Imagine doubling your prices – right now!
How do you feel? Did you have to stop yourself from choking? Think that no one would pay and you’d lose all your clients?
We all have an internal money thermostat. It’s our mindset of how we value ourselves which directly relates to what we feel comfortable charging.
And that applies whether you’re a coach, facilitator or trainer, or sell a product.
Price is elastic and determined by two things. The first is your own limiting beliefs around your own value and what you’re worth. The second is whether your clients perceive value in what you’re offering – or not.
Let’s take these in turn, starting with your own beliefs around value.
We tell every client to raise their prices.
One was charging $3,000 for a particular service and struggling to come to terms with charging more.
We played a game. I kept putting his price up while asking him what his internal feelings were at each jump. i.e. What could he feel his value was given what he provided.
We got up to $6,000 until he said “stop”.
A couple of months later, he did put his fees up to $6,000 and no one batted an eyelid! He lost no clients and added significantly to his bottom line.
Another went through a similar exercise, with our help positioned himself as a leading consultant in this field and tripled his fees.
Another defied industry norms of free initial consultations and now charges a healthy first meeting fee. They provide significant value in the consultation and use the process as a prospect filtering mechanism.
What’s even better is that by positioning themselves correctly, they have a waiting list of clients!
And finally, a client walked up to me at a conference and the first words out of his mouth to the person standing next to me were, “One of the best things Rashid forced us to do was to massively raise our prices. It was the best thing we ever did.”
Notice the pattern here.
As within, so without. Your mindset and personal money thermostat will determine your business posture and what you feel comfortable charging. That quiet assurance will rub off on your prospects and lead to higher profitability.
These are two exercises we put our clients through so they feel comfortable raising prices.
Imagine increasing your prices by 10%, then 20%, 30% and so on. Where you do start to feel internal resistance? Think no-one would pay that. Which simply is your own perception of the value you provide.
But you don’t know this is true for your clients.
There’s only one way to find out. Ask your clients.
Use our Value Gap Analysis™ (VGA) methodology to find out what’s really valuable to your clients. Honestly, there is no substitute for this. You cannot make assumptions here.
You can read more about the VGA here.
Correlate the price you’d love to charge with the feedback you get from the VGA. You’ll likely find you can increase prices with little to no pushback.
Now of course that’s only half the story. Your marketing and sales systems have to reflect and communicate your value, or you’ll be the world’s best kept secret. Once again the VGA analysis comes to the fore as it tells you exactly what your clients want and value. Use that market intelligence in your marketing and sales efforts.
If you’re having trouble believing you could charge more for your services, call us right now on 0414 913 334. We’ll work with you to elicit your value, embody a mindset that truly believes it. Then ensure your marketing and sales collateral demonstrates your value in terms clients understand and go, “I want some of that”.
