“Pay what you can” photo sessions: Yes, or No?
I’ve heard a lot about Pay what you can sessions being offered these days. I’m not sure where they came from, and I’ve also heard of them being equally successful and unsuccessful. It likely stemmed from a marketing technique – engaging potential clients by allowing them to set their own price. I can see how clients might love this but not sure if I, or my bank account would love it. A catchy marketing schtick, but risky.
A few ground rules commonly used by photographers when using this technique:
They set a suggested donation to set a threshold and discourage really low-to-no payments. Remember, this is a marketing campaign to draw people but the goal is still to make money! The suggested donation is a concept called anchoring – setting a psychological bar that remains in people’s minds, which can create cognitive dissonance and guilt if a client doesn’t meet it. Dissonance happens when your actions don’t match your thoughts/ belief system. So if you’ve planted a thought, and a person acts against it, it creates a level of internal conflict. As most don’t like conflict, they tend to avoid it. This can guard against the photographer taking home next to nothing.
But, if they went ahead and paid less, they may have lingering guilt. That leads to rationalizing their actions to rid themselves of their guilt – I deserve nice photos too and I truly couldn’t afford it otherwise, I bet there were others who didn’t pay the suggested, the photographer shouldn’t have done it this way if they weren’t prepared to take less from some…..and then you have a client who convinces themselves that they were in the right, and could potentially be a repeat client that’s always willing to pay less. I don’t need to point out that this isn’t an ideal client!
They have people fill out an application form to know their desired level of payment. So this is a bit of reverse psychology – essentially this is what we do every day – we present our pricing, but are willing to meet a client’s budget by tailoring something to them. If they can’t afford the $500 with 30 images, you’re willing to do $250 but reducing the amount of images by 15 to commensurate with price. So here, the photographer will simply lower their threshold on what amount of money they will accept as payment, but still give work that matches value to that amount.
Why Pay what you can is not a good model:
Lots of people can’t ‘afford’ your services. Some don’t want to. So who are you serving? People who actually live below the poverty line? Working people with a debt to income ratio higher than the norm that proves they have less disposable income than others? Rich cheapskates?
You can end up doing a lot more work for very little money. Could you have spent that time looking for, and shooting your super-ideal client for your requested prices? And then had time for your family too?
You may attract a type of client who does not value photography and would not be a repeat. So if your goal was to garner more/ a new clientele, this strategy may not get you where you want to be.
If people know you do this on a regular basis, it will train them to wait until your next special. Who should ever pay full price if they can wait until they can pay almost no price? By the way, this is the same danger with ‘mini’ sessions.
It takes control away from you, in your business. Perceived control versus actual control is an important distinction here. Perceived control is when people feel they have a say in how they do business with you – for example, having several packages to choose from, or earning rewards for referrals. This is a good thing because people feel that you are working with them for the goal of beautiful photos, and they aren’t just being sold to – they are active participants. Actual control is something else entirely. You don’t want others, that know nothing about the ins and outs of your business determining your destiny, or your income. It’s like going out for lunch, and the guy at the table next to you tells you that he’s going to talk to your boss about your salary. Whaaaa?
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How Pay what you can could be adapted as a good model:
You actually want to give back, and want to target low income families who may love an opportunity for photos. In this case, I suggest they must show a proof of income, such as proof they are on social assistance. Better yet, partner with a local charity that serves low income families. This gives you several benefits:
You may find new clients in the staff and their extended families, or volunteers with the organization.
You contribute to your local community as a human, which feels good.
You don’t have to take on verifying people’s income. This can be a difficult thing for people to do. Charitable organizations, in many cases, must do this, as proof of income may be obligatory in order to provide services – especially those funded by government.
Offer it as a fixed investment. Instead of pay what you can, offer a small price that you can live with as a business. Run your projections based on how many clients you can serve in the time you are offering, and adjust based on the minimum you would like to bring in. People still pay a lot less than for a regular session, and you can walk away feeling that you didn’t get the losing end of anything. A major holiday is a good time to do this.
Implicate your clients: Make an offer to your client base – if they purchase a session (or a gift certificate), they will also ‘buy’ a session for a less fortunate family. You would have to do some verifying that the family is needy but you can make a campaign out of it – have friends or family nominate a person who is going through a difficult time, or again, work with a charity in your area to identify qualifying families.
Remember, any one business activity can never ignore the needs of the business, nor jeopardize it. Giving back should never mean risking sustainability – it simply means that a mechanism for charitable giving has been built into the model. This is the critical component – the business can never risk itself, because if there is no business, there is no giving back! You either find alternate ways to replace the income that may be lost from your charitable event (i.e. raise prices elsewhere, cut costs somewhere), or you have willingly decided to take a short-term loss for a long-term gain, and the business can handle the short-term loss. You walk into it knowing your numbers, never on-the-fly and not understanding the impact on your bottom line.
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When it’s never a good idea:
When you think of it as a tactic to get people in the door, without actually running projections on your time and expense or whether your business can manage losses or paying attention if you are targeting your ideal clientele. This approach can actually be separated from all of the other stuff I said, because it has very little to do with a pay what you can. This one is actually called the fear and panic approach. Fear because you have too few customers knocking on your door. If you tell them they can pay what they want, they will knock on your door. Panic because you need some money – any money, coming through the door. $20 is $20, especially if you conveniently sweep under the rug that your time is worth $30/hour and you spent 5 hours, or $150 ‘theoretical ‘ dollars worth to get that physical $20 in your hand. And at the moment, physical dollars matter more than theoretical or ‘time’ dollars, but this will soon burn you out and even put you out of business.
Are you a beginner and came across this post trying to figure out how to start finding clients? There is a better way than pay what you can sessions, to create a business that you will love and that will love you back! Let me help you!
Want to hear more of my thoughts on the topic? I recorded some added commentary in the video below.