
Defining Your Services and Pricing
When starting a new business, what services do you want to offer? How do you want to price things? If you have a business in mind, it’s likely that you have some idea of what kind of business you want to be. Most people start businesses because they’re passionate about what they do and want to offer something more to the public. Because of this, it’s tempting to go all out and offer a broad range of services and price them to make them available to all. However, you need to pause and decide what may be best for a growing business. Depending on the business, it might be a good idea to reconsider this plan. Here are some things to consider when defining your services and pricing.
How much do your services or products cost to provide?
If you’re thinking of opening a bakery it might be expensive and wasteful to attempt to bake dozens of types of cookies and breads every day. Starting small with a few key items, as well as selling some goods that will stay fresh for several days, might be the way to go until you pick up business. If you’re thinking of opening a bar, alcohol takes some time to go bad so opening up fully stocked is a viable option.
One option is to ask business you admire how they started off. Sometimes the most successful business did one thing really, really well and then slowly expanded from there. This also plays into how much you should price things — if your services don’t cost much more than your time, then you can afford to start low to attract customers and then raise costs as your services increase in demand. If your products are pricey, then make sure you can price things high enough to make a profit.
What do competitors offer?
You need to make sure you price your services competitively. You also need to make sure the services and products you offer stand out from what else is available to your target market. For example, maybe you will stand out by offering high-end or rare products — or maybe your business will have a hip aesthetic. Either way, looking around you is an important way to make sure what you have to offer is fulfilling a need in the community. That’s how you can make sure your business is successful.
