Pricing isn’t a cookie cutter approach! Whether that be for a keynote, a coaching session or a book, as a speaker author or coach you need to get this right for you.
Ask the right question
Many people come to us with this question:“what should I be charging for my service?” Now that’s a how long is a piece of string because it doesn’t have context. There are many considerations you need to evaluate that allows you to price your products.
Organisations and individuals pay what they are willing to pay, based on the perception of value to them, above all. To give you some examples, Kelly manages speakers who charge from £500 — £25k a keynote — that’s a wide range! John Demartini purchased a rare copy of The Book of Wealth, by Hubert Howe Bancroft for hundreds of thousands of pounds in comparison to most paperbacks being sold for £10 — £15 & people’s coaching fees range from free to thousands of pounds an hour.
Creating a product range and a clear user journey to help you price your offers. Thisis a key thing that we teach in our membership area, as it enables you to build trust and results with your clients from low price products to your high tier products which require your 1–2–1 time. It also allows you to design the journey that is BEST for them.
So what should you do to find the price?
We invite you to turn the question around and ask what is my product or service worth? Based on the examples above, that’s a more useful way to approach the pricing question. Here are some ways you can start to figure out the answer to that question:
- If your product can produce a result that can be easily measured — then convert that result into monetary worth. If your coaching averagely increases the sales in an organisation by 20% and your average client is turning over 1 million pound — then your coaching should be charged around £20,000.
- If your product produces more of an emotional result, like increasing confidence then attribute that to what result they will be able to do when they achieve it. If you are speaker trainer that help speakers develop their skills so they make a greater impact on their audience, then they can increase their fees by 10%. Given that logid, at £5k an average keynote you can charge £500 a session.
- Do a SWOT analysis. Look at what other people in your industry are charging & evaluate what you are doing, offering or have as experience & qualification that you don’t have… as these are additional features that will entitle you to charge more. Finding out where you ‘stand’ in the market by knowing your strengths, weaknesses opportunities and threats will help you price well.
Things to help you price your worth
- Know your avatar — the more you know about them, the easier it is to give them what they actually want — price is not about you, it’s about them and their perceived need.
- Building relationships — the more they know you, the easier it is for them to trust and understand you, and therefore choose you
- You can price a product on the back of your credibility and positioning (your expertise) and value received — so build your reputation and grow your reach
- Use exclusivity and make that work for you, by having only a few spaces for your 121 time; your time and energy are precious, charge accordingly
- What can you ‘bundle’ in that makes sense and increases value (don’t overload, don’t throw the kitchen sink at it).
- Position to price — make sure you stand out for what you want to stand out for so you CAN charge what you are worth
- Going with the market rate vs KNOWING the market rate (use this to help you stand out)
- You establish value at the early stages of your ‘user journey’– so people understand just how much more is possible with you — your job is to help them understand you and get them bought into using your higher tier services from being buyers early on. They get to know like and trust you, your information and style that way.
- Contextualise your pricing by highlighting the return on investment — give examples of ROI types (saving money, making money -spend to make- what price relief?!)
- Help people understand what THEY get when they buy your product. Don’t leave it loose, write a great description (so many don’t!) and make sure you mention the benefits!
- What’s your industry standard? Once you know that, evaluate how you are a stand out _ what can / do you do differently that allows you to charge well?
- What can you prove that product or service does — what PR can you use to get eyes on your ‘stuff’?
Pricing is ultimately how good a job you do marketing wise and how confident you are on the inside about that and showing up to share about it.
Some proven techniques to experiment with as you get comfortable with pricing.
Create a range of products, so you offer what you do in different ways, and at different levels of depth. Have a go at price anchoring — offering more than one price point, can help people choose more readily. For example, if you have three, it’s likely that people who buy will take the middle one, as it looks like better value. You’ve likely seen those grids that show you what you get at the basic, intermediate and top levels.
Labeling your price points with descriptive names to help users to self-select. Does what it says on the tin names, especially at early stages really helps people to choose your products — look to solve their problem in the title of the service. People pay for solutions to what’s keeping them up at night.
Experiment and evaluate what your market likes in the ‘look’ of pricing. Make sure your price ends with an uneven number — 7 or 9 can have an impact– the research says more people gravitate towards this. https://www.helpscout.com/blog/pricing-strategies/
And of course make sure that you cover your costs!
What we have outlined above is all very tactical but ultimately the questions we would ask when pricing a product are related to the actual ROI for YOU. These are considerations you need to make:
- How much will it cost to create / deliver the product (this needs to be the absolute minimum to cover your costs)
- Know your positioning to see if what you deliver & whether your positioning & expertise is above or below the industry standard
- Then ask yourself what would make you excited to deliver this service — what is the price point that would make it worth your while & that you’d be happy to jump out of bed to do?
We know this is the key thing that so many speakers, authors and coaches struggle with, which is why we have many resources and coaching opportunities inside our Changemaker Central Membership to create, set up and review pricing and products regularly. If you need support to create your sustainable, profitable business, check it out or have a call with us to find out more.