Should I lower my price to compete with cheap real estate photographers?

No. The agent who books on price is loyal to the discount, and she leaves for the next cheaper guy. Match $99 and you've trained her to treat you as disposable.

What do real estate agents actually pay a photographer for?

More business. All any business owner wants is more business, and an agent is a business owner. The photos are how she gets the next listing, not the thing she wants.

How do I stand out from $99 real estate photography?

Promise more business above your price, then build a delivery a $99 shoot can't match: video with 20 assets per listing, a marketing kit, VA time at delivery. Keep a cheap basic if you want, but compete on the packages.

Answers › Bold takes

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How do I compete with the $99 real estate photographer?

The free-shoot guys and the $99 guys killed the market here. Agents just want the photos. How do I compete with free?Asked by a photographer on Abidur Rahman, Riverside County, California

You don’t. Match $99 and the agent you win is loyal to the discount; she leaves you for the next cheaper guy, and you trained her to. The $99 photographer isn’t your competition, because agents don’t pay for photos. They pay for more business. Promise that, above your price, and build what $99 can’t hand over.

If someone can offer it cheaper, you don’t have a business. You have a price

Start with the agent who books the $99 guy. She isn’t loyal to him. She’s loyal to the discount. The day a cheaper guy shows up, she leaves, and she’d leave you the same way.

That is the whole problem with matching. You can win her at $99. You can’t keep her, because the thing she bought was the number, and someone can always post a smaller one.

And if you’re the one at $99, you’re not affordable. You’re training agents to treat you as disposable. If someone can offer it cheaper, you don’t have a business. You have a price.

Agents don’t want photos. They want more business

So if you’re not selling photos, what are you selling? The agent already told you. She just didn’t say it out loud. All any business owner wants is more business, and a listing agent is a business owner. She’s not comparing your photos to his. She’s asking which of you gets her the next listing.

I was that agent for ten years. Every agent is a micro-celebrity who wants to be the talk of the town. That was me too. Nobody gets there on $99 photos.

So the line is: "If you work with me, you’re going to get more business. I don’t care if that guy is free." Say it on the call, and put it on your site. Above the price, not below it. She reads the promise first and the number second, and the number stops being the conversation.

If you work with me, you’re going to get more business. I don’t care if that guy is free.

Build what $99 can’t hand over

Saying it costs nothing. What makes it true is the delivery, and that’s the part a $99 guy can’t copy. He hands over a folder of 20 photos. You hand over the folder and keep going.

Video, with 20 assets per listing. The marketing kit. Ten hours of VA time at delivery. Each one is something she can use to get the next listing, and none of it fits in a $99 folder.

Now the honest part. My own sheet has a cheap line on it: a $149 basic, 20 photos, quick. It’s a volume play, not a package, and it’s not where I compete. The $390, $999 and $1,499 packages are. Promise more business, build what $99 can’t hand over, and a kid offering free shoots doesn’t register.

The line

If you work with me, you’re going to get more business. I don’t care if that guy is free.

The big lesson

You don’t win a race to free. You leave it.

Do this

This week: put one sentence on your site, above the price, that promises the agent more business, not better photos.

The three-package sheet I send agents

Put your numbers in it before your next booking. Free. Then take the sixty-second roadmap quiz and I tell you what to fix first.

Get the sheet Get my roadmap

Straight answers

Should I lower my price to compete with cheap real estate photographers?: No. The agent who books on price is loyal to the discount, and she leaves for the next cheaper guy. Match $99 and you’ve trained her to treat you as disposable.
What do real estate agents actually pay a photographer for?: More business. All any business owner wants is more business, and an agent is a business owner. The photos are how she gets the next listing, not the thing she wants.
How do I stand out from $99 real estate photography?: Promise more business above your price, then build a delivery a $99 shoot can’t match: video with 20 assets per listing, a marketing kit, VA time at delivery. Keep a cheap basic if you want, but compete on the packages.