Client Magnets Official Blog

Posts Tagged ‘pricing’

How many of you are in search of client utopia? You know what it is, because you’ve dreamed of it: an abundance of clients, knocking at your door, more than willing to pay for what you’re offering.

I’m here with another secret to arriving at that place you want to be.  It’s a real, honest-to-goodness strategy for getting interested parties to give up the money you want.  The plan is simple: you must ask for money.

When you learn to ask, you will receive what you’re asking for.  The shift in thinking occurs when you shed the fear of asking for money, and abandon the belief that if you simply make your product visible, people will come to you with open wallets and blank checks.  As nice as that would be, it will never be true.

You can do all of the right things:  the marketing, the web 2.0, the teleseminars, the presentations, the guest appearances; but just as important as all of this is asking for permission to share your product or service, in exchange for a monetary fee.  No one is going to volunteer.  You must recruit from a pool of people whose problems you can solve.

Confidence in asking for money comes more easily for some than others.  But, much like anything else, when you practice asking for money, your requests will start becoming easier to execute.  Every time that you receive what you ask for, your confidence will build, and your fear and misgivings will diminish.

Consider these points when asking for money:

• Place your request well. Disclose your pricing right after you plug the biggest and brightest benefits of what you’re selling.  You will feel excited about your product and secure in asking for money.  Your prospects will pick up on that enthusiasm, and will want to take part in it.

• Don’t dice words. State your price in a straightforward manner.  Keep it simple.

• Don’t make excuses. If you believe that your price is fair, so will consumers.  Believe in your price, and its value will shine.

• Be confident. You know that your clients get every penny’s worth from you.  When that assurance comes through in your words, your confidence will be contagious – prospects will mirror that confidence and more willingly part with their money.

• No pricing prologue necessary. Don’t give a big introduction explaining how you came up with your pricing.  Just put it out there and allow the benefits of what you’re offering to back up the price.

Asking for money can seem difficult as first.  But with my help, I feel confident that only the first time will be the most difficult.  As the money starts to flow, it will seem easier, and you will begin to grasp the concept of asking and receiving.

Often, confronting those things which you fear the most will deliver the most lucrative results (in this case, lucrative in the monetary sense).  Know that your product solves problems, make it evident to your audience, and when you present them with the price that you so richly deserve, you will be answering a question that they were already asking: “How much, and where do I sign?”

Bernadette has attracted a loyal following who rave about her down to earth yet inspiring approach. If you liked today’s article, you’ll love Bernadette’s marketing and success training products and programmes to help you develop a business that suits YOUR preferred lifestyle.

What’s the absolute best time to ask for teleseminar registration and payment from your prospects?

And how many hoops should they have to jump through to complete that process?

On your teleseminar registration page, you’ll call prospects to action by illustrating how your teleseminar can save them money, make money for them, save them time, or spare them grief.  While that illustration (the picture of their new, richer or more relaxed, life) is fresh and crisp in their minds, ask them to register.  Right then.  Don’t hesitate.  If you give them the space in which to click away, they may never come back.

And in response to the second question posed above, “None.”  Your prospects’ lives are complicated enough.  Give them one more phone call to make, e-mail to send, or hoop to jump through, and they will be more than willing to abandon the quantification of cost, time, or emotion that they just made in their own minds.  In a nutshell, if your payment process is complicated, your teleseminar, no matter how enticing it was only seconds earlier, will no longer be worth the effort.

Here are a few tips to incorporate when setting up your easy payment process on your teleseminar registration page:

• Use an ecommerce solution like 1ShoppingCart to set up your registration page’s shopping cart.  It’s secure, easy to implement, easy for your customers to use, and will keep your clients’ payment efforts to a minimum by processing credit card payments quickly and simply.  You won’t have to wait for your 1ShoppingCart registration to start accepting payments.  Set up a trial, and you’ll be ready to accept payments almost immediately.

• Link your shopping cart to a payment managing tool like PayPal, and your customers will have seamless access to a universal, fee-free, and secure channel through which to send their registration fees.  You won’t need a merchant account, and can begin to channel money to your teleseminar’s registration without delay.

• Your payment process must be fully automated. If action by you is required for any function, it’s not fully automated.  You want the money to roll in, whether you’re running errands, sleeping, or on vacation.  Additionally, you wouldn’t want to ask your clients to wait around for you to complete a payment.

• The payment process must be super simple. No phone calls, return phones call, e-mails, or return e-mails should be necessary for processing payments.  Make yourself available by phone and e-mail, of course, in case a question should arise, but convinced prospects should be able to complete their registration and payment in one sweeping motion.

• Give your prospects plenty of immediate opportunity to sign on for your teleseminar.  Any delay could allow doubt to creep in and annihilate your call to action.  People are most motivated immediately after they’ve uttered their first internal, “Yes.”

By fully automating your teleseminar registration and payment process, you not only simplify the process for your clients, but you simplify the process for yourself.  When you associate every chunk of income with an additional amount of work for you (phone calls, e-mails, red tape), you might eventually come to dread the orders that you once hoped for.

It’s okay for the money to roll in without your awareness; in fact, that’s the goal.  Plan well.  Your prospects will appreciate the ease of payment, and you will appreciate the ease of receiving that same payment.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

When you’re planning a live event, one big consideration is price. You want to set an appropriate price; a price that’s low enough to fill the room, but high enough to show that you mean business. Many people who are planning a live event for the first time aren’t sure how to price their event. Fortunately, you can use specific strategies to set your price point for maximum return, in a way that is consistent with your goals.

Pricing a Live Event for Selling a Product
The purpose of your live event plays a big role in how you’re going to price it. If you’re creating or selling a product, the price of the event itself isn’t necessarily your biggest revenue stream; it’s the product. In those cases, you’ll want to set the price at a rate that is low enough to fill the room, because you’ll get more benefit out of maximum exposure. If you set your prices too high, you could miss out on potential buyers who might be interested in your product, but unable or unwilling to pay your high event fee.

Free Versus Paid Events
One mistake that many people make when planning a live event where the purpose is selling a product is to create a free event. People mistakenly believe that if the event is free, people are more likely to attend, and that free events attract a bigger audience. That’s simply not true. Free events require just as much effort to get people in the room as in paid events, but paid events yield revenue for that effort. Even with free events, you still need to advertise and go through the same processes as if you were filling the room at a paid event, so you might as well make it a paid event and get some return for that effort.

Pricing a Live Event as a Platform for Coaching Programs
Live events are a great way to launch a coaching program. Pricing live events for these coaching programs, however, is more important than any other live event pricing. You must price a coaching event in a way that is consistent with the cost of your coaching program.

Offering a $20,000 coaching program to people who pay $200 for tickets to your event is a mismatch of expectations. $200 ticket-buyers typically won’t be prepared to spend $20,000 on a coaching program. A good rule of thumb is to price your live event at roughly 20% of the cost of your coaching program. If you’re pitching a $20,000 coaching program, price your live event at $2,000. You may get fewer attendees, but those attendees will be more qualified and prepared to spend the money to utilize your program.

Charge More than You Think
When planning a live event, charge more than you think you can charge. If you think people would pay $20 for your event, charge $50. When planning a live event for the first time, people almost always undercharge. Charge more than you think you should charge, and you’re probably closer to a realistic price tag for your event.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Have you been thinking about raising your prices, but afraid that you’ll lose clients if you do?

You might think that if you know what your customers would be willing to pay, it would be easier to decide how much to charge. You wouldn’t be nervous about charging too much and frightening your clients away. If you know what they’re willing to pay, you can charge the higher price without hesitation, right?

Definitely not.

While finding out how much a client is willing to pay may seem like the simple answer, it is not an effective approach for setting or raising your prices.

If you approach pricing with that mindset, you will always be looking for the answers externally.  “What would clients be willing to pay? What are my competitors charging?”

These are not the questions you should ask. You are not a mind reader. You need to ask the question that you do know the answer to.

“How much value is what I’m offering worth?”

By asking this type of question, you are setting your pricing internally, instead of allowing someone else to make the decision for you. That is the real difference between people who earn big money and people who struggle. Your decisions on your prices come from within you.

You are the one who needs to answer that question. You are the person that needs to buy into an increase in your prices. If you buy into it, your clients will buy into it.

Your belief in yourself, your product and its benefits to clients will prepare you to set a price that both you and your clients are willing to accept.

To determine how much you are willing to charge, follow these simple steps.

1. Decide how much money you want to make.
2. Decide what your offering, products or services are worth.
3. Set your price accordingly.

If you really believe that what you’re offering is worth a price increase, clients who are in need of your services will continue to pay for it.

Some of your clients may go away if you raise your prices. “Amen,” I say to that. They are clearing the space for new, better quality clients to come in.

So accept that while you will lose some, you will also win others who will see your worth as what you’ve stated it to be.

Make your decision to set or raise your prices from a position of confidence in yourself and value in your offering. You are worth it.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

“How much will clients pay to solve this problem?”

When deciding on a price for your product,  base the price on the value the product delivers to the end user.

Dan Kennedy uses the phrase “selling money at a discount.” What does he mean? Imagine a product that is proven to increase clients’ sales by 20 percent. If a client is already turning over £100,000 in sales, that product is worth £20,000 to them. It should sell for £2,000 – that’s its value. That is selling money at a discount.

If your product can’t be so clearly quantified in monetary terms, offer clients a comparison to show them how much they will save.

For example, if your product will help people stop smoking, calculate how much they are currently spending on smoking, then show the cost savings of that figure and how your product will help them to achieve it.

Though you might be tempted, do not base your price on the cost of creating the product. Evaluating the production cost and then adding a markup is not the way to do this. Neither is comparing your product to other things on the market.

Set your price according to the problem you are solving.

An e-book that you create to solve a specific problem cannot be compared to a book that’s sold in a bookstore, even if it’s on a similar topic. That book in the store might sell for £20, but that doesn’t mean your product should be priced the same.

You are not selling a bookstore book. You are selling a plan, a way for your clients to achieve the results they want. It is much more than the format in which it’s delivered. That result might be worth £69.95, or even more.

Charge more for a product that can be delivered in multiple formats. Think about the things that will be really attractive and irresistible to users, such as DVDs, manuals, templates, and audio products..

Focus on the aspects that make it easy for people to use what you’re offering.

One example might be fill-in-the-blanks templates. People will pay more for things that they feel are almost a plug-and-play system, where all they’ve got to do is they fill in the blanks in order to get their results.

Offer payment plans.

This is another helpful tip when establishing your pricing. You can offer payment plans through PayPal or a tool like 1ShoppingCart. People have the option to pay in installments over a set number of months. This can massively increase your sales, because users don’t feel that they’re making a big payment at one time.

As you think about pricing your product, always remember to set the price according to the value it will deliver. Follow this plan and you won’t go wrong.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

What comes easily to you?  The thing that you believe is just common sense, is in fact, the most important thing for you to share with the world. We all have things which come easily to us, in fact so easily, that we fail to recognize that other people can have difficulty doing the very same thing. To unleash the power of your online business, you must determine what this thing is. This is your unique value proposition.   Your unique value proposition is your ‘Gold’. It is what you can leverage to create and grow an online business; a proven method of boosting your business’s bottom line, without boosting your required long term time investment.

Try This Brainstorming Exercise: Draw a large square on a blank piece of paper. The square should fill the entire page. Within the square, draw two lines dividing the space into four quarters. In the top left hand quadrant, write the words, ‘hard to learn’. In the top right hand quadrant, write the words, ‘easy to learn but hard to do.’ In the bottom left hand quadrant, right the words, ‘hard to learn, easy to do.’ And, in the bottom right hand corner, right the words, ‘so easy to learn and easy to do.’

Now, write thoughts that come into your mind about your skill sets, placing them into the appropriate quadrants:

• Hard to Learn - What seems extremely challenging for you to learn? If it’s hard to learn and you have to study for years to do it. And, it takes a fair about of effort and focus to do it.

• Easy to Learn, Hard to Do – Filling paperwork. This task is easy to accomplish, yet hard to make yourself do it, at least it is for most people.

• Hard to Learn, Easy to Do – This would be something which is hard to learn initially, but easy to do once you learn it as you love it.

• So Easy to Learn, Easy to Do – This is something you wouldn’t dream of charging people for as you get so much pleasure doing it.

Now that you have completed the exercise, consider where the most money to be made in the world would fall in terms of categories. Where most of the world thinks that there is money to be made is in the hard to learn, hard to do quadrant. The assumption is often made that anything which is hard to learn will have less competition, causing the compensation to be greater.

But, your true value, the area in which you can make the most difference for yourself and for the rest of the world, is the place that comes most easily to you. That’s where your natural talent lies. And, that is the quadrant which you should be operating out of.

Now that you know what your true values are, you can align your online business with them. By doing the brainstorming you’ll discover your unique value proposition, and you will be taking the first step toward boosting your business’s annual revenues.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

If you want to have a successful business that serves clients, sooner or later money has to change hands. And that means sooner or later you’re going to have to say, “This is what I’m offering you and this is the price.”

If you have a problem with that, you’re not alone. I see a lot of people missing this step when they map out their business plan. You shouldn’t misstep here though, because it is an obvious and necessary detail. Without it, you are not going to be putting any money in your bank account.

The only thing that will put money into your bank account is you showing up and saying to that customer, “Here it is. Here is what it costs. Here is how to pay.”

This can be a difficult thing for people to do sometimes. But, really, there is no reason that you should be afraid to ask for the money. Maybe you’re frightened of the possible rejection. Maybe you’re frightened of negotiation and the possibility that you’ll have to say no. Maybe you’re afraid to actually set the price in stone.

If you set up your price before you even begin taking on clients, there isn’t anything to be concerned about.

Approach this detail from its end point. Design your total client-getting system so that it takes you all the way through to collecting the money. In fact, what I really want you to do is start with collecting the money and then work backward – detailing all of the steps that need to happen in order to get to that point.

You simply cannot deliver outstanding results for your clients if you’re worried about money.

So, it’s important that you begin with the end in mind. Be focused on your end point.  What type of clients do you ultimately want to attract? From there you can begin to develop lead generation systems that will attract the right type of people. People who will be raising their hands, wanting in on your offerings. They won’t be haggling with you about price because you’ve done your research. You know that your services are valuable to them.

This pricing determination has to start before you generate a single lead. By the time you begin your lead generating, you should know how you are going to convert clients and how much you are going to charge them.

So, in essence, you are making decisions from your destination, not from your starting point. This is something that I’ve learned in my own business. When I’m evaluating anything now, I make my decision based on where I want to be 12 months from now.

Something might look like a huge investment to me today. But I know that I’m growing and stepping into something bigger and that I’m going to be in a completely different place 12 months from now.

I know this because I’ve doubled or tripled my income every year for the past three years. When I view something from that destination, something that might look like a huge investment now is actually quite miniscule.

So, make decisions from your destination. Know how much you will charge for your services. Know how you will bill your clients. Get good at asking for money. It is in your best interest and theirs. You can’t treat your clients as well if you’re constantly worried about money.

Start with the details of collecting the money and you will no longer wonder, “How can I ask for this much money from a client?”

When you hear about someone doing well or coming into a lot of money quickly, how do you feel about that? Not people who win a lottery or sweepstakes, but business people who just seem to be making easy money.

Are you inspired by them? Or, do you resent them? Your answer tells a lot about your beliefs. It says a lot about what you believe is permissible and not permissible. It really points you to your own rules – and possibly your own limitations – about how and where you’re allowing yourself to make money. So, really think about it.

If you are of the belief that money should be hard earned, you likely apply those same rules to the people around you. So, you will possibly resent people who seem to be making money easily or effortlessly. It’s like they’re cheating somehow.

They’re not cheating. Instead of resenting them, you should feel inspired and grateful. They are teaching you what is possible.

I learned this from a man I once worked for, who sold my services to a client. He was the agent and sold a package to a client that involved me delivering the training. The client paid £1,500 a day.

I was paid £500. He kept the £1,000 as his profit for arranging the deal. So, what is your reaction to this story?

Do you think I was taken advantage of?  I did all of the work, but he made all of the money. Should I resent him? Would you?

Or, do you look at him as the one providing the value? He helped me and the client. He had done the legwork. He set up the whole deal. He was able to demand a higher asking price than I could have on my own.

Personally, the view I take is that he did me a favor.

He was clear with me about what he was doing. Nothing was hidden from view. And actually, by charging that higher amount for my services, he helped to change my belief. He made it possible for me to see that people were willing to pay that much for my time.

I actually think that he did me a service by doing that. He helped me to challenge my beliefs about the link between time and money. I was putting in more time than him, but I was getting paid less.

He made more on the deal because he understood that he was getting paid for the value that he was providing -  matching up the right supplier with the client’s needs.

So, this story will help you gauge your own reaction. If you resent him, that is a sign of just how tightly gripped you are in the time-money trap.

You will not break free of the time-money trap by resenting people.

The people who have already broken free are well on their way. Their value to you is that they’re showing you what’s possible. I say bless them, grab hold of them if you can, or at least follow in their footsteps.

But recognize that if you’re judging them, you’re just going to stay stuck. Your judging them won’t stop them, but it will stop you.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Are you charging customers as much as your services are really worth? Or are you charging them as much as you think they will pay?

The truth is, most people are not charging what they are worth. They are charging what they believe they can get. But this way of thinking will only hold you back.

One of the fastest ways to propel you forward and increase your income is to increase your fees.

If talking about increasing your fees touches a nerve for you, look at it this way.

As you increase your fees you attract a better quality client. Because often, if you’ve been in the “bargain basement” in terms of your business, if you’ve been going after the discount buyers, these are the least loyal buyers. These are the buyers who jump ship as soon as someone else comes along with a cheaper price offering.

If you want to create long-term loyal clients, you have to charge the right fees. You have to charge fees that enable you to deliver great service without being in sacrifice. Talented people with tremendous value to share can often become burned out because they’re selling their services for bargain basement prices.

So, if you are working crazy hours just to earn a decent income, and you’re stressed out, that’s a lose-lose situation. Your client loses out because they’re not getting the best of you. You’re losing out in terms of self-esteem and cash flow. And your family and your loved ones are losing too.

I see people agonizing all the time over what fees to set and being fearful that clients won’t pay that fee or that they’re going to encounter price objections. So, how can you overcome this fear and go about increasing your fees? Here are a couple of ideas you might try:

• Change your approach. Stop worrying about what your clients can afford to pay. Approach setting your fee as if money is no object for your clients and as if you have no issues about receiving that much money in one go. What would you really charge for your product or service then?

• Put together a package. Think about what would be the most amazing package that you could put together. And, when you do suddenly get it and increase your fees, it’s like having one of those L’Oreal “I’m worth it” feelings.

• Talk to your clients. Sit down with your client and ask what  they would consider a “gold star” program, and then you develop and deliver that program,. You don’t have to spend your time compromising and figuring out what you think people are willing to spend, and continually adjusting your product or service to fit that.

Increasing your fees is really such a simple change to make if you don’t resist it.  As you increase your fees, you’ll discover something really interesting. It’s like a metaphor really, where you’re saying to the universe, “I’m worth this.”

And as you find the courage to say, “I’m worth this,” the people in the world who are meant to be working with you will suddenly hear you. They will suddenly see you, and it will be reflected back to you.

I’ve coached so many people who will testify that their client didn’t bat an eyelid after they raised their fees. So, instead of trying to make excuses to yourself about why your prices are lower or why you shouldn’t increase your fees, justify why you should.

It is the fastest way to uncover hidden money in your business.

You may be making a common sales mistake when offering your products and services to prospects. Rather than setting fixed prices for your services, you may be deciding with each new prospect how much to charge for your products.

While that may seem like a good way to make every sale, it will actually wind up costing you money. Keep reading to learn how to make more sales while holding firm on pricing.

Make the value of your product or service clear to your prospect: You probably learned the habit of price shifting with the best of intentions—getting every prospect to say “Yes.” It might seem as though changing your price for each prospect is the best way to close every sale.

What you really need, though, are better sales techniques. You won’t have to reduce your price to make a sale if your product’s value is clear to the prospect. Set firm prices and then work to educate each prospect on how your products will benefit them. Once that benefit has been established, they’ll be more than happy to pay the price you quote.

Keep Yourself Accountable: Find yourself an accountability buddy. This is someone who will remind you to stick to your fixed pricing.  Someone who will watch out to make sure you don’t deviate! This is a hard habit to break.  Remember, you started shifting your prices in the belief it would help your conversion numbers. That’s why you need someone else to remind you that fixed pricing will net more sales.

Let the Client Decide: Once you’ve set a firm price on your products, approach each offer with the notion that your clients can decide what they need. Your job is to present the options to them. If you’ve done a good job, the client will make an informed decision to buy your products.

You might also be prejudging your prospects and decided whether or not they should buy. Sometimes, that’s done out of the fear they don’t really need your products. It can also come out of arrogance, a feeling you know better than the client what they need. No matter what the reason, it’s time to break the habit!

Someone who can actually be served by your products might be missed if you decide ahead of time they are not in a position to buy. For instance, Dan Kennedy tells the story of a salesman who botched his presentation after observing his client’s humble lifestyle. Why would he miss an opportunity to sell his products? Because he decided ahead of time they couldn’t afford to buy them.

Stop talking yourself out of sales. Present your products clearly and establish the benefit to each prospect.  Positioning yourself to serve their needs and making the advantages of your products obvious is always a better strategy than changing your price. Name your fixed price and then let them decide whether to buy.

It’s not too late to change your selling habits. Practicing fixed pricing is the fair way to build your business. Put your energy into learning to serve your clients with great products and presenting the benefits of those products clearly. Once you do, your business will begin to grow with a lot less effort than you’re expending now.