Listen Now:
We all hear “raise your prices” and “charge your worth” but what does that REALLY look like? How can you raise your prices and feel that you’re actually earning the increase in income?
Robin Waite is here to show us exactly how that can happen – how you can build the right thing for the right person so you can charge a premium for your product or service.
PLUS he’ll show you how to do it yourself and Jennie & Alyson will be your guinea pigs…
Find Robin on Instagram
Connect with Robin on LinkedIn
Follow Robin on Facebook
Join Robin’s Facebook Group
Follow Robin on Twitter
Are you ready to raise your prices? Take the quiz and get a personalized report to find out!
Get a FREE copy of Robin’s Book – Take Your Shot
Get your 20-minute Pricing Diagnostic Call at https://fearless.biz/app/
Did you love how Robin helped Jennie & Alyson on the podcast? Get that same help for yourself on this 20-minute call! Robin will walk you through your pricing and show you how to make it better and more profitable for you!
Alyson Lex
The pricing questions? How much should I charge? Am I charging too much? Am I charging too little? Should I raise my prices? Should I lower my prices? How much is everyone else charging? I hear these for my clients all the time. I know Jenny does
Alyson Lex
and Robin Waite, who is with us here now, he hears it all the time, too. But luckily, he is here to answer some of these questions for us, because he's got some soap boxes that I know he can stand on. And I'm excited to let him loose today. So, Robin, thank you so much for being here with us.
Robin Waite
It's such a pleasure. Allison Janney on, I'm super excited to dig into the whole pricing conundrum and help out some of your listeners today.
Alyson Lex
Yes, so before I put you on your soapbox, give, give us just a quick overview of what it is that you do.
Robin Waite
So I'm the founder of fearless business, which is a coaching practice, we help coaches, consultants and freelancers, typically who are charging an hourly rate or de rate to package up whatever it is they're selling into a product. And as a result of that, typically, they can charge a bit more money for it. And now because the products better, the price is higher, we've got to teach them how to articulate their value around it. So there's a little bit of sales in there, but not that horrible, sleazy sort of sales training, which is out there, we try and do it from like a very heartfelt kind of place so that our clients aren't getting pushed too much outside their comfort zone. So the coaching practice is one side of it. I've also, you know, I'm an author, I'm a speaker. And I have an amazing wife and two young girls as well who keep me on my toes, behind the scenes. And yeah, that's That's it in a nutshell, and a really cute puppy. And Wilbur course we'd be remiss to not talk about well, that wouldn't set up my vissla Yeah, absolutely. I
Alyson Lex
mean, we have to, I mean, that's just how it is. This is what we do. We we talk about the things that drive us crazy, and interrupt us during podcast recording.
Robin Waite
And he's an exhibit exhibit exhibitionist. Is that the right word he'd been? I start talking like he'd be trying to get onto screen now. And like, try and try and eat the microphone or something. So now he's in the house at the moment, just safest place for
Alyson Lex
Alright, so I promised that I'd let you up on your soapbox. So talk about what you see people doing wrong when it comes to their prices. Yeah,
Robin Waite
I mean, the first mistake, the first most common mistake is going and having a look at what the competition is charging. And that in itself is not it's not the actual mistake. The mistake is the assumption that your competition actually know what they're doing. So if you had a group of I don't know what designers or coaches in your local area or other freelancers, and, you know, Steve's looking at trashes prices and Trisha is looking at Dave's prices. Dave's looking at Sharon's prices. Sharon's looking at Lizzie's prices, and Lizzie's looking back at Steve again, like the likelihood of any one of those people being an expert on the pricing side of things is pretty much like non existent. Because normally when most people start a business, it's because they're like, husband, on sister friend, whatever said, Hey, you'd be really good at that. Also, like I said, it's the assumption that those people know what they're doing around their pricing, they might be like pricing too low. And as a result of that, economically, it's just not working out for their business. You know, you don't know that they're charging cheap prices to undercut the market. And they're actually losing money as a result of it or not making enough to get by. So why why would you copy effectively a flawed business model. So the kind of way around that is then to, you know, look at the prices, but then try and figure out what prices economically are going to stand up for your own business. And the quickest way to do that is to come up with this is a lot sometimes it is just a finger in the air goal, sort of thing. You don't have to necessarily, like have an exact science for this. But let's say for example, you wanted to want $100,000 A year in your business. And you were, I don't know selling widgets for $1,000 You would just divide your goal by that number and then you go okay, so my capacity then I need to service 100 clients if you do the math on that, so 100 times $1,000 $100,000. And quite often that's when the even with that simple but a maths, you get the international sign of distress goes up, I can possibly work with 100 clients, I've only got the capacity for 20 You know, etc, etc. So then we go okay, well, maybe $1,000 for your widgets, whatever it is you're selling that's to lower price because you're just gonna, you're gonna hit capacity. You've naturally at 20 clients limited your earnings potential now, so we need to try and figure out how we can sell. I call it an espresso machine product. We could talk about that later on. But how can we get that price point from 1000 bucks up to 5000 bucks, you know, so that when you sell 20 of them, you fit your financial goal.
Jennie Wright
Okay, you've teased us with this espresso machine model. And I'm going to pull it up right now, like, what is that? What does it mean?
Robin Waite
So, most people, when they kind of start up in business, they feel that I mean, there's essentially three different ways that you can choose to price your products, right? When you look at the competition, you can either be the cheapest, because you think that's how you get clients, you can go middle of the road, because you don't want to be perceived or seen as being the most expensive, because you think that'll put people off, right. But you also don't want to be the cheapest in the market, because we all know, buy cheap buy twice, and people have perceptions about it. So we'll go safely in the middle. And then if you look at most industries, there's always one person in that industry who is the most expensive, okay, but they've been around for the longest, they've got the best social proofs, they have the best like reviews and testimonials and case studies and things. They've got a ton of LinkedIn recommendations, they get loads of referrals. But the clue here is that despite being the most expensive, they still get clients now, if you go into a Starbucks, not all of them, but a majority of the Starbucks, you can go and get your latte, you can go and get a bag of beans. But if you look over the counter behind them, behind the person, the barista serving the coffee, there's an espresso machine up there. Now this espresso machine is it's got a price tag on it, you can actually buy it if you wanted to. And they know that for every say 1000 raving fans, like who just talk about nothing but amazing coffee from Starbucks, one day one of them is going to walk in, so I'll have my latte. I'll have my coffee beans, and can I have that espresso machine behind you. Because I want the Starbucks experience at home. And how this is relevant to businesses, your listeners is that like Starbucks have this espresso machine, it's on the shelf, and somebody could just come in and buy it. But most small business owners, they don't have the equivalent of this super expensive espresso machine available to buy, because that that espresso machine creates the same amount. And net profit is about 3000 cups of coffee, right? So it makes sense if they sell one of those, save them all of that time, in terms of serving all of that coffee. But most small business owners don't have this super expensive products that they could potentially sell. Or maybe they they've got an idea about this really expensive product that they could sell, but they just don't have the the confidence themselves to put it out on the shelf and tell other people about it so they could potentially buy it. And I believe that every business owner should have like a like, it's like the cat the coffee experience. It's like the small, medium and large. And then we have the espresso machine, you should have a variety of different products which you can sell to the market.
Alyson Lex
I have to admit that I am looking at my own business critically right now and wondering what my espresso machine is wondering if maybe I am just an espresso machine seller, give me that's all I offer. It's a really expensive stuff. But I'm really liking that model because like you said, small, medium large espresso machine, and it's not like you're sitting there trying to sell 85,000 espresso machines.
Robin Waite
Yeah, yeah, exactly. This No, it's minimal effort. You just put it on show, and then people can see it. So potentially they can buy it. But if we were to focus on your business, Allison, for example, if you're if your game if you want to play
Alyson Lex
Oh, boy, I thought we were in control this interview. But I guess you have just taken that. Yes.
Robin Waite
I've done it. I've been kinda I've been I've thought you could have said no, but thank you, Alyson for being very brave, and why livan volunteer at the moment? What would you say is your most expensive product?
Alyson Lex
So I do custom done for you sales copy. So I actually don't have productized things. But the most expensive thing that I offer is, let's say a year of follow up emails.
Robin Waite
Okay, so what well, I tell you what we can we can actually go another we can do the stage before that, then so where are we to productize your service? How do you currently charge for your service?
Alyson Lex
I charge per project. And so we build out the project based on what the client needs. That's part of what I offer is like that's super custom. And, you know, my prices usually have a comma. Sometimes it's two numbers before that comma, depending on how much copy they need.
Robin Waite
Okay, so for First of all, we could look at your I bet there is some like common ground in elements of your product, which each and every client has. So why was trying? Yeah, that's it. I try and recommend that people have three to five core products that satisfy 80 to 90% of their target markets needs. Now there'll be a sprinkling of like custom bespoke, but that's like your platinum product. But it could be that you could package up an element of what you do into like bronze, silver gold, and that's that's fine. If imagine we've done that, what would the gold package look like? How much would that be?
Alyson Lex
The Gold package? I'll Jenny's gonna help me with this because we do gather to
Jennie Wright
I'm thinking I'm thinking where you take a book and turn it into a course that would be your goal.
Alyson Lex
Yeah, I think you're probably right, turn it into the course and then you have all the marketing.
Jennie Wright
So we'll just give it a we'll just give it a price. We'll just say what let's
Alyson Lex
let's just Given an $18,000, yeah, it's gonna say 18 to 2018 to
Robin Waite
Okay. Now there might be people out there who want to turn the book into a course. But also they don't know how to sell it. Okay, so in terms of like doing the marketing, or maybe they want to then leverage that to get speaking engagements or something like I deny kind of making stuff on the fly.
Alyson Lex
Yeah, no, you're exactly right. You could, you know,
Robin Waite
so we've got that $18,000 Like package now. But you could have a package, which is, say $96,000, which is like the organ you can eat where we'd like fully done for you service where you don't ever have to worry about marketing, again, we just take care of the whole thing. For example, do you see right? But if you never tell anybody about that $96,000 product who's gonna buy it? Right? So at least at least design it and put it out there, you don't necessarily have to build out the entire product? Because probably you're, you're good at what you do, right? So you if somebody said, Well, what's included in this $96,000 product, you could probably wing it and tell them, like you're articulate enough to be able to do that. And you're experienced enough to be able to do that, right. So the mistake a lot of people make is they, they did like the idea of this espresso machine thing, but then they get all of the imposter syndrome kicking around, oh, I've got to go, I've got to go and build it. And I've got it, it's got to be perfect. So perfectionism starts to creep in. And I can't possibly put it on the shelf until like it's finished. And then that takes years or never gets done. So what I'm saying here is that actually, there's an element of like, well, if you if you're confident enough in your ability to deliver a product or service, put it out there. And then when somebody says yes to it, and inevitably they will, because they'll be like, Oh, but $80,000 thing. Yeah, but I really like that that's really shiny, can I have that? Then then you just go to town on it, and you build it.
Jennie Wright
So many questions now,
Alyson Lex
right? I just have to, I just have to Gus for a minute. Because the way that you broke that down, made it feel doable. And I've been doing this for a really long time. So what feels doable to me does not always feel doable to a lot of people creating a product like that felt undoable for me. And so I know people who are listening are struggling. So the way that you broke that down is just really important, because it takes the pressure off of it. I love that.
Jennie Wright
It just I just feel really, really doable. And I like that. But I have now like a zillion questions as a result of that conversation, which by the way, that was completely unplanned. That whole bit was not planned for the podcast, but I love it. But now I have questions. So okay, my espresso machine product? Is it something I put on my website? Do I put a price tag on the website? Or is it one of those inquire for more things? How do I let people know that this thing is there?
Robin Waite
So initially, when you're just kind of conceptualizing it, you just start talking about it. So you know, and if it's, if it's the right, the ideal client for it, and you think, yeah, I can get some really amazing results, there's always this three, effectively, there's three levers which you need to pull when you've got when you're sort of getting into the realms of like productizing, a service. And these three things are super, super important to bear in mind. So the first one is it has to produce a clear and specific outcome or result. The second thing is over a fixed period of time. So is this like a six month program, a 12 month program, whatever, whatever it looks like, and for the fixed fee, so we've kind of covered off most of those. And what that informs you, then if you if you are clear on those three, those three things, you should then be able to match up those three things with the ideal client who would really benefit from having that product or service, I call it it's a really terrible analogy, but I call it like the bleeding next scenario, because quite often, if you allow a client a customer to self select a product, they'll inevitably choose the wrong one. So where the bleeding that comes in right is some they'll they'll imagine you we call it Accident and Emergency over here was er, isn't it emergency room over on the other side of the pond, right? So imagine you you're an ER doctor and somebody walks into your ER with a bleeding neck, right? And this today, you've been done, you've done like a 24 hour shift, you're exhausted and so you just let the patient make up their own mind. What would normally happen is like you like send the Crash Team and put them on the bed operating theater bed like you Denise enticements stitch their neck up. But today, you let them make up their own mind and they go, Well, I don't really like needles, and you look a bit tired. And this place is a bit dirty. So I think I just have a sticky plaster. And like a sticky plaster will just show slow the blood down. But if they'll walk back out to the street, and I still bleed to death, albeit slowly, while they may have an allergy to sticky plaster, they just go General, I don't want your help at all, actually, and they walk out and bleed to death quicker, right. So this is where service providers like need to see themselves as ER doctors and they've got patients coming in with bleeding necks. And so it's a matter of like, you know, if the Platinum, you know, 96k program products that you're selling now is the thing which is going to stitch that bleeding neck up. You have to be the ER doctor and get them on that table and stitch it up. And it's as simple as that. And the moment you allow them to sort of self select, inevitably they're going to they're going to move towards the cheapest even if that's the wrong option for them.
Alyson Lex
Yes, I mean, we Jenny and I call that prescriptive marketing, which is the same idea. But you again, put the reasoning behind it. And I'm really going to have to remember where I learned all this so that when I tell people about it in the future, I can give you the
Jennie Wright
credit, because I want to change that prescriptive marketing to sticky plaster marketing,
Alyson Lex
sticky plaster marketing as someone on this side of the pond is the best phrase, because we call it a bandaid. And I love sticky plaster better. I'm teaching my kid that. Okay. So let's pretend that everyone listening is already doing a lot of this outcome based stuff. Maybe they already have the small, medium, large and an espresso version. But they're still not charging enough. So how do they raise their prices? Without just, you know, arbitrarily doing it for the sake of it?
Robin Waite
Okay, well, I can give you another example. And so Alyson, you've done a very good job so far, like playing my game today. So Jennie, this is your go to get your turn to play now. Okay. So essentially, again, it's there's a little bit of psychology involved in this because obviously a great deal of like, money mindset issues, their deep seeded from our childhood. And we can maybe that's something we could talk about a bit later on as well. But for the sake of this experiment, and what we're going to go through a journey now. I'm going to go through and just do a practical exercise where we walk through and we we figure out what price point we should be charging. So Jenny, if there's a product, which you've got, which at the moment, so imagine you productize something, and you're selling it for a price point at the moment. So if you're if you're happy to share, what is it and how much is it?
Jennie Wright
I do a completely concierge online Summit. So includes the coffee, the speaker management, the graphics, all that kind of stuff. And the price tag is just under 8000. Okay, that feels a little on the cheap side. Right.
Robin Waite
Good. So you agreed with me? I was just checking. So that's why you some of this money mindset right there. Yeah. Yeah. So but well, we can tap into that bit later, we can go into the why later. But for now, we're going to explore is there is there a world not necessarily today, maybe tomorrow, but maybe in about 12 or 18 months time where you could be selling that for 25k?
Jennie Wright
Yes. If I can build up the clientele that would pay that price point, right now the attraction I have the people that come to me, the price tag that I mentioned is is a little bit of a gut check for them. That's a, it's not a no brainer, they've got to think about it. So that's the people that are currently in my sphere, to get it to 25 would mean some really heavy duty marketing, and some really interesting niching to get to that next level.
Robin Waite
Oh, is Am I allowed to use the word here? I hear a couple of excuses coming out there. Because I think that you're more than capable of delivering, you know, a 25k product. But okay, as a bit harsh, it's bit hard.
Jennie Wright
No, I'm all for it. Tell me more.
Robin Waite
But bear with me here. So what I'm trying to do is show you because a lot of people when they think about pricing, they see it as binary, okay, they see it as being it's either too cheap or too expensive. It's a yes or no, I'm in right now. Okay. That's how most people see pricing. They see money as either a positive thing or a negative thing. It's the thing that can help people it's grotesque and disgusting. Okay. But what I'm trying to establish with you is that it's not mine, when it comes to pricing product is not binary. It's not in route. There's a bandwidth. Okay? So what I've just done with you, as I've created a bandwidth is your current price is the starting point is 8k. And at the top end, we're looking at 25k. And you didn't actually dismiss that outright. So I think we could push that but way down the line further down the line, okay. But for today's say, 8k, probably not enough. 25k probably too, too much. But there's somewhere in the middle, which we're going to explore now. And we're going to work out what is just inside your comfort zone, what is just outside your comfort zone, and it's somewhere in between those two numbers case. So, for the sake of the order audio podcast, this isn't gonna work terribly well, but I can explain what happened afterwards. But I don't need you to say anything necessarily. And I think Allison's gonna like can see Allison's like that I'm so eager to see what's going on here.
Alyson Lex
I am all in for this. Yes.
Robin Waite
So Jennie Wright. I need to just focus on me for a second you don't need to say anything. I'm what I'm going to do is do a little auction with you. I'm going to work up in terms of the numbers. I'm going to know when we've just gone around about just outside your comfort zone. Okay, so 8k 10k 12k 15k Eight, there we go. So 15 to 18k. Now everybody has so 15k was just inside your comfort zone 18k was just outside it. Everybody has a poker face and a tell especially when it comes to money, hence poker. It's a sport based around winning and losing money, right. So your tell you went off into Dreamland and you just had a bit of a little bit of a shift in your body length. Little bit tense so I saw your arms close in a bit so and that that's it's as simple as that. Now, here's the crux, this is where you have to go, okay? Are you? So would you agree with me 15
Jennie Wright
I know you, you've bang on bang on, you've got it perfect, you've picked up on it.
Robin Waite
Good. So So here's the next step of how we then start to shift into increasing the prices. And the reason we choose that point is just just around about inside of just outside your confidence. Now I'd probably with you, I think I'd go just inside your level of confidence, because to go from eight to 15 is a big jump in its own right. But the next 10 People who want to buy a summit from you, and there's probably tons of people listening to this thinking, Damn, I should have bought it yesterday. Now, the next 10 people who buy your Summit, you're going to pitch your summit package, you're going to pitch it at 15k. You're not going to change anything else. At this point. If you feel you want to add a bit of extra value into the product. But the thing is, you could probably have a few less people saying yes. And now you've got more money coming in, but more time to deliver a better quality product which produces better results, outcomes for them, produces more money on the back end, gives you more time to work with slightly fewer clients, better clients. And I can guarantee the clients you'll get at that price point we'll be far more committed to the program and making it a success. Now I've done this with 250 business owners through fearless business, okay, so I go and it's a painful process, there's a lot of fear kind of starts to creep in fear of rejection, fear of not finishing what we start to fear of letting people down, especially if they didn't say yes to it yesterday, we feel like we're doing them a disservice. There's all these fears you're going to be fighting against. But I can I'm pretty certain I mean, what was your conversion rate on 8k?
Jennie Wright
Probably about 65 to 75%. Really high.
Robin Waite
That's, that's really good. So I don't think your conversion rate will drop that much. But you could you could actually have your conversion rate and still make the same money. Personally, I don't think that'll happen. I think you'll probably see your conversion rate drop maybe five or 10%. Because I think you're delivering remarkable value for what you do. So you're close at the 10, three, four, maybe even five people at 15k. I'm,
Jennie Wright
this doesn't happen often, but I'm speechless. This is that's phenomenal. That's a really interesting way to look at it. But it's also incredibly. It there's a lot of Telltales in there about what could be done. Allison's definitely on the Jenny raise your prices camp she has been for years.
Alyson Lex
So yeah, I kind of wish that the video was recording all three of us when you were talking because I was over here having visceral, physical and oversized reaction. Oh, yeah, you threw yourself back in your chair. You I was like over I was wooing my husband's probably wondering what kind of podcasts we're recording. I am all for this. And I love the how simple again, how simple you made it. That was so much fun.
Jennie Wright
Yeah, it's simple. It's simple. But then, you know, Robin, you have to know that after you've had those exercises, and they're wonderful exercises. But you have to know that after you've done it with a client, that the person is going to walk away and go, yeah, that sounded really good. And Robin said it. But now I'm completely and utterly afraid. So how do you deal with that? Because you've helped, like you gave Jennie a new price. That's awesome. I'm so sorry for anybody gets on the phone with me, like a phone call with me now. Should about one it was lower. But now like how? How are you going to deal with the fact that your clients now saying, Okay, sounds all well and good, but I'm not feeling comfortable about it anymore? How do you overcome those objections? In the sort of the light of day? Well,
Robin Waite
I mean, you can, you can spend the next 12 months been worried about putting your prices up, or you can put them up today, pitch 10 people over the next four to six weeks and find out for sure whether Robins right or wrong or not.
Jennie Wright
Okay, so Robin, let's look at so we're going to apply Robin's method, just FYI, if you're listening to this podcast, I will employ Robins method. But if if the conversions stay the same, or slightly lower, but there's closings, then we've proven that people that the thresholds there people will like go for that threshold. But what do you do if, as a coach, what do you do if you know people are not responding to that price point? Are you going to say okay, maybe we're a little high, we're going to bring it down a little bit. Like what is it that what's the next step?
Robin Waite
Yeah, I mean, this is where you've got it. We have I don't know if you have the same saying but you know, you're waiting for a bus then for hours and then all of a sudden, like none come on Friday and then to come along at the same time. Okay, so it's a bit like that. So out of those 10 clients, you might find that it's the first 678 that say no, and it will be the last two who say yes, so you just have to like stack state standard ground and go out and gather the data. I've never had it that somebody pitch 10 people or not got one never never happened. Okay. And actually with with clients, I have a bet with them because I only take on clients if I believe in their service like that they're selling As an I would use it, you know if I need it. So I have a bet with them, I say if you get if you get pitched 10 people and they will come back and say no, I'll buy it at the new price point. So at least you've got one customer off the back of it. So but they've obviously we there's other steps which we go through in our process. So one of the first one of the first steps that we go through, because like I said, we've we've either massively differentiated your product or change that when your case, it's not far differentiated, that straightforward, but what we have done is increased your price. And so like you said, your level of confidence is going to shift. So we do a couple of things. So we do a sales roleplay with our clients. And that means so in a safe environment, where they're not under pressure, because they're in front of a client or prospective client, I would become Jenny or Allison, and you would become a slightly tricky client. And I would show you how to kind of pace that conversation, how to slow the process down and have to gather yourself when it comes to the pitch, especially when the first time you say that $15,000 price point. Like you need to say that in the mirror to yourself, like 100 200 times over the next 24 hours. Like it's yeah, just to
Jennie Wright
get used to being able to say the price is. Yeah,
Robin Waite
yeah. So how I would say it. So the package I'd recommend for you is my summit packet, my Platinum summit package. And the investment for that is just 15k. And that's it, you say that 200 times you'll have no problem saying that during the pitch, but also then handling the objection. So we do in a safe environment. And then it's like, right, you know, business person, hand grenade, we pull out the pin, throw them in, and then they go and practice on clients. But the other thing as well as record your sales conversations, okay, so the reason for that is, well, one, it's useful for your clients, because they can get to take notes from the recordings if you pass them on to them. The second thing is when you're, and you shouldn't be focused on the client in the moment, like down the barrel of the lens, speaking to them, telling them about your products and service, you're quite, you're probably quite focused on, there's a lot of what we call internal external value system going on here. So you're that like, it's very much like it's two way traffic, but it's linear. It's like 1% of a degree of vision. And there's 359 degrees of other stuff going on around you that you'll probably be unaware of in that moment. So it could be a bit like what I did with you with the body language side of things, it could be picking up on some body language cues, that you go back and watch the video. And then when you give somebody the price, you see their eyes roll, or they take a deep big deep breath in or something you may not notice that when you first start out, you'll start to notice those things more already, just because I've said it. And there may be times it might be minutes six into the conversation, they give you an objection around, I've just had to go and buy a new car or the clutch has dropped on the car, I've had to buy a new washing machine or something I don't know. So they'll make some kind of an excuse, which is I've just spent some money. So they're already pre warning you that I don't want to spend it, I'm worried about spending it with you. But because you're in the zone, during that having that conversation, you'll have missed that price objection that happened a minute six. So watching the video back just kind of arms, you it just shows you other aspects of the conversation you would have missed. And so it's a good habit to get into, I wouldn't watch them all back, you're just doubling up on your time for sales, but get like watch a few and just pick up a few cues. Because those are actually like vital in the sales process, especially like picking up on your own cues, your own body language, because your lack of confidence will show up in that video. And you probably won't be aware of it initially. But it will show up on a call recording.
Alyson Lex
Wow. I totally agree. I remember when I decided that I was going to raise my price for a sales page. The first time and this was way back in the day, I think I was charging like $500 for a sales page, which is stupid cheap. And I cannot believe I was charging that little. And then I decided I was going to raise it to 1000. So this was the first time I'd ever had a product but the comma and the price. And the first time that I had to say the price, I think I probably like got a little sick and you know, to my stomach and was just kind of like, isn't it? Right like it just but now like, yeah, no problem. Yeah, it's gonna be $1,000. But sometimes
Robin Waite
it's just about finding the right moment. So I we had how this came about how I got into doing what I'm doing. So I used to run a marketing agency and we used to do web design and branding. So I did that for 12 years before I started coaching in 2016. And we used to do this. So first of all, we did like the hourly rate stuff, okay. So and like we can get into hourly rates, if needs be, but we're doing the hourly rate thing we I call it design agency ping pong when you when somebody sends you a request for a quote, you send them price back eventually they agree or haggle with it and whatever and three months later eventually produce this logo, right? And it's convoluted long, we've got annoyed by our clients, we're slightly frustrated by whatever so I was like, Wouldn't it be cool if you could like design a logo in a day? Okay, so this when we call it art is our signature products. I'm a one day branding workshop. So we worked out the seven steps we took each and every client through, we knew what assets they wanted at the end of it, you know, the deliverables in terms of the style guide and the logo and stuff like that few printed things. But we smashed that out in a day. And I remember I done hadn't done that many of them probably done about 10 or 12 of these workshops, great, really successful clients loved them, because they were part of the process. They came down. It's collaborative, in terms of working with them, but one day, one of my mentors actually phoned me up and said, Robin, I love your one day branding workshop, I've got a client who this be grateful. Could you deliver it tomorrow? And I was like, well, maybe where is it? And I live down in the southwest of England, right? And this thing was up in the workshop was going to be up in the northeast of England and York sort of 300 miles away. Okay, which probably nothing in American and Canadian terms, but that's like pretty much the length of England. Okay. Yeah, that's
Jennie Wright
the length of Yeah, that's the length of the country that he got.
Robin Waite
So, so I am. So I, I was just like, not really sure. And I was like, Well, how many people is going to be in it and we set a limit only three decision makers, they were going to put 23 people in the room for this workshop. So we had like 10 times the number of people and 300 miles away, I had to drive up tonight to book a graphic designer. And so I said, Wow, I'm really not sure about this, I don't really want to go that far. And he said, but put a price on it. Like come on, everybody's got their price. And up until this point, we charged 1500 for it. Plus, we charge a little premium if they put an extra people into the room. So 1500 pounds sterling. And this is before I know what I know now about pricing. So I said, Come on them, what's your price, and I just do it. So I just went 18,000 Thinking that they've just say no than that. And he just said, Yep, money was in my account that night, I drove up to you to live that kind of happy left early job done. And that totally transformed the way that I look to it. Because this is the biggest mistake people make when it comes to pricing. Up until that point, 1500 pounds as the Valley, which I put on this products. Now all of a sudden, somebody else's like external internal value systems here, somebody else has just put a price tag on that of 18,000 pounds. And that was that just transformed that bandwidth. And we we didn't do any of that that sort of the 18 came up again. But we did dramatically increase the price of just doing it for the sort of when there were three people in the room. And you know, we never had 23 people in the room again. But yeah, any anybody can do this. But it's actually much easier. If you've got if you're totally detached from that client saying yes or no, I didn't care if they said no, great. I don't have to go to your they said yes, great. I'm getting 18k. But I was so detached from the outcome. It's just like, here's the price, take it or leave it. And I so I think well, my advice here is when you're going through this process of pitching to the next 10. If you're in a situation where there's no Jeopardy and it doesn't matter, you've got nothing to lose, just pitch it as a new price. And and actually what happens then at that point, if you're that detached from the outcome, you're going to be nice and calm, relaxed, happy, confident. Do you think they're more or less likely to say yes, at that point?
Jennie Wright
Oh, yeah, they're totally more likely. I actually have a really funny story. Not funny, but kind of a weird story. Years ago, I was charging, I was taught for the summit, because I was doing summits, I've been doing summits for about nine years, my first summit that I did, I was told to figure out how many hours it took me to produce and then charge by my hourly rate. So at the time, my hourly rate was about, you know, 45 or 55 bucks an hour, it was taking me anywhere between 40 and 50 hours to do these kinds of things. Right. So quick people with math, you can figure that out. And it wasn't enough, obviously, it was very low balled. However, I was struggling that time of the year I was struggling, I ended up with an eviction notice on my dark side been able to pay my rent in two months. And I knew I had to get clients. So I actually detached myself from the outcome, even though it was like I need food in the fridge. I need my lights on everything. But you know, and I could get evicted in the next like 30 days. I detach myself from the outcome and just started pitching people. Allison remembers this because, you know, it was around the time when she knew me actually, before we even work together. We were just friends and I posted on social media. I'm like, Hey, I've got like two weeks of downtime. I'm going to do calls on an open on my calendar completely. Anybody wants to have a chat about summits and blah, blah, I ended up with 34 calls, I think, yep, out of the 34 calls, I think I ended up closing something, you know, in the range of about eight clients right away at a price point that I wasn't married to. So higher price point. So I was like, I gotta pay my background, I got to do this, this, this, that and the other thing. And then out of those 34 I think I closed another, you know, seven or eight later on down the road, just because they're just for staying in touch. There is a huge opportunity to detach yourself from the pricing. And also and I want your comment on this on what your your feelings about this whole. It takes me 50 hours to produce my hourly rate is $50 an hour. I'd love your sort of input on that sort of pricing structure and why we should not do this.
Robin Waite
Well Yeah, I mean, that's this, I love talking about this. So that that 50 bucks an hour at 50 hours, okay, you charged that because that's where your skill level was at that time. And you knew that that's how long it would take to deliver. Okay. But imagine if there was a slightly less skilled version of you, you know, maybe who hasn't been doing it for as long less experience and things like that. Like, is it going to take them more or less time do you think to produce that same end result of work? So all of a sudden, now you know, what took you 50 hours might have taken somebody else 100 hours if that if that if you're both versions of you are charging 50 bucks an hour, they're getting paid double for doing potentially a worse job because they're less experienced. So immediately, you can see that the whole hourly rate thing just doesn't work. But Pete, people's challenge, the reason why it's easy to sell something at 50 bucks an hour is because 50 bucks or 50 bucks is a small number. Like we we we transact in 50 bucks, like every day of the week, go and have a meal, you go and buy, I don't know cheap pair of shoes, you go and buy a pair of attire for the car. Like it's everything's 50 bucks, right? You go and buy something nice for the dog or the cat. It's 50 bucks, right? So we transact in 50 bucks all the time. It's it people are desensitized to it. The reason people struggled to all of a sudden like, so if you were to do the math on it 50 times 52 and a half k, think if I've done that, right, okay? So, but you may be it's the same value, the same number, but people are afraid of saying two and a half k because it's a big number. And what that comes down, because we're not used to transacting in big numbers. Whenever we transact in big numbers, all of a sudden, it's a tree, it's not just the tire on a car, it's the car itself. It's not just the dog, you know, something for the dog, it's the dog. It's not just you know, so it's, it's like a big deal. And so we're not comfortable saying those big numbers, we're not comfortable hearing those big numbers. So when you when you do go down the productization route, you've got to get comfortable saying the big number, but you've also got to be able to articulate your value around that. Okay. So what we've inadvertently done is we've priced you from two and a half k now, up to Walter 8k Up to now 15k, which we did earlier on, product better prices higher, okay, because you've been doing this for longer, more experienced, you've got better results, okay, so it's worth 15k. But you've got to articulate your learn to articulate your value around that. So this is where you then start to get into things like guarantees, okay. And also reducing friction and sales process, which means that can maybe have, everybody hasn't got 15k shoved down the back of the sofa, but they could pay an installment plan, for example. So they see the value in 15k, we're not going to devalue this, but you get to pay it off over a number of weeks, months, you know, whatever you feel comfortable with. But you also need to introduce some kind of a guarantee within that. Okay, and this again, trips a lot of people up. So I'm gonna, I'm going to stick with you, Jenny for a little little while with this one. Seems that we did the big number first. And Alison, we can come back to your espresso machine as well actually can work both of you on this. So imagine, imagine saying to a client, right hates 15k for your summit packages, 96k for your platinum espresso machine, okay. And the client comes back and says all is expensive. Okay, the first thing it says, Well, yeah. Yes. What do you what do you make? So I just say, Well, what do you mean, and then they've got to come up with something different. And this is where you get to grips with understanding what their version of value is versus your version of value. So they might say something like, oh, well, it's a lot compared to the competition app. It's apples and pears, two different products. So you can start to get into the realms of sales objections. And then they say, Well, why you say, well, one of the things we do is when we launch your Summit, if we don't create X number of leads, or Y amount of traction for you, or grow, your list buys that amount, we'll have a conversation with grownups. We offer 100% money back guarantee on one of those outcomes.
Robin Waite
Now, I know that this is where the D word creeps into this, right? And it's a swear word in fearless business, it depends, okay? So this is where you've got to be 100% confidence in your ability to deliver. That means also having having a high price point get better quality clients, but also when people aren't coming on board, it means it's because that it depends, we leave that it depends at the door. Okay, because normally it's down to the client doing the work. So this is where you've got to make sure that you're assessing and qualifying prospective clients when they come through the door to make sure they're a good fit, and you're going to get the best result for them. Otherwise, it's unethical to take their money, right? So then you can start to be much more confident and bullish around the the guarantees which you offer. So there's that there's 100% money back guarantee. Okay? And we do that without it being a gimmick, we do it because genuinely that's that's what we're going to deliver. Okay. That's one type of guarantee. The second type of guarantee is a perceived value guarantee. Okay, so this is where we say Well, listen, you're two out of 10 around like your summit at the moment. What would a good result be and they may something say something like Well, 10 out of 10 would be ideal. But if we could get to a seven and eight or a nine out of 10, that's we've smashed it, we've done really well. And so you get to the end of the summit, the launch that and the follow up and all that side of things. And maybe we didn't get 1000 leads, but we got 897. But they close the load of them, and they're super happy. So actually, they never cashed in the guarantee, because their perceived value as they got it, they received perceived value. It wasn't cast line against numbers. And then the final guarantee is what we call a ratchet guarantee. So this is just like if we essentially if we fall short of our expectations, and this is you have to be very calculated around this, you just say, well, listen, if we ended up as a five out of 10, we'll just ratchet back and pay half back to see so it might not be a full refund, but you could do some form of refunds. Now, what I found is when people start talking about refunds with their clients, now all of a sudden, because clients taken a big risk, because they're investing in use as far as they're concerned. But now we're shouldering some of that risk. And we're partnering up with them. Now we've got skin in the game. And what happens is, so, in fact, I've I've seen somebody delivering something similar to you actually Jenny and the summit side of things. They ran one Summit, it didn't go quite to plan. They had the perceived value guarantee in place. And actually what they did when they had the conference, the awkward conversation at the end of it. My client said, Well, don't worry, we'll just we're rerun another summit for you in three months time, but it's on us. They built the assets. And all the systems and processes were in place. It was like a 10th of the time to redeliver the next summit. So there was no extra but to the client. They're like, wow, it's like double. We're getting two for one.
Jennie Wright
Yeah. Are you there? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Alyson Lex
It's funny that you mentioned that, because that's actually what I do in my business already is I say, you know, here's your copy. Now I want you to go implement it, or it's implemented, and run it for six months, and then come back. Yeah. And if you're not happy with the results, I'll do up to a full rewrite based on your data. And I think I've had one person take me up on that ever.
Robin Waite
No, yeah, because we're good, moral, upstanding human beings who are experts, we're good at what we do, right? You're all good at what you do. So you're going to do the best job that you possibly can do. It's only the sharks who get found out the people who shouldn't be in business in the first first instance, who are going to get found out by something like this. And that's the point where you just have to look at yourself, take a look at yourself in the mirror and go this, there's something going wrong here. And it's my responsibility. But for 99% of business owners out there who are just trying to do the right thing and grow great businesses and help their clients grow great businesses, you're never going to have to pay out a guarantee. Never.
Alyson Lex
Robin, I could sit here Robin, I could sit here all day, and listen to you talk and have these conversations. I am having so much fun. But I can't do that. So where can we find out more about you? How can our people get in touch with you? Where can I get in touch with you when I've got more stuff that I want to collaborate on all that good stuff.
Robin Waite
So the best bet I've got a little gift for all of all of your listeners. And you've both got a copy of this, if it hasn't arrived already, it's in the post a copy of the blue book over my shoulder there, take your shots. And it's available as a free download it and fearless dot biz forward slash t y s, there's a couple of other sort of fun, sort of resources on fearless dot biz as well. So we have like a daily Marketing Checklist. There's a quick intro guide to like the pricing framework that I talked talk about as well. So if you wanted a quick two page cheat sheet, it's, it's all up there as well. And then also, there's a we've got quite an extensive blog as well, it's on my other website, which is Robin Waite says weight with an E on the end of it.com. There's a blog in there with loads of content around sort of advice for small business owners as well.
Jennie Wright
And we'll put all of this up on our show notes. So nobody worry about that. All those links are going to be available in the show notes for you guys to get at system to thrive.com. We could keep going but we're going to have to wrap it up. We're probably just going to have to have Robin back. Let's just put that out there. Because this has been amazing. But how can people find out more about you? How can we get a call like this with you like you? The stuff that you did with Alyson and I was amazing. I can imagine that an hour with you is incredibly valuable or coaching with you is incredibly valuable. How do people get in front of you and start doing this?
Robin Waite
Yeah, absolutely. So I do like a short very short like pricing diagnostic call where that bit of coaching which you received, we can cover that off fairly quickly and start to uncover you know what the strategy is going to be moving forward. But that's it feel a stop is for slash app. So that's a double P app and it's just it's normally about a 20 or 30 minute call and we just dig tap into like, what's going on pricing and money mindset wise in your world and then start to break it down. Beyond that, you've then got to go into kind of the sort of More ongoing coaching mentorship, because, for example, okay, here's, here's something, this is just a bonus tip it just at the end for everybody, most people put their prices at once a year, maybe once every two years, they only do it by about 10%. If that, we actually encourage our clients to be more aggressive than that with their prices, so put them up eat as much as every four to six weeks at the start. So you're testing and validating very, very fast. So getting people to that point you can have it happens very quickly. There's a lot of coaching involved in that to get there,
Jennie Wright
I would imagine there would have to be a ton of coaching in there, because I could see that every four to six weeks. There's panic attacks that are happening. But I get it, I get it. All right. So we're gonna put everything up on the website, we have to wrap this up, we're going to do a quick takeaway, this is going to be rapid fire takeaways. I'm going to start. So I love the espresso machine, having that signature product on the shelf that people can buy if that big, beautiful thing is that, you know, Allison, sort of the $95,000 thing. Hopefully somebody will grab that. But I like that so much.
Alyson Lex
You know, I have to talk about sticky plaster, they're always going to choose the bandaid and they'll still leave with the problem. You have to be prescriptive in what you offer. I'm actually going to keep going. I really was shocked when you drop the word Jennie, the idea that maybe you don't have the right following for your new price is just a capital E excuse. And I am shook. I love it. I'm here for it.
Jennie Wright
I love that too. Although I love being called that like call me out all day long. I'm good with it. I love it when people do I love it when people push me and tell me you know what? You're just you're just putting out stupid barriers. And then I go yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm being an idiot. But I love the cursing, the sorry, the cursing, oh my god, the current pricing value, right? So the pricing value that you put on the value? Like what's the what's the pricing value that your clients putting on it, just like when Robin said, I don't want to go to the north of England. But if I have to it's going to be 18,000. And there was no pushback, it was an immediate? Yes. I think that's a great turning point. I think people need to recognize that as well. So that's really, really good. Those are our four takeaways. Robin, thank you so much for doing this with us. We have loved every second of this. We really appreciate all your time and your generosity and putting us on the spot and using us as guinea pigs because I think we have lots to think about now.
Robin Waite
Well, I am grateful that You allowed me to give you a bit of coaching there as well and be guinea pigs because that made it so much easier. Imagine if you said no, that would cut the podcast short a bit, wouldn't
Jennie Wright
it? Yeah, we're going to put a little bit uncomfortable. Perhaps Yes, but you didn't. And we didn't because we're all for it. Allison and I have had our website torn apart live on the podcast. We've had other people tear other pieces of our business apart. We love it, bring it bring it like tear us down. Let us build ourselves back up. We love it. So alright, make sure you check out this website sorry, this website way which I am all flustered. Make sure you check out this podcast on the website at system to thrive.com Check out the show notes for everything that Robin has to offer. He has so much there for you. And also make sure that you are following this podcast because if you want to get more incredible interviews, just like the one we just did with Robin, you're gonna want to check them out. Thanks so much for being here, Robin. Thanks to Alyson my co host and we'll be back again soon answering another big question.