By far, the most difficult areas in creating successful and agreeable business plans have to do with working within proposed budgets and agreeing upon realistic time constraints. Typically, from my experience in providing (wedding photography) service, there are many hidden hours working on projects where clients typically underestimate processing time, skill level, and time spent in correspondence with them. I worry about my client accepting the cost of what it takes to pull together a top-notch product. For instance, if I had a set of photographs on hand for a project and showed the pictures to a client prior to writing up a business plan, in many cases, my client would want me to throw in the photographs for their project as a bonus.

But, if they were expected to purchase these photographs online for on average $300 each at Getty (that is, if I didn't happen to have them on hand), my client would probably agree to pay the price. Then again, if the client knows that I will take the images on location for them, the price would be expected to go down to as low as $10 each. Yet, I deserve $300 a photograph too, because I have been professionally shooting for 20 years. Since photography is second nature to me; my customers think I am ripping them off due to the ease I have acquired with the camera. This is the type of issue that is very difficult to emotionally deal with.

Finding out what the fair market value is for artistic services (other than photographs) and finding a fair marketable price can be ve

ry misleading and stupefies most people (including myself). The varying talents of each artist vary and are not really comparable.

To be honest, I think designers are easy targets for dishonest people. From my experience as a wedding photographer (a 20 year whirlwind), I have been verbally muscled around too much! I learned that I had to work with a pre-set pricelist of the cost of every facet of my business. Otherwise, the customer assumed all extra services were FREE. Not only this, but many people tried to "sweet talk” me into lower prices by minimizing my efforts and costs while maximizing their financial challenges. So unfair! But, what was worse than that was the disgruntled attitude (buyer's remorse) after a shoot. I know they loved my work, but they thought their $2,000 was equivalent to $200,000 when it came time to settle all final costs. This aspect is ugly and brutal, and if a designer or photographer is not careful, the clientele can beat you down to the point of burning out of the business. It's not "let the buyer beware” in this type of case, rather it should be "let the artist beware.”

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