5 Ways You are Complicating PRICING and How to STOP

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Welcome, welcome. Welcome to UNcomplicated Business for Teachers, Helpers and Givers. This is a new name and new brand on the teachers and business podcast. But really, the things we're going to talk about here are totally the same. This is just an example of me growing the container for this podcast. So it includes all of the people who have been listening and joining in my Facebook group and coming in for coaching, more accurately, teachers and business was great. And in this is not going to be vastly different from that podcast. But it was time to update that container, right, it was like a plant that kind of got root ground and needed a little more space, the name of the group changing and of the podcast changing are really all about getting a bigger pot to grow into. Sometimes we all need that kind of room to fly. So today, we're going to talk about how to uncomplicate pricing. And the way we're going to talk about this is by talking first about the ways we complicate pricing, I did a free live workshop in that on this in my Facebook group last week, you may have watched that this is going to be many of the same things. And if you want to go like watch it on video, rather than listen to it on the podcast, you can absolutely do that. But you know, sometimes when we hear things second time, also it hits us differently. So I invite you to do both, if that's the way you want to play. So there are five things, I think that we do that complicate pricing for ourselves. The first one is we think that there is a right price. This is a message that we are inevitably like, we'd come by naturally, because that's what you know, the business world, and the MBA world and you know all kinds of things tells us it tells us that like 3797 is the right price, it's got to end and a NINE and a NINE, seven. And people are as eyes are drawn to your numbers, and it should be enlightened, so many suggestions. But here's the thing that is an outside in approach to pricing. And what it does is it tells us that we have to find a right version of our pricing, that there's a wrong version also. So that the idea that there's a right version implies that there's a wrong version. And that's a problem, right? So what's different about the way I think about pricing is instead of hunting down the right price, like I'm trying to catch a unicorn in my kitchen. I think we we price, the price when the price is right, it comes from the inside out the price that's right for us as a price we feel good about. It's one that we feel like when we get paid it that is equivalent to the value we are giving other people whether it's for a service or a product, we feel amazing to be paid that number for whatever it is we do the right price for you comes from the inside out. That's the thing here. So problem number one that makes pricing complicated as you're you're hunting for the right one like it lives under a rock, it doesn't there is no right answer. There's simply what feels best for you. The second problem is that we think our price has to be in line with everybody else out in the industry and like competitive and all these things to work. The problem with that is that we're we are choosing that price to be quote unquote competitive with with incomplete information. What we don't know is the entire range of other people's prices. And more often than not, the entire range is far broader than we think. Like I know coaches that charge $7 An hour and I know coaches that charge $1,000 an hour. Like I know people in the full range. I know someone that charges $50,000 for six months and I know someone that charges $2,000 for six months. There is a huge range just within coaching but consulting you know think about jewelry, if you're making and selling jewelry, you can find things that are $5 or $10. And you can find things that are 1000s of dollars and hundreds of 1000s of dollars. The huge ranges out there and the thing about it is that people are buying all of those things. So thinking your place price has to be in line in a certain way with a narrow segment of your direct competitors. It isn't accurate, because you don't know the full range we never do. But it is broader than we realize. So there's more room for us to make choices than we realize. There are always people more willing to pay than we know until we decide that our prices our prices, our price So that's number two. Number three is the walk deep and painful judgment call that is affordability. When we think our price has to be affordable, quote, unquote, we are complicating things. Because affordability is squishy. It's different for me than it is for you than it is for my husband than it is for my best friend than it is for my mom than it is for my uncle than it is for whatever. And affordability often doesn't have anything to do with the amount of money someone has. Affordability is really about what they're willing to pay to get something. And sometimes people are willing to pay a lot more for something they really need or want. Even if they don't have the money. Even if they do sometimes people that have a ton of money, don't want to spend it. So affordability really, truly is a judgment. And when we try to price based on affordability, we are trying to judge all of the people in our world and make a guess about what they believe in their values. And friends. That's, that's hard and complicated and impossible and also not right. Because you don't want people to make those decisions for you. Why would we make them for them? Right? Affordability isn't a metric. Affordability. I mean, people are going to tell you it is. But there's some wonky methods behind there. And that's like we're talking data, statistic friendly kinds of things. And as a math geek like I with you. But at the same time, at the most basic level, when we're talking about affordability, we're talking about willingness to pay, and that's changeable. So sometimes we are more willing to pay for something than we are others. It depends on where we are in our lives, what we have what we don't what we need the most. And we can't decide that for other people, what they think is affordable is none of our business. Number four, is that we think we have to hold on to whatever pricing we choose forever, like we get very black and white about it. So like I've had clients be like, okay, but if I settle on that I'm gonna use it all year. No, that's not necessary. It's not even I mean, I've had times in my business where I change the price, every time I talk to a new person. I'm not saying go that far, that was also like too far of a pendulum swing. But at the same time, you get to choose, and if what you're choosing doesn't work for you, you get to choose again. Now what I would say is that is really useful to sort of pick a metric, like decide what your price is, decide how long you're going to keep it that way or for how many sales, you're going to keep it that way, and then re evaluate. But I think the thing to remember is whatever we decide in and this applies in all areas of business, not just person, whatever we decide is not a lifetime commitment, you are not signing in blood on the dotted line, you get to change it because you are the boss, which is fun. The last one is the sneakiest, one of the bunch, and it is this, if you don't feel good about the price, if you don't believe the service you are offering the product you are offering is worth that price. And if you wouldn't pay that price for that service, it is going to be really, really hard to sell. If you don't believe it's really hard to receive, as they say. So, you know, you can think about this in terms of, you know, if you were selling, it would be hard for you like this bad example, when I was working back in my Britannica days, there was a resource that they sold for a while it was like a pilot resource that honestly, as a teacher, I wouldn't have used. And, you know, at that time, I had a really hard time like figuring out the right words and the messaging and how I wanted to present it to people. And I was presenting it to like superintendents all over the country. And, you know, it was hard for me to say right, but ultimately what it came down to was it was because I wouldn't use it myself. It wasn't a tool that I believed in. I didn't realize it at the time. But looking back on it now that was the problem. It's really hard to sell something you won't spend money to buy. It's really hard to sell something you don't think is worth the price.

And if you don't believe in it, how can anyone else? So those are the five ways we complicate pricing. How do we uncomplicated. The first thing I would say is the easiest place to start is to enter easy as a bad word there. The simplest place to start is to choose a price that you feel good about. I would think about whatever that number is and then add 10% Because of you like me or a teacher, helper or giver, we know Toria Slee undervalue ourselves So if the tendency is to undervalue yourself, you know, like add 10% and 20%. You know, sometimes with clients like we almost doubled, because what they're giving is so much more valuable than what they're charging, it almost makes it look bad, right? You can a price can be too low, it can become suspicious to people. So think about something that would feel really good for you, it'd be easy for you to say an offer and then add 10%. Think about how a price, the perfect price is one, honestly, this is what I tell clients all the time. That makes you slightly ill to say out loud, but makes you like dance with joy when somebody pays. So that's the balance. I mean, I don't It's not super scientific. But it's like, oh, my gosh, people pay me this. And also like, how do I say that to them, but you can. So first is to pick a price. Second, decide what that number is, and then sell yourself that price. Sell yourself this service. At this price, I used to work with a coach called Samantha suffering. And what she used to have us do is think about the value of what we're offering at 10 times whatever the price is. So if you are offering something that costs $1,000, how is it worth $10,000 to your client? Or two? If you're selling something that's $50? How can you bring them? How can owning it, bring them you know, $500 worth of joy, right? How is it a great value. And here's the thing about it, if you can sell yourself on it being worth 10 times what they're paying for it becomes way easier to sell. Right? It becomes way easier to explain to people why they should buy what you're selling, it becomes way easier for you to talk about the price, because all of a sudden, you're like holy crap, this is a really good deal. I once had a client who was selling something for I think she wanted to price it at 1497 $1,497. And when she and I sat down and like individually valued all the things that she was going to include, it really was like $20,000 worth of value. And she was like, Oh, she's like, holy crap, this is a great deal. And all of a sudden, it became far easier for her to sell. So think about selling yourself, and whatever your price is, so that you are like, Oh, this is a good deal. When you're there, all of a sudden, this feels less complicated, because you believe, right? Then the next thing is to actually practice saying it. Because here's the thing, we've all been in the situation where somebody's like, oh, how much is that and you like stutter, I've done it, I still do it occasionally, even though I practice a lot. And you kind of like by the end, you can't get it out. We don't want that. What you want to do is like legitimately walk around your house, or your backyard or driveway, Brian is my driveway where you drive in the car, when you're by yourself and you're like, here's what I offer. It's this amount of money, like I will be in the car, and I'll be like, Well, my coaching package is weekly sessions for six months, we will work on XY and Z you and I together and the cost is $900 a month. And then I practice closing my mouth. Practice saying it and then being quiet so that people can then respond because it is not our job to over explain. Our job is to say it, the meat of it.

The last thing you have to do is make a decision. Once you choose you once you choose your price, once you've sold it to yourself, and you've practicing it, then you can decide how long you're going to hold on to it before you reevaluate. So it could be a time period. For me it is often a number of sales, I find that much more concrete than a time period. Because you don't know how many people you're going to sell to in a time period. Sometimes, I always think like, Okay, after I sell this five times successfully, five people buy it, I will revisit the price. So for me it is often five people. But then you know it's done until I've sold it to five people. I don't have to think about it again, like there's nothing to revisit. For you. It's really helpful, especially if you are uncomfortable pricing. And this is something you're learning to give yourself a rule that you can follow. That's really simple. Because then your brain doesn't have to redesign it every day. You don't have to like think about it again and again. And again. They got it again like that's not necessary. So the things I would leave you with. Remember first that there's a wider range of prices out there than you realize there is more room for you than you know your price does not have to be as low as you think you are almost always undervaluing your service. The second is your job is to make the invitation and make the offer not to judge what people do next. You don't get to decide what's affordable for them. You don't get to decide to say no for them, you don't get to pull the punch on your price for them unless you decide intentionally that you're going to for a reason, like you can give a discount, but not without a purpose. Just a discount because you're feeling bad for them or you're feeling uncomfortable about your price is a recipe for you to feel undervalued. That's, that's not a great business practice. So if you're going to give a discount, do so intentionally with love. No, that's what you're doing. But like Be firm on it. And then finally, the thing to remember is that decisions about pricing are yours. You are the boss, no one tells you what the right price is you do. There is no perfect price. That's why if you go look for a coach, there's a million different prices. If you go buy jewelry, there's a million different prices, they all work. They all work for someone, someone is buying them, yours is going to be the same. You just have to get behind it. If you have questions about this come into the Facebook group. It's called uncomplicated business for teachers helpers and givers. If you have thoughts about the podcast change, and the group change, send them to me, I'm Sarah at Torpey coaching.com. If you have questions about pricing, reach out, I'm happy to help. This is one of those things that we can do really simply in a one byte session, like I sell occasionally two people, one coaching session, they're usually 90 minutes, they're just $200. You come you bring your pricing bows, we figure it out, you walk away, there's no sales, there's no nothing, we just figured out your thing, and then we move on. So if you want to do something like that, great. And the other thing you should know is we are coming towards the time, when I am going to close enrollment for my small group coaching program, we start the week of October 10, the groups are capped at four people each. And the cost for 20 weeks of small group coaching is 3000 hours, it is an amazing coaching program, we are going to do pricing in there for sure we always do. But it is really really useful to both get your work on your individual pricing and see everyone else do it. It's one of the most powerful things in group coaching. Because what you see is all of the internal drama other people have about their price, so that you're not alone, you get to learn from what their approach is you get to learn how they do it differently than you might and you get to make your decisions, but also kind of be prepared for the next stage. And so even just in the pricing alone, it's worth the cost you'll pay honestly, if that's all we do, and that's you know, part of one session and we have 20. So if you're interested in small group coaching, send a message I again am Sara Torpey coaching.com Or you can go to my website, which is Torpey coaching.com. If you're not in the group, you should be calm play with us. There's all the free it's all the good and we're here all the time. And with that. Thanks for joining us. I'll see you the next episode.