How do you price well without talking about money?
Do you find it challenging talking about money?
Those kinds of conversations can bring up feelings of shame, inadequacy and scarcity for many.
And many other feelings…
But how do you price well without talking about money?
The short answer…?
You can’t.
At some point you WILL have to talk actual numbers and agree what those numbers should be.
But before you get to that there’s lots of things you can talk about to make sure the prices you propose are likely to be more acceptable (to you as well as your customer).
One of the things to talk about is value.
On episode 11 of our Waking up to Money show we shared a simple approach for articulating value more clearly and more confidently.
Most of the time we equate value to time, effort and features.
But value has nothing to do with that.
It’s all about outcomes, transformation and positive emotional states.
If you can explore the real change that your client is looking for in their lives and businesses, and how they want to feel about that change, then you’re on a much surer footing to articulating value.
And when you can articulate value in a way that makes sense to both of you, you can then start talking more confidently about money and pricing.
Here’s an approach that we use to help our Happy Startup community members talk about value.
It’s called the Happy Value Statement.
You can use this approach to “guess” at the value you create if you’re designing a new product or service.
Or you can also use it to articulate more succinctly the value you already create for existing clients so that you can more easily sell to new ones.
Either way, in order to craft a powerful Happy Value Statement you need to have conversations.
Here’s what it looks like:
It’s a simple approach and helps you get really focused on what’s important.
Once you’ve put one together you need to test it by talking to people.
Do your clients articulate value in the same way you do?
Are you missing something?
Have this statement in mind whenever you’re having a conversation and be prepared to change it if you find you’ve made the wrong assumptions (or there’s something more valuable that your client needs that you can help with).
While there’s a lot here the two key things to start on are:
- being clear about who you’re trying to help
- the “valuable” outcome they’re looking to achieve
These two things are the foundations to pricing well.
If you’re able to check with your customers that they fit that “profile” then you’re ready to start talking about money.
Play with the statement above and share it with others to sense check what you’ve written down.
Remember, the more time you spend on discovering the value the less time you’ll waste trying to set your prices.
Did you know that we run a course on pricing?
The next one starts on Wednesday 30th March and runs for 6 weeks.
We’ve created this course to help you get to the bottom of your pricing blockers and help you overcome all the hurdles to getting paid your worth… in the most effortless and elegant way.
You’ll get the tools, tactics and mindset to price more confidently so that you can create more ease in your business.
And be a Happy Entrepreneur.
“I’d spent the last few years under-pricing what I do but Ben and Carlos shone a spotlight on its true value. Before the programme ended I was earning more and even doubled my income (to £100k) for the year. I can’t wait to experiment more with what I’ve learnt.” BD, member of cohort 1
Each Wednesday we’ll host a 90 minute webinar to take you through the lessons and all the course materials will be available online. You’ll also be invited to a private Whatsapp group so you can get immediate access to myself and Ben, as well as get support from your fellow participants.
And you’ll get 1 year’s FREE membership to our Happy Startup community.
Applications are open now. Click the link below and complete the application form and we’ll get back to you to make sure you’re ready for the course.
We recommend that you only apply for the course if you have existing products or services that you’re already selling but need to price better.
