What To Do When You Are Afraid to Raise Your Prices
Today’s article comes from an amazing question from one of my Platinum clients:
“I have a confession to make: After raising my prices successfully to $2300 for 3 clients (as I committed to doing at our last intensive) I have offered my program at the lower price ($1,600) to the past 2 potential clients I spoke to.
I have another potential client call today, and am really tempted to offer them the lower price too b/c she was referred to me by a a friend who worked with me when my prices were even LOWER than my current “low” price…so I’m worried she’s going to get sticker shock if I quote her the new price.
I don’t want to scare her away, because she has 3 other clients who could potentially use my services.
I also feel bad not being able to offer my clients something that they can afford – like taking candy away from a baby.
And the friend who referred her to me is a person who could send me lots of other clients…so I don’t want the word to get back to her that I’m too expensive, and then have her stop sending people to me.
What to do?”
Can you relate?
I get so many clients who feel this way about raising their prices. It’s scary. You don’t want to be mean. You don’t want people to think you are “expensive”. You don’t want to scare people away.
The list goes on and on.
In fact we spend a lot of time going through money beliefs just like this one at my Master Your Money event every year. If you haven’t made it there – please mark your calendars for April 2017.
In the meantime here are a few steps to consider:
1. People can work with you in more than one way. Just because they may not be able to afford your one-on-one rates doesn’t mean they couldn’t buy a product or group program from you. If you don’t currently offer another option now – you will down the road once you’ve built a base income.
Also, if you are someone who runs a service that you primarily do – like an organizer or copywriter, you can have junior team members that work under you. These team members can be billed out at lower rate so that your company overall can serve more people. By the way, this also works for coaches when you are ready.
2. There’s nothing wrong with being expensive. Your wisdom and experience are worth every penny you charge. Expensive goes with high quality. Think of all the luxury product brands that you are willing to pay for. Understand that every day people buy luxury items – $150 jeans, flat screen televisions, I-phones. And they love it! Why can’t you be one of those items too?
3. You are in business and you need money to keep your doors open and to stay in a healthy and sustainable place. You are a human being that needs to make money in your business to keep the lights on and food on the table. When you hit your goals you are able to take better care of yourself. As a result you get BETTER at what you do.
I’d rather have someone who is taking great care of herself and making great money work with me ANY DAY over someone who is constantly taking prices down and struggling because of it.
4. Your business is not a charity or a hobby (not yet anyways). Remember your charity is separate from your business – you can always give things away on your own dime when you want to. But charities are built on foundations of successful businesses. Most funders of charitable foundations are successful businesses who are giving money from a place of abundance.
If you are giving money from a place of lack or guilt – you’ll just feel worse.
Remember – it’s scary to raise your prices and keep them up. But understand that the more you offer them, the easier it will become. Soon enough the new prices will become the new norm. Never forget, confidence is the key piece to sales success. Remember the four points above to keep your confidence up in the process.
Leave me a comment and let me know what you think about raising your prices.
