it used to be just Art Leather, Leather Craftsman and a few other discount folks. This year in house album design is the big feature. I ended up choosing the SoHo album from Renaissance. I test drove their software and it seemed user friendly and the right tool to create my vision of "life as it unfolds". They were very nice and helpful and I will update on my process.

Special Kids Photography
One of the nicer conversations I shared was with Special Kids Photography. They were 2 very caring women who are working to share their vision and train photographers in how to best photograph special needs children. At Mugshots we frequently photograph these special children and I am looking forward to learning more about Special Kids Photography. I know they have a Amherst Book as well as training workshops. Check them out at www.specialkidsphotography.com

Welcome Wppi Members!

I am so excited to be off to Las Vegas to begin this dream of changing school photography! Since 1993 I have been building Mugshots Photography with the hopes of someday seeing it providing legions of dedicated child photographers with a greater yearly income and tons of kids and parents a better school photography experience. I can't wait to find other like minded shooters ready to work together for a CHANGE!
Make sure to visit our forums, share your thoughts, and ask your questions. There is tons to learn and share!
Below are just a few of the things we could cover:

How to get and keep those coveted contracts
Marketing
Sales
Internet
What school photography has to offer the local portrait photographer
What parents want from a school photography company.

What schools want from a school photographer.

What kind of school to look for.

What is the best way to enter the school market and what to expect.

What is a good school photo?

Preview vrs Prepay

How to create stunning portraits in less than a minute

What to look for in a location

Weather, how to manage that which you have no control of .

Lighting- How to manage sunlight all day long.

How to get the best out of children.

Techniques for a smooth-running picture day

Groups photography

What are service items?

Gear- camera, lighting.

Data Management and Organization.

Packaging and Sales Support

Organization, Organization, organization.

The internet, the next frontier

Lab Production

Pricing

Expanded volume sales opportunities.

Marketing your Portrait Photography

Mugshots Photography Licensing Opportunities.

Testamonial-Simplephoto

Linda Russell is an outstanding photographer with a unique approach to the business of photography. For a long time, I have called her the, "Alice Waters of school photography". What I mean by this is that much the way Alice Waters brought cooking back to its natural roots, we feel Linda Russell is doing the same to school and children's photography. Linda has a fresh and natural style of photographing children. Her photos are never staged and many times outdoors, she seems to capture the true spirit of each child she photographs. Her natural style mixed with grasp and use of new technologies such as ours creates a winning combination that we feel is a model for the future of the school and children's photography business.

Eric J. Ellis
SimplePhoto / WaveWheel Inc.

Mugshots' Examples

It is remarkably easy for a great photographer to create beautiful portraits in a very short time at school.















From preschool to high school underclassmen, children really want to do a good job. At the moment of exposure photographing students is like any other portrait shoot, only better as there are NO PARENTS standing over your shoulder.













When parents see photos like these they become your greatest fans, your allies in growing a flourishing business.

Excellent Photographers Need Only Apply.

Excellent Photographers Need Only Apply.

Linda Russell is on a mission! After a highly successful and glamorous wedding photography career she has focused her vision on school photography. School photography? Where say “cheese” rules?

"School is a great place to photograph kids, an amazing place. In a very quick moment you can create a quality portrait, build a child’s perception of being photographed, please a parent AND make money. Serious money." The school photography industry is the largest segment of the professional photography industry, a 1.5 BILLION dollar industry and Linda believes it is high time the professional portrait photography community became more active in this industry.

"For the last 14 years I have been an “in the closet” school photographer. While my fine art portrait business and weddings grew in notoriety I was sneaking out each fall tossing on my Mugshots’ World Peace t-shirt and photographing thousands of local children."

The results are amazing!

"Mugshots is a proofing program form of photography; I don’t make money if the parents don’t buy. This keeps a photographer honest. If I don’t create a compelling product parents won’t purchase, the risk is on the photographer, but do a good job and the financial rewards are there."

"The way I look at it is that parents utilize their combined buying power to purchase a smaller portion of my very expensive eye."

"Heck, I see school photo orders on a regular basis in excess of a $100, sometimes as much as 300-A pretty good return on a minute and a half of my focus."

But how does this affect my more expensive portrait business?

"When I was asked to photograph my first school I was very worried that photographing a school would sully my reputation as a high-end portrait photographer. Here I was photographing the wealthy and renowned Bay Area family’s portraits and million dollar weddings and now I was going to do $18 photo packages? But I am compulsively creative and with 2 small children to support I was of the mind to say yes to business. So I named the company after one of my published greeting card images of 2 children with their faces covered by mugs-“Mugshots” I had no idea at the time that the school photography industry called headshots-Mugshots- another little bit of serendipity."

"Mugshot’s ended up being a boom for my family portrait business. It seems that families recognize good photography wherever they find it and understand that a private session is more valuable than a school session. With the mailing address of every student I photographed I could easily market my portrait work as well. Just going to the grocery store would yield jobs when a child riding in the cart exclaimed “I know you, you took my picture at school,” next thing I knew the parent was asking me if I did family portraits. Plus the look of my portrait work complements Mugshots not competes with it."

How do you get the jobs?

"In its humble beginnings Mugshots was almost entirely a parent movement. I did very little marketing for schools. All of my advertising dollars went into promoting wedding and portrait photography. Then as parents began requesting us in the public schools, the I became a we, and we had to begin really putting together a presentation program, marketing materials and more dynamic web presence. In order to compete with the “National Company” we could no longer appear as “just” a homegrown local. In general, schools hate change. If they have been using the “National Company” they want to keep using it, even if they hate the photos and loathe picture day because they feel safe. I knew we were on to something when the administrators could no longer ignore the parent’s demands for a better school photography product. What they also found was that Mugshots made school photography easier on them. We had developed innovative ways to lessen the impact of school photography on the academic day. We have had school secretaries hug us with glee at the end of the day."

What does it take to photograph schools?

"Besides an excellent eye, sense of timing, and the water retention of a camel, you need systems. Over the years the photography has never faltered but the backend production has. Matching name and image data, ordering information, where and when deadlines required military precision. We shopped numerous software options over the years but all of them were directed toward the standard school photography system of one subject, one shot, prepaid, add to that the fact that we were a Mac based studio we couldn’t find anything that worked. So my career as software developer began and we created a wonderful studio software solution that keeps track of all the details and deadlines we need to easily stay on top of the demands of volume photography."


"2004 was our first year of online ordering, which while promising, was not without a number of challenges. As if being a photographer, software developer, marketing, and sales diva was not enough I was managing an online store. Then my some miracle of networking I ran into Simplephoto. Across the country on another coast was another photographer envisioning the same thing. School photography easily viewed and ordered on the web. Unlike wedding photography, where my experience of the printing reordering bonanza never panned out-they simply looked without purchasing-parents loved being able to buy online. It was fast, convenient and less deadline driven. They were delighted to have their photos delivered directly to their home. With Mugshot’s creative product-lines (we believe in gimmick free photo products…what parent wants their child’s face sitting on the back of a giraffe?) and Simplephoto’s hosting we are now seeing a $69 average on high school UNDERCLASS orders and a $79 on elementary school students. We still provide parents with the traditional order envelope but we hope, along with the school administrators, to eventually see the schools out of the ordering and delivery business."

Mugshots in the future

"There is something to be said for experience and I have had a lot of it both successful and not so successful and my present mission is to empower portrait photographers to change the world of school photography. Mugshots is presently in it’s infancy in vision, my team of creatives are constantly coming up with more and more ideas on how the industry can become a localized force of change. To do that we need to photograph more students and rather than train a legion of temporary freelancers we want to provide community based photographers with the tools and network necessary to succeed. “ We have a slogan at Mugshots, “Cheese is a dairy product, not an expression” if you understand what that means and if you are an excellent portrait photographer, by all means send us your contact info and let’s change the world together, one smile at a time."