Stop feeling bad about charging people. Not everyone wants nor expects the lowest price for a product or service. Often, I am deterred by the bargain busters offers. If you had to have life-saving heart surgery, would you be looking for the medical group offering 75% off? Not likely.
When it comes to pricing, the worst thing a business can do is be apologetic about its pricing. If your price is indeed too high, you will have no customers and will be forced to adjust and adapt. You also might not have customers if the pricing is too low since a low price can be perceived as lowest quality. For some, choosing a middle ground pricing might be the right strategy.
People don’t want to work with you when you are perceived as insecure about your pricing. You need to totally and completely own your product and it’s pricing. You also want to beware against the tendency to heavily discount your price. If someone is able to get you to reduce your fees by 50%, you have in essence proven that your pricing is artificially high. You should charge what you are worth.
After our second year of our consulting business, we decided to double what we were charging for our creative and technology services. One would think that we would have half the customers. We actually doubled our client base and quadrupled our yearly revenues.
We did one important thing when we raised our pricing. We justified it. We stopped apologizing for why our pricing was what it was and started justifying it all. We gave case studies, results and testimonials that showed our customers that our fee was worth every penny. Here is a rule of thumb regarding pricing: If your customer complains about high pricing, you have not convincingly communicated the value of your services.
When you determine what a fair price for the product and service is, boldly and confidently stick to it. Your customers will respect you more for it. You will also make more money in the process, and you will be taken seriously.
