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Hello and welcome or welcome back to the podcast. I am really excited for this episode because I have been getting a ton of questions about this. Am I in the pricing zone? I wanna raise my prices to this price, but I think it's the dead zone. How do we know what the dead zone is? And all of these other questions, and I realized, I looked back in the archives of this program. It's gone through many iterations, of course, and an old training that I had talking about the pricing dead zone and the different levels of pricing and the kinds of couples you're gonna be faced with at those price points. And I decided to just give it to you guys for free. And it is a training that I think you might come back to time and time again when you need the confidence to raise your prices, and then when you feel like you've reached the top of the threshold for a certain couple. And so what I dive into is affordable, average, mid luxury, and luxury. Those are the four steps and what raising your pricing looks like and the max for each of those couples. And they're all different. Like some people, when you double or triple your prices, you might actually skip two different types of clients. And so you're gonna have to wait, for the algorithm to change and for a different clientele to get in contact with your brand, with your business versus being like, oh, okay, I raised my prices two or three K thousand dollars, let's just say, and now it's crickets. It's crickets because you were serving a different clientele and now you have to wait to get in front of the higher end clientele. I lay it all out in this little mini masterclass, and if you're really struggling with your pricing and being like, where am I? Why isn't this working? And you feel like you're just on this hamster wheel of pricing, I dive all into it today. And yeah, I save it. Come back to it later. Share it with a friend who's also struggling with their prices. I think it will definitely serve you all for free. A little bit of an update is I am going to be diving into a mindset and pricing series for the next month. So if you're just like, oh my gosh, I really need to get over myself, get over these thoughts, these blocks, these stories, or what I like to call mindset drama, you are in for a treat. And I think what's really funny is a lot of people will say, oh my gosh, like you're so confident and you're so bold. You have to be, if you're gonna do something crazy, like dive into sales and you don't have confidence, you will never succeed. And so in order to be good in business, you have to learn how to make money and you need to learn how to make money consistently, or there is no business. This is a hobby that is super fun and doesn't pay your bills, and I'm very adamant about that and I will be sharing some spicy takes with you. But listen, if no one else is gonna tell you, I will never. Take your money and tell you something because I'm your friend. That is not why you want to work with me. That's not why you hired me. You did not want to hire a friend. That's what your business besties are for. That's what your peers are for. That's what your parents are for, right? I'm gonna tell you the truth and I'm gonna tell you what's working, what's not working, and how we can fix that. If you loved this class and that the Future Podcast to come, we are opening the doors to the new and updated name change of wedding, CEO in April 22nd, and there will be a live masterclass where I'm gonna walk you guys through your pricing and I'm gonna be doing live pricing audits on the call. It's gonna be so fun. So you actually wanna come live because I'm gonna rip up your pricing live and in person, and you will walk away with new prices that you can apply instantly. And if you wanna confidently be able to sell them, then you can join us inside of the program. Simple, easy. There'll be lots of bonuses, lots of new things. We're adding lots of, ugh. I just, I wanna tell you, but I can't. I've had to hold the surprise in since December. Come on. It's really hard. But we're just, we're revamping the whole program. It's it's gonna be incredible and it's gonna change your life and business faster. Than ever before. I want these trainings to be even more bite-sized, even more strategic, and a lot more done for you. Done with you will be, of course, me ripping apart stuff on the calls, but it's gonna completely just, I'm so excited. Okay, let me just dive into this lesson so you guys can listen to the Pricing Dead Zone Masterclass. Let me know your thoughts, DM me, I'd love to hear from you, and of course I'll send you a voice message back because I'm a girly who loves to yap. So without further ado, onto this pricing Dead Zone masterclass.

Alora 4:30

In this lesson we're gonna be talking about whether or not you may feel like you are in the pricing dead zone. Packages go so many different ways, and the pricing structures change as the industry changes, as there's inflation, the rise and fall of not booking as much. But I do have a couple of things to say about that. So let's dive in. If you are here, which most of you guys starting out are anywhere from one K to three k. And it could be a couple of things. You could be booking out like crazy. You could be getting budget brides, you could be feeling like you're giving them everything in the kitchen sink and they want more. This is your affordable budget brides that will never be happy. The bad news is this bracket will take advantage of you. A lot of people quit at this point because they're not charging enough and they're really tired of serving these brides that just want a photographer and don't actually value them as the photographer and their specific style. This is the client that is literally going to take advantage of you and leave you wondering whether or not you're cut out for the business. A lot of people die here. That's not what we want for you. We want you to really start dipping your toes in the average. Now, in the average, this can go one of two ways, and this is often where the pricing dead zone occurs somewhere over here. So the average price is where a lot of people. On their way to burnout. This is it because, and this is where I was on my way to burnout. I was at 3.5 K and I would book like 25 to 30 weddings a year. Not to mention second shooting for friends. They would only book my middle package because I gave them everything. I gave them an engagement obsession, a second shooter, and nine hours of coverage. Why in the world would they book my highest package if I gave them everything in the middle package? So that was a huge no. The second thing was that they valued me as a photographer. I can't say that they disrespected me. They were nothing like the affordable bride. So I thought this. Was where I was going to be forever, except you have to book so many of these clients to really profit and give yourself a nice salary, a decent salary, and I had a pretty decent salary, but. I was burned out at my core. I had hardly any weekends free. I missed so many events, so many birthday parties, so many everything. I did not really have a life at this price point. If I would've booked them all at 5K, I think it would've been a little bit better. But a lot of people stay here, and the pricing dead zone could be somewhere from 5K to six K. Mid luxury is where your prices are starting at six k. This is when I was terrified to actually get here. I was terrified to even raise my prices to 5K. I'm gonna be honest with you, but I thought six K was luxury. I remember wigging out. I was in the middle of a rebrand and I was terrified to say that my prices started at six k. I remember talking to a friend of mine, she now books like 15 K plus weddings packages now, and I was like, oh my gosh, I don't know what to do. Like I'm booking six K brides, I don't know if I'm good enough for them. And she said, babe, six K is not luxury. And left it at that. And I was like, what? What do you mean? Because when you double your prices from this market to this market, it almost seems it's too good to be true in terms of your income, right? And at six K you can still book 15, 15 weddings and still make a pretty good, decent income, but. I liked the mid luxury. I'm not gonna knock it. I'm not gonna tell you like, oh my gosh, skip this and go right to luxury. 'cause I love my mid luxury brides. They were very kind to me. They cared about me, they gave me gifts. They loved my style. They were so down to earth and still friendly. And I'm not saying that luxury brides aren't, but don't knock them mid luxury. And I think this is the journey. That we're taking you here. And I'm not saying that you have to charge these prices to be in these brackets. I'm saying this is what you can expect to be working with at these price points. So you have to ask yourself, where do I wanna go from here? Who do I wanna serve and why? How many weddings do I really wanna book a year? Am I willing to sacrifice my happiness or am I willing to sacrifice comfortability and, this might change as pricing changes, like I said as the industry changes. But overall, this has been consistent for the past five plus years. I would even say a decade. Like the price points are pretty true to how the client is and how their weddings are. So back to mid luxury. I say that it ends at nine K, but I feel like really mid luxury ends at eight K. I wouldn't say your starting price should be nine K. You should just go to 10 K if you wanna hit luxury. I feel like your highest package maybe could be nine to 10 K or something like that. But I'm just thinking about starting prices and like pricing fluidity. I. Your starting price is six K. Maybe your middle package is eight K, and then your largest package could be like 10 K or something, and that's everything in the kitchen sink. I wouldn't necessarily say you're in the luxury bracket unless you start at 10 K and you don't book any client less than 10 K. That's what we're reading here, but it's your business. You can do whatever you want. You can say whatever you want. This client is pretty much when you get here, you know for sure you don't need to book more than 10 weddings a year. Pay probably less because any client that's willing to spend 10 K is willing to spend 12 K is willing to spend 15 K. And I've gotten inquiries from people who literally saw my starting price was eight K and they were like, my budget's 15. And I was like, I don't even have a package for you. If I don't hold on let me create something, i, I'm not saying that like these things don't, clash with each other, but just know that if you are serving clients that are at the eight K package, but that's your highest package, you may have reached the threshold there. And there's nothing wrong with. Playing around with your pricing and seeing what people like, but if they book your highest package, like I've said many times, if they're booking your highest package like 5, 6, 7, 8 times, I booked my, this was my highest package. I started at 5K. No, it was 4,500 and then I had a 5,500 package and then I think it was like 6800 I booked this five times and I was like, Nope, 6800 is my starting. Like obviously your highest package is supposed to be like. Such a high ticket package. It's supposed to be something that's almost unobtainable, like it's, that's how you know your client is booking at their max. Or they'll even tell you, like at the wedding, I've had clients being like, when I was charging eight k you are our most expensive vendor. That's how I knew eight K was my client's threshold at that time. Now this shouldn't. Interfere with the way that you raise your prices and the way that you do things. But this is just to give you an idea of I'm charging three K, so I know eventually I'm gonna wanna raise it to maybe 5K and be like the higher average, or, oh, I can't be mad that my client's aren't treating me with respect because I'm at three K, I'm affordable, I'm very affordable. My client gets everything. And they want more. Of course they do because they're affordable. So this is just so you can understand your clients and not make it about you. This basically, that's what this whole lesson is about, not making it about you. So while you're working through your prices you can even use this to plan for next year's pricing, maybe you haven't even opened the doors to next year because clients are asking, and you are still priced here, and you're like, I wanna be priced here next year. I don't wanna be charging six K two years from now. And it is totally okay to close your doors on that and being like, Hey, we're not accepting next year's weddings or the next two year's weddings until I even know what I'm gonna charge y'all. 'cause you already know. You ain't getting me outta steal. You are not gonna have me resentful at this six figure wedding. And I was only this much. Okay, so definitely, take a minute, figure it out just on the numbers, and also make sure you're comfortable with what you're charging. We don't want you to be literally on the phone with your teeth chattering because you just raise your prices to nine K and you're like, nobody's gonna book this. We want you in a positive space. If you want your starting package to be six, but your highest package is here, then do that. Do that and C like, for nine KI can give you X, Y, Z. That's how you become comfortable charging five figures. You just start here and you move your way up and you move your packages around. If everybody's eating this up, you got six clients eating this up, it might be time and that's how we confidently raise our prices, understand our clients, understand the market. All this in one training. There's no right or wrong, but if you are charging 3k this is wrong. This is the only one that's wrong. We want you to make a hundred K with half your weekends free. You can't do that here. Okay. Can you do that for me? All right. That's enough for this lesson. I will see you in the next one.

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So what do you think? Did you love it? Hello again. It's me, allure from the future coming on, just to remind you to join the wait list when we rebrand and relaunch the wedding, CEO as a completely different program. The doors will open April 22nd. So if you join the wait list, you will get access to exclusive bonuses, a early bird bonus, and a one-on-one intensive with me. When you join the wait list, you're gonna get emails that are gonna tell you what's included, what our previous students have gotten as a result, and who this is the best fit for so many goodies coming. I cannot wait to open the doors and welcome all of the new female wedding photographers in this program. I will see you in the next episode. Bye.