Shortly after my realization that I wasn’t broken, I found myself contemplating what I’ve been taught and believed about pricing.
The successful business coaches that I’ve worked with all say “Raise your prices! You’re probably here because you’re not charging enough for the great work you do!”
That’s the message that seems to be hammered home over and over again.
And I believe it’s true—if you’ve had some success and momentum.
Yet, the message I keep hearing is: Play a bigger game and the momentum will follow!
What if for some of us it works better the other way? What if you build momentum and bigger success follows?
I’m not letting myself off the hook here. I’m not saying that this is always the message. I am saying that this is what I heard.
And sometimes you need to build momentum before you raise your prices or set a HUGE goal.
Don’t get me wrong, raising prices and setting HUGE goals are good and necessary things.
And momentum is a necessary part of it.
When you run a marathon, you train for months in advance. Building your muscles and momentum so on that day you can run 26.2 miles, even if you’ve never done it before. You’ve spent the time training and building yourself up—gaining momentum.
Business isn’t that different. You do the shorter runs to build your business muscle and gain that momentum. You stretch yourself and learn what does and doesn’t work for you and adjust.
Extremely few people successfully run a marathon without training.
So where are you right now? Are you in a building momentum phase or it’s time to raise my prices and play bigger phase?
I think you have to look at your target market. If very small start ups, they just won’t be able to pay high prices. Actually you can take over the market with reasonable pricing because the start ups need your services most.
My advice would be to tier your services. Cheaper for very begginers, a little higher for mid-line coaching, and higher pricing and previllages for the advance training.
Great points Azam.
It’s important to also take into consideration how long you’ve been coaching and what you’re currently comfortable charging for that experience.
I recently heard a well known coach say that every coach should start with charging $1000 a month. Personally, I think that’s HORRIBLE advice. It neglects to consider what they’re able to ask for (meaning the amount they can say and still take themselves seriously) and, exactly what you said, their target market.
There are lots of variables that go into gaining momentum. Price is only one aspect. And while “I can’t afford it” or “that’s too much for me” are common reasons people don’t buy, it’s seldom the actual reason. An experienced sales person can get to the real reason.