Stop Sending Itemized Quotes (Do This Instead…)

Do you get clients asking you for a breakdown and for you to itemize your invoices when you send them that invoice? Well, in today's video, we're going to be talking about why they do that, what you should say, and how to avoid those cheap, pesky clients anyways, and how to reframe their thinking so you can actually get them to pay more money for your video services. If you don't know me, my name is Eric Dieren. I've coached over 580 video business owners to help them charge more, negotiate sales, conversations better, and ultimately just make more money. So. So in today's video, we're gonna be breaking down what to do when a client says, I want a breakdown of costs. And we're gonna dive into why they're saying that. And it's probably not the reason you think. So when a client asks you for a breakdown of costs, a lot of people are like, yeah, that's fine, let's go ahead and send it over. But the real reason they're doing this is let's pull up my whiteboard here. Number one, when they say, I want a breakdown, the first thing that they're trying to do is they're saying, hey, I wanna price shop you. Now, number two, I wanna negotiate every little thing in this contract to see how I can get the most bang for my buck and reduce the cost for me as the client as much as possible. And then number three, what they're really saying is, I don't trust you. Now, the trust thing likely stems from something you triggered in the discovery portion of the call to where you really didn't build enough trust. And they feel like your solution can't actually get them to the goal outcome that they said they wanted to get to. Cause if somebody actually felt like you can get them to a goal outcome, then they're not going to negotiate every little price. Think about, if you go to a doctor, right? If you go to a surgeon, are you going to be like, can you itemize out every little freaking thing in this surgery and how much it's going to cost me? No, of course not. You're going to say, do what you need to do to make sure I'm healed again, Right? Like, I had an. I had an appendectomy a couple years ago. They literally had to cut me down the middle, which is not very fun, and I don't recommend it. It's not very. Not a good time. But I didn't go to that surgeon. Surgeon, excuse me, and say, well, can you itemize out every little thing. The only reason people would be doing that is because they literally don't trust you. The second reason is they want to negotiate the price. If they want. They want to be like, okay, how much is pre production? How much is production? How much is, how much is post production? How much are you paying your editor? How much is this? Like, never do that. Because what happens is, is they're going to be like, can you take this out? Can we take this out? Can we take this out? Can we do this right? And it's a race to the bottom. It's none of their business. Like, the price is the price. This is the package. This is what you get. Any questions on that? Like, that's all they need to know. And then the first thing is they want to price shop because they want to see, like, well, how much is your production? What does that look like? Maybe I can go and find a cheaper alternative as opposed to going with you. Because I now know what all of your price breakdowns look like, right? So we never do this. Do not ever, ever, ever itemize out the price. We never want to do that. So if a client asks you that, here's what you're gonna say. So the client says, hey, Eric, can I get an itemized out version of this invoice? I wanna look at what all the costs look like. I wanna make sure that this is, you know, a good fit for us. Then I would say, okay, not a problem. We typically don't itemize out the pricing, Mr. Client. But can I ask, like, what are you looking for specifically when you ask that? Because I wanna understand what is the motivation behind them asking that. And they're not gonna tell me. They're not gonna say, oh, cause I wanna price shop you, or. Or oh, cause I wanna negotiate every little thing, or oh, because I don't trust you. Like, they're not gonna tell you that, so you're putting them back on the spot. I'd say, no worries. Typically we don't do that. Could I ask what's behind that? Why are you asking for that specifically? And then they'll typically say something like, oh, we just wanna make sure that it's within our budget, or we can do this, or it's within what we can actually afford right now. I'd say, yeah, no problem. So our pricing is all inclusive of everything that we've listed. And. And if there's specific services or things that you don't need, we can definitely talk about adjusting and taking things out if you need to get to a lower price point. If that's a problem for you or if that's an issue for you. But we don't itemize out our costs. The price that you see here is indicative of all of the content that we're gonna create for you. Period. Done. End of story. We don't go back and forth. This keeps the authority, the authority of what you're telling them intact and saying, this is the price, the price is the price. Because I'm. I mean, think about if you went to a doctor and asked that, they would laugh in your face. They would say, what the heck are you talking about? We don't do that. It's not a part of what we do. The price is the price. That's it done. Now notice what else I did there. If they. And this also works. If someone's like, can you do it for cheaper? I would say, yeah, we could do it for cheaper. Which videos did you want to take out of the project? Because what I'm saying is, I'm not saying I'm just going to devalue myself. I'm saying, yeah, you want to do it for cheaper. No problem. What do you want to take out? Like, we're not devaluing ourselves. What do you want to take out of the package? And then I can help you with that. And it puts them in that frame to go back up to the pricing that you ask them for. Right. Or if you want to get really snarky with it, you could say, well, we can't go lower, but I. I could charge you more if you want. I don't recommend that for beginners because it'll come off really snarky and kind of rude. But I do recommend the first version where it's, yeah, we could definitely make the price lower. What do you want to take out of the package? Or what do you want to take out so we can get that price lower for you. Right. So that's a big way, easy way to be able to renegotiate that price. So overall, never, ever, ever break down the pricing. I had a client ask me this, never, ever, ever break down the pricing or itemize out the deliverables, because it's none of their business, and it just is a race to the bottom. Typically, what happens, and I was talking to clients about this on my coaching call yesterday, so that's why I'd stopped in mind. But typically what happens is you send them that quote or you send them the itemized thing, and then they don't get back to you, and then they say they went with someone else. That's always what happens. You never. I've never heard of anyone actually winning a bid by itemizing out every little cost in the actual invoice. I don't recommend it. Maybe if you're bidding on larger productions, but for us and for the clients we work with closing, you know, anywhere from 10k to 200k deals, it doesn't work. Don't ever do it. Shameless Plug if you want to learn how to get more clients, how to charge them more, and how to get clients who don't ask for a breakdown of your cost, click the link below and you can book a demo with our team and we can see if we can actually help you get to that next level and scale your video business. We'll see you there.