642 - Why Your Pricing Isn’t Reflecting Your Value (And What To Do About It)

Welcome to the Next Level Life podcast with Christine Corcoran. This podcast is made for the powerhouse business women who are ready to ignite their fullest potential. This is where we will dive deep into mindset breakthroughs and sprinkle in some kick up the butt motivation so you can scale your business with confidence and clarity. Whether you're craving more income, impact or inspiration, this podcast will be your ultimate resource for all things Next level. Listen in as we have authentic conversations with game changing female entrepreneurs as we reveal the secrets of what it takes to rise and thrive. So go ahead, ignite your inner fire and let's get you taking massive aligned action. Are you ready to elevate? Let's go. Welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited that you're tuning in today and say I want to talk to you about pricing and pricing yourself in a way that reflects your value. And I feel like this is something that comes up multiple times throughout our business journey. It's not, it's not that we set our pricing once and then never have to increase it, but the reason why I'm bringing it up is because it became a conversation in one of my group coaching calls with unstoppable sales. And one of my beautiful clients who is actually in the second round of she's actually done two rounds of unstoppable sales is that she's come to the point where she's at capacity and she's now having to work out how to navigate taking on more clients. And she's had these experiences recently where she's like, I think that I'm undercharging again. Even though last year we worked on her pricing and, and we got it to a point and we built her confidence and we worked on her mindset, worked on her money mindset and she increased her prices and then she brought in a bunch of new clients and we created a new high ticket offer and she brought on clients with a high ticket offer and she slowly but surely like built her confidence again and again and again with every new signup of a high ticket offer. She was like, I can't believe this is happening. This is so good. And basically she came to her most recent call and she was like, there's been some things happening where she's like, oh, this person came in, worked with me and then they've gone and created these amazing results, but they're only then and hired me for the first part when really they should have hired me for the full part. And I was like, but why? Why is that happening? And she's like, I think I gave them too much. I think I gave them too much information. I gave them too much of a plan. I gave them a literal map of exactly what to do. And so they did it themselves. And I was like, so do you see the value? Like, do you see the value in what you just gave in that one off session? And she was like, yeah. And I'm like, do you think that that exchange of value was correct for what you charged? And she was like, no. And so we had to have a conversation around this to work out. Okay, so is it time to actually now increase her prices again? And so she's recognizing this is something that's coming up for her, and she's recognizing that she's probably going to have to raise her prices. And she was like, oh, it feels like I'm starting again. And I'm like, you're not starting again, you're growing. Like, this is growth, which is awesome. And so now we want to identify, like, is there any other hesitation when it comes to raising your prices? And she was like, well, how would I communicate it? And then also, like, how do I talk to clients? And for them to know that this is different to what other people offer? And then, because that's obviously why I'm going to be charging more. And I was like, cool, this is so good. So we get to further explore how to communicate the price change. We get to communicate the value and recognize that most people who are coming to you may not have done a lot of research, may not have actually looked at other people doing the same services, but whether they have or not is irrelevant. It's about how you communicate the value of your offer and the reasons why you charge what you charge. And when you communicate that clearly, people will see the difference and then they'll make the decision that feels right for them. And so we also need to talk about where she's pricing herself in the market. Right. Because there is definitely some elements there around branding and around how she's positioning herself. And she's been working, working on so much of this behind the scenes. So she did a full rebrand on her business. She also changed the way that she's improved some of her systems and the way that she's communicating with their clients and her onboarding. And she's also built some really great collaborations in her industry as well. So she's starting to be seen as the go to person in industry. She's starting to be the go to for a lot of other collaborators. And this is starting to really expand the awareness of her business, which is honestly so good. And also then brings us back to the pricing point because if she continues to charge what she's been charging, she may actually repel the high level clients that she really wants to work with. Unless her pricing reflects the value of the service that she delivers. So I wanted to do a podcast episode on this because one, I just love, love, love that I get to celebrate my clients having this, these breakthroughs. Like when she first came to me honestly, like if I could take you back to that first couple of calls that I had with her where she was fully doubting herself. She'd had a really tough time in business last year and not have any clients at the time. She had definitely worked with clients. She'd been in business a couple of years, but she'd gotten to the point where it had almost like her leads had run dry and she was freaking out obviously. Uh, and we were like, okay, it's almost like we've got to start from fresh. And so we worked on so much of her mindset cuz there was so much fear around even having sales calls. There was so much doubt around her being able to charge what she really wanted to charge in order for her to be profitable. So we looked at her numbers and at the point where we were working together right at the beginning, she actually wasn't fully profitable. And for it to be viable she needed to increase her prices. And back then you know what it feels like when you haven't, someone hasn't purchased from you in a while. It's always like you doubt whether anyone will again. And she was at that point and she was like, how can I raise my prices if I'm, you know, I'm struggling to find clients? And I was like, the pricing isn't the problem. Your sales strategy was. So we had to work on her sales strategy and her mindset and then she absolutely converted clients and so she, she's now at that capacity. She. I remember having a conversation with her my one on one a couple of weeks ago and she was saying like, ah, how am I going to manage all of this? And if I bring on new clients, how am I going to manage that? And so these new challenges now arise because she's gotten past the point of like how to find clients. She now knows how to do that. Now it's like how do I manage and continue to keep this level ongoing? Right? So I love it because I get to celebrate my clients, their growth and their transformation. It's just awesome. And so the pricing conversation came up. And so today I want to talk to you about how to really think about the way that you price yourself in the market and how to communicate your value and how to even have that conversation and how we go about it. Because that pricing question is something that happens again and again and again. All right, so first of all, let's talk about the psychology behind pricing. The way that we price ourselves is really important for us to be aware of because we wanna be conscious of a multiple of things before we go and just change our pricing. We can't just charge whatever the hell we wanna charge. Only, uh, but when it comes to how we're pricing ourselves in the market, we want to be conscious of the psychology that goes behind our pricing. So everyone has different priorities when it comes to where they spend their money and everyone has a different concept of value, right? And so when we price ourselves, we need to be super conscious of our ideal client. The dream clients we really want to work with, we want to understand how they view value and how they view where they spend their money. So when we think about our ideal client, like there's a reason why every business coach, every person that's talking about marketing, everyone that's talking about sales asks you to really uncover your avatar, right? Who is your ideal client? Where do they currently spend their money, where do they hang out, who are they, how old are they, what's their current income like? All of those factors are important because it helps us uncover what their psychology would be. Right? So if we know if your ideal client is someone that is say in their 40s and they currently really value their looks and they spend money on Botox and they spend money on makeup and they like really, really high level brand makeup and they are in a corporate career and they're earning say like 150k a year and they drive a BMW and they shop at places like Witchery and Oraton and Mimco and Country Road, like they really value high quality brands, the psychology of the way that they think about where they spend their money is going to be different to someone who is in their early 20s that is living off, is going to university, living off a part time wage, that is partying on the weekends, that is shopping at Supre or Ali and or Kmart, I should say. And they don't necessarily value quality. They want fast fashion, they want to actually spend their money on partying, they want their sales psychology or psychology around money is going to be very different to the 40 year old, right? So uncovering Those core elements of your ideal client is key in order for you to know how to price yourself. Because if the person who drives a BMW, who shops at Witchery, who earns 150k a year, the way that they view money is going to be very different to that 20 year old. So if you price yourself for the 20 year old and you price yourself at the lower end of the market, the person who is valuing quality and valuing high end clothing and high end cars and actually has a good disposable income, they're going to look at that low tier pricing and be like, oh, is that going to be quality? Is that going to be worth it? I'm not really sure if that's really going to be worth it. So I'm going to look for someone who is charging more because I believe, I have faith in the fact that because they charge more, it's going to be worth more. Right. So it's the same thing with like, recently I've been looking for a hairdresser. I've just recently moved down to the Gold coast and I'm the same thing and I actually come from the hairdressing industry. So I completely like hardcore believe this, that if I went and would look for someone to give me a haircut under $50, I absolutely would question whether that haircut would be any good. I would question their qualifications, I would question how long they've been doing it for. I would question whether the service, the actual experience of the salon would be any good. I would literally never ever look for anyone under $50. Like, that's gross. And so there might be other people though that don't value hair and a good haircut and being taken care of and the experience of the salon and products being used on you. And they will go find someone under $50, right? And again, it might also be based on their amount of money that they earn. Right? And so I'm going to look for someone that actually charges over $100. And then I've been looking and I'm like premium stylist and I'm probably, probably going to pay about $130, $150 for a haircut. Now for some people, they might look that and be like, oh my God, no way. But for me, I'm like, I don't want to, I don't want to pay anything less than that because I'm concerned I won't get good quality and I won't be happy with the service. So the psychology of what you charge is so important. And so you need to make sure that you're doing your research. So I would encourage you to do a competitor analysis so you can figure out what's currently being charged in the market. And then I would come back to your ideal client and be like, what would they value? What would they perceive to be valuable? What would they look at when I look at my pricing, what would they perceive? And the more that you can get an idea of that now, you might have to do market research to find out what they do perceive when it comes to the value and it comes to where they spend their money, because we can't always assume. And so the more that we can do that, the more clarity will gain with regards to your pricing. And so by even just sharing this with you today, you may have realized that maybe you are under charging, maybe you are pricing yourself for lower level clients that don't value your service the way that you value it or the way that you would want to charge. And so if you're having experiences in your business where you feel like you're being underappreciated, if you feel like you're being used, if you feel like, if you're becoming a little bit resentful, if you feel like you get frustrated with the fact that you're giving so much and you feel like you're not really getting much in return, you don't really feel it's worth it. Because that's what my clients word were words where it was like, you know, if I'm only getting this by the end of the month, like, is that even worth it? And I was like, oh, this is an indicator that you're not charging enough. And so this might be happening for you as well. So I want you to question, like, where are you pricing yourself in the market and is that working for you or is it time to reevaluate and start to increase your pricing? Okay, so the next two pieces I want to cover off is the exact steps, is the exact steps on how to raise your prices and communicate your value, what needs to change there, and then also how to attract, how to start attracting premium clients. Because you may then get to the point of like realizing that you've been attracting lower level clients and you really want to attract high ticket clients. And there's something there that might have to shift there in order for you to do that. So firstly, when it comes to raising your prices, depending on your service or your business, you may be able to literally make the decision, put the price up to today and then tomorrow with the New conversations that you start having, you can then communicate the new price. For some, you can absolutely do that with others. Sometimes you need to communicate ahead of time. Now, that may mean that you need to communicate ahead of time via an email or via a text message. Whatever it might be. I'm a big believer of communicating it within the month. It's going to change. So we don't want to give too much notice. Like, two, three months is a lot of notice. Whereas if you're, if you've got appointments or if you've got bookings, you know, two months and three months in advance, then I would be letting those people know. But for any new bookings, you wouldn't necessarily need to let them know more than a month in advance. Okay. So you may want to send out a mass email that communicates a price increase. And the way you want to go about doing this is you want to communicate it from a perspective of how it will benefit the client rather than what it will take away from them. One of the biggest mistakes that I see business owners make when it comes to communicating their price increase is that they blame inflation or they blame, you know, product increases, they blame electricity prices, like, whatever it might be, all inflation. They blame these things. And they say, like, for us to stay in business or for us to be able to continue to work with you, we need to increase our pricing. That's not your client's fault, right? Yes. We want to communicate obviously how inflation has infected you a hundred percent, if that's part of the. Part of the reason. But the more that you communicate it based on how it will benefit the client, the more likely is it will be better received. So rather than saying it's because of inflation, I want you to think about the reason behind your price increase is not just to cover your costs. It's actually for you to continue to deliver the service at the high level that you are currently servicing these people. So we want to communicate that for us to continue to deliver this service at such a high level, we need to increase the pricing to ensure that that's possible. Right. So you may even want to communicate what may be changing. So if there's anything that you're adding, there's anything that you're improving, communicate that, because people really want to know that. And that actually supports coming back and spending more money with you. So you want to improve that. So you want to communicate that. Now we want to also communicate the value. So you may even highlight for us to continue to deliver the value. And you might need to Highlight a couple of things for us to be available 24,7 for us to be able to be, you know, responsive in these areas, for us to have the best systems, for us to have the best products, like whatever it might be we want to highlight. This is also of value to the customer. So the more that you can communicate the value and communicate then the price increase and from a, from date, literally just communicating from the first of March, blah, blah. So then people know that that's going to increase the next time that they visit. Now one of the things that you want to be conscious of is that if you, most of the time you do not get any pushback. You don't get any pushback. And the majority of the time if you do get any pushback, it's usually from people who have benefited from you undercharging that they don't want to pay anymore. Now sometimes you need to let a couple go in order for you to increase your pricing and get better high paying clients. So sometimes that happens, but not always. Just being conscious that it's okay if you release a couple of clients in order for you to be able to replace them with higher ticket clients. Now sometimes they go off and they go find somewhere else that delivers a similar service, but it's not as good and they experience the pricing at that level and then they come back because they value the quality that you're delivering. Sometimes they have to learn that lesson. Okay, so trust that it's okay that those clients will be replaced and then if they come back, that's perfect. So you want to keep the door open for them. But we don't want to lower our standards or lower our price or just Peter to people who are like, oh, but I don't want to pay anymore. For you to continue to deliver the service in the way that they love it, then must be a price increase. Now every business should be doing a price increase every single year, every year. Because inflation goes up every single year. Every prices of everything go up, right? So want to be conscious of that plus wages, right? Like all of the things we have so much increase that if you're not increasing your cost of service, then you're most likely decreasing your profit every single time, every single year, no matter what, right? So we want to be conscious of that. And so you may need to determine what you want your new pricing to be. Now if you find I've had this with many clients before in the past where we do the calculations to figure out where they currently are profitability wise and where they need to be to be fully profitable. And then they look at that number and they go, oh, that's a massive jump. So they might go, I've got to increase my prices by a thousand dollars or something. Like, whatever it might be, whether it's a huge jump depending on the customer, if the customer looks at that and goes, oh, my God, that's a massive jump, then we want to be conscious of whether we delivered that all in one price increase or whether we spread it out over a few months. So you want to just be conscious of that, because sometimes in the past what I've suggested to clients is that they increase and they say, consider, like by the end of this year, I want to be at this price point. Then I go, okay, how many price rises can we do throughout the year to make it less of a blow for the customer? So sometimes you want to consider that as well. Okay, so then that brings me to how to attract premium clients who are happy to pay your new rates. The first thing that comes to mind here with this is you want to be conscious that you are showing up as the premium person to work with. If you want people to believe in the value that you deliver at the new rate, you need to be communicating it and adding value at that level. So this may mean that you may need to do a brand refresh. This may mean that you maybe need to wear makeup when you jump on stories, or you need to be conscious of the way that you're showing and presenting yourself as the business owner that plays into it. There is absolute studies that show the way that you present yourself everywhere. Everyone has an opinion within five seconds of meeting you. And so you want to be conscious, like, based on my pricing, what am I charging? And how does that correlate? Because if you are presenting yourself with, you know, bottom dollar presentation, but charging top dollar, there's going to be a lack of congruency there. Okay, so you want to be conscious of that. We want to also consider, like, what's the level of value that we're delivering to to our audience to prove the level of value? So we want to be communicating value on a whole new level. And we want to also be stepping things up in the way that we produce content, the way that we show up in every area of our lives. So we want to be conscious of our business lives, I should say. So. We want to be conscious of the perception, and we also want to be conscious of, like, how am I showing people that it's valuable at this level? So you may need to, like, for instance, you might need to have professionally done workbooks. You may need to have someone do your branding specifically for your new course offering. Like, there's certain things that you can level up that will change the perception of the value of what it is they're going to receive. So you really want to consider that. So, for instance, like, I went through a stage where I was like, okay, if I want to charge $3,000 for a program, what would my clients expect from that? And what would the perception need to be? So I went and got a graphic designer, beautiful Brady Rose. She does all my graphics. She created the COVID images for my programs. Right. She created the logo and the branding, like, making sure that they were professionally done. Because I recognized that when I did that for myself on Canva, it was pretty amateur because I'm not a graphic designer. So there's certain things that you want to consider, like, what would level it up in order for your customers to see that and be like, oh, yes, that's going to be worth it. And I see why she charges that. So in our business growth, in our journey, we do need to think about those things and consider leveling it up. And the last little piece there that goes with that is your belief in yourself. So the way that you are, your own standards, the way that you're showing up, the way that you're being. Because when it comes to attracting premium clients, the biggest thing, the biggest thing is actually you, who you are being. So if you are stuck in doubt in your. You're in fear, you're showing up uncertain, you're not selling yourself, yourself with confidence, if you're not communicating clearly, if you are always looking like a bit of a hot mess, if the way that you deliver your services is pretty crappy, like, all of these things play into it. It's gotta be a bloody great service in order for people to see the value in paying for it. And so we want to level up your belief in yourself and the way that you are behaving, because you have to be the epitome of the business that you want to attract. So when you think about the ideal clients that you want to attract, would they look at you and hear from you? So if they're listening to your podcast or if they're listening to a video that you put up on social media, maybe they're watching your stories, would they look at you and go, that's someone that I want to work with. And so we want to do this not from a place of judgment. Okay, I just want to be conscious of this because sometimes we can be like, oh my gosh, they're going to judge me hardcore. You want to be authentic and you want to be true to who you are without changing too much of yourself, but you really just want to consider, how am I showing up as the best person, how am I showing up as the best person to work with? And sometimes we need to have a bit of a wake up call there because if I'm not showing up consistently, then I'm not being reliable or trustworthy. If I'm not showing up and being prepared, like even taking the time to really consider, like how I'm sharing valuable content, how I'm creating valuable podcasts, how I'm doing the things that I do within my business. Well, if I'm not being prepared for my client sessions, like there's certain things that you really want to consider that actually is about who you're being. And so a lot of the work that I love doing with my clients is working on that. Because when you level up your self belief, your confidence, your communication and the way that you're being, everything else shifts to be in alignment with you rather than you trying to shift and change everything else, right? You've got to change you. When you have that confidence within yourself and that belief in yourself and your worthiness levels up, everything else matches that. So you can raise your prices. But if you're uncertain of it and you're doubting yourself and you're in fear and you think no one's going to pay it, that's the energy you're going to get across. Your vibration will be off and the frequency will be off and you will not attract those premium clients. So who are you being? Are you being the person that will attract those high premium clients? Because we may need to start there. And that's by doing the work, that's by unpacking your mindset, by unpacking all those doubts and those belief systems around who you believe you are, what makes you who you are, your self talk, the way that you believe what you believe about yourself, or the limiting beliefs about being good enough and all that type of stuff, right? So it all comes to play and it all plays into the pricing conversation. So this is all things that I do within unstoppable sales. So if you are keen to work on your pricing, you're keen to stop undercharging, you're keen to actually improve your sales process so you can feel confident selling yourselves and promoting your offers and communicating your value, maybe you even need to really uncover your value. So that's what we do in Unstoppable Sales. We get really clear on your sales strategy. So you're leaving your income, you're not leaving your income up to chance anymore that you have a real strategy in place to grow your business. We work on your sales skills so you feel super confident knowing how to convert clients in an authentic and genuine way and in and in integrity. And we also work on your money mindset and your self worth. All of that plays into Unstoppable sales. Our doors are currently open to Unstoppable Sales, so I'm taking the next group through starting in March. So if you are keen to join us, make sure you come and join us. It's going to be an incredible four months where we dive into your sales, your sales strategy, your mindset and your money. You can check out all the details about that throughout the signup page via the Show Notes where you can see all the testimonials from the beautiful ladies and gentlemen that I've worked with in the past and so many more. And if you have any questions at all, feel free to send me a DM and we can have a chat to see if it will be the right fit for you or not. All right, Lovely. I hope you've enjoyed today's podcast, I hope you found it super valuable and I hope you enjoy the rest of your week. Thank you for listening. And if you found any value out of this episode, make sure you hit the follow button so you get access to the episodes as soon as they are live. And make sure you come hang out with me on Instagram. You can find me at Christine Corp. Underscore Coach. Have an incredible week.