At a time when nearly everyone has mastered the art of the selfie and can easily retouch their photos with the latest app, it can be easy to buy into the false notion that professional photography services are obsolete. However, nothing could be further from the truth. In this episode, Gene Marks and Kristina Sherk, the lead photographer and founder of both Kristina Sherk Photography and Shark Pixel, advise professional photographers on how to advocate for the value of their services and build the thriving businesses that they truly deserve.

Podcast Key Highlights

  • What Type of Education Do You Need If You’re Considering Opening a Small Business Within a Trade-Type Industry?

    • Very often with a lot of the trade type industries, there’s so much more that you can learn from interning for a person in that trade than you could ever learn in school.
    • That being said, try to take advantage of any courses in college that will enable you to fine tune the skills that you need to succeed in your specific line of work.

  • What Were Kristi’s Strategies for Building Her Small Business?

    • Kristi started building her business by tapping into her personal circle of musical theater colleagues.
    • She continued to grow her business by attending trade shows and expos, where she could network and make a name for herself within the industry.
    • Finally, she began diversifying her business into Photoshop and Lightroom education with the launch of her Shark Pixel division.

  • What Does the Photography Industry Need to Know About AI?

    • While there have been significant advancements in smartphone cameras and AI, the average consumer does not have the skills or knowledge to utilize these tools the way a professional photographer would, especially if that photographer has dedicated their entire career to mastering a particular specialty.
    • Rather than viewing AI as a threat, photographers should start learning how to incorporate it into their work so that they can present it as a great value-add, perhaps even offering educational packages to colleagues or clients on how to use this new technology.
    • Ultimately, your clients’ attitudes towards both AI and photography as a craft will enable you to see whether they’ll be a good match for you.

  • What Do I Need to Consider When Pricing My Services?

    • It’s really hard when you are in a service-based industry, like photography, to price and then to scale because of your expertise. But, if you’re slammed with work, the only thing you have the opportunity to do is raise your prices, which you shouldn’t be scared to do.
    • Don’t set a price just to be competitive. Know your worth and charge accordingly.
    • Charging more for your work will actually enable you to improve the client experience since you’ll no longer be stuck in “churn and burn” mode and will actually be able to take time with each of your clients.
    • The customers who truly value your work, won’t balk at any price increases.
    • Your time is valuable, so you should also consider charging both a cancellation fee for last minute no-shows as well as an admin fee for late invoice payments.
    • Lastly, don’t let clients pressure you into lowering your prices just because you enjoy your work; this is called the passion tax and you shouldn’t allow it to diminish your sense of worth.

Links

Transcript

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Gene: Hey, everybody, it’s Gene Marks and welcome back to another episode of The Hartford Small Biz Ahead podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. I’m here with Kristina Sherk. Kristina is the lead photographer and founder of Kristina Sherk Photography and Shark Pixel. Kristina, or Kristi as you sometimes go by, thank you very much for joining us.

Kristina: Oh, I’m thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me. This is such a great honor.

Gene: Sure enough, I didn’t even ask you before we started recording, where am I speaking to you from?

Kristina: Right outside of Washington D.C.

Gene: Got it. Okay.

Kristina: In Bethesda, Maryland, yeah.

Gene: So the business that you have right now, the photography business, this is your own gig. Tell us a little bit how it came about and give us a little bit of history of it.

Kristina: Oh, man. I was a musical theater kid and found a university that I loved, Elon University, and did not get into the theater program at the school. And so I know my parents were probably hoping that I became a doctor or pivoted to something that would make me money, and I chose photography. So I went from one creative endeavor to another. And in one of my dance classes, since I was also dancing at school just as an elective because it wasn’t part of my major or anything, one of the other students was like, “You’re a photography major, you can take my headshots, right?” And it was like the clouds parted and the angels started singing because I was like, “That’s exactly what I need to do with my business.” And so the next day started marketing to all of the theater kids that I knew at the school. Started my business actually before I graduated college as I think I was a sophomore when I started taking headshots. And I’ve been taking headshots and portraits ever since. So that was 2003. I probably started my business in 2005.

Gene: Wow. So wait, so you started the business while you were in college, then you graduated college and then this was your thing, right? You expanded the photography business, correct? Did you work…

Kristina: Correct. I moved home and because I knew this whole market of musical theater kids, I just got the word out with my high school kids, or high school friends and to network and basically said, “Hey, I’m going to do this now.” And slowly but surely… I did intern for another photographer in the area, but slowly but surely I had built the photography business. And then on top of that, while I was at school, I was a digital art major. So I wasn’t a photography major. I chose to do a digital type of photography instead. So I chose digital art as my technical major because all the photography was film-based and I wanted to do digital.

Kristina: And so when I did that, I got four years full-time of learning Photoshop, which most photographers will never have the luxury of learning. And so a couple of years later I bumped into the right people at some trade shows like Photoshop World or PhotoPlus Expo in New York. And all of a sudden I remember this very, very important quote that was, “Well, it sounds like you already know how to use the tools. Now you need to go build the house.” And so that was the start of the Shark Pixel business, which is Photoshop and Lightroom education for other photographers. But I knew it would be a conflict of interest to have those both housed under Kristina Sherk Photography. So I separated the two.

Gene: So that’s when you started up the separate company. Right, I got you. So we’re going to get into this business in a second, but what interests me is that it’s number one, it sounds like you are one of the very few people that really took in a lot of education in college and applied it. I mean, a lot of people that go to college and they get their degree and then they wind up going to work somewhere and nothing that they learned in college really applies. But it sounds like you really got your money’s worth from your college education, which is great.

Gene: And it also sounds like you, again, unusual unless you’re some kind of a tech startup kind of thing where you didn’t work for somebody. You said you interned with a photographer for a little bit, but again, most people out of college, this typical route for starting up a business is you go out and work in the world for 10 years working for other companies and you sort of grow up and hone your skills and mature as a person and as a business person and then whatever. You didn’t do that either. I’m kind of curious, any regrets about that? In other words, do you ever look back and be like, “Oh, it would’ve been great if I worked five years in a photography studio or got other experience,” or do you find it that really didn’t have an impact on your life?

Kristina: I think with a lot of the trade type industries, there’s so much more that you can learn from interning for a person in that trade than you could ever learn in school. So the real-world situation.

Kristina: So when I was in college, I applied for an internship. I got the internship. And then once I graduated, that person, that photographer asked me to come back because he saw potential. So it is strange to never have spent a day working in corporate America. But in that same vein, I look at the status quo of what a lot of companies do to their employees, these incremental raises that are not really necessarily based on performance review and things like that. And I just think, “Oh man, if that person just pulled up their bootstraps and just did it on their own, what would they be possible of achieving? What would be possible for them to achieve?” Because sometime… But again, this is coming from somebody who has not spent a day…

Gene: Yeah, understood.

Kristina:… in corporate America. So I just see all the bad things. And yes, it’s very stressful to be in business for yourself. And I’m the breadwinner for my family, so it can get rough.

Gene: Let’s talk about the business a little bit. So first of all, is it just you or do you have any employees?

Kristina: I have a couple independent contractors at this point.

Gene: Okay, that’s right. Sounds like similar to me as well, but a little bit bigger but the same thing. Some employees then also independents, which is very, very valuable. So you do all the work yourself, I’m assuming, and you also do all of the back office stuff yourself or not?

Kristina: What kind of work?

Gene: Tell me how you break down a little.

Kristina: What kind of work?

Gene: I’m sorry.

Kristina: What kind of work?

Gene: Well, outside of work photography. The actual client work, the photography work that you’re doing is your work, correct?

Kristina: Correct. I do have an associate photographer that works under me. And it’s basically like he doesn’t work in my space, but if I need to call him, I will call him and have him go and cover a job.

Gene: Okay.

Kristina: And I’ve had that for a couple of years. So expanding the photographers that I have access to and that I can pull from in those situations. And then for Shark Pixel, which has become a education brand for photographers, yeah, so I’m the face of that. And then I do all the teaching and the education and then I have a marketing company that I partner with to get that…

Gene: Got it. Okay.

Kristina:… information out.

Gene: How does your customers or your clients break down between say, consumer and commercial? Do you still do a lot of… You said when you first started out you were doing headshots of your friends from high schools and such. Do you still do a lot of that? Is that really continues to be your bread and butter like that consumer work? Sounds like you’re nodding yes.

Kristina: Yes. I have been photographing exclusively portraits for close to 20 years. So there are a lot of photographers who have maybe started at weddings and then transitioned, or started in architecture or photojournalism and then transitioned over. I pride myself in being able to say that I’ve been doing exclusively portraits. I know how to light a face with my eyes closed. And lighting a face is very different than lighting a building.

Gene: Yep. And let me give you the opportunity to also say in this world now where everybody has a fairly high-quality camera in their pocket with their phone, I’m sure somebody like yourself who is in the profession has a lot of thoughts as to why you would want to use a professional like yourself. So tell us why? Why not just use by phone? Tell me why.

Kristina: Okay, so where do I start?

Gene: I tell you a lot of thoughts.

Kristina: Yeah. So there’s just a lot of trial and error and mistakes that you make in 18 years of photographing faces. And I could take a photo with that exact same phone and I think you’d be much more happy with the results. And it’s not necessarily the gear, it’s the knowledge of bending light, changing the light’s, quality, making sure that you’re lighting from the right angles. You also want to make sure… I love now that the phones have portrait mode and that they also have the better lenses. What you really don’t want to do is photograph a face with a wide-angle lens because if you do that, you will actually distort the features of that face. And so that’s why I go look at an image and be like, “Well, that doesn’t look like me at all.”

Gene: Right.

Kristina: So there’s just a lot of things that go into it physics-wise and lighting-wise and everything like that. But really it’s not about the gear, it’s about the knowledge and the experience of the person you’re hiring.

Gene: It’s funny you’re in a profession as well, and there are a lot of professions like it where there’s technologies coming out all the time that on the face of it seem like they would threaten the profession. Travel agents back in the day when Expedia and online travel agency, “Oh, how can you possibly be a travel agent again?” And then you realize it’s a giant industry of travel professionals because they provide a great value-add. In your profession, you not only have the phones, you’ve got AI, which is every day there’s a dozen more AI apps that say, “We use AI to do portraits of people or headshots of people.” And that’s a threat to you, but I don’t get that you see that as a threat because you can position yourself around that, right?

Kristina: Yeah. So for Shark Pixel, I actually created an entire masterclass and started selling that on how to use AI within Photoshop.

Gene: That’s great.

Kristina: So I’m teaching other photographers how to use it, how to incorporate it into your work. It’s at an interesting phase. It’s at its infancy. Those, and I just have to chuckle because there’s one of them that comes up on my Instagram called Fire Your Photographer.

Gene: Right. Great.

Kristina: And it’s like a headshot thing that you put in your photo and spits you back…

Gene: Must put you in a good mood every time you see that.

Kristina: Yeah. I’m like, “Thanks.” If people want to go that way, I think that they’re more than welcome to if they need to do something and it needs to get them through a pinch. I think we might end up, it’s all this pendulum, right?

Gene: Yeah.

Kristina: So we’re going into this completely everyone is AI, everyone is computer-generated. I’d be interested to know if it in, I don’t know, five years or whatever, that pendulum swings back and basically balances itself out. And there’s this either this advent of authenticity, which we see a lot, see like, “No, these images weren’t retouched,” and everything like that for beauty ads and things like that. So I’d just be interested and curious as to if that’s going to work, or if companies are going to let that fly for their websites. Are they going to allow AI?

Gene: I’ve often found that there are just certain customers, and this gets into pricing, that there are certain customers that are out there that if they want to save a buck, they want to do it themselves or they think an app is going to take just as great a picture as one a professional would do. I’m not even sure if you want that person as a customer anyway. They’re probably going to beat you up on pricing and probably being a pain in the neck and that’s not the kind of client that you want to work for. You know what I mean?

Kristina: Absolutely. Yeah.

Gene: So I think that technology has done that. I think it almost helps us as professionals really pick and choose the clients that are really best suited and appreciate the services we provide.

Kristina: For sure.

Gene: Kristi, how do you price your services? How do you come up with a price? What do you do when a client says, “That’s just too much money, I want to pay less,”? How do you handle all that?

Kristina: Well then I’m not the right photographer for you, unfortunately. You might have a better fit with somebody newer into the industry. With a newer photographer comes an increased amount of risk that you’re not going to be happy with the shots. At this point, I have 100% money-back guarantee. Everybody that walks in is going to be so… I know and I can guarantee that everybody that walks in… I’ve had people end up in tears because it’s the best photo they’ve ever seen of themselves and it’s not even retouched yet.

Gene: Yeah.

Kristina: So to be able to give that to someone, that gift of showing them what they’re capable of is something that really excites me every time I take someone’s portrait.

Kristina: And then also in terms of pricing. So how do I price my images? It’s really hard when you are in a service-based industry like the photography to price and then to scale because of your expertise. And with every year that you’re doing what you’re doing comes more expertise. So that’s like… And I remember vividly five, seven years into my career, I was like, “I can’t fabricate more hours in a day to work more.” And so at that point, if you’re slammed with work, the only thing you have the opportunity to do is raise your prices. And you shouldn’t be scared to raise your prices.

Kristina: I think that especially women that are their own bosses and are in business for themselves have a real problem with valuing what you are giving as a product. And actually, six months ago, I had to kick myself in the head for going, “Why on earth am I not charging more? I have 20 years experience of shooting faces and portraits.” So yeah. So I changed my prices and I’m going to change them again pretty soon.

Kristina: When you have that realization… And the biggest thing for me was I thought that my pricing had to be competitive with the top three other photographers that were at the top of Google.

Gene: Doesn’t sound like a good approach.

Kristina: And so when I realized that I was breaking my back doing all of these sessions back to back and I wasn’t even enjoying it because I had to churn and burn through that, I realized that this is ridiculous. And I started thinking about what I think my work is worth. And this was actually all help to a mentor that I had about six months to a year.

Kristina: So also seeking out mentors even when you’re advanced in your career, even if they’re in a different field, like a consultant or something like that, is a great idea because they will sometimes be like, “Why are you thinking that?”

Gene: Sure.

Kristina: “Why?”

Gene: Sure. Yeah.

Kristina: And then all of a sudden you’re like, “Well, I don’t know why.” And then something that you just assumed was written in stone can completely be changed.

Kristina: So pretty recently I actually doubled my prices. So now I’ve basically doubled my prices for portrait sessions. And I’m super happy and I get to spend more time with people and really give them something special. But it’s not just a tactile photograph or portrait, but also an experience.

Gene: Don’t you feel like it also validates when you price that way, when people are paying the price and then you have a new client that’s like, “Oh, I mean, that’s exorbitant.” That’s what… You’re thinking to yourself, “I have a bunch of other clients that are happy paying this.” It gives you self-confidence when you realize that the price that you are charging is acceptable to a lot of people, more than acceptable. So when people push back on you, you don’t feel like you’re crazy. You don’t start like, “Oh, am I charging too much?” I mean, it validates, you know what I mean?

Kristina: Totally. And the craziest thing was when I doubled my pricing, I didn’t have one person fight back at me on pricing.

Gene: And then you’re kicking yourself. You’re like, “Why didn’t I do this two years ago?”

Kristina: Yes, I know. Exactly. The amount of money that I have hypothetically flushed down the toilet because I didn’t think about my self-worth five years ago, it’s just amazing.

Gene: If a client comes back to your prospective client and they do challenge you on the price, I mean, does that mean you automatically walk away or do you have any other tactics for… I mean, for example, my company sells software projects and sometimes somebody will come back and say like, “Oh, well, that price is too high.” And then my response would be like, “Okay, well, if we cut down the scope, then we can lower the price.” Do you do stuff like that? People are like, “Well, I can offer you less services for a lower price.” Is that something that you do as well?

Kristina: That was part of the change in pricing. I used to give images as part of a package, and what I’ve decided to do now is the client will pay for the shoot, which is a set price, and then each image that they decide to walk away with is a set price. So they can choose as many or as few as they want. But to be honest, they’re going to come in, they’re going to have this experience. And with photographers, there’s so many horror stories about having a bad portrait taken that I think a lot of people don’t necessarily want to pay thousands of dollars upfront. But once they get in and they’re working with me and I’m shooting to the computer and they’re seeing the images that are coming through, then all of a sudden they’re like, “Oh my gosh, these are the best images I’ve ever taken.” Like, “I’m going to get a bunch of them because this is something that doesn’t happen every day and I love these photos.”

Kristina: I joke with every client that comes in, I say, “I’m one step above the dentist. Nobody likes to be here.” But once you find that needle in the haystack or that good experience of getting photographed, then all of a sudden…

Gene: Sure. You keep coming back.

Kristina:… the price doesn’t matter…

Gene: Do you tend to charge upfront for any services you mentioned, or do you normally collect after the fact?

Kristina: What do you mean? Do you mean…

Gene:.. hiring you to do headshots or for whatever type of project that we have, or you’ll quote me a price, it’ll be X dollars. And then do you perform the services and then send me a bill and I pay for it? Or do you normally ask for, “Well, I’m going to need half upfront and the other half at the end of the project”? How have you found what’s worked best for you?

Kristina: I do it in two different ways. When I’m dealing with a company, I will usually have a quote and I’ll have them sign a contract, and then there will be a 100% cancellation fee for breaking that contract date. When you are in business for yourself and you reserve that time for a client and they…

Gene: Liable.

Kristina:… come back at you and they say, “Oh, I’m sorry we canceled the headshots today.” Oh, well, that’s not on me. You’re going to be responsible unless I can rebook that time. And then the other thing that when it comes to pricing, so if it’s for an individual in my studio, I will have them pay a deposit when they book the appointment and then the remainder is due at the session.

Gene: Good. All right. That is great to hear, and it’s great advice because again, people with service businesses, people are all over the map and more money you can get upfront, obviously the better. At the very least, they’ll cover your costs.

Kristina: Can I add one thing to that?

Gene: Please do.

Kristina: Written into my contract is an admin fee, which is 10%, so of the total bill. And if the invoice is not paid within 30 days of me invoicing you because I don’t know when I’m going to get around to invoicing you. So it’s not 30 days from the shoot, it’s 30 days from the day that you receive the invoice. If it’s not paid, if my money is not paid by that time, the admin fee gets enabled and…

Gene: Got it. Got it.

Kristina: I basically send them back a new bill that says, “You guys had 30 days to pay this, but you didn’t. So now I have to take more time out of my schedule to go track you down and get my money for services I’ve already rendered for you. So for that time and effort, here’s the new bill with an added 10%.”

Gene: So you bring up my next topic, which is really collection and receivables because it drives every business owner nuts and it turns you into a hardened cynical soul after a while. Does it happen very often? I feel like people talk about collection issues. For the most part, it’s not all the time, but it’s what… I’m convinced, Kristi, that you and I one day will be 90 years old and we’ll be sitting in a nursing home together. We won’t even remember what we had for lunch that day, but we will be able to remember every single client that stiffed us during the course of our business careers. It never leaves your head. How do you avoid that? What do you do about non-paying or late-paying clients? What advice do you have?

Kristina: Well, the admin fee really helps a lot because if somebody knows that they are going to be responsible or they’re going to be paying 10% or even 15%, make it whatever you want, 20%, have it go up incrementally. If it’s 60 days past the invoice date, have it be 20%. The nice thing about being in business for yourself is that you are the boss and you make the rules. It’s not society making the rules, it’s not the industry making the rules. If they are hiring you, you make the rules and they will go for whatever your rules or your invoice states. And to date, I can’t remember a single client that hasn’t paid me somehow.

Gene: Good.

Kristina: I’m not sure. I’m sure in 20-plus years that has happened, but for some reason I can’t actually remember it. The other thing is if I have a client that’s not happy, there was a wedding photographer…

Gene: They’ll leave you.

Kristina: There was a reason, and I won’t charge them.

Gene: Yeah.

Kristina: She said…

Gene: I have the same thing. I have the same thing. You don’t want to take money from unhappy clients. And it’s few and far between that you meet people that are really just jerks.

Kristina: Yeah.

Gene: I mean, sometimes.

Kristina: You have to take owner… If you take ownership of every single time your job or gig or client goes well, you have to take ownership of the few and far between times when it doesn’t and you have to make it right.

Gene: Great advice.

Kristina: You have to make it right.

Gene: That’s great advice. Okay, so we only have a couple of minutes left. Even before we started recording, you had brought up, and I’d like to ask you about the passion tax. And you wanted a few words. And we’ve been kind of talking a little bit about that indirectly as part of pricing. But explain to us what you mean by the passion tax and why it’s important to you.

Kristina: I think that for a lot of creatives that are making their business as creatives, one of the biggest reasons why they fail is you don’t have to be the best designer or the best creative out there. You have to be the best at multitasking the different jobs that are required for a successful business. So you can be a mediocre photographer, but if you understand how to network and you understand website design and you understand SEO and marketing, you’re going to be much more successful. So that’s just a little bit about being successful…

Gene: Good point.

Kristina:… as a creative.

Gene: Good point.

Kristina: But the other thing is that the people that you are dealing with as your clients may be in a job that they absolutely loathe. You never know, right?

Gene: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristina: And because of that, there’s this unbeknownst, it’s not intentional, but there’s this unbeknownst maybe jealousy or whatnot that you get to do what you love for a job and I just have to do this day job just so that I can get a paycheck. And so sometimes you will run into the clients that try to talk you down in price because they know that you get fulfillment other than monetary fulfillment from what you’re doing for them.

Gene: Sure.

Kristina: This is why if somebody’s trying to talk you down in price, you need to think about the passion tax and think that I deserve all of the money that I am billing for this project and you don’t get to talk me down because I love my job and I love what I do and you don’t.

Gene: Right. Right.

Kristina: So it’s a concept. It’s out on the internet, you can Google it, but for any creative who loves what they do, definitely check it out, read up on it, because as soon as you come into that situation where somebody does that to you, the light bulb is going to go off in your head and you’re going to be like, “Oh, I remember that. Well, I’m not having doubt with my prices. My pricing is my pricing. And if it’s too expensive for you, go find somebody else.”

Gene: Kristi, it’s just great, great information that you’re giving us, and we’ve only sort of scratched the surface. We’ve spent a lot of time on pricing and dealing with customer when they push back on pricing and collecting receivables, charging that extra admin fee for anybody that might potentially go late. And that’s really, really helpful. And these are really, really critical issues for freelancers, for independents, for small businesses that have one employee, two employees, or just contractors or just independents like yourself, that these issues come up all the time in dealing with it. And I’d love your thoughts on this passion tax. You should not be afraid to charge what you feel is worth. Just because your customer might not be a happy person in their life or job doesn’t mean that you should feel bad about loving what you do and charging for it.

Kristina: Yeah. You should not feel bad about charging what you’re worth just because you love what you do. I mean, if you think about it and you turn it around and describe it in that sense, it’s ridiculous.

Gene: It is ridiculous. It is ridiculous. Not worth it. You’ve worked hard enough to get to where you are. Kristina Sherk is the lead photographer and founder of Kristina Sherk Photography and Shark Pixel. Kristina, where can people find you online?

Kristina: So my portrait work is on kristinasherk.com and my photography and Photoshop and Lightroom training is all on sharkpixel.com, and that’s shark, like the animal pixel.com.

Gene: Love it. Love it. So we will definitely have you back for another round. I want to talk about part marketing, lead generation, getting referrals, as well as some cash management things that you’re doing in your business as well. All these topics I think a lot of people would be interested to, but that’ll hold for another time. Thank you very much for joining me. It was a great conversation.

Kristina: Loved it. It was super fun.

Gene: It was fun. Everyone you have been watching and/or listening to The Hartford Small Biz Ahead podcast. My name is Gene Marks. If you need any advice or tips or help in running your business, please visit us at smallbizahead.com or sba.thehartford.com. Thanks so much for being here. We’ll see you again next time. Take care.

Gene: Thanks so much for joining us on this week’s episode of The Hartford Small Biz Ahead podcast. If you like what you hear, please give us a shout-out on your favorite podcast platform. Your ratings, reviews, and your comments really help us formulate our topics and help us grow this podcast. So thank you so much. It’s been great spending time with you. We’ll see you again soon.

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