I was wondering how many of you increase your package prices to include a certain size album VS. have a slightly lower price and giving the B&G an album credit ($1500, etc) for the final cost of the album.

The problem with the album credit route is that the albums sometimes end up costing $5K (price + design) and the B&G owe another $2K+ on top of their package price. I know the second option is Gary Fong's philosophy, but wondering what all of you do.

Thanks,
Aaron

I actually do both (though I may be changing my method). I include an album credit for all custom designed flush-mount albums, which I design, and I offer one select package that includes the gorgoeous hand-crafted La-Vie album. Couples who are certain of wanting the La-Vie book that package instead of receiving the credit.

And I have to comment, because it's been stated a million times, that the "Gary Fong method" is NOT about selling big money albums. It is about managing your customer's expectations and getting your couples to rave about you. The method works when followed in principle. It works for increasing your album sales, your wedding profits, and the number of happy, satisfied customers who received what they wanted.

But (once again), it is NOT about upselling. Folks who believe this do not understand the method. You absolutely MUST manage your clients expectations with full, honest information about how you operate and what they will experience after the wedding and the album sales process begins.

Hope this helps!

We switched to album credits about a year ago, and our couples have been much happier since then. The album credit that we have in our packages, even the smallest, is enough to cover an album that is still a decent size, although not huge. If they choose to not add more pages to their album, that is perfectly fine with us. If they add, that is fine too.

I am very interested in what others think on this as I have been debating it for awhile.

+1, this is exactly what I was going to say. My smallest album credit is enough to get a halfway decent sized album if they can't afford more than that.

And Bruce is totally right about the GF method....it's NOT about upselling as a big surprise. That's when clients will be made and feel like it was a bait and switch. Every one of my clients knows before they sign the contract that I will design a huge album for them and they are totally free to take it down as much as they want.

So Alyssa's clients are given honest information up front ... they know what to expect. And if they also know your pricing up front, that an album is priced x amount of $ per page, they can do the math even before discussing total costs in the album consultation. No surprises.

I don't even tell them what size album I might design. because I don't know. I do tell them that I will create a book that best tells the story of their wedding day from the photographer's perspective. I want to be free to design as an artistic observer of their event. That's one of the reasons they hired me to begin with. Capturing the images is only one part of a complete process, the full experience.

I don't follow GF's method precisely, but instead follow the outstanding variation of it that Robin of Bellissima is using with incredible success. If anyone ever has the opportunity to attend one of her Workshops, it is very well worth it. Plus, she is about to launch a new solution for us photographers that is simply amazing!!

Have any of you seen a better reaction from the client going from offering albums to offering a credit and the other way around.

Hi, Jason

I believe we are more in control of their reactions. They will react to whatever our option is, and much of the success of the desired outcome depends more on our ability to establish a good, honest rapport. We have to impress them with the sensibility and reasonableness of our specific option. The limitation I have concluded from including an album in the package is the profit potential. If I include album A at x amount of $, I have set the limit of my profit from that album. If I offer credit $ for any number of album options, the client chooses (which they love to do) and can spend any number of dollars to get the product they want at a price that fits their budget, and oftentimes, this is a much larger album (and higher profit) than the one we might have included in a limiting package.

As always, they're going to respond to your attitude about it too. You have to BELIEVE what you're saying, 100%. Your confidence and excitement about the choice you make, whichever it is, is maybe more important than the actual choice.

I love (love love) the predesign method, and it wasn't until I really understood it that I came to believe that it was the best choice for me and for my clients. Because I believe it, my conviction and confidence comes through when I talk about with my clients. I'm not apologetic about it, I'm not avoiding the topic because I'm worried how they'll take it, I'm presenting it as a benefit, a way to make the album design process more streamlined and ultimately produce a better album. They know that they have all the power while having none of the stress of trying to choose from an overwhelming number of images they all love. Letting me make those choices and allowing them to swap out images or add or remove spreads to fine tune the presentation is the best use of my aesthetic and their intimacy with the images. While I've only done the actual predesign twice so far, all my 2007 clients on the roster know how it's going to work. I used to hate the album design process, and especially trying to make a book to exact specifications using photos that weren't always the best ones to tell the story.

Now the combination of predesign and album credits puts the flexibility back in the mix. My lowest collection includes enough to get them started, but those that book that package know that they'll need to pony up extra for the album. My midrange collection includes enough for a relatively basic, but complete album, and my higher collections include enough for a really amazing album and the goodies - parent albums and minis and things. The biggest difference in my packages isn't coverage time (cause I'll kill the whole day regardless of whether I'm there for 7 or 10 hours) but on how much print and album credit is built into the collection. So far, the response has been very positive.

I wanted to thank everyone for the great advice and feedback on my post. I guess I was a little nervous about unknowingly springing a $6K album on the B&G in the end. But if everything is explained upfront with the pricing, that will definitely clear up the problem.

So what's Robin's (Bellissima) varation on all of this?

Thanks again,
Aaron

We used to include album credits and it was pretty confusing to our inquiries. Some people just want to know exactly what they are getting. Most people are aware of upselling. It happens everywhere (movie theatre, oil change, apple store, etc.) We then went to [ b ] ecker's Party of 5 which cleared up all of our questions and it helped our studio.

There are tons of ways to upsell albums and I totally agree with Bruce. We have been able to upsell 8 of our last 10 weddings. But we also hired a great office manager who is amazing at explaining, which I am not too good at.

But also, it takes a ton of work to be able to help clients understand album credits. So we went to actually including exact samples albums. And it's possible to upsell actual albums included in packages.

Hope this helps.

Basically, yeah.

I started off with album credit but recently I sat down and really thought about my pricing and realized that if I were a bride, I wouldn't want to deal with packages that included various album credit rather than a specific album.

I just want to make things as simple and clear cut to my clients as possible and in the end, I think album credit (although it makes plenty of sense) sorta muddled things up. That being said, upselling is absolutely possible without doing album credits. Just let the clients upgrade to a bigger album than the one stated in their package. Simple.