The Heart Conference

     This past week was a blast! I had the opportunity to attend the Heart Conference in Dallas, Texas. The Heart Conference was hosted by Evie Rupp and Lindsay Roman, passionate entrepreneurs, photographers and Jesus-followers. Which are three things I am also very passionate about. Some would say the conference was life changing, however I would say the conference was eye opening. A lot of the messages were about how to quit your corporate job and do photography full time. That didn’t necessarily apply to me because I do not have a full-time job to quit, however there were still a lot of marketing strategies I took away from the conference to apply now and even more to tuck away for later. One strategy that I thought was eye-opening was that that not having transparent pricing is a thing of the past. I don’t mean hidden fees; I mean not having your prices listed on your website for potential clients to see. In the past, many believed that not having prices listed made the brand feel more luxury. However, the truth is, not having your prices listed may be the reason people aren’t reaching out. If you reach out to a photographer to ask about prices and packages, and their cheapest option is way over your budget, you instantly feel bad about yourself. This doesn’t mean you have to list all off your prices, there are other ways to be transparent without giving too much information. The strategy I learned at the Heart Conference is to put an average or range that the clients usually spend. For example, you could say, “most couples spend between $250 and $350 on maternity and newborn sessions.” This eliminates the fear of not being able to afford the photos and in turn saves the client and the photographer a lot of time. This was just one strategy I learned at the conference but is something that I am implementing into my photography business right now.