Ask the agent
The agent wants a discount. What do I say?
Photos stay at 100%. She went silent after the free re-shoot because you told her the price moves. Discount the core once and you are the discounted guy in that office forever.
You discounted the core. That’s the whole problem.
My old offer at Cineminn was 50% off the first two shoots. It pulled the cheapest agents I ever met. Loyal to the discount, not to me. When it ended, so did they.
A free re-shoot does the same thing in one move. It says your price is a suggestion. Now she is waiting for the next one, and silence is what waiting looks like.
Discount the core once and you are the discounted guy in that office forever. Not with her. With the office. Agents talk, and the number they repeat is the lowest one they heard.
The problem was never that you were generous. It is that you were generous with the one thing that sets your price.
Photos stay at 100%. Discount the upsell.
Dom’s instinct was right. Do not discount yourself. The fix is not to give nothing. It is to give in the one place that does not move your price.
First video half off. It hooks her on the thing she will pay full price for next time, and it leaves the photo price exactly where it was. That is not a discount on you. It is a discount on something she has not bought yet, and it costs you a cut of an upsell, not a cut of your rate.
Bonuses, not cuts. Virtual twilight and the floor plan live inside the $390 package. The price holds. She gets more, and the number she compares you by does not move.
No discount in any opener. Ever. The offer shows up after she says yes, in the cart, not in the first message.
"Expensive next to what?"
When she says "that’s expensive," you say four words. Then you add one fact: a 3% price cut on the house is thousands out of her commission. Say it calm, then stop talking.
If she still wants a cut after that, she is the 50%-off agent. Let her find him.
I sat in a real estate office for ten years. The day a photographer gave one of us half off, her whole office knew his real price. I heard those numbers in the break room.
The break room is where your real price gets set, and it gets set by the lowest number anyone in that office ever paid you. Hold the core and there is nothing to repeat.
Expensive next to what?
A discount on the core isn’t generosity. It’s a confession about your price.
This week: rewrite the new-client offer. Photos full price, first video half off, no discount in any opener.
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 sheetGet my roadmapStraight answers
- Should I give a discount to get a new real estate agent client?
- Not on the photos. Photos stay at 100%. If you want to give something, make it the first video at half off, offered after she says yes, never in the opener.
- Should I offer a free re-shoot to a real estate agent?
- No. A free re-shoot tells her your price is a suggestion, and she goes quiet waiting for the next one. Give bonuses inside the package instead, like virtual twilight and the floor plan.
- What do I say when an agent says my photography is too expensive?
- "Expensive next to what?" A 3% price cut on the house is thousands out of her commission. Say it once, calmly, and stop talking.
Related questions
Julian Lundgren sold real estate for ten years before he shot a listing for money. He runs Cineminn, a Minneapolis real estate photography studio, and writes these answers from the agent’s side of the table. Send a question to info@cineminn.com.