Investment...

Pricing, the devil and angel on your shoulder in business, the hardest thing to decide always! I always battle with being affordable and also earning a wage, I would love to shoot for free but it just isn't possible, if you charge too little you are literally running an expensive hobby.  In the early days if a customer asked me for money off then I would just agree! I tried to people please all the time, it taught me a lot though and I don't regret my business journey, the only advice I would give to my younger business owner self would be to invest in yourself early on! Forget the product and be a businesswoman! Yes the product is my business but without business knowledge, you're just another person with a camera..In my years in this industry many amazing photographers have had to give up because their business side let them down, I have also seem some terrible photographers absolutely fly because they are dynamite at sales! I like to think I sit in the middle, I like to give my customers a relaxing experience with great photos and earn money for myself too, still here 12 years later so something must be going ok!

I want to politely ask customers to not ask for discounts for no reason, I have to compare it to people who are employed, if your boss decided to give you a pay cut that month for no reason, literally no reason, then it would be a flat no, this is the same thing as asking a small business for a cheaper service, remember this business puts food on our tables and clothes our children.  

I wanted to add a visual below for anyone who says "I want a photoshoot that doesn't cost an arm and a leg" there's budgets out there for everyone, so don't make a photographer feel bad for charging what they do and other professionals in the field, please charge your worth! 

Photography is a luxury service, not a necessity, and we are commissioned to work, we don't force customers to do something they haven't instructed us to do <3
​
Nicky 

​xoxo