Have you always wondered why a few school photographs cost
you a bomb?? Most of the parents don’t land up buying them – cause its too
expensive! Well for the most part I agree with them. School photographs can
cost you easily in a few hundreds. Ever wondered why?
When the rate card comes, we obviously think that the
photographer must be rolling in piles o money with the amount he is charging
us. Are you sure what you pay goes directly in the pockets of the photographer?
NEVER! In order to book a school, a photographer has to pay
commission, like a donation. This donation amount started with a small amount,
but over the years this amount has increased to almost 50%. This means, that
almost half that you pay goes back to the school.
If you are the leader in the industry, it would be easy for
you to “buy” the schools by offering a large amount to the school. But if
you’re a freelancer, forget about doing a session with the school for free also
! Big companies often keep the schools in their pockets with a large number of
photographers on hand to cover a large area.
One more thing to worry about is conflicts. Largely there
are three parties that are working:
1.
Photographer
- maximize earnings and customer satisfaction
2.
School Administration – minimize cost, least
disruption in the school functioning
3.
Students
& Parents – reasonable but excellent quality photographs
If you notice, all the three parties have conflicting
wishes. It all comes down to how the relationship is maintained. Photographs
must maintain a healthy relationship with the school if you want to establish a
long term business relationship with the school.
The commission that is received from the photographer is
usually used to fund school programs or sometimes photographers just provide
with small things to the school like pencils, books etc. which schools are more
than happy to accept!
Do you buy
your school pictures? Why or Why not?
Leave a comment and pass
along / share/tweet / email this post to someone – I’m really interested in
everyone’s thoughts!
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