Money Talk Survival Guide — Negotiation 101: Focus on Career Growth

When it comes to negotiating fees, prices or contract terms, most photographers struggle with two issues: 1.) not knowing what the “conventional” (or “fair market value”) conditions are, and 2.) fear of being taken advantage of by clients (especially when they have the upper hand).

These are understandable emotions, but those factors are based on the faulty premise that there are standards for prices and/or contract terms. There are no such standards because every person’s needs are different, including those of the buyer and seller. The value of a given deal is not based on a chart or standards, but on whether the needs are met by the parties on both sides of the negotiating table. A truly fair arrangement between a buyer and seller is established when both sides receive what they need in exchange for things they’re willing to give up. These are your “bargaining chips.” Effective negotiation occurs when you evaluate your needs wisely and pay for them using bargaining chips that you know the client values.

When it comes to negotiations, the most important thing to consider above all others is career development. Where you are in your career—a beginner or a seasoned pro—affects how you value the bargaining chips you’re being offered and how the client perceives the chips you offer to them. Above all you should seek those chips that help you advance your career. In the simplest case, gaining experience has more value to a beginner than it does for a pro. Other considerations include the subject of a photo assignment. For example, a sports photographer may find a great deal more benefit in shooting a regional championship league playoff than a food photographer would. Similarly, the client itself may have name-brand recognition that may be of more or less value to you: Shooting a celebrity wedding may carry considerable promotional bragging-rights value than shooting other kinds of clients would.

It may seem obvious that different clients, subjects or opportunities may be of more or less value, but most photographers discount these things in negotiations. If something can help you in your career, it should translate into a willingness to give up more of your own bargaining chips. Every deal has a multitude (or lack) of such potential benefits, and you have to evaluate their collective worth. If you only look at the money, you could be passing up huge opportunities that move you forward.

It is also important to realize your client does the same thing. He may or may not be willing to risk working with an inexperienced photographer because the working relationship is more than just about the money: There’s the hidden costs of time, deadlines, their customers and the domino effect of business relationships.

What to Consider During Negotiations
Is it the kind of photography that can yield photos with stock potential? Thus, do you want to retain image rights? Or, are the images so focused and specialized or otherwise unusable that they have no value to you after the gig is done? Stock sales in the after-market can be lucrative for some kinds of images, but not all. Don’t try to retain rights to images out of principle; do so only if it makes financial sense. I’d be more than happy to give up rights to images if the client makes it worth my while financially. Note: The stock industry is competitive and prices are dropping. Everyone should shuffle images into the stock category if they can, but consider the up-front compensation you might get if the client wants to retain those rights. Either way, this could be a potential bargaining chip in negotiations that can work for you if you play it wisely.

Is this a client you want to build a long-term relationship with, or is it a short-term (single) deal where they want to pay you a lump sum and go away? It’s not so much that you’re willing to give up more for a client that you’d like to retain over the long term, but rather, you want to structure a deal that attempts to lock them into future deals. When a high-profile national magazine wanted to license a photo from me, I objected to their rate of pay, but said that I was willing to accept it if they agreed to buy five more images from me in the future, and prepay those images at that rate as part of the initial deal. They did so and after their photo editor was used to working with me, the six and subsequent images were charged at my “normal rates” without objection.

Does the client provide new and useful experiences that are hard to come by? That is, would the job give you credibility that, without it, you would lack? While I have a high day rate for travel assignments by tour operators, I was willing to accept an assignment without pay by a company that wanted to send me to a remote region of Africa that would not have been possible to travel to on my own (or at considerable cost). As a result, I’ve made more money from licensing photos from that trip than any other single trip I’ve been on. It was one of the most lucrative financial decisions I ever made, and it only happened because I recognized the opportunities and was willing to shoot the trip for free.
Is the client in an industry that’s hard to get into, or do they  provide access to people, places or things to which you would otherwise not be privy? I’ve known many photographers that passed up opportunities to shoot for certain clients or events because they didn’t feel they were paid fairly. Sometimes, that’s
a mistake.

Starting Out as a Beginner
If you have a sense of your career path, you tend to have a sense of what kind of opportunities are valuable. And that’s what helps you find value in a client, the subject you’re shooting or the gig.

The beginner may ask, “What can I offer if I have no experience?” Well, first of all, when you’re not working, you’re only hurting yourself. So, the most valuable thing to the beginner—more than money itself—is getting a gig. And the one thing that’s the most valuable and immediate benefit that you have above all others is your pay rate: Less experienced people are paid less—that’s just a truism of economics. This is your strongest bargaining chip. Note that this isn’t a slam dunk. There are not many clients worth having that are willing to risk hiring an inexperienced photographer, even for low pay or free. But, if you network well and focus on your target market, you can find someone willing to take a risk on you. It may be a small client, but that’s okay; that’s how you gain experience and move forward.

In a short amount of time, you would no longer use that client (unless they paid more), nor would you use the “inexperience” bargaining chip in negotiations to get new clients. Instead, you’d target clients that need and pay for more experienced shooters.

And herein lies the reality check: The financial payment for some deals may be much lower than what you think is fair, or what others tell you it is. This isn’t about fair because there is no such thing. Fair is when both sides get value for what they are providing the other. No question that money is a factor. It’s just not the primary one when you’re getting started. If you are negotiating, then you’re already in a situation where someone wants you. At this point, it’s about technique. So let’s get into that.

Techniques of Negotiation
In negotiations, your job is to take control of the discussions. You don’t do this by merely counter-offering everything they put forward, but by learning and enumerating what they need, and what they are willing to give up. You do this by having a conversation that doesn’t sound like negotiation.
But one thing for sure, if you try to get what you want out of principle, or because others tell you that it’s standard practice, or that you’re hurting the industry otherwise, you will fail to properly convince the client of your position. You are also failing to understand your own business objectives, which hurts no one but yourself. So, if you try to retain rights to images that you’d never be able to sell to anyone else because they’re too narrow in scope, you may pass up a good deal or fail to negotiate better terms. This doesn’t help the industry.

Another negotiation tripwire is the client’s promise of future business. As I alluded to earlier, this is an easy one to deal with: Give them an opportunity to make good on the promise by prepaying for that future business now. If they take it, you win. If they were just testing you, they’ll say no, and won’t have that to fall back on anymore. It’s also a way to take back control of the negotiations and steer the direction in your favor.

So, in a nutshell, effective negotiation involves three parts: Start by understanding why this client (or this job) is important to your career path; then determine the client’s needs and their bargaining chips; and finally, maintain control of where discussions go. Deals are done when both sides feel they’ve gotten what they need. Don’t dwell on what you could have gotten, but didn’t.

Lastly, these are merely strategies, and not everyone is good at executing them. Good negotiation skills require years of experience, many of which will include mistakes. You may leave money on the table, give up things you shouldn’t or fail to get things you need. But these make up the experiences that make you a better negotiator.

When clients ask for more rights than they need:
You: What are your concerns?
Client: We don’t want competitors to use the images.
Y: No problem. Write that into the agreement. What else?
C: We own the trademark to our logo and we can’t let others use it.
Y:Logos are already covered by trademark law, and no one would want to use your logo because you’d sue them. You don’t need to retain rights to images just because of that.
*Here’s an opportunity for you to explain what your needs are, and why those needs are not in conflict with the client’s objectives. A detailed explanation (see below) can cover their concerns:
Y: We have mutual objectives that can be met. I need to retain rights so I can sell some of these images in the editorial market or as fine art prints, neither of which affect your business at all. If you keep the rights, I can’t do that. For the job to be worth it for me, I’d need to charge you more. By allowing me to keep rights within an agreement that protects your interests, our mutual business objectives are met.

Dan Heller is a travel photography and photo business industry analyst. His website, www.danheller.com, hosts more than 40,000 stock images, as well as articles and tutorials covering  personal business management to photo techniques. He has written four books on the business of photography, which he’ll be teaching at the Academy of Art in San Francisco in the fall of 2009. His email address is [email protected].