There comes a time in every business where we must adapt and raise our prices, and if you’re looking for a sign to do so, this is it – this is that sign.
If you’re working your butt off, working long hours, and delivering amazing work, yet at the end of the day when you review your finances, you still feel like you’re barely making anything after all that effort, it’s time to up your prices my friend!
Whether this sounds familiar to your situation or not, over time it is completely normal and essential to raise your prices, and in this post, we’re going to look at how you can confidently raise your prices without losing your clients.
At the time of this post, I’m just about to raise the price for my program, the Blissful Biz Incubator, so this is very real for me right now and I understand the struggles that come along with raising your prices.
I never offered a program for such a high price before and honestly it’s scary, and asking for the original price had already taken so much mindset work. BUT, now I know that it’s time to raise my price for the program because of the following reasons:
Value:
First, I know that I offer amazing value. People are getting results and I love working with my students and how invested and motivated they are.
I’ve also been adding more value to the program – I hired an amazing copy coach, Amanda Bensted, for weekly copy critique, and a life coach, Lisa Garber, for mindset coaching sessions.
Obviously, I pay them for their services and time, and I’m ready to invest more and get more experts in, adding even more value.
Updates:
I’ve been updating the trainings and adding new content and resources, so I 100% stand behind my new price and the value I’m giving.
It’s important to know deep inside you that what you’re offering is worth the price you’re asking for. The energy you are representing and what you believe about your pricing will come across when you ask for a sale, so you better believe in it.
Your potential customers need to feel this energy and the confidence that you have in asking for the sale so they have the confidence to actually buy. This leads me to my next point, mindset.
Mindset:
If you don’t have the right mindset and don’t feel worthy of receiving the amount of money you’re asking for, it’s going to be really difficult to get people to buy from you.
This is why it doesn’t work when a coach tells you to just raise your price, or that you should ask for a premium price right out of the door. For most people, this method doesn’t work and can actually stop you from getting sales.
It’s great if you have the confidence to go out and ask for a premium price even when you just started out, I truly admire you. However, that definitely wasn’t me, and a lot of my students find this really difficult too.
If this sounds familiar, you probably started out charging too little and played it small. But since you started out, your skills and experience have improved, you’ve probably upgraded your equipment and now you’ve got this strong brand and want to charge more – rightly so!
Or, maybe you’re just tired of working those long hours without the money to show for it. Whatever your motivation may be, it’s essential for any growing business to raise its rates over time.
Raising your rates doesn’t have to be scary – it can actually feel really good and exciting, like telling the world you’re ready for the next level. Raising your prices can even prove your credibility and professionalism – your clients might even think more of you for raising your prices.
But, how do you actually do it? How do you raise your prices AND keep your cherished clients?
1. Decide on your new price
When I was considering what my new price was going to be, I decided to raise it by $1000, or 20%.
I know this isn’t going to be the end price. I already plan to do more price increases, together with adding more features, more value, and getting my clients better results. But 20% feels good for me right now.
There’s no fixed rule on how much you can or should increase your prices, but it’s probably not the best idea to increase them by 200%. Be sure to keep it fair and reasonable.
2. Let your existing customers know first
For example, if you’re increasing your prices for private sessions with you or for a class pass, you should inform your existing customers first. The best and easiest way of doing that is to simply email them, keeping it short and sweet.
Tell them about your new rates and give them plenty of notice before expecting them to pay more. It’s not fair to tell them that tomorrow you’re increasing your prices by 25% and expecting them to pay the new price immediately. Give them some warning – I personally think 4 weeks is fair.
3. Raise your prices gradually
If you find it hard to raise your rates with your long-standing clients, another option you could do is to step up your prices over time.
For example, let’s say you offer a monthly package at $1000, and you want to increase that to $1500. You could increase it by $250 now and then in a few months you can do another increase.
This also works when you launch an online course. The first launch you might not be ready to ask for a premium price because you don’t have the confidence, right? But you already have your final price in your head.
So you launch your course the first time for $297, then a few months later you launch it again for $497, and then a few months later when you’ve got a bunch of great testimonials, and increased your audience, you launch it for $997.
The point is to not stay stuck at your low entry price point.
Now, it might be that you run into problems when you come to actually raise your rates – some of your clients might have an issue.
You shouldn’t have to explain yourself, but if you do, kindly let them know the benefits these new prices will do for them. You’re not raising your prices without reason – you could have invested in a new training or new equipment so the quality of your sessions will be better.
If a client is finding it difficult to afford your new prices, yet you still want to work with them, then try offering a solution that will work for both of you.
Instead of taking a lower rate, you could offer pricing tiers based on value. If your client usually gets the gold package treatment, then they can opt for the silver package instead. For example, instead of 60-minute-long private sessions, they are only 45 minutes long now.
Sometimes no matter what you do or offer, a client might still decide to stop working with you, and you just have to accept that. Although it will feel really uncomfortable and potentially counterproductive, you have to let them go and remember that there are people out there who are dying to work with you and won’t bat an eyelid at paying your new prices.
Think about this: if you increase your prices by 50%, and you lose 50% of your clients, you still earn the same amount of money, and you suddenly have a lot more free time that you can use to create new offers or get in front of new potential clients.
Increasing your prices is just a part of running a business.
That’s all there is to it! Raising your prices shouldn’t be a scary subject. You’re a business and you must adapt in order to grow.
