Everyone loves a discount! All a discount does is make you feel like you did better than others in the same situation. It’s a feeling. Companies use these feelings all the time to WIN your business (in reality, discounts are sometimes real and sometimes imagined). Yes, you may save some money, but what you’re really after is VALUE. After all, paying a huge discount for something you find worthless doesn’t exactly make you feel good after the fact 🙂 . The feel good discount feeling is all good and dandy for products and common services, however, for specialized services such as photography, it may make sense to skip the discounted photographer. Here’s why!
The photographer that offers you a special to win your business is usually in one of two categories. Just starting out or hurting for business. These are not necessarily the categories you want for the person that is supposed to produce spectacular lifelong images on your behalf.
Let me explain more. Well the starting out photographer is obvious. They’ll most likely miss all type of shots and produce mediocre results. It’s not a knock on the photographer, but we all must start somewhere and we improve with time and effort. It will usually be obvious prior to booking the photographer that they are getting their feet wet with your event.
The other category (hurting for business) is a bit more notorious. It’s not where you want a photographer to be because we all want to be valued. Value is key in this society. Without it, I’m not sure we have civilization as it has formed today. So this type of photographer will discount their price to gain your business. And because you don’t know how complicated photography can be, you will gladly hire the photographer behind the special.
Here’s where the problem comes in. We do very involved work and a lot of work you never see. We invoice you based on the hours you need, but there are many hours behind the scenes we must also work to make you happy and put our best foot forward. Since we are in essence producing what some may consider the most important part of any event (the memory preservation, which is why you hire a photographer in the first place), it is unlikely you want us to feel like we work at McDonald’s with very expensive equipment at your once in a blue moon event.
Well I can assure you the discounted photographer can certainly feel like they work at McDonald’s based on the time prep, the event time, and the post processing time. How do you think this will translate to the end result of the service you hired? Right, I don’t know either, but I’d much rather have that type of person happy and not worried about money or feeling undervalued since that will certainly maximize the best end result based on the possible choices I am in control of making.
Conclusion
So if you can afford to skip the discount photographer, I highly recommend you do so unless you have done your research and the discount is a healthy one. They usually aren’t as they must discount just to gain your business.
It is in essence simple economics (supply vs demand determines price). Demand is low, supply is high (photographer is available every day), which means price must come down. But that doesn’t make the photographer feel any better just because they are getting business for in essence working at a fast food restaurant. This attitude will most likely show up throughout the process and in the end result, something you may want to avoid. Yes, you may feel good, but the photographer may not, and you want the photographer to feel good!
Just put yourself in the shoes of someone who provides life long memories with very pricy complicated equipment and instincts that must be on point. Then having to post process while in essence getting paid like someone working at McDonald’s. Put another way, imagine you’re an Uber or Lyft driver, and if you’ve ever been one, then this should be amazingly relatable.
Good luck choosing your next photographer. We’d love to be just that for you! We can help with engagement photography, wedding photography, and event photography. Browse around the site and see if our services may be useful to you.
