Morality issues when owning a business questions.

[AerchAngel]

From my Facebook pics that my wife allows me to put on and Okie and Dalyn have seen as they commented on it, my wife is getting a rep of being brutal in photography world. The other photographers do no edit pictures for clarity and contrast and set amount of pics or 8 to 10, all grainy and blah to me. They are charging $300 plus per session. My wife specializes in newborns up to 9 years old, but she is getting families, weddings, confirmations, high school seniors, actually people begging her to take them and she doesn't feel comfortable doing them and only do families and seniors reluctantly, she absolutely refuse anything that is a one time deal after the horror stories she heard from other photographers of pics that went wrong. We asked why they want her because what I mentioned above and after seeing their other prints, I could understand why.

She asked should she raise her prices to half what the others are charging and I told her no, is that the Walmart way of undercutting business? I don't think they want her for pricing but for her pictures because 95% give a tip of over 50% of the price she asked for, heck, even some ask, how much for edited pictures outside the 20 she gives them, she says $5 a piece, some ask for 30. She loves doing it and probably give up her accounting business, but that is 50k a year and last half year she made over 30k in photography alone with cheaper prices. No, I did not allow her to give up her business. She agreed after I had to explain that photography is a fluid business and accounting is not.

I am a Fiscal Conservative in this area and I told her if their stuff was good enough they wouldn't lose their clients. You give them an honest price and better quality, unlike Made in China Walmart. But if you raise the price, still make it affordable. I told her for Senior pictures will go from $75 to $125, still about $150 cheaper than competition. It takes about an hour to do the pictures and about an hour or so to edit 20 pics, you still making $60 plus an hour, think about it.

Am I being a dick telling her to keep the prices lower than competition? She does this for fun, all the money goes to retirement anyway.

[The Chosen One]

The market wouldn't care about your wife if the shoe was on the other foot.

The difference in what she does and what wal mart does is vast. People are paying for her quality, she can price whatever she wants because she values the hobby more than the money. Wal mart is all bottomline. Wal mart has low prices to sell mass quantities, and skme of their practices are shady. Some brand name manufacturers put lower quality products on wal mart shelves than other stores because wal mart demands low prices.

I charge 20 bucks flat for tennis stringing although market dictates I should charge 30 to 40. I do it as a hobby for side money on my spare time. Clients have grown from 5 to 25. Same thing for tennis lessons. I don't spread my name around like I should but reputation spread quickly... I charge 50% less than market value in savannah but clients tell me they get more than their money's worth and would pay me what other guys are charging per hour.

In tennis though since I deal mostly with a lot of wealthy people it sort of enables connections down the line. befriending doctors, dentists, restaurateurs etc that all help me out in their industry if I need. So I feel like my value extends beyond the check they give me at the end of the hour.

[zitothebrave]

You're not being a dick. Because one of 3 things will happen. Either she'll get too much business and start rejecting tons, or she'll raise her prices to be more prohibitive. In the end, if it's just for fun, let her do it the way she wants to and just be there for support when she winds up in the weeds.

And don't get involved in weddings. You'll want to be paid fully for that ****. Weddings are the worst and no matter what you do odds are someone won't be happy.

[AerchAngel]

You're not being a dick. Because one of 3 things will happen. Either she'll get too much business and start rejecting tons, or she'll raise her prices to be more prohibitive. In the end, if it's just for fun, let her do it the way she wants to and just be there for support when she winds up in the weeds.

And don't get involved in weddings. You'll want to be paid fully for that ****. Weddings are the worst and no matter what you do odds are someone won't be happy.

You are right, she is swamped to the point I had to step in. About weddings, I felt the exact thing. I work with one at work, she does weddings and family reunions and she said the exact thing you said.

I told the wife those two things are off limits, period.

[AerchAngel]

The market wouldn't care about your wife if the shoe was on the other foot.

The difference in what she does and what wal mart does is vast. People are paying for her quality, she can price whatever she wants because she values the hobby more than the money. Wal mart is all bottomline. Wal mart has low prices to sell mass quantities, and skme of their practices are shady. Some brand name manufacturers put lower quality products on wal mart shelves than other stores because wal mart demands low prices.

I charge 20 bucks flat for tennis stringing although market dictates I should charge 30 to 40. I do it as a hobby for side money on my spare time. Clients have grown from 5 to 25. Same thing for tennis lessons. I don't spread my name around like I should but reputation spread quickly... I charge 50% less than market value in savannah but clients tell me they get more than their money's worth and would pay me what other guys are charging per hour.

In tennis though since I deal mostly with a lot of wealthy people it sort of enables connections down the line. befriending doctors, dentists, restaurateurs etc that all help me out in their industry if I need. So I feel like my value extends beyond the check they give me at the end of the hour.

You sound like my wife. She has connections via the kids schools and happy customers. She said that she does it for fun, but she prides herself like you do and seeing her quality over others and she wants to charge a little more. I said go ahead and she is still getting the clientele. If she gets swamped again, next year it will go up but still be affordable.

Yes, she had some checks bounce on her, but she knows the bank and they will see if it is good or not. She had vendors who promise to send her props, charge a lot for shipping, so she red flagged them with I don't know who the BBB is for in home vendors. She makes it known they are crooks/con artists, but she is smart enough to set a limit on vendors on how much she pays. Fortunately we are near the cities and most of her vendors are from the cities so it doesn't cost much and if she has to, she can go there and visit family when in the area.

The best compliment she got was, her competition are doing those photography classes and few people who had her pics and the ones having the class asked if my wife is teaching the class. They were like no, then they say why pay that amount of money on poor quality pics? The bad thing about it is we known there family since I moved here and I feel uncomfortable being around her now because my wife is taking her business but her mother is cool.

Seriously, think of Blu Ray quality and VHS quality, that is the difference in her picts and theirs. If you don't believe, ask Okie or Dal, they see the pics she does and the quality and they would agree with me.