One of the secrets to business success is pricing your services correctly. Get it right, and your business will flourish without a lot of added stress or strain on you, the business owner. But when done incorrectly, your price becomes an anchor that holds you stuck to the ocean floor.
This week on The Six Figure Biz Show, I invited author & pricing expert coach Kate Dixon on the show to share with you tips for overcoming the urge to undersell yourself.
So, as always, let’s pull this problem apart.
Kate Dixon is the Principal and Founder of Dixon Consulting, a leadership development and total rewards consultancy that specializes in salary negotiation coaching, service pricing advice, and compensation solutions, as well as workshops and team-building for organizations of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 100 companies.
Learn more at www.katedixon.org or info@katedixon.org
And grab a copy of her book at: books2read.com/NameYourPrice
In his incredible book "$1M Offers" Alex Hormozi says there are really just two ways to price your offers:
1) Competitive Pricing (the race to the bottom)
2) Grand Slam Pricing (differentiated, incomparable, value-driven offers)
When you try to price your offer competitively (charging less than your competitor) only your competitor wins.
Read that again!
Think about it...when you charge less than the competition, YOU certainly don't win. You're now having to do the same (or better) work than they do, for less money.
This also means you can't afford to hire good help to support you, or have the same equipment, office space, etc. So since you're having to "make do" with less help, you burn out or appear stressed and unprofessional.
THAT means your clients aren't really getting the best version of you, so they don't win either!
The right way to price your offer is to make the inclusions so differentiated, and the value so obvious, that the client never blinks at the higher price.
Get Alex's Pricing Strategy Mini-Course with step-by-step instructions sent right to your inbox.
With every episode of The Six Figure Biz, I like to empower you with a POWERFUL free resource that goes with the episode which you can implement right away to create some of the same results, if not better, in your business.
This week, since we are talking about Alex Hormozi's book $1M Offers, I wanted to give you access to his FREE Pricing Strategy Mini-Course so you know step-by-step how to implement this strategy.
After going through this freebie you will be able to save hours of time worrying over how to price your offers, and know precisely what inclusions, guarantees, and price to put inside.
You can access it right away by clicking on the button above 👆
Of course, in order to not have your offer fall on deaf ears, you have to do your homework and ensure that what you're offering is really what your audience WANTS.
Alex tells a story about a marketing professor who once asked his students, "If you were going to open a hotdog stand, and you could only have one advantage over your competitors...which would you choose?"
The students kept throwing out answers... "Location! ...Quality! ...Low prices! ...Best taste!"
They finally fell silent, waiting for the professor to speak. He smiled and replied. "The correct answer is: a starving crowd."
You could have the worst hot dogs, terrible prices, and be in a terrible location, but if you're the only hot dog stand for miles and a bunch of starving college kids wander by...you're going to sell out!
And all of this leads back to: the offer you make MUST be so good that your potential client feels stupid saying no.
So when you are figuring out how to price your services, the first and foremost question is: where is my starving crowd and what do they want to eat?
At the end of the day, there needs to be a ton of demand for your solution in order for your offer to mean anything...no matter how you price it!
Often times, when I speak to a new or up-and-coming entrepreneur, I get told they are struggling to sell their services ..."because no one wants what I offer!"
Market research isn't about finding a want. (Advertising's whole purpose is to CREATE WANT! So this is really the cart before the horse)
When you're figuring out what to offer and how to price it, don't go looking for what people WANT. Find out what they desperately need.
Pain can be anything that frustrates people about their lives. Find the pain, and there you will find the biggest profits to be made in solving that pain for somebody.
The test of an offer is whether your audience feels hungry for what their life would look like without the pain you promise to solve!
Without that, NO PRICE WILL BE WORTH IT TO THEM.
In every pricing conversation I ever have, the subject of ethics comes up. Is it morally right to charge more than your competitors?
Yes...but only IF you know that you can get results!
You should never charge more to a client than your product is worth. That leads to disaster anyway, and makes you feel so horrible (if you're a good person) that it's not really worth it in the end.
But you should charge far more than it costs to fulfill your services.
At the end of the day, your client is paying for the end result. What that end result is worth to them is the question your offer must answer... BUT an emotionally-invested client will statistically get more out of your services than one with no skin in the game, hence the ethical & moral value of charging higher prices.
To demonstrate this, let me tell you a little tale:
A dozen wine judges sat at a competition. Each of them was asked to taste-test the wines in three separate bottles. The labels on the bottles had been removed... all the judges were told was the PRICE of the three wines.
Each judge tasted all three wines.
In the end, they all voted and agreed that the most expensive wine was the best one of the three.
But guess what?
It was the SAME wine in all three bottles!
Why did this happen? This story demonstrates what we call "emotional investment".
We naturally assign more value to something when we see a higher price. That emotional investment can even trick us into seeing subtle differences (in the wine) when no difference exists!
Your clients are the same way. If you charge more...you will not only naturally attract clients who have more money (making it easier to sell to them) but you will also HELP the client to emotionally invest more, which leads to better results and more motivation to do the work.
Small business owners often grow concerned when they see competitors charging less for the same results. But you should get excited!
Here are the steps for choosing a price for your services:
1) Identify a Unique Selling Point (USP) for your offer. What is different about what you're doing, how you're doing it, who you specialize in, etc?
2) Research what your competitors are charging.
3) Survey and ask your target audience what this problem is costing them. For instance, perhaps having this problem is costing them hours of time, or exhausting nights of lost sleep, etc. Try to put a price on what that cost is worth in dollars.
4) Cost out what it will take financially to produce & deliver your service. What are the labor costs? What is the time commitment for you to market, sell & deliver it? What materials, equipment, etc., will you need?
5) Add up the total costing of delivery, and add to that the cost to the client to stay in this problem. Now you have an idea of what that service is WORTH.
6) Choose a price that far exceeds what your competitor is charging.
Once you have figured out what to charge your clients, you next need to become an expert at heart-centered sales so you can easily get an enthusiastic "yes!!" to your offer without resorting to scammy or yucky sales tactics. I can help! Jump on a Discovery Call to see my own no-pressure sales process in action, and get a copy of the sales script I recommend (and use personally)...
Sarah Nicole Nadler is a business + balance coach for 6 & 7-figure business owners who want to build a dream team & profitable biz so they can spend more time on the things that matter. A digital nomad, she currently calls Tampa Bay, Florida home.
© 2024 Sarah Nicole Nadler LLC | All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy | Refund Policy | Terms & Conditions
