We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kelley Hoagland. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kelley below.
Kelley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?
I remember when someone first paid me for a newborn photography session, around $100. I thought I had arrived! Starting a photography business had been a largely unspoken hope of mine for some time. While I was regularly posting my images to social media and blogging, I had not yet really marketed myself as a photographer for hire. That first payment felt so affirming. $100 seemed like great compensation for an hour of work. However, like many photographers at the start of their business, I failed to recognized that it wasn’t really $100 (due to taxes and expenses) and it involved far more than an hour of work.
It wasn’t really until my 3rd year of business that I sat down and learned how to properly calculate my cost of doing business. I had reached max capacity trying to juggle motherhood, a part time professional job in healthcare, and a growing photography business. Something had to give and I longed to resign from my stable, healthcare career and make the leap to fully pursue art instead. However, the price I would need to charge in order to make my photography business profitable and sustainable absolutely shocked me at first. The majority of family and newborn photographers in my area were charging a fraction of that price.
With guidance and support from other successful family and newborn portrait photographers via online education and communities, I made the leap and completely changed my business model. I increased my level of service: providing more guidance in the photography session planning process, adding a client closet full of photogenic dresses for client use, and educating myself on high quality photography products which I added to my price list. There were certainly plenty of bumps along the road and hard lessons learned. Nevertheless, two and a half years later my business has continued to progress and is stronger than ever. I have no plans to return to my healthcare career any time soon.
I have seen that one of the biggest challenges to profitability is a lack of value placed on the artistry of family photography. This comes from both clients and we photographers. Digital cameras are affordable and easily accessible. In many ways a photography business is an easy side hustle to start as a hobbiest. (I say this with no judgement. After all, that’s how I got my start.) Unfortunately, that has created a culture of low pricing in many areas. On top of that, family photography doesn’t really feel like a luxury anymore. We all walk around with cameras in our pockets in the form of cell phones. Do we really need family photographers?
According to the author Dane Sanders, 85% of photography businesses fail in the first 3 years. In my area, many clients expect photographers to charge $200-400 for an hour long photography session. Unfortunately when taking into account the expenses and time required to run a professional photography business well, that rate is not profitable or sustainable. (If I’m being completely honest it’s not uncommon for it to be suggested that I provide my services completely for free.)
The photographer not only has the expense of equipment (which does have to be serviced and replaced due to wear and tear). Photographers also pay for business insurance, subscriptions to editing softwares, website development and maintenance, client management software, marketing software and materials (i.e. graphic design software, social media ads, and print material), email list services, online image gallery services, file storage, education, transportation and more. Then there are the self employment taxes to consider. For a single session, I generally spend 8-10 hours between client communication and planning, drafting contracts and invoices, location scouting, preparing equipment, travel, photographing the session, culling and editing images, organizing and uploading files and designing and ordering products. This doesn’t even include the time spent attracting the client via marketing in the first place. As you can see, the expenses and time spent add up!
A lot of photographers I know fear raising their prices because they are worried they will lose all of their business. Many of us creatives are truly passionate about what we do and love serving our clients. It’s deeply personal for us. The rejection of client dropping us really hurts and the potential loss of income is terrifying. Therefore, time and time again, I see photographers taking on a high volume of sessions in order to offset the cost of running their business. Unfortunately, this strategy often leads to burn out. For true creative growth and health, most artists require time for rest and reflection. Artists can’t sustain a break-neck pace forever and it’s certainly not an environment for creating one’s best work.
Despite these challenges, I do not believe that family and newborn photography is a lost cause. There are families who see the difference between cell phone snapshots and true photographic art. There are families that recognize that power of the quality printed photograph; who see that there’s magic in the tactile experience of holding an image in their hand and slowing down to reminisce rather than swiping quickly by. It is possible to raise prices by offering a personalized, intentional experience. Doing so helps secure the longevity of your photography business, allowing you to serve the clients you love for years to come.
In order to raise awareness and encourage fellow photographers, I have started a photography blog and directory that features professional family photographers and educates the public about the art of family photography. The photographic blog is called Cradle and Folk. It can be found at https://cradleandfolk.com.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Kelley Hoagland and I am a Chattanooga photographer specializing in newborn and family photography. I’m located on Lookout Mountain, GA and serve Chattanooga, TN. I discovered my passion for family photography while raising my 3 young daughters. Having practiced as a pediatric occupational therapist for 10 year, I found that my skills for connecting and working with young children naturally leant themselves to capturing genuine, joyful portraits in camera.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
When I first started by business, I would have told you that social media was the most effective strategy for growing my clientele. I got my start by sharing portraits on Facebook and Instagram as well as linking to personal blogs on my website. Obviously, the social media landscape has drastically changed in the last 6 years. Only a fraction of my followers even see my content now. More and more of my clients are actually requesting that their images NOT be shared on social media. I’m happy to honor their wishes, but it certainly has made marketing interesting. While I certainly still get inquiries from clients who find me on social media, I have noticed a shift. I have strong SEO rankings on Google which bring plenty of traffic to my website, but word of mouth from previous clients has become more valuable now than ever. This year, I have been leaning into that more and spending less time posting/engaging on social media. I have set up a reward program that provides discounts to clients who send me referrals. I have also been focusing on collaborating with fellow business owners, proving gift cards that they can share with their clients.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Whenever I get into a discussion with other photographers about profitable pricing, one of my first recommendations is the book Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. I love how it simplifies budgeting your businesses’ gross income to ensure that you are designating enough funds to cover taxes and expenses while ensuring your protect your own profits. It is so easy to overspend when running a photography business. Equipment is expensive! There are always new gadgets, tools and software to invest in. As a family and newborn photographer, there are always new dresses, backdrops and props that are catching my eye. The framework proposed in Profit First helps me stay within the safety of budgeting guardrails. I never stress during tax time following his framework.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kelleyhoaglandphotography.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelleyhoaglandphotography/
- Other: https://cradleandfolk.com
https://www.instagram.com/cradle.and.folk/
