Pricing your products and services is always a scary hot spot for most business owners. It’s only natural that you think you should price your offerings the same as your competitors, but there’s a few things you need to take into consideration and one GREAT BIG factor that most of the experts neglect to tell you (but I will!)
So that BIG factor is ‘positioning’!
In any industry there’s always going to be a sliding scale of affordability. Take cars for example… You’ve got Ford… Audi… BMW… Porsche… Ferrari. Now at the end of the day they essentially do the same thing, right?! They get you from A to B. Let you do the school run, pick up groceries. But at one end you’re spending 10k and at the other end you can easily spend 250k.
Dig a little deeper into this concept and you’ll clearly understand that Ford are aiming to sell to people who have a certain income level. Just like Ferrari are. So, the question you need to ask yourself, is where do you fit on this positioning scale?
Do you want to charge a more affordable price, potentially be more accessible to your audience? Or do you see yourself more higher end, attract a different clientele? Now only you can make this decision for your business.
This is the absolute foundation of any pricing decision you make from here on in, as you’ll see…
Experience
So, you may have heard that line that ‘there’s people way less qualified than you charging twice as much’. So again this takes us right back to positioning. That person has set their stall up as being a higher ticket brand and as such will be attracting that clientele. So, don’t let this sway you from your path or decision. If your main aim is to be accessible, then you can only really compare pricing to those who are in the same positioning pocket as you.
But have confidence in your experience. Have you been doing what you do for 15yrs, have a degree or it doesn’t even have to be academic… Maybe it’s based around transformations for your clients (i.e those golden testimonials) Your experience adds HUGE value, so factor that in!
Confidence
What?! I know right?! Yep, confidence is a huge factor of pricing. If you naturally feel like you’re charging too much… Guess what’s going to happen. You’re going to cringe and shy away from selling it, because you don’t believe in the price. You NEED to believe in your price 100%, or it’ll show. If this means that you want to position yourself as a ‘BMW’ in your niche, but it’s your first offer, you lack transformational experience, so you want to charge ‘Ford’ pricing initially… DO IT!
Selling initially at a price you feel confident about, believe it or not, will actually boost your confidence. Because you’ll get people buying and you’ll instantly know ‘hang on, that was almost too easy’ and so you can nudge up your pricing next time. This is why people often run beta launches to test the water. Always better to gradually increase pricing than cut them.
So there you have it… How to price your online offerings to attract your ideal client. Starting with positioning.
I want to bust a quick myth before I go, that time or what’s included is the main factor in pricing. As you’ll know when it comes to online offerings. Chances are people can ‘Google hack’ it for free! What they’re paying for is YOU! Much like the car example, people are paying for the brand name (and the quality, which is experience).
If you need more support in positioning your offers online, check out my 1:1 Simplify & Scale, where over the course of working together we align your business and content to attract your audience with ease.
