How much should I charge? Price like a pro!

How to price your product or service so that it works for you and your customers. 

Is this you? You finally get a call from a potential client (more about why you’re not getting more of those later). They want to know what you charge. 

It’s a reasonable question, right? Of course it is. 

But you panic. 

You can’t remember how much you charge, or even worse, you don’t really know. (‘My service is bespoke!’ I hear you cry). You get flustered and mumble that you’ll get back to them with a price. Or maybe you pluck a figure out of the air only to kick yourself later that it was way too low.

It’s not a good look is it? Not exactly professional. 

Well if that is you, you’re not alone. One of the questions I am most often asked is ‘How much should I charge and how should I structure my pricing?’.  Imagine having everything aligned, automated and running smoothly. Think about how much business you could do without having to waste time thinking about what you should be charging. 

Don’t worry – Kate’s got your back. I’m going to talk you through some simple steps that you can take to ensure that you never have to have those awkward conversations with your customers.

Ever again.

Firstly, look at your competitors. What are they offering and what are they charging? Try to

understand what your ideal target customers have bought before, and for how much. This will help you to work out where you should be positioning yourself.

Of course, to do this, you need to have a super clear picture of who your ideal target customer is. You can find out more about that here.

You should absolutely know what it costs to create your product or offer your service. Think about things like time, materials and supply chain. If you don’t know your costs, you can’t possibly set a price. 

Spend some time working out what makes you different and special – this is a big part of your offer and makes you more valuable to your customers, and more confident in your pricing. Your messaging on your website, across your social media and anywhere else that you are seen by your customers should be consistent and clear and should show the value you bring. 

Should I show my prices on my website?

Tricky question? I’ll give you a clue. The answer is yes.

I hear it all the time. Business owners are scared to display their prices because they’re worried that the customer will be put off  by them. Well here is some truth. If you have done your competitor research, based on your ideal target customer AND you know what your product or service costs to produce AND you know what makes you different and special THEN you will be confident in your pricing. And if a customer is put off by these prices, then frankly, they’re not your customer.

But my service is bespoke.

Yes ok. Perhaps you offer a ‘bespoke’ product or service. That’s fine. But if you have all of the elements of your service or product itemised and priced, you can easily package them together to give the customer a price, or at least, a very good idea of what the price will be. Using the word ‘from’ is useful here.

Always remember the power of storytelling. By telling your customer about somebody else like them that you’ve helped and what they paid, you’re giving them a really good indication of what they can expect to pay, and what they can expect to receive. Posting case studies on your website or your social media is a great way of doing this.

Why am I not getting as many enquiries as I’d like?

Remember earlier I said that we would look at why you might not be getting as many calls as you’d like? Well, if your messaging isn’t clear, and you’re not displaying your prices, people will be put off. They’ll either assume that they can’t afford you, or they might just go to someone else who has made their pricing and offer clear. Because, newsflash, not one of us is offering a product or service which isn’t already being done somewhere (usually!)

The key message here is that we want to make it as easy as possible for our customers to buy and, as easy as possible for us to sell. With that in mind, you might want to think about offering pricing plans for higher ticket items, or subscriptions. And you should always think about how you can package your products for your customers.

There are some basic principles when it comes to pricing, but there’s a lot to think about, and a lot of leg work involved in getting to that point of being truly confident in what you are offering. You can find loads of great advice including daily live videos from me over on my free Facebook group, or if you’re ready to really take your business to the next level, you can find out about my Marketing Masterwhip programme here.

See you soon, Kate