This week’s podcast is all about pricing. I will be talking about the practical side and the emotional/mindset side. I really hope these points will help you if you are struggling with setting your prices or want to increase them.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- It is good to look at what the industry average is but you can go higher if you are more experienced or lower if you feel someone is charging too much.
- See what your competitors are doing – this will help you judge where you need to be.
- Think about what makes you different and why people will come to you.
- What can you offer that your competitors don’t have?
- As your credibility grows, your prices should increase.
- You can grow your credibility by getting in front of other people’s audiences.
- Investing in yourself with time and money builds on your experience and confidence in charging more.
- People perceive that the higher the price, the better the quality, so you need to charge enough for your product/service otherwise they may go elsewhere.
- You need a significant price difference for each service level you offer so it makes sense to the customer.
- Reward loyalty with existing customers – you don’t have to change their prices.
- Putting your prices up is as simple as changing a figure on your website or price list – remove the emotion from it.
- Not everyone will be able to afford your prices, but that’s okay, there will be others who will.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
Don’t undercharge yourself for what you do, have confidence and go and charge a bit more!
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS
- Looking at your competitors pricing – 07:07
- Gauging your pricing based on credibility – 09:10
- Have confidence in your pricing – 15:55
- Pricing structures – 19:00
- Putting your prices up – 22:05
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Join my Instagram challenge in the academy!
Getting yourself in front of other people’s audiences podcast
Transcript below
Hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How the devil are you? I am good. I've had a busy week and I'm still trying to catch up. Isn't it funny? Like when you, when you get out of a habit of doing something, the work it takes to get you back into that habit.
So obviously if you listen to the podcast, regularly, you know, that, you know, a few months back, I had really tricky few months with my mum passing away and, um, I was in hospital. I had an operation, emergency operation. Anyway, and all that had a huge impact on how far ahead I was with my content. So normally I like to batch, normally I like to be ahead and obviously because of everything that went on, I couldn't.
So. I got not behind. I've always managed to produce the podcast and have it out for the right day. However, I normally liked to be much more ahead of time and I haven't been, so that's really bothered me, but it's taking so much work to get back into that habit of basically making sure I am really ahead.
So my team are doing an amazing job of keeping up with me in the sense of, I might be a little bit late passing everything over to them and they work super fascinated, which is amazing. But yeah, I'm hoping to get back into it, but it is interesting isn't it? But it just. It's so tricky to get back into that good habit.
The other thing I need to get back into the habit of is knowing what content I'm putting out. Because again, sometimes like today I've sat down to come and do this episode and I'm like, “What am I gonna talk about?”, whereas normally I'm much more planned ahead than that. So again, I need to work on that. And it's weird you know, when I'm in the Academy and someone asks me a question and they'll say, you know, “Teresa, what should I do about this? Or how do I do this?” Like, my brain just goes, kicks into action and then pulls everything out of it. And it just gives them all the answers. And it's great. But sometimes we sit here and I don't know about you and I'm sure everyone's the same.
You sit here and, you know, you know, so much stuff, but when you're thinking, what am I going to say in today's blog? Or what am I going to talk about in today's podcast? Your mind goes blank and you're literally sat there, like, “I'm not even entirely sure. Like, do I know anything?”. So anyway, I need to get back into both of those good habits and start just becoming a bit more organized. Cause the only thing affects is how much time I take to do things. So the other thing I wanted to tell you about before I get on with today's episode is we are going to be running an Instagram challenge, a five day Instagram challenge in the Academy.
So I had this idea and I put it in the group and I was completely inundated with requests of, “Yes, please. Yes, please do this.” So what I've decided is that, on the week commencing the 5th of October, I had to look at my planner then I've been doing lots of planning today as well. I'm going to be doing an Instagram challenge in the Academy.
So if you like the idea of that if you need some motivation, if you want some more engagement on your Instagram or you want to get some more followers. Or you just want to make sure that you're being consistent and you need the very gentle persuasion of my boot up your backside. Then maybe now's the time for you to join the Academy.
Maybe now is the time for you to join me and the other members as we go ahead and do this challenge. Now, obviously there are a million other brilliant things that are in the Academy and reasons to join, but maybe you just need a bit of motivation with an Instagram. And as you know, I love Instagram and lots of people in the Academy are really keen to do this.
So we're going to be doing that. Like I said, week commencing the 5th of October. So if you join between now and then, then you can join me and the rest of the members for that. So just go to teresaheathwareing.com/Academy and I will put the link in the show notes. Okay. Today's episode, we are going to be talking all things pricing.
This is going to be a practical side and the more emotional slash mindset side. So basically, I'm having a bit of a brain dump of some things that come up all the time. And I thought as I answered them a lot anyway, why not answer these same questions to you guys? Or bring these same points to you guys and see if they help you too?
So I am literally just going to go through a random list that I've got in front of me. And also because I am very honest. I've tried to record this episode about three times now, and I keep messing up because it's seven o'clock in the evening and I've been working all day. But you know, you just, I just want to get this done today and therefore,
I just completely messed up a few different times and I've just literally started again and that's it. Now it's going to be fine. Thank you brain. It's going to be absolutely fine, you're going to be great. But it is going to be a little bit like I'm just running through some random points, but I've really hope these points will help you. So let me start by saying that when I first started my business and I had to come up with the pricing, I find really, really difficult. And I ended up charging out things way too cheap. Because I found it really hard to put a price on my head. I'd never had to, I'd always been employed before, so therefore, my salary dictated the level of my expertise and my knowledge and my experience. And when it came to doing it myself and literally saying this is what the price is. There was a few issues, sort of one, one, how did I actually put a price on my head and two having that confidence of actually trying to sell yourself is really hard.
When I was selling a service. When I was working for a marketing agency, it was our agency that I was selling. It was easy. I find it really. Okay. You know, more than happy to apprise on the agency's head. But not so much when it came to me and my own stuff. So there's a few things I want you to think about it if you're struggling with this, that might help you come up with kind of a better pricing. And I've got a story about something that really kind of hit home for me. But first one thing I want you to do is look at these kind of points such as what's the industry average. Now I'm not necessarily always totally into that. Because one, sometimes I feel like people charge an absolute extortion amount of money for something that really is not that difficult. And the other time is actually if you are really good at something, and you have this amazing credibility then you can go above the industry average if they want to work with you because they love you then actually pricing doesn't matter so much at that point. As in, you can go higher than your competitors.
But it's a great place to start in terms of, okay, “What are people actually charging for this?” So if you want some confidence, that's probably a really good place to start because hopefully your industry will dictate to you that you probably need to charge a little bit more. Not always, but, but maybe.
Okay. So that's the first thing. What is the industry charging? Then have a think and have a look at what your competitors are doing. Again, I don't always pay a whole lot of attention to people like that, but it's always good to know what are they selling for what price? So what's really interesting is as you know, in the past, I bought a lot of stuff, a lot of online stuff.
I just bought a lot of stuff generally. Um, but I've done a lot of learning and a lot of educating myself through online courses. And I find it really interesting to see what you got for what price. So some stuff that was like, 20 something dollars actually was like, this is amazing. This is really good value and other things that were thousands, I thought, “Yeah, it's okay. It's good.” But you know, in terms of the price, that was a kind of real interesting kind of eye-opener in terms of what you can expect to get for your money. So what are your competitors doing? Like I said, it's not always that that's set in stone for you. It's just a case that it might help you judge, where you need to be.
Then I want you to think about what makes you different and where your credibility is. So, let's start with the what makes you different first. So obviously if you are selling a service, which I know lots of you do sell a service, then you are going to be the reason they come to you. Because basically if you're doing consultancy or coaching or you're a PT, or you do social media management. There are a million people who can do that, literally millions of them, but there's only one you.
So I really want you to think about that when you're thinking about your pricing and where you are and how you get that confidence to price what you do you charge. I want you to think about what makes you different. Why would they come to you? What specific thing that you have you got that maybe your competitors don't have?
Is that, that bit of experience, is it that you have worked in that particular industry? Let's say you coach women who are in high powered jobs. I don't know, just making this stuff up, like I always do. But it's like, but let's say that's what you do. And therefore you've had lots of experience that, and therefore that will help come towards your pricing and the credibility of your pricing.
And then, like I said, go back to that credibility. So for instance, a couple of stories, the first one. When I first started out, my day rate was like 150 pound a day. Right. Which makes me laugh now, which isn't funny. It just this the fact of like, when I first started, that's what was reasonable for me to charge a day based on my confidence and my, I was going to say my experience, but no, that's.
My experience should have been way more expensive than that. But I guess my naivety in the industry and my naivety in kind of having that confidence to sell my own price. So I was literally starting off at that. And then every time something amazing happened every time I got asked to speak somewhere, every time I got an amazing guest on the podcast, every time I got chosen as one of UK's influenced marketing influencers. Every time I got invited to speak on a stage that added to that credibility and effectively added to that bottom line, it added to that that day rate. And my day rate is considerably way way, way more than 150 about a day. Thank goodness. But that came through lots of different things, which a few things we'll talk about today, but one of them was that credibility.
One of it was one of the aspects was the fact that I was being picked and chosen and identified as someone who knew what I was talking about and whether I felt that inside. That's by the by. I want you to think if people are asking you to come and help, if people are asking you to come and speak you, to give your opinion, you to comment on something or other, then they have the credibility of you or they see you as a credible source.
So this is a two way thing. One, if you have had that experience, then should you have put your prices up or two, why not go out and become more credible. Why not? And I did an episode, literally a few weeks back about How to get on other people's audiences or in front of other people's audiences. So go and listen to that episode.
And I think that was episode 135 go and listen to the episode and then go and put yourself out there so that you can be seen as more credible, which then in turn will mean you can charge more money. The other thing that was really interesting for me was I, like I said, in the early days, when I first started, I didn't really have the confidence in terms of charging for me because I'd always worked for someone else.
However, I went to a conference in the States and I paid a huge amount of money to go out to the States to go to this conference. And it was a big risk. I think I've talked about it before in a podcast, but basically I booked the conference and then worried later about how the hell I'd pay for everything. But it worked out and it was all great, but what happened was, and one thing that was really interesting for me was I went to this conference and weirdly, sorry, as a side note, I'd spent like three years doing a degree in marketing, and I'd had 10 years experience in marketing.
And yet for whatever reason that didn't give me the confidence to go, there's a price on my head and it's worth every penny. But then when I went to that conference, I came back from the conference and loads of people I'd say loads like you know handful, maybe at the time contacted me and said, “Oh, Teresa, I've just seen that you've been out to the States and waved in a conference that's amazing. Or we'll have to go for a coffee and you can tell me all about it.” And I sat there and thought, are you kidding? Like I've just spent probably a thousand pounds on flights, 2000 pound on accommodation, probably another thousand pound for the ticket, for the actual event.
And then obviously food and everything else that you have out there. So the trip. It is probably pushing on four or 5,000 pounds. And you want me to go for a coffee and just tell you what I learned? And suddenly that was at the point that I was like, hang on a minute. No, this isn't right. Like I make the investment in me because I know how important it is, but that doesn't mean that you can just have that investment for nothing.
So that really helped me in terms of sort of. Putting that price down and understanding what I was worth which likes I said it was weird. It wasn't like I hadn't done the greed this, I probably still pay for now. Um, but a student loan, but like that really helped me understand that actually, no, this money I'm investing in myself the time you're listening to this podcast right now, are your customers doing that “No”?
Are some of your competitors doing that? “No”. So again, even this, even though it's a free resource. That's absolutely fine. If you are in the membership, if you are on the 90 day program, all that is investing in yourself, all of that is learning. And therefore for me, that really helps me go, okay, I'm paying out all of this it's money and therefore I need to go, this is why I charge this amount, because this is the type of stuff I do.
This is the experience I got. This is where I learned from, this is the kind of person you're getting. So that's the first thing. So the next thing I want to say about the pricing is the fact that sometimes, so you'll, let's say you do a quite, or you do propose of someone to do their social media or to be their coach or whatever. And they come back to you and go, “Oh, you're a bit expensive.”
I think with lots of people, the instant reaction is to literally go, “Oh yeah, sure. No worries. I can, uh, I can like charge less”. And immediately come down on price. Or even maybe before you've sent the proposal you're in your head going, “Oh, I, uh, I don't know if I should charge that or do you think they can afford to pay that?”
Which let's just on a quick note there, whether they can afford to pay it or not is none of your concern. Okay. You need to be confident that that's the price you charge. If they can't afford it, then I'm ever so, sorry but that's the price I charge. And sometimes I have definitely been guilty of charging less.
This is back in the agency time because I felt like they couldn't afford it when actually I should have just had the confidence to go. This is what I'm charging. Cause who am I? I might think they can't afford it, but actually, they might absolutely be able to afford these things. So first off, don't always feel like you've got to come down and try and have that confidence. I know it's hard when you're wanting clients or you're wanting people to buy your services. It can be really tough. So stand by your guns and go, no, this is what I charge. But the other thing is that cheap doesn't always do you favors. So there is this thing and, and we all know it because there's all been, you know, we've all got parts in our life where this absolutely tells that was a true story in the sense of if I was to go to the shops and there was a bottle of wine or a gin for like, or not gin, let's go down with the wine group.
And there was a bottle of wine for like one pound 50. I would think, “Oh my goodness, that is going to taste like absolute pants.” And then I see one that's like 9.99 and I think, “Oh yeah, we'll give that a go. That looks nice.” The perceptions and the cost. I have no idea what the wine's like until I open it and try it.
The same with when you look at coaches or the same with courses, you know, again, like “Oh if it's that much, it must be really good. If they're that much, they must be really good.” The same way as like, when you go out for dinner, it's an expensive place. So therefore it's automatically gonna be good. People do perceive, the higher the price, the better the quality. And therefore, sometimes you are doing yourself out of. Out of business by trying to be cost effective when actually that hasn't helped you at all. It's just made someone, looked like A don't know how to price or B that perhaps your experience isn't as good as someone else's.
So you're not doing yourself any favors at all by always trying to come down on that price. And also, interestingly enough, and I think I mentioned this in the podcast I was talking about that's coming out in a few weeks time. Someone had seen my stuff and they assumed I was way more expensive than I was because of the credibility of me and because of my experience and I speak.
And therefore they had assumed that my cost was higher. And so in my head I'm like, maybe it should be higher. Maybe I should be charging more. Maybe I should be looking at how this is priced. And again, I did some research in terms of not necessarily competitors, but comparable type people or businesses.
And again, my pricing probably needs to shift a bit, so, so really want you to have a look at that. Also then the next thing I want to say is that it needs to make sense. So one thing that's. Sometimes we get really bogged down with when we're working out our pricing, is we don't do the maths. Right. And I know this sounds daft, but honestly it matters times I've looked at pricing and thought that doesn't make sense.
So this mainly occurs where you've got a few different sort of services on offer. So let's say you've got three different levels of way someone can work with you. So obviously if you take me, I've only got two, but I've got the Academy, I've got the 90 day program. And then let's say at one point I used to do one-to-one work, which I don't do now only through the 90 day programs.
So. If you're charging sort of currently $49 for the Academy and you get a coaching call, but it's group and you get the courses and the training and whatever, and that's $49. Then your 90 day program with calls and all of that on top has to be significantly more. For it to make sense. And then the next jump up to the ones to one, again, needs to be significantly more because what you don't want to happen is in your pricing for your 90 day people to hear the pricing of your one-to-one work and think, “Oh, actually I could have just gone one-to-one instead of doing this group program.”
So it really needs to, to be the jump and you almost need to work out the hours. You almost need to sit there and go, right. If they were to take everything. On the list of what's included and add it all up separately, would it make sense? So for instance, you know, if they were to add the $49 a month, which they're getting for the Academy, plus this four solo calls, plus three group calls.
Does that make sense when you've would have a one-to-one price of whatever it might be. So I need you to just, I'm not doing the best explanation and you know what? I've tried to do this about 20 times, not even kidding you. And I just have this just the other day. And I sat there and she sent me, one of the members sent me her pricing and I was looking at it and I was like, that doesn't work out.
Right. That needs to be that, that needs to that. And yet now I'm sat here. And I just can't make sense of what I'm trying to say, but you know what I'm trying to say. You know that basically you need to work out what is the lowest amount per hour you want to work for and then make sure that it all makes sense on top of that.
So if you're charging out eight hours for one thing that it doesn't suddenly come out a lot cheaper than if you're charging five hours for something. So like I said, I feel like I've done a terrible job of explaining that. Which really frustrates me. And obviously I'm bet with maths on it's just sat in front of me, but they need to make sense.
It needs to make obvious sense that actually, this is what I'm getting this for. And then it's the increase in the time with you or the length of time it takes. Again, if you're doing social media marketing and you're charging, I dunno, let's say 490 pounds per platform. And then for three platforms, you're charging you know, something like 1,200 the maths doesn't work on that. Like, yeah, you're going to give them a bit of a discount, but that makes the platform's really cheap, whereas what's the cheapest you want to sell each platform for? I hope that makes sense. I feel like I've done a terrible job.
Fingers crossed. It makes sense. Okay. So then the last thing I wanted to talk about is let's say you're sitting listening to this and you're thinking I need to put my prices up or I need to review my prices. I've done the research. I've looked at my competitors. I've looked at my credibility. I haven't changed them for like 12 months.
And yet I've done all this additional stuff and it needs to put my prices up. And then you feel sick to your stomach. Okay. You sat there and you're like, “But I can't”. Now I, I know there are other people that have different opinions to me about this, and that's fine. I have always rewarded loyalty. So with existing customers, I very rarely changed their pricing because some of them, they were with me right at the beginning when I first started and I needed that.
And I, and I was grateful for how they worked with me and how amazing they are. And, you know, hopefully by this point, if you've been working with them a while, you've got them into a nice kind of routine. It should be easy. It's not difficult. So. I am not a massive fan for going back and going, your prices have gone up.
So there are people who for sure will disagree with me and that's absolutely fine. And if you're comfortable doing it, then great. Personally, I struggled a bit, but you know what? I find that they knew my prices had gone up considerably. They knew I was charging way more and they were very grateful for the work that I did for them when I, when I was still doing that work.
So for me, it actually worked fine. I just didn't put my price up. However, I did obviously put prices up for new people and I would just want to talk to you briefly about how you do that. So. I had this the other day with someone, I was talking to them, the same person who I gave the example about it in terms of, I looked at her pricing and I'd said to her, right, you definitely need to put your prices up.
Like I said, I am not a one size fits all. You know, just put your prices up because that doesn't always fair. What if you got terrible service? What if you're rubbish at what you could do? You know, you've got to price accordingly. However, knowing this person very well, knowing the level of her work, I knew she needed to put a price up.
So we had this discussion about putting her prices up. And as you can imagine lots of people are like, “Oh God, it feels horrible and yucky and awkward. And what, you know, what do I charge? And what's this and what's this”. So anyway, we sat down and I went, right. Charge this for this, this, this, and I gave her the prices.
I increased them all. So they made sense again. So it wasn't like some, there was a big jump on one and not on something else. And then I said to her, right. So what's it going to take for you to put your prices up? And she was like, “Oh, I dunno. I dunno. It's, you know, tricky and difficult and, and that sort of thing.”
And basically I said to them, “You just need to go and log into your website and change the prices, or you just need to go to the PDF and type a different number.” And that's the way I want you to look at it. I just want you to go that's now the number I charge that is no emotion attached to it. There's no fear attached to it.
There's no judgment. There's no. “What will people think? Am I worth it? Should I shouldn't I blah, blah, blah.” No, it's just a case of, “You know, that, that, you know, four that's now six, you know, that eight that's now you know, 10”. Whatever it might be, it's just putting up a number. So that's the way I want you to look at it.
If you're sat there going, do not, I really should put my prices up. Put your prices up, write down. This is now what I charge. Change your proposals. Put a note on your post it note on your screen or something going on the geo computer. These are now my prices. And do you know what? When my prices increased and they jumped significantly.
People didn't bat an eyelid. Didn't question them. And now if, and I did have a couple of people who came back to me when I can't afford that and I just went, okay, sorry, thank you. Type thing. And that was it. But I had that credibility to back me up. I had that kind of a, this is what I charge and this is, you know, what results I can get you, or these are how good we are.
And never, I, I kind of thank goodness, got over the confidence issue. And the minute someone took you at that price, your confidence will saw and you'll know. I can charge that amount. Likes that it's really, I don't want to do the one size fits all. It's not a case of you should automatically put your prices up.
There are lots of people who aren't sure seriously undercharging themselves what they do. And a lot of people who, when you look at some people who are like charging huge amounts for the same thing, I just want you to try and feel more confident about it so that you can have the confidence to go and charge a bit more.
And like I said, if it comes to it and you've sat there and gone, “I definitely need to charge more.” Then it's just a case of changing a figure. And for some of you, who've maybe done a quote and then thought, you know what, sold it. I'm just going to put that price down, and then they've come back immediately gone.
Okay, great. Thanks. And gone with it. It just proves that actually they were willing to pay that price all along. So I want you to have a think about these things. I want you to have a think about. One, you know, What are other people charging? What is an industry average? Where are you different? What makes you credible?
Does the pricing make sense? Not that I made much sense of explaining that, so I'm sorry. Um, and then, you know, that going cheap, doesn't always mean that you're seen as the credible person you are. So I hope that has helped. I feel like I have like, just literally bum my way through that. This half an hour episode has taken me probably about an hour, maybe an hour and a half to record because I've been messing up so much this evening at this just proves the point that maybe I shouldn't be recording them in an evening. But by the way, I've not had a gin or a wine. So it's definitely not that. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Like I said, didn't forget that Instagram thing.
If you want to come and do an Instagram challenge, you want to get more followers. If you want some more engagement and just understand Instagram a bit better, then we would love to welcome you into the Academy to join us. And then next week I have got another interview for you and I've got some other exciting news, exciting for me, and hopefully exciting for you too have a new master class that's coming up as well.
But I just need to give them a few more things and then I can let you know all next week. Okay. Have an amazing week. And I will see you then.
