PODCAST TRANSCRIPT - EPISODE 237

MY SON'S SENIOR PORTRAITS

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Annemie Tonken  00:00

Hey guys, today's episode is a little bit of a departure from the norm because I just got my son's senior portraits back from LifeTouch, which is a gigantic sort of, they almost have a monopoly on school portraits and a lot of like sport photos and things like that in the US. They were recently purchased by Shutterfly, or they purchase Shutterfly. I don't really know all the details of that. But basically, it's a big box portrait studio that does a lot of like, on location work with schools. So you know, I've been familiar with LifeTouch since I was in high school, and they were taking our high school photos. And I feel like the nature of school photos has changed pretty dramatically over the years in that there are a lot of schools that use private photographers now. And on the other end, I think that the large big box companies that provide school photos are running things differently now than they used to. So anyway, I wanted to just kind of walk you through my experience of receiving these, talk a little bit about the pricing and talk a little bit about the takeaways that I got from this experience, because I think that they have relevance to all of us as small business portrait photographers. And I think that it's important to kind of keep some of those things in mind as we are structuring our businesses and setting our prices and speaking to our potential clients and our clients about the difference in what we provide versus a service like LifeTouch.

Intro:

Welcome to this can't be that hard. My name is Annemie Tonken. And I help photographers run profitable, sustainable businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard. You can do it. And I can show you how. In my town and the school district that my kids go to school in for the last several years, I have been hired by families, periodic families, I don't I don't build myself as a senior portrait photographer. I don't do a lot of that work. But of course, as a family photographer, I am known to a lot of people as you know, a good photographer. And so I get these phone calls saying like, hey, you've been photographing our family for years, can you do senior portraits for our son or daughter or you know, someone will just reach out and say, hey, you know, my friend so and so has worked with you, I have a senior Can you do some some senior portraits. So again, I don't do lots of senior portraits, but I do provide them and have provided them for years to let's say, five to 10 families a year. So I was surprised when my son who is a rising senior, you know, we got a message from the school saying come in your senior portraits are happening these dates, and you know, sign up for a slot here, and I realized that those were being run by LifeTouch. Now, I think that in the past, the seniors have had yearbook photos, but this was or they had the opportunity to do yearbook photos with the other kids at school. But this was different. This was like specifically senior portraits. And they said, these are the photos that will be in the yearbook. We're not doing we're not doing custom. You know, you can't submit your own senior portrait this year. If you want to be in the yearbook, you have to come in and schedule a sitting. So that was a departure from what it has been in the past. I don't know what went into that change. You know, I know that in the past, I have been asked by the families who have hired me to photograph their seniors to submit a photo to the school in X dimensions and x resolution and all that sort of stuff. So So I knew that that was different. And I was kind of surprised, but I was like, Okay, well, let's go ahead and sign you up for getting a yearbook photo made. And when we went to sign up, it was a $25 fee to get his photo made for the yearbook. And that seemed weird because again in the past, if you wanted to purchase photos, school photos, then you had to spend money, but my kids go to public school. This was a so it's kind of a surprise $25 fee that I was grateful to be able to pay but I knew would represent a burden for a lot of kids and families just to have their photo in the yearbook. It felt like a kind of a attacks on something that should be sort of part of your senior year. experience regardless of your ability to pay. So again, it was surprising. I paid the $25 sitting fee and scheduled Oliver for his session. And the session slots were six minutes long. And when I opened I, I figured, okay, six minutes is fine, because he's going in and literally like sitting down, and they're going to put one of those like fake tuxedo tops on him and take a picture. And that'll be that. But then when we got the information about what he needed to bring, and all that sort of stuff, it said that he was going to have 16 different looks. And I was like, wow, that is some speed photography in six minutes to get, you know, 16 different poses or whatever. But again, I just figured he would be wearing the same thing for all of them come the day of the session, I take him to the school, and I just waited in the parking lot while he was having his photos made. And you know, sure enough, he wasn't in there for more than 10 minutes. So walked in, stood in line for a couple of minutes or filled out whatever paperwork when had his photos made and was back in the car 10 minutes later. And then here, I you know, opened my email yesterday or the day before, and I have the like life touch link to his proofs. And I use the access code and whatever. And I log in. And I have to say, My son is very cute. I may be biased, but he was, he was my original muse. He was truly the reason that I got in family photography, and he has not lost his knack for being a very photogenic good looking guy. So little mom pride there. But anyway, I go through these, and you know, it's enticing like that. Okay, I will say this, he has indoor portraits like studio portraits, and there are outdoor photos and the outdoor photos are overexposed. Like there's several places that are blown out. So just technically speaking, the photos aren't great, the color rendition isn't great, I can leave the outdoor photos. You know, that's, that's like the casual look. And I have many, many more photos of him that are a lot better. So that's no big deal. But the ones that are sort of the traditional studio portrait, he's wearing that fake tuxedo, he's super cute. He they have a couple of him in cap and gown in his school colors, holding the little High School plaque for the high school that he goes to. And so those are more attractive to me not because they're great, you know, beautiful photos. And thankfully, I have this stockpile of photos of my own kids that I would prefer to hang on the walls. But I'd like to have these as a memento, right.  So I started shopping, and you guys, they are not joking around the cheapest package that I could purchase was $180. And includes Hold on, let me find this. It includes 48 wallets, no 24 wallets for four by fives and two, five by sevens. It's $177. And it does not include any sort of digital files or anything like that. So starting price $177 The packages go up from there starting at the let's see here. 400 ish dollar mark, when you purchase a package, then you also get the corresponding digital files, but not until you're spending upwards of $400. And with all of these packages, there's a bunch of wallets which I have to say. In the era of smartphones, does anybody use wallet photos anymore? I mean, maybe grandparents but nobody has 48 grandparents and you know six eight by two, i don't know i There's a lot of there's a lot of stuff in these packages that if I were purchasing a package, I'd be like, Well, I don't want this I don't want to have you know, one of the things that is in one of the bigger packages is wallet personalization. So for those of you who remember the days of wallet, photos being a thing, you could have like your name put in the corner, and I guess you can still do that. But again, like I don't I know for a fact, certainly among my kids and their friends. Nobody is like trading wallet photos. I mean, in high school, I had like my wallet and I had some of my friends photos and they don't do that anymore. So I don't know what those are for. They seem really outdated in terms of like what's included in the collections. But yeah, oh, I'm sorry, I'm wrong. The package where you get the digital files is the top package, which is the perfect package for $555. adding things like retouching is is more you know, you can't you know, get that automatically and anyway, so, packages are not inexpensive, certainly not for a six minute session.  So then if I go into the L A carte area, which was really the first thing that I did, because I was like, really all I want are a couple of the files for these, a couple of the different poses, I'd like the files so that I could have them printed at my favorite labs. I know what I'm doing when it comes to printing. And I don't necessarily trust Shutterfly to get that right for me. So I started looking through the products and it's hard to find digital files to download to begin with. So you know, they're still sticking with the whole, like, we have to sell prints first. And look, guys, again, I used to do in person sales, I still get prints and products into the hands of every single one of my clients using simple sales. But it is I also have come around to the fact that digital files are not going anywhere it is even if someone doesn't intend to really do anything with them, it is an insurance policy for them and their families to have those digital files. Hopefully, they you know, go through the training that I provide on how to back those up appropriately, but still. Okay, so anyway, so I got to the digital images on the ala carte area. And I'm doing this in real time, I'm like clicking through and sort of walking through this experience. In order to purchase the digital images, I have to purchase all of them. So I can't individually choose a digital file and the price is $419. And it is very clear here it says price with package purchase for 19 ala carte for 19. So I think what they're saying, and it's actually not really clear so I'm you know, I there is a support chatbot thing that I could click on to ask these questions. But if I think what they're pointing out is sure you can buy just the digital files. But really what you should do is buy the $4,490 package so that you can get 1800 wallet sized images, and then we'll throw in the Digital's for free.  So this is really all I have to say about this experience in terms of the experience itself. But the reason that I wanted to talk about this here on the podcast is because every single day, every single day in my Facebook group in among my just the wider Facebook group, but also in my simple sales group, where a lot of the time we're talking about pricing, because people are running their numbers with photographers that I talked to just you know, when I'm doing any sort of coaching or small group sort of stuff, every single day, I hear from photographers about how they don't feel like they can charge more than, you know, a couple few $100 No one will hire them for higher prices, no one is going to pay these prices. And I just want to call BS because this company that did these school photos for my son has been in business for a long time. They cater to everyone in America basically, with packet, you know, working in public schools. So these are going out to families that can afford them without any problem and families that you know, can't or shouldn't afford them, because it's going to make a huge impact. There is no low cost option, really, I mean, sure. $177 is a very low cost, in terms of like what I charge for the work that I do. But I also don't do six minute sessions and have absolutely everything automated to within, you know, an inch of its life. I mean, there is zero human contact here. It's not as though Oliver had any idea who his photographer was, he did tell me that it was really, you know, felt really awkward. And there was a lot of like, tilt your head this way kind of thing, which we had a laugh about. But in terms of like the experience and the personal touch and the sense of, you know, feeling like you had a process in place, or a customized set of options at the end. There's none of that this is just, you know, you come in, here's the process, boom, boom, boom, pay your money, and now move on. And that's fine. If you have heard me talk about the donkey model of business. This is a perfect example of this.  But part of the reason that it's a perfect example of the donkey model business is that LifeTouch and companies like this law are you in with in this particular case, it's kind of like they have a contract with the school. So now if the kids want to be in the yearbook, they have to pay $25 I do think that there is a way if a family has like financial hardship they can apply to get the fee waived, but you have to jump through hoops. So anyway, they are basically forcing you to pay this $25 fee and you know, the school's got 1000s of kids in it. So that adds up and they're you know, if you want anything at all from the session you're spending well or over $100 There's so I have no idea what the numbers are in terms of like how much money LifeTouch is going to make from my son's senior class. But I bet it's a lot of money, y'all. And I would, and I know because it's, you know, public records. When Shutterfly acquired LifeTouch, they paid $825 million for the company. And life touches annual revenue currently stands at 1.5 billion. This is all just basic Google searching. So I'm not verifying these. This is the information that's sort of publicly out there. It says revenue, okay. LifeTouch has 303,000 employees, the revenue per employee ratio is $500,000. And life touches peak revenue was 1.5 billion in 2022. So these are current numbers, assuming that the data that I'm getting is accurate, but it wouldn't surprise me, right? This company is making tons of money on what is sort of perceived as a low cost, low value thing, school photos, like the basic school photos that we all grew up with  all this to say, I hope that the next time that you have some sort of self doubt, or you consider lowering your prices, because somebody tells you that they can't work with you, and you like them, and you want to work with them, and you you know, or you consider lowering your prices, because you are getting a no from too many people and it feels uncomfortable. I want you to think back on this. And I want you to reconsider what your time and your expertise and your care and your effort, what all those things are worth because we are pouring so much more than just, you know, a like point and click kind of an experience into what we give our clients and it is worthy of investment. And if you haven't found those people who are you know, believe that it's worthy of their investment. A, I want you to work harder on communicating the value, may making it so that you are you know, showing them clearly that they are getting a very different experience than this kind of a big box experience. And I want you to work on your, your own kind of mindset around this stuff. Because I do think that the ability to communicate value confidently is 90% of the battle I no longer suffer. This is not to say that I never did. But I no longer suffer from any sort of impostor syndrome about my pricing for my photography. I get knows from time to time, but I am just I'm I'm okay with that. That's fine. And I think that when I have these phone calls with people, and I'm just talking to them about the prices, and I'm communicating about the it's my confidence in that pricing, eight times out of 10 that I think sort of moves people toward going ahead and purchasing. And so you know, LifeTouch isn't making any apologies about their pricing on their website. Quite the contrary. And neither should you.  So that's my little PSA for today. I hope you guys are having a great week. And and I would love for you to hop into the Facebook group. It's, you know, if you just search this can't be that hard on Facebook, if you're not already part of the group, come join us. It's a great safe space. It's very positive, we keep it. We keep it all positive in there, where we talk about the business of photography, and I would love to have a conversation with you about this big box versus custom work and, and sort of all that goes into that. So love to hear your thoughts. Thanks so much for listening.  

Outro:
Well, that's it for this week's episode of This can't be that hard. I'll be back Same time, same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode along with all the relevant links, notes and downloads at this can't be that hard.com/learn If you like the podcast, be sure to hit the subscribe button. Even better, share the love by leaving a review in iTunes. And as always, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.