Thank you for hitting play today & coming back for another episode of the Senior Studio Success Podcast. I cannot wait to dive into this topic with you.

Here at the beginning of the year, most of us are evaluating how things went last year and how we want our brand new year to go. With that comes taking a look at our prices. It’s no secret that things are more expensive now. The labs are facing the rising costs of materials and shipping, which gets passed down to us too. The price of gas is up which makes our expenses to drive back and forth to different locations more costly too. So, we evaluate things.

More likely than not, you will be raising your prices. And that may bring with it all sorts of feelings. Fear, worry, anxiety, doubt. I get it. I’ve been there too.

So I want to help you in a few ways today.

First, practically, by helping to explain to a long time, loyal client why you’ve raised your prices. Secondly, if you need major help even knowing where to start, I’m going to talk to you about a brand new program that I’m crazy excited to put out into the world, called Accelerator. This is for the photographer who is ready to get serious this year, get confident with her pricing and how to confidently talk to potential clients in order to book sessions on the spot.

First, let’s talk about another reason to raise your prices. If you’ve listened to the last few episodes, I’ve mentioned this quite a bit.

But your business needs to be built around your life and not the other way around. That is what I am so passionate about helping photographers do. Life is too short to work so hard for so little. And most of you are running a business model that will not leave you with much left over for retirement. How long do you plan on trekking through the fields, trying to keep your balance on big wobbly rocks, sit on ledges, climb big hills, stand in freezing cold water just to get the shot? Into your 60s? 70s? 80s? How long will the income you are making now last?

Your pricing needs to support you today and years from now.

Ok, so let’s say you finally give in and say “Ok Jena. You convinced me. I’m doing it! This is the year I raise my prices.” You’re ready. You do all the hard work. You have it all laid out & you’re ready for the calls to start rolling in. Then that fear starts to set in. What the heck am I supposed to tell my clients? Should I make an announcement on social media? Should I send an email to all of my old clients?

Let’s get into that. I’m going to share something with you that is actually straight out of my new program, Accelerator. So here goes. I’m going to read to you directly from one of the modules inside. Here’s the question:

HOW DO I EXPLAIN TO PAST CLIENTS THAT I'VE RAISED MY PRICES?

I completely understand how hard this is. We’ve all had to go through it or are currently going through it. This is where you HAVE to get your head right or you will struggle going forward. You have to BELIEVE 100% that what you offer is worth way more than what you are asking for.

Think about it for a minute. What we do actually increases in value over the years. How much more precious is a photograph as we get older and when we lose someone close? It’s priceless. What you do is priceless. So don’t ever question the value of what you do!

This is your business. You are the boss. That means you set the prices and they have the choice to hire you or not.

Two important things:

People will pay for what they value. It's up to you to prove the value.
People will pay you what you believe you are worth.

You will never be able to sell something that you don’t believe in. So, you have to get honest with yourself here. Do you believe what I just said? Do you believe what you offer is priceless?

As far as explaining to clients, I would wait for them to come to you.

Don’t make a broad announcement that you are changing things. When past clients inquire, tell them that you’ve changed your pricing structure and that after doing this for (insert number of years) you’ve come to realize a few things:

You absolutely love this business, the families you get to work with and you want to be in it for a very long time.
The business model you were running wasn’t sustainable so you’ve made some big changes to make that happen & allow you to work with your clients even longer & offer them a better experience.
You realize this is not what they are used to and if they would still like to remain a client, you’d like to gift them with (insert tiny print credit here - only for repeat clients & only the first time coming back after you set your new pricing). If not, you totally understand and wish them the best. Thank them for their business and support over the years.

That’s all you really can do. You will lose some clients. It’s just the nature of the beast. But your sales will be higher from the ones you do get, you’ll be less stressed and overworked, your clients will respect and appreciate you more and you will have more time for your family.

You got this!!!

Ok, so that is exactly how I’ve handled it over the years. There were times when I had to double my prices, then I doubled them again. It’s not easy to do. It’s scary actually. Some clients will leave you. Some will stay. You have to be ready for that and be ok with it. If you question that, I would ask yourself this question - which one hurts most - losing a client or losing more time with your kids, your spouse, your family?

Now that you know how to handle raising your prices, let’s talk about how to actually do it if you aren’t quite sure. There are a few really important things to understand:

How much it costs to run your business
How much your product costs are
How to put together a profitable collection
How to do your sales to make the most you can
How to get the right people in the door in the first place
How to create an automated system for easily talking to them
How to overcome objections and book the session on the spot

That’s exactly what you’ll learn inside Accelerator. This program focuses on the getting & closing leads in the pre-booking consult, pricing yourself, excelling at in person sales and marketing to the right people.

If that is just what you need to kickstart your business this year, go to www.seniorstudiosuccess.com/accelerator. I’ll be sure the link is in the show notes too. If you happen to be listening to this in real time, we are still in the pre-sale where you can get Accelerator for $200 off. How about that? It officially launches January 19th, so get on it!

CLICK HERE TO GET IN ON THE PRE-SALE

I hope this was helpful for you today. Just know that I understand exactly what it’s like to go through that fear of raising prices. If I can do it, you can!

That’s gonna be it for today. Send me your big aha moments. I wanna know what you thought about this episode. I can’t wait to hear from you.

And a big thank you for leaving reviews & sharing the podcast in your instastories. It helps so much when you do that! Let’s continue building a more profitable, productive & purposeful business so you can spend more time doing what you love with the ones you love.