LOW RATES DONT = MORE CLIENTS THIS DOES

Starting out, we think we need to compete on pricing to dominate against our competitors. Except if that were true, 2016, Marissa would have been working with hundreds of brides. Except she wasn't. And when I was charging low rates, I was actually working with less brides than when I charged more. Hey, I'm Marissa Grace. I built my bridal hair business to over half a million dollars in just three years without a large team. So let's get into it. When I was charging less, I wasn't thinking things like how can I give more value to my clients? How can I make her client experience so good she tells everyone about me? What can I provide for her that will make the service even better? Instead I was thinking like, wow, I'm working so much and I'm earning so little. When I walk away from the wedding day, this bride is asking me so many questions and she hasn't even signed the contract yet. Here's to another two hour ride one way, only earning 50 cents a mile. And I was thinking to myself, oh my God, I am so exhausted after doing a bridal party of 10 by myself when you are charging lower rates. What I found was I was attracting the brides who wanted everything included for free. She wanted every little extra included for free. Everything with her is about cost. It's about how can she save, it's about how can she nickel and dime you? It's about how can she get a discount. And I wouldn't feel confident turning away brides because I felt like I needed to work with everybody. I was charging so low. So when I was working a wedding, I wasn't making that much to begin with. And I would start to feel resentful when I was traveling so, so far, four hours in one day, making 50 cents a mile, which was like $50 because I needed two full days to recover from that four hour drive in one day. Now what if I ask you, what if your Bride paid you 10 times what you're charging right now? What would you provide for her? Think on that for a second. If your bride was paying you 10 times what you're charging right now, what would you be able to provide for her? Because what would happen if you were charging 10 times what you're charging right now? You'd have more profit and with that more profit, you'd have more money to put back into your business, put back into your client experience. It wouldn't go straight to the bare minimum bills and you don't have anything to invest back in. You'd probably start to feel Confident. Turning away brides who weren't a good fit. Turning away brides who are way further out than you wanted to travel. Because you feel secure in the amount that you're actually earning, you'd say no to brides who have glaring red flags with confidence. Maybe you'd invest in having an assistant with you so you could speed up timing. Even when you don't need an assistant but you have the extra income and you want to give her a better service. Maybe if you were charging 10x what you're actually charging right now, you'd be okay staying for that extra hour to help her get dressed, to help her touch up before she goes to photos, when she's doing her getting ready shots and things like that. With that more profit that you're earning, you'd probably be able to invest in better tools, better higher end luxury makeup products. More time and money to invest into education so that way you can have better technical skills. You'd be better at makeup, you'd be better at hair. This all starts with charging more. Oftentimes what I see the average in the industry after working with hundreds of bridal hair stylists and bridal makeup artists inside my programs is they're charging around $150 for bridal services and about 85 to 100 for a bridal party bridesmaid guest. So let's break down the profit. If you were working a bride plus six guests. If you're charging $150 for the bride for one service and you're charging $85 for a guest, six guests, you're looking at a total of $660. Now let's break that down and find the true profit which is going to be from that 660. You're going to need to take about 15% to save away for taxes and an average of around 20% for your business expenses. So now you're not left with a profit of $660. You're left with a profit of 429. Was that a wake up call for anyone? Because it sure was a wake up call for me when I actually did that exercise in my business. And it's a major wake up call when we do it inside of Bridal Boss Academy with my clients. Now, the ways that I actually see pricing is in three different levels. We have beginner, intermediate and advanced Level one. This is the beginner. You have no structure. Maybe you're more likely starting out. You don't have a booking minimum yet. You're likely charging everything a La carte. So what do I mean? So you're charging for things like mink lash extensions or individual lash extensions. You're charging for every little thing. Charging an extra fee to apply hair extensions of a bridesmaid has them or you're charging an extra fee to do a blowout. Here are some mistakes that I made and that I see at this level when you price this way. So a mistake that I was charging for every little thing. I had all the fees charging for the mesh donut, piece of lashes, applying extension. What this led to was a bride feeling confused on do they need that for themselves? So she would wind up booking the bare minimum. She wouldn't add on any of those additional things because she didn't know if she needed it or her bridal party needed it. She just wouldn't add it on. So now the day rolls around. Now we're either a week or two out and she's emailing me and, and we will be emailing 87,000 emails later of does she need this? She'll be sending me stuff from her bridesmaids. Her bridesmaid wants to know if she needs to do and what to add on. So we could secure that invoice. And I would be adjusting her invoice a hundred times or the day of would happen. And what would happen is somebody would sit in my chair and they'd be like, here's my extensions. And I'm like, oh, that's actually an additional fee. And they'd be like, oh, I guess I won't have you apply them then. Then their hairstyle won't look the same because they don't have the extensions because they don't want to pay for it or they don't have cash to pay for it. So what this led to was a lot of problems, a lot of back and forth emails that I could have just avoided by instead of charging for all of these little fees, adding it into my rate instead. But I didn't want to do it because my rate would be higher. Oh, I was charging $15, $20 here versus just raising my rate. Then we get to level two pricing. This is the intermediate, this is where maybe you've taken all those little fees, you've included them in your rate may booking minimum and I'm so proud of you for it. But you want to increase your rates now. You want to charge more. You're seeing some demand for your services. You're seeing that maybe you could increase your rates, but you're really nervous to increase your rates because you don't see anyone else in your local area charging above where you're at right now. So some mistakes that I see, mistakes that I made at this level was you have a booking minimum, amazing. But when I would go to increase my rate or increase my booking minimum, I would just do it based on that. I deserve it. I would just be like CEO, I deserve it. I'm gonna give myself a raise. Hell, I'm my own boss and I'd raise my rate. And then I change absolutely nothing about my business or about the experience with my clients. Everything stayed the same other than me sending out new proposals with my new rates. So here's why that's a mistake. When you increase your rates, you want to make sure that you have the demand to support it. So here's what I mean. You want to be converting your current bridal inquiries at about 40% or higher. Because what happens is you increase your rates now, your conversion rate is going to go down below that 40%. And what we want to aim for is around a 20% conversion rate. So a conversion rate mean in simple terms, the amount of inquiries you're receiving, how many of them are actually booking with you. That is your conversion rate. An average conversion rate for all industries is 20%. Meaning you would need to have 250 conversations with brides to book 50 weddings per year. That would be a 20% conversion rate. If you're converting higher than that, around 30, 40%, that's an indicator to me that you have the demand present and that you can sustain raising your rates and still be able to book. Here's the other piece. You also want to make sure when you are raising your rates, you're not just changing it. And that's it. You want to make sure that your branding is aligned with that. Your visuals on your Instagram and your website are updated to showcase that higher level, more high end you showcasing the transformations that you offer and really dial in your messaging even more. And you want to make sure that you're providing an even better client experience to match with the new rate that you have. Level three pricing is advanced. This is when maybe you feel capped at where you're at. You're like, I want to hit that 100k year, I want to hit that 150 year, that $200,000 year. And you, in order to hit that six figure number in your bridal business, you're going to need to increase your rates from where you're at right now. But you just don't know how to do it. You're like, I'm capped. Everyone else charges way less than me. I can't do this. A lot of the mindset issues are going to start coming up for you around this level. So some mistakes that I made and that I see is that you're letting other professionals in your industry dictate and cap you, putting that glass ceiling on your own income. And you're not going above because of what they're charging. And you're telling yourself, oh, this is just the market. This is just what brides are willing to pay. And that couldn't be further from the truth. Truth, Brides love to spend money on their weddings. Brides are spending thousands of dollars a day on hair services, makeup services for their wedding. Why wouldn't they pay that for you? You're unintentionally taking on somebody else's money beliefs by capping yourself where they cap themselves. Because that person who is charging that specific rate is also telling themselves, I can't charge more than that. Remember, brides love to spend money on their once in a lifetime weddings. They just need to see the value in hiring you. So it's going to be a lot more than that surface level. I'm a bridal hairstylist, I'm a bridal makeup artist. You really need to uncover beyond and peel back those layers of the transformation you offer of who your ideal bride is and speak directly to her. When I got to this level, I had already realized how much demand I had. I had the confidence, I had the evidence that brides were waiting to book with me. I had the evidence that my conversion rate was at 40%, that I could go above and still sustain increasing my rates above people in my own local area. But when you are going above people in your local area, your conversion rate will drop. When you are on the higher end, your conversion rate is going to look more like 10% versus 20%. So you're going to hear a lot of no's. And you have to have the confidence to be okay with that if you want to increase your rate so you can finally hit your 100k years of bridal hairstylist, bridal makeup artist. I've taught over 150 bridal pros how to do just that with Bridal Boss Academy. And the weight list is now open. I've linked it down below for you so you can sign up because waitlisters get exclusive savings. Now, knowing your transformation that you specifically offer, this is what's going to equal more clients in your chair and you standing out from Everyone else in your area lowering your rates is what's going to equal you. Not truly understanding the transformation that you offer and staying on that surface level, competing with everyone else. And it's hard for brides to make your rate irrelevant. Also going to be seeing as that price tag. So we want to make your price irrelevant and put that value first. And this is what's going to set you apart so you're not competing on price. Back in 2016 when I started, I had zero clue what transformation I actually offered. I do bridal hair, I do bridal makeup. What do you mean? That's the transformation is very surface level. Now imagine if Walt Disney when he was building out his park was just like, oh, it's just a theme park with some rides. He probably wouldn't put much else thought into the experience that people were having when they came to his theme park. The rides would be basic. It would just be given standard. Everyone who worked there would probably live up to that basic standard. Maybe even walking around without their costumes on. You wouldn't really feel immersed in the Walt Disney experience. But instead he did decide he wanted to have an immersive experience for everybody who walks in. He wanted to bring the Disney movies to life and create a truly magical experience for everybody who walks through that door. Bringing the food from the movie so you felt like you were in the movies bringing all the characters that are walking around with you. You truly feel like you were in your favorite Disney movie. Everything is coming to life now. I don't know about you, but the last time I went to Disney was a couple years ago and to get into the Magic Kingdom was like 300 per person. And do you know how many millions of people visit Disney every single year with their Entire family paying $300 per person? Nobody's stopping going to Disney. But they are one of the highest priced theme parks because they understand that by charging more they can give an even better client experience and immersive and invest back into you. So that way you leave feeling magical. And that's the same thing we want to do with our client. What's the Disney like experience that you can give your clients when you start increasing your rates? And let me ask you again, if you are charging 10 times what you charge right now, what would you be providing for your bride? What's the transformation you offer beyond just hair, beyond just makeup? Peel back those layers, ready to increase your rate so you can hit your six figures as a bridal preneur. Bridal bus academy waitlist is open and it's linked down below for you. I can't wait to see you inside. I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye.