What’s Your Salary? | Career Crush

0:01This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18+. Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade Electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self what propels you propel with gatorade electrolytes okay let's talk about money let's talk money let's talk money

0:54if you're in you know one of the kind of coastal locations out of college if you are not making a hundred thousand dollars uh at least you're probably being underpaid or could at least find a company that would pay you more. I'm not sure what that looks like. If you're finding a job in Atlanta, for example, it might look very different down there and I'm not familiar. I would also say talk to your friends. I think people don't talk about how much they make enough, which I think lends to a lot of pay inequity in the industry. It's what needs to happen in order to hold these companies that a lot of times don't want to pay you fairly accountable.

1:44How should you go about valuing your work, especially when you're just getting started? And what have you found helpful for you as you've kind of grown throughout your career?

1:54Kelsey Alpaio:There is actually a decent formula that you can use in order to figure out how much you should be charging hourly. There's a way to calculate this. The, oh my God. I know that there is a stereotype about artists not being good at math and I am sad to say, but I fit right in there.

2:16All right.

2:17Kelsey Alpaio:So you think about how much money you would like to make in a year and think about how many hours per week you would like to work or find is a reasonable amount to work. So let's go with 40 and you multiply that by 50 for the number of weeks in the year that you'll probably be working because you should take some time out for sick days and vacations. You know, just be kind to yourself. If you multiply that, that comes to 2 ,000 hours of working per year. So if you divide your yearly earnings goal, so let's say 60k, by that you get about$30 an hour. You should also, 30 is pretty low, honestly. I usually start at at least 50 an hour.

3:01Kelsey Alpaio:Often clients will want to buy the commercial rights to your artwork, which means that they can use it and reproduce it as they see fit. You should charge a lot more for that, at least twice. You've brought up kind of this concept of advocating for yourself a few times. Can you talk about, first of all, like what that means in this industry? And second of all, how do you go about actually doing that? Yeah, so it all comes down to self-respect. so if you are negotiating with a client and they quote you a rate that is much lower than the figure that you're looking for push back on it don't just accept what they're offering you I think most people forget that negotiation is and should be a part of all of these contract agreements Twitch is really good at giving the streamer opportunity to make money.

3:58There's the subscribe button, which is$4.99. And then that money gets split. Half the money goes to Twitch and then half the money goes to the streamer. Or I get a different portion depending on if you have a specific contract with Twitch. Which I'm sure somebody like Ninja is not getting 50-50. I'm sure he's getting a lot more money. And then there's another way to give the streamer money, which is bits. and bits is a currency that you buy with real money. So I think it's like, I think it's like 12 or$13 for a thousand bits, but one bit is one penny. So when you're paying like that$12, you're getting$10 back, but that$10 can fully go to a streamer.

4:41And then this episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think, you know, a browser, but Gemini and Chrome that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. Propel Fitness Water with Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self.

5:18What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes. $2 up front is what Twitch is taking. And then there's ad revenue. Although I think the ad revenue on Twitch is like no one ever depends on. But that's like the biggest, that's the best way to make money on YouTube is ad revenue. And then the last way to make money on Twitch besides purely on Twitch, because obviously you can have like outside partnerships and stuff, is there's a bounty system that they have. so like twitch will reach out to video game companies or like they had an adidas one at one point um so i'll use the adidas one for an example so it was it was watch a one minute ad of adidas with your audience and if you have 200 people here you will get this much money and if you have like 500 people here you'll get this much money and so you just pull up the ad you hit start bounty you play it and then after like an hour it'll process how many people were actually there and then twitch will pay you accordingly um and but that that last option was only for specific partners on twitch when we started the food truck in the second year we made fifteen thousand dollars between my wife my dad and i so that was just like okay i like i was 26 at the time during our second season I'm like all right that's okay we can like you know eat the extra dumplings we don't sell and we'll be okay and then right now actually we had our best year in 2019 when we did over a million dollars in revenue and our margin on our bottom line is about 20 % of that and then we actually started paying ourselves so my wife and I pay ourselves 75 ,000 a year right now just from business.

7:13And so our total like take home income was probably around like 300 ,000 in 2019. And then COVID came and ruined it all, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. And then we were back in the negative again. It was like, yeah, this felt nuts in a lot of ways how it felt like year one again. What should you charge as a photographer? Like, especially if I'm just getting started, Like, how do I know how to value my work? Okay, Kelsey, let me tell you something. I've been working for a decade and that is the hardest. I tell you, you can ask any creative person. It is the hardest thing to put a value on your work. Like, even now, like I'm trying to figure out my prints and my prices and I'm just like, this is so uncomfortable.

8:02I'm definitely probably an underbidder when it comes to my work. Like, some people go by hour. Like they say, I charge 100 an hour. I charge 200 an hour, 15 hour. But this is include like the deliverables are like I'm going to give you 20 edited photos or whatever the case is or two looks. So there are people that go about it that way. There are people that just have a day rate. I would advise people that are starting first, think about how much money do you need to live? Like, what is your budget? What would you if you were looking for a regular nine to five job? You know, there are certain there's a certain criteria you go for with a salary.

8:38I would I say apply that to your photography as well. So maybe you're starting out and you're like, you know what? I just need to make thirty thousand dollars a year, let's just say. And you factor that out and then you're like, OK, if I'm trying to do three shoots a month, I will price point it at this because I feel like this is what my work is worth. But I also feel like when you're working with companies or you're working with brands or people that are seeking you out, you should always ask them, what is their budget? Chances are it's probably a little higher than what you were going to ask for anyway.

9:08So you might have done a photo shoot for$300 and then you say like, hey, what is your budget or what are you looking to spend for this shoot? And they might say, oh, I'm looking to spend$600. And now you've doubled what you were going to ask just from simply like having that back and forth. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it.

9:39Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+. Propel Fitness Water. With Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins, Propel hydrates better than water. to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes. And also I would tell people, especially new photographers, to factor in the post work that you do. Like you might be on set with somebody for two hours, but then you're home for five hours editing the photos and retouching them and those things.

10:17So definitely don't undersell yourself. People will pay for work they want. There is money to be spent. There is a lot of money in the world, so please do not feel like you can't ask for it, especially if you are a woman and especially if you are a woman of color. As a fellow, my starting salary was$60 ,000, which was, I think, very generous.

10:44As an attorney, and I checked, I can actually say this. So the ACLU Massachusetts recently unionized, so our floor for incoming staff attorney is $70 ,000. But on the other side of this is Buckvick Law. The starting salary for first year attorneys is$190 ,000. I would never make that in my current career path. But my friend also, his starting salary was$225 ,000, so literally twice the amount of money I can ever expect to make in my current career path. And for most public interests or nonprofits, our salaries are actually disclosed. Not like bottom level attorneys or staff people, but the legal director or the executive director, they're required to disclose their income on like tax forms etc so you can actually see what they make and what you can like the highest amount that you can expect to make in this field so that's pretty much to norm that is such a bigger disparity than I ever thought that's a wild my friends were like texting each other and we're like on a group chat about like their bonuses this.

12:08It was a lot. Or like, oh, like, I just got like a pay bump because I'm now like a second year. And I'm just like, I don't want to be included in this. What is a fair starting salary? Like, what is typical in this industry? And then, you know, what should you actually kind of strive for?

12:26Kelsey Alpaio:It depends what city you're in. I think the American Association of Museums has done a salary survey of the industry for a number of years. That's a useful resource. I've got the survey. Starting from if you're just entering the field as a curatorial assistant, it says in the low range is around$25 ,000 and in the high range is around$46 ,000. For assistant curator, low end is$31 ,000, high end is$68 ,000. And then senior curator, 42 ,000 is on the low end, 105 ,000 is on the high end. And then for chief curator, which seems like the top dog here, it's 34 ,000 on the low end and 107 ,000 on the high end.

13:17Someone who's interested in this profession wants to take an internship, but it's unpaid. Would you suggest that they take it for the experience or look somewhere else?

13:27Kelsey Alpaio:You know, it's a personal choice. I would say no. And I wish I had held a line years ago, but it was just not something that people did at that time. And I was really accustomed to just trying to make things work, regardless of how difficult it was. you know but yeah it's a personal choice I think it depends on your your own situation you might do an internship where you're just researching provenance or you're looking at looking at images for a catalog that will be published in two years and you're writing artist biographies for a show that you'll never get to see so you know internships can give you some insight behind the scenes in an institution, but you might not really get hands-on experience making a show.

14:22Thanks for watching! Do you have a career crush? Tell us about them in the comments and we'll see if we can talk to them for you. Subscribe to our channel to see more interviews with people actually living the dream. Bye! Do you hear that? That sound, right? That means that summer's officially here. It means that grown adults just sprint into the street for a frozen dessert shaped like a cartoon. But this summer, Mint Mobile has a better treat. Every plan, including unlimited, is$15 a month. And unlike ice cream, it won't drip down your wrist or look nothing like the picture. Does anyone have any cash?

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