Andy Marcus owns, runs and shoots for a multi million dollar, 72 year old, 3rd generation photography studio in New York. He recently invoiced a wedding client over $250,000 USD for photography services. He did not grow up in a wealthy household. How did he achieve and continue to maintain his spot at the top end of the market? Andy says, networking leads to wedding photography success.

In this interview, Andy shares how you can attract well paying clients and that not being able to afford what you are charging for your services is totally irrelevant. It all comes down to relationships and the way you treat people. The beauty of this interview is no matter where you are positioned in your local market place, you can easily adopt the techniques Andy uses to help advance your photography business, wedding or portrait.

Here's some of what we cover:

  • having a multi million dollar photography business
  • catering to super high end clients
  • wedding packages from $7000 – $250,000 USD
  • 10% of the total wedding costs for wedding photography
  • shooting celebrities, how to “talk” to them and managing their expectations
  • shooting a party on a boat in Monaco… for 2 hours before flying home to New York
  • building trust with clients and how it leads to more bookings
  • building a good reputation relies on consistency in your shooting
  • you don't need to be wealthy to book or attract wealthy clients
  • 11 albums for the coverage of a single wedding!
  • looking good and noticing the details will go far when creating an impression
  • booking other shooters under your name and brand
  • how to charge a premium for your work if you are a multi shooter studio
  • brides really don't know what they want, it's up to you as the professional to deliver
  • 60-80 frames to cover an entire wedding
Although Andy has a business in what is arguably the most competitive market in the world, he has managed to maintain, if not grow an incredible photography business. If your belief is that you have to be the worlds best shooter to survive in Andy's world, you're dead wrong. Sure it helps to be a great photographer but following this interview, it's apparent to me that it's much more about networking and relationships.

Andy Marcus Photography Business interview

Premium Members

For premium members, I went on to ask Andy about how he markets and advertises for work given his high end target market. My concern was that given his probably big budget, the ideas he was to share would be irrelevant to most of us. I was wrong! I'll be implementing exactly what Andy shared starting this Saturday at my next wedding and I'm 100% confident, I'll be reaping the awards if I stick to his suggestions in years to come if I continue to do as he says. You should be doing the same.

What is your big takeaway?

Following the interview, I'd love to know what your biggest takeaway is – what is the one thing that you'd like to implement or remember from what Andy Marcus had to share? Let me and other listeners know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below.

Andy Marcus Photography Business interview

What have you implemented so far?

If you have implemented something that you've learnt or heard from the podcast interviews, I want to know about it! I really am interested and love to hear about your success stories, especially if I've helped play a small part. If you feel up to it, leave a voicemail message by clicking the tab on this page or record and send me an .mp3 file – I'd love to play your recording on a future episode. Don't feel confident or want to send a voicemail? No problem, shoot me an email, I'd love to hear from you – andrew@photobizx.com.

iTunes ratings, reviews and Shout-Outs

One very generous iTunes review this week from Rhona Viloria who also had a big shout out in the last episode for her thought provoking and well written comments following a bunch of different episodes. Thanks again Rhona, I feel humbled and genuinely happy to have you listening and taking the time to get involved – thank you.

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It's these reviews that really make a big difference to the podcast being ranked well and found in the iTunes store. If you have the time and are happy to leave an honest rating and review, head over to iTunes. Don't feel your comments have to be long, involved or gushy, an honest opinion is all I ask.

Also, a few shout-outs to photographers/listeners that have made contact via email or social media this week:

David Kerr Smith

Terry Richards – http://terryrichards.com

Dalibor Acimic – http://www.acimicphotography.com

Evelyn cameron

Stacey Carpenter

Te Ratahi – http://saymonkeyphotography.com

Lisa Easter – http://www.lisaeasterphotography.com

Kim Hamblin – http://www.kimhamblinphotography.com

Jacqui and Steve Dunster – http://jacqui-marie-photography.co.uk

Thanks guys, it's been great chatting and hearing from every single one of you this week. If you'd like to get in touch, ask a question or make a suggestion for the show, you can email me andrew@photobizx.com, find me on twitter https://twitter.com/andrewhellmich or on Facebook at https://photobizx.com/facebook – I'd love to hear from you!

If your name is listed above without a URL and you'd like a link to your site, let me know and I'll happily add it.

Andy Marcus Photography Business interview

Questions And Answers

Each week I get a number of questions from listeners that I do my best to answer. Would you like to see these questions and answers as basic blog posts on this website? If you think it could be a help to you, let me know. If I get some interest, I'll give it a try.

Links to people, places and things mentioned in this episode:

Fred Marcus Photography – http://www.fredmarcus.com

Fred Marcus Photography on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fred-Marcus-Photography

Andy Marcus on Twitter – https://twitter.com/AndyMarcus

Andy Marcus on Instagram – http://instagram.com/andymarcus

Kelsey Grammer – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelsey_Grammer

Grace Ormonde, wedding magazine – http://graceormonde.com

Lowel GL-1 Power Led, the light Andy mentioned during the interview – http://www.lowel.com/GL/

That's it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you. I'd love for you to leave a comment below to let me know what you took away from this episode of the podcast.

Speak soon

Andrew