Why am I making less money with more real estate shoots?

Because you hit the ceiling at the old price. Around twelve shoots a week is the most one person can ship, so adding shoots at the same rate just moves midnight later. Raise the price first.

Should I hire an editor or a VA first?

A VA, for the coordination: confirming, lockbox codes, gallery resends, invoices. It's six to eight hours of work but forty hours of attention. Editing can wait; the texts can't.

How do I raise prices when I'm already fully booked?

Package it. Three packages on one sheet; ours are $390, $999 and $1,499, with a $149 basic for volume. Fewer shoots at a real price beats twelve at the old one.

Answers › Running the business

Ask the agent

Why am I booked solid but making less as a real estate photographer?

Five days a week, editing till midnight, and I made less last month than when I did two shoots a week. Drowning.Asked by a photographer on Roadmap quiz lead (Orlando)

Busy isn’t the problem. The price is, and so is who’s holding the phone. Keep adding shoots at the same price and you hit the ceiling tired, with no hours left to fix the price.

You hit the ceiling

Forty minutes in the house, two hours door to door. That’s one shoot, every time, no matter what it pays.

Around twelve a week, you’re in the truck every day and editing every night. There is no thirteenth that doesn’t come out of sleep.

Count last month. Twelve shoots a week at the old price, minus gas, minus the gear, minus the nights you didn’t sleep. The two-shoot month had almost none of those costs. That’s how more shoots became less money.

More shoots at the same price just moves midnight later. You found the ceiling. It was always there; the two-shoot weeks just hid it, and the costs that come with twelve shoots, the gas, the gear, the nights, never showed up at two.

Full isn’t paid.

Raise the price before you add a shoot

Before you hire anybody, there’s a cheaper fix, and it isn’t a person. It’s packaging.

Our sheet is $390, $999 and $1,499, plus a $149 basic shoot for volume. The basic fills gaps. The packages pay the month.

The sheet does the raising for you. You don’t call anyone and announce a new rate. You send a page with three packages on it, and she picks one.

Fewer shoots at a real price beats twelve at an old one. Same houses, same driveways, fewer of them. And pricing stays yours. You never hand that off, to a VA or to anyone else.

Hand off the coordination first

Now the part that’s drowning you. It isn’t the editing.

Confirming Tuesday, the lockbox code, resending the gallery, chasing invoices. Six to eight hours of actual work. Forty hours of attention, because it arrives in pieces all day and all night and you can’t put it down.

Editing is the part you can do badly while tired. The texts are the part a VA takes first.

Ten years as an agent, I could tell which photographers had help. The text came at nine in the morning, not eleven at night. Those companies got more of my work, because from my side they looked like companies.

Write it down first. The two booking windows, every delivery step, the wording for each text. That document is the handoff. Without it, you’ve hired someone to ask you questions at eleven at night.

Six hours of work. Forty hours of attention. Hand off the attention.

The big lesson

The shoots aren’t drowning you. The texts about the shoots are.

Do this

This week: write your two booking windows and every delivery step in one document. That’s the handoff.

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

Why am I making less money with more real estate shoots?: Because you hit the ceiling at the old price. Around twelve shoots a week is the most one person can ship, so adding shoots at the same rate just moves midnight later. Raise the price first.
Should I hire an editor or a VA first?: A VA, for the coordination: confirming, lockbox codes, gallery resends, invoices. It’s six to eight hours of work but forty hours of attention. Editing can wait; the texts can’t.
How do I raise prices when I’m already fully booked?: Package it. Three packages on one sheet; ours are $390, $999 and $1,499, with a $149 basic for volume. Fewer shoots at a real price beats twelve at the old one.