0:00: you're listening to.
0:01: She's the business podcast.
0:04: Do you feel like you're undercharging with your rates your prices right now?
0:09: But you're not quite sure?
0:10: Exactly How do you raise them?
0:13: Are you even ready to raise them?
0:14: Should you raise them?
0:15: Is this the right time, or is it the wrong time?
0:19: Or if you have any of those questions and if you're in this boat right now where you feel, you know, deep down you're undercharging, but you're just not sure if it's the right move to raise your prices, then stay tuned.
0:32: This episode was created just for you.
0:36: Hi, I'm your host, Jessica Osborne.
0:39: And over the last 25 years in marketing and business, I've helped many brands to launch scale and grow, with some of them becoming multibillion dollar companies.
0:49: I'm here to inspire you to get out of your own way and create a profitable, fulfilling business while living the lifestyle you rarely desire without all the hassle.
1:00: So I'm bring you.
1:01: She's the business podcast, a unique blend of strategies, tactics, mindsets, health and spirituality, literally everything you need to be the successful leader of your dream business made by women.
1:15: For women, this is your weekly dose of motivation and inspiration.
1:22: All right.
1:23: So are you ready to raise your prices?
1:26: Well, that is the big question, right?
1:29: It doesn't matter how long you've been in business.
1:32: It could be, You know, in your very first few months, it could be in your first few years.
1:37: You may be 20 years into your business.
1:40: It doesn't matter.
1:41: You will have that question at some point in time where you're like, Oh, it feels like I'm under charging for this.
1:48: You really know it.
1:49: You know it deep in your bones.
1:50: You know it in your gut.
1:52: If you're connected to that feeling in your gut where you're like, yeah, it just isn't sitting right with me.
1:58: But maybe you're also feeling a little bit stuck.
2:00: For certain reasons, you might feel like the market is restricting you and keeping you at the rate that you're at you might feel like The competition is also a reason why you can't change your prices.
2:13: But let's think for a minute that in every market, in every niche there are always actually a wide range of price points.
2:20: There's literally no market where everybody is charging the exact same thing.
2:24: I would say maybe that you can think of an exception to that rule.
2:27: But let's just assume for a moment that that is the case.
2:32: And let's always find exceptions to every rule.
2:35: If you think that your market is restricting and everybody charges the same, I challenge you to go out there right now.
2:41: Stop this episode.
2:42: Press pause.
2:43: Go and find someone that is charging a different amount.
2:46: There's likely somebody out there charging at least double what you do and not providing double the outcome.
2:53: Double the results, double the the output.
2:56: So let's look at why is it that we feel like we're not able to raise our prices yet?
3:03: Or how do we get into a place where you are feeling ready and confident and like You can take that action that you want to take in changing your rates, really stepping into that space that you know you're ready for Now, what I've realised over the years of coaching women and in their business and looking at their prices and why they're charging what they're charging, there's really four parts of the brain that are sending you messages that are holding you back.
3:34: I'd say telling you that it's not time yet that no, no, you've got to keep your prices low and that it would be dangerous or scary or not right to, you know, even create a premium offering.
3:46: Even if it's not raising the price on your existing one.
3:49: Maybe it's actually creating a different offering that's at a higher rate, like a VIP or a higher level offering that is going to be at a higher price.
3:59: A lot of people rebel.
4:01: They rebel against doing it.
4:02: They rebel, even though they know it makes sense.
4:05: In terms of hey, you need a whole lot less clients to hit that same revenue number.
4:10: And usually you can make much higher profit because with less volume, it means that your profit margins are higher, even though it makes so much sense.
4:17: When you look at the numbers on paper, there is all of these things going on inside your brain that tell you to stay put where you are and that you're not ready yet.
4:26: So let's look at what are the four parts of the brain?
4:30: Well, I like to think of them as personalities, so if we just for a moment.
4:34: Think about your brain as or you your mind.
4:38: Maybe it's your mind instead of the actual brain.
4:41: You know, we're not going to talk about the frontal cortex or anything like that right now.
4:44: But just imagine inside your mind you have a lot of different personalities in there, , some of them you'll be very familiar with and other ones you may be less familiar with.
4:54: So I'm going to share four of them with you today.
4:56: You know, to give you an example of one you may be familiar with, which is not one of the ones that I think comes into this pricing discussion.
5:03: So much would be like You're in a perfectionist, for example.
5:07: Now I think we all have the perfectionist in us.
5:11: Some of us is more dominant than others, right?
5:13: Some people get really rarely tuned in to their perfectionist, the voice in their mind that is a perfectionist voice, and it will drive a lot of their decision making, whereas others are far less, , have a less dominant perfectionist.
5:27: So they're perfectionist, you know, it may pop up every now and then and have a little something to say, but it is not driving the majority of their life.
5:35: So I'm sure you can relate to either You are somebody who has a strong perfectionist personality or you don't.
5:42: I certainly have had that at times in my life.
5:45: And I've worked on, , you know, being able to manage that voice, , a little bit better, and and make sure that it's not being so domineering over the other ones.
5:55: So that's an example.
5:56: Another example of one that you may have with maybe your inner child.
6:00: That little inner child might pop up and and say things every now and then.
6:04: So you know, it's just sort of tuning into these now.
6:06: The four that I'm going to talk to you about today are the four voices that I see time and time again have the the biggest, loudest voice when it comes to pricing when it comes to choosing your rates and figuring out what you're charging and making the decision on whether you stay where you are or you rent your prices or you create that premium offering, these are the four that weigh in the heaviest and so likely you're going to have probably a bit of all four within you.
6:36: , one will be probably the most dominant for you.
6:39: So listen in to figure out which one of those it is for you.
6:43: The very first one is one.
6:45: We absolutely everybody has this and it is our consumer.
6:49: So the inner consumer Now, we've been cultivating this part of our mind ever since we were tiny Ever since we were little babies, and we're walking around with Mom and Dad, and we're watching them buy things like we're walking into shops.
7:03: We are surrounded by consumer based advertising on a daily basis to the point so much that it is like the wallpaper.
7:11: You know, we cannot turn on our phones.
7:13: We can't walk into a shop or anywhere near actually even just down the street, right?
7:17: You're going to be walking past businesses that are using consumer advertising to entice you in.
7:25: Now the consumer part of your brain is very, you know, it's learned over time, you know, just being exposed to all of this, that it's all about sales and deals and people buy when it's cheap, cheap, cheap, you know, 50% off 70% off.
7:40: Oh, my God.
7:41: Everybody's running into the door.
7:42: So your inner consumer has observed all of this behaviour for your whole life, and it has formed very firm beliefs that people only buy when something is cheap.
7:55: And so it is going to weigh in any time you're thinking, Well, I feel like I'm undercharging.
8:01: I think I need to raise my prices.
8:02: It's gonna say, Whoa, whoa, whoa.
8:03: Hold on a minute because if you raise your price, they won't buy.
8:07: If you're more expensive, they won't buy from you right every time.
8:12: And it's it is literally inbuilt.
8:13: It's in your subconscious.
8:14: You may not even be aware that that voice is saying anything because it's like it's so built in on an automatic level that you are having those thoughts without even realising that they are there.
8:27: But when I say that, can't you just think of those moments of like, yeah, Oh, my goodness, I do think that and that, you know, it tends to make you think Well, when I put something out, I've got to discount it.
8:38: I've got to put a bigger price on it and then have a sale price.
8:41: Otherwise, people won't buy.
8:42: Well, this is whenever you're thinking that that's your consumer that's currently in charge or currently having the strongest, most dominant voice inside your head.
8:51: And the interesting thing is, when we actually take that thought and look at it for a minute, you know, think about any of the premium brands that you know of Apple Tesla.
9:02: You know, they entered the market.
9:04: The apple.
9:05: I know Apple was around before they invented the iPhone, but let's just say they they entered the telco market brand new.
9:11: They weren't a phone maker before.
9:13: And did they come in and try to compete with Nokia on Price and create something that would entice buyers using that consumer brain of like, Hey, you know, if we make something cheaper, they'll buy it?
9:26: No, they did the exact opposite.
9:28: They came into the market with something way, way, way overpriced in terms of comparing Hey, I've got a phone I need to make phone calls and text messages.
9:37: They brought in a product that was far in the premium of most models were out there at the time.
9:43: Same with Tesla.
9:44: They came in brand new car manufacturer, and they didn't say I'm going to compete with all these other car manufacturers and bring out something that that a lot of people will want to buy because it's now good value.
9:56: They went, No, we're coming in premium.
9:58: So they very quickly built a very profitable business, with much less customers needed because they were selling $100,000 models of their their Roadster, the first vehicle.
10:09: So when you look at those examples, you know that completely refutes what our consumer brain is telling us is the standard rule.
10:17: And this this rule, like our our mind, wants us to generalise.
10:22: It wants to make rules because it prevents us from having to think so.
10:28: That rule that your consumer mind has made that people buy when it's cheaper and when it's sale and when it's discounted or better deal.
10:37: Even if you know you might think the price isn't low.
10:39: But I've packed in so much value that it's insane, like they of course, they're gonna want to buy it.
10:44: That's still your consumer mind telling you to do that because it's thinking you need more, more, more for a less price, and that's what people buy.
10:52: It's not the case, right?
10:54: Otherwise, all of those premium brands, they wouldn't be successful.
10:56: You wouldn't be seeing Ralph Lauren.
10:59: You wouldn't be seeing Gucci, Chanel, all of those brands.
11:02: Yeah, there are lots and lots of far cheaper options for handbags, for perfume, for shoes.
11:08: Whatever the things are that that we're buying, , you know, even luxury holidays like there are ways you can have far cheaper holidays.
11:15: Why is someone gonna pay $3000?
11:17: 5010 $15,000 a night to go to a luxury hotel when there are cheaper options?
11:23: Because it's not about the price that is going to take a little bit of work to talk back to your consumer mind and and let them know.
11:31: Hey, you know what?
11:33: That isn't actually a rule in our planet.
11:36: People buy things at a premium all the time, so it's not unsafe to have a premium offering.
11:42: In fact, it could be one of the smartest things that you could do.
11:45: Let's see.
11:46: So that's number one.
11:47: That's your consumer.
11:48: The second personality in your mind is the people pleaser Now, women in particular tend to have quite a dominant people pleaser.
11:56: The people pleaser steps in because they think by raising your prices, you're suddenly making people not like you anymore.
12:04: More people will judge you, and they'll they'll label you as things like expensive or elitist or you know, something else that feels not nice and icky.
12:14: They also say, you know, you should be accessible to everyone who needs you.
12:18: You need to be able to support anybody who could want your services.
12:23: So the people pleaser is all about making you stay low, keep your prices low, to be more affordable, to be more accessible to please more people.
12:35: Right?
12:36: And it really gets worried and scared when you're thinking you need to raise your prices because suddenly it's going, Oh, danger your current client.
12:46: So they're not gonna like this, you know, they'll probably leave you.
12:49: What about the people in your audience?
12:51: Suddenly, they're gonna think you're a different person and they won't like it.
12:54: They're gonna judge you.
12:55: They're going to say you're expensive.
12:57: All of this fear boils up the people pleaser, and so they will be putting the brakes on you very, very hard.
13:05: because they think that by not pleasing people, then you won't be successful.
13:09: And when I'm saying that, you know, you're thinking Well, yeah, Those thoughts do pop into your head like I need to be accessible.
13:16: I need to make sure I'm I'm pleasing everybody.
13:19: I need to make sure that you know what I have out there they're going to like right, because it kind of in a way makes sense when you say it like that.
13:26: But when you look at it and think, there's literally nothing that you can do that will please everybody.
13:31: It doesn't matter whether you're low, whether you're high, there are people who will not buy from you if your price is too low because they will perceive you to be not good enough quality, not at the level that they're looking for, not just like no, that's not for me.
13:44: And they're the people who don't shop at Target, Kmart, Walmart, whatever you you know, the big discount stores.
13:52: They're like, Yeah, I don't even walk into those stores.
13:54: Not even interested.
13:56: It doesn't matter how cheap it is.
13:58: I don't care.
13:59: That's not for me.
14:00: You know there's a whole lot of people who aren't even looking at you right now because your prices are too low.
14:05: So it it's interesting because you get worried that nobody will like you if you raise your prices.
14:10: It's like actually, you might just be shifting who it is that you are attracting your price.
14:16: Yes, it will help you attract the right clients.
14:19: It will also repel others.
14:20: So it's really a choice as to who do you want to attract and repel right now?
14:25: Is it serving you to be attracting people who are attracted to the lower price?
14:30: Maybe it is.
14:31: It depends on what your model is.
14:32: If it's a very high volume model where you're going for, you know what those big discount stores are going for.
14:39: They're going for Max volume at low price because they know, like if our prices are low, then we'll have thousands and thousands and thousands of people buying.
14:48: But they're making very, very small profit margin.
14:51: They just That's why they need the volume, right?
14:53: That's one model.
14:54: If you're offering any sort of service, where there's you involved and you know there's time and effort like you don't have a machine with a production line creating these really cheap products.
15:04: You can spin off millions of units of and sell them at that cheap price if you're involved in providing a service.
15:11: And I'd say you know, that low cost, high volume model usually isn't the best solution for you to have a profitable easy business.
15:20: OK, there's very few instances where it may be.
15:23: And of course, there are some.
15:24: There's always an exception to every rule, as I I I like to say, but you know that whole well, I've got to have a lower price to please people that's really keeping you potentially not reaching your potential because it's holding you back and and making you think that you've got to be out there for the lowest common denominator.
15:46: Well, you can kind of choose what your lowest common denominator is.
15:49: It doesn't have to be the bottom of the market, like those people can either access your free content.
15:56: They can make use of anything that you're putting out that is free and, you know, welcome to it.
16:01: And guess what.
16:02: There are other people out there who are thinking that they need to serve absolutely everybody, and they will underprice and undercut themselves in order to do so.
16:10: And that's fine.
16:11: You know, you can let them do that.
16:12: That doesn't mean your business won't survive, because there is someone out there for everyone.
16:17: OK?
16:17: And it just means that you can make a choice to position yourself for the clients that are gonna be the best for your business.
16:25: You know who is really the right fit for you that fits with your goals, your business model, your services and that it was gonna help you be profitable in the time you wanna be working.
16:37: You know, this isn't about you're not gonna be the next Microsoft or Apple, you know, Unlikely.
16:42: Maybe you want to be.
16:43: That's OK then.
16:44: That's something that you would grow to over time.
16:46: Like you can't get that kind of world domination starting off and making very little money.
16:51: Because how are you going to invest more into the business and growing?
16:54: , what Tesla did was created.
16:56: Their premium offering got very successful.
16:59: They built that profitable foundation and then they bought out the lower price model which was still around 30,000 us to to see more of a mass market, right?
17:08: But they did that years and years and years and years later they established themselves with their premium offering first so that we've covered two.
17:16: The third part of your mind.
17:19: The third personality in your mind that that loves to weigh in on pricing discussions is the shortcut seeker.
17:26: So this is a a personality that's always looking for the faster way, the easier way like, Oh, that sounds too hard.
17:33: Let's not do that.
17:34: Let's do this because it looks easier.
17:36: It sounds easier.
17:37: It will.
17:37: It will mean that we are more successful, and this particular personality tends to think that lower price equals less effort.
17:45: It means that you won't have to put in as much effort in delivery.
17:49: Expectations are lower because people haven't paid as much.
17:52: Therefore, your efforting will be lower right, and you know it.
17:57: I'm not saying that that's wrong to think that it's like, Well, sometimes that can be the case, especially if you're doing a done for you service.
18:04: Usually higher price means there's more involved in it and and more effort, But not always.
18:10: I've seen companies delivering a brand strategy.
18:14: Exact same amount of work going into it.
18:16: One's charging 3000 and one's charging 30,000.
18:20: Why, just simply because one decided what they did was worth.
18:24: That was worth more, right?
18:27: So it's not always the case, so I challenge you on that.
18:30: And the interesting thing is that in order to put out an offering to a market, it takes the same amount of time and effort for you to think of an offering.
18:40: Create the strategy for it, decide on your pricing, build your messaging, all of the pieces that go into actually selling it.
18:47: And often your lower priced offerings actually require more effort and energy because you generally need to put in place your sales system that allows you to have that higher volume.
18:59: So where if you're selling a you know, $10,000.01 to 1 off generally, you only just need people to jump on a call with you.
19:07: You have a discussion, and you can make the offer and send them through a payment plan or payment page.
19:12: Whereas when you're selling something that's much lower priced, you know it's $500.
19:17: You don't want people to be getting on a sales call.
19:19: So you need a sales page.
19:20: You need payment pages and thank you pages and usually lead funnels.
19:26: Campaigns lead magnets to bring all the people in.
19:29: So you actually end up requiring a whole lot more or to sell something that's worth a whole lot less.
19:34: So.
19:34: The shortcut seeker is basically taking shortcuts based on one little piece of logic, but they haven't looked at the whole piece.
19:42: And that voice tends to get a little bit quieter after you've done this a few times and started to realise, Well, hey, that that is actually a lot more work than what I thought.
19:52: You know how many people have thought, Hey, you know, I can just put out this course an online course that it'll be, you know, $97.
19:59: That'll be super easy.
20:00: I'll do that and then they're like, Oh, my gosh, there's so much work involved in creating this course.
20:06: Whereas if they'd just been selling, you know, even $2000 5000 dollars, a 1 to 1 offering, likely.
20:13: You just need a few notes in your book, something that you're going to talk to somebody about and you can get a client to sign up.
20:19: So the shortcut seeker, unfortunately, has a very warped perception of what is really a shortcut.
20:25: And they could be steering you astray.
20:26: So look out for that one.
20:27: It's very sneaky.
20:29: It's telling you, it's easier when it's not.
20:31: Now the fourth personality, you will no doubt be familiar with this one.
20:35: And, you know, maybe it's your dominant one.
20:37: Maybe not.
20:38: , And I have actually created a quiz to help you diagnose, which is your most dominant one, because I'm sure that you're going to relate to this last one.
20:47: Most people do, but you may actually have a dominant one of one of the others.
20:52: The fourth personality is called the Imposter.
20:56: Now, Yes, Imposter syndrome.
20:57: We We've talked about that.
20:59: What is the imposter?
21:00: What does this mean?
21:00: And how do they pipe up in these discussions?
21:03: Well, their main voice, their main message is, you're not ready yet.
21:07: Yeah, Yeah, you are.
21:08: Undercharging.
21:09: They will agree that you're undercharging.
21:12: They'll be like, Yep.
21:12: You're definitely undercharging.
21:14: I know it, but you're just not ready yet to raise your prices and it comes up with a whole raft of reasons.
21:22: Now some of the most common ones will be.
21:25: You don't have enough experience yet, so they'll be like, you know, well, your business is new.
21:29: You don't have enough experience yet.
21:31: Of course, it's forgetting all of your experience that you've had before your business.
21:36: That doesn't like to remind you that you do have experience and expertise there because it's like, Oh, no, no, no, you're too new.
21:42: You need to work hard and work your way up because that's how it worked in the past.
21:47: You right when you had your job, when you had your career?
21:50: You don't just get your very first job straight as a V p of a company.
21:54: It's like, No, no, you start at the bottom and you work your way up.
21:56: That's the way our world has always worked.
21:58: So the imposter is applying this learning to you now.
22:03: In your business, even though you have got years and years of experience, you have expertise.
22:08: You have something to offer.
22:10: It's still telling you.
22:11: Oh, no, this is new because the business is new, so you've got to start at the bottom and work your way up.
22:16: And it will tell you, you know, it's gonna take you a long time or how many years I don't know, because guess what?
22:22: There's no rule there are.
22:24: There is no amount of years that you need before you can do something in your business.
22:28: , that's your decision.
22:30: But your impostor will tell you Well, you're gonna need at least two years and then you get to two years and it still won't feel ready.
22:36: So then it will say, Oh, no, it's actually five.
22:38: Then maybe it's 10.
22:39: It'll keep on moving the goalposts.
22:41: The other things it'll say, is things like You don't have enough proof yet.
22:45: So the impostors always think about what other people are judging you as and and it's saying, Well, you don't have enough testimonials.
22:52: You don't have enough case studies.
22:54: You need to show that you're worthy, so you must need to have some awards first, and you need to have written a book you need to be have been speaking on stages.
23:04: It's gonna create all of these milestones or must haves that it's gonna tell you you need to have before.
23:13: You're worthy before you're able to have a premium offering.
23:17: And so it's gonna keep you really busy for a lot of time.
23:22: And I see people doing this all the time, right?
23:24: So they've got their business.
23:25: They're kind of getting out there and and they're chasing things like awards.
23:29: They're going in every awards that they can get because they they feel like they need this behind them in order to have the confidence to put a price on something they, you know, sometimes like writing a book or need to author a book.
23:43: Maybe it's a podcast, even audience size, So this is a hidden one.
23:47: This is your impostor again telling you that you need to have a certain size of your audience before you're worthy.
23:53: Before you can charge a premium rate, right?
23:57: Does that ever happen to you?
23:58: It's interesting because yeah, maybe Sometimes you look at those people that you see out there that are at the top of their game, or that they are successful and you're like, Well, they have an audience with, you know, 20,000 people following them, maybe 100,000.
24:11: You know, there's there's a varying degree.
24:14: The interesting thing is, if you actually look hard enough, you'll find people who have just in the low thousands and they are still highly successful, right?
24:22: So it's not actually about audience size or that you need to reach because it depends on what your offering is.
24:29: Now, if you're trying to sell that high volume, low price product, yeah, you do need lots of people in order to get the ones who are gonna buy out of it.
24:37: You know it's a numbers game, but if you're selling premium services where you know it's 5 10,015, whatever it is per client, you don't need a whole lot of people in your audience to get those very few sales in order to be making 1020 3050 k a month.
24:54: You know, it's only gonna take you a handful of people to hit that number so you don't need thousands.
25:02: You maybe, and you need hundreds, but it's nice to have the thousands.
25:04: So the imposter in your mind is giving you these milestones that you need to get to before you're ready.
25:12: And the interesting thing is you can start asking it.
25:14: Well, where did you hear that?
25:16: Who said that?
25:16: You need that.
25:17: Who said I need to go out there and get another qualification?
25:22: Is that gonna then make me worthy?
25:24: Sometimes you need a qualification for things, but sometimes it's actually no, this is a confidence thing.
25:29: This is me thinking I need a qualification to prove that I can do something.
25:33: Well, who are you proving it to?
25:35: Is it yourself, or is it someone else?
25:37: Are they asking for it?
25:38: Or are you telling yourself that you need it because you're just not sure inside that you're ready yet?
25:44: And this is a decision you can make when you're ready.
25:46: So they're the four.
25:48: Which of the four is sounding to you like is most like you?
25:52: I'm really curious to know.
25:53: So I'd love you to screenshot you listening to this episode post in your stories and let me know if you think you know which one is your dominant pricing person.
26:04: But if you'd like to do my quiz and find out through the quiz, which one is your actual dominant pricing personality?
26:12: , then head over to my website Jessica Osborne dot com slash pp.
26:16: Quiz So P p Standing for pricing Personality quiz , you can take the quiz and find out the result.
26:24: So once you know what your one is, obviously you can put some steps in place in order to start being able to manage it.
26:31: Stop it.
26:32: Having such a dominant, , you know, taking over of you when you're making these decisions and making you feel ready that you can actually bring a premium pricing offer into your business.
26:45: And and that is really like when things can change so quickly.
26:50: Because, as I've said with the numbers, it's a numbers game.
26:54: You know, you may only need to have one or two clients and you're making your 10-K months easy.
27:01: It can be that easy.
27:02: The thing that's holding you back right now is you.
27:04: You're not You're not feeling ready.
27:07: One of these voices is holding you back, and they've got a very strong hold on you.
27:11: , so thank you so much for listening.
27:13: If you've loved this episode, please, , scroll down, hit the five star rating, and I'd love you to leave a couple of words in a review because it helps the podcast get found by other people who can benefit from it.
27:26: And Val, get value out of the episodes that we're bringing you every week, and I do so much love to hear from you as well.
27:34: So either leave a review.
27:35: If you feel like tagging me on your instagram stories and showing me that you're listening to this episode and let me know which one of the pricing personalities you are, I would love you to do that as well.
27:46: That's awesome.
27:47: And and I can even send you a link to the quiz.
27:50: , if you do that, if you tag me on your stories, , Jessica dot Osborne.
27:55: I'll pop you a link through to the quiz as well.
27:57: So just to make it easy to find and that's it from me, I will be back again next week with another amazing episode with an incredible guest.
28:06: And I look forward to chatting with you again soon.
28:09: Bye
