Ignore The Pricing Advice of Friends and Family
Friends and family may assist you in your professional services practice in a lot of ways, like referring clients, for example. Accept that help and be thankful, but ignore their pricing advice. They mean well, but what they tell you, if implemented, could be damaging to your business. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.
TRANSCRIPT
Hi,. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. If you want bad advice on pricing your services, go ask your friends and family. I’m deliberately overstating the case here, but not by much. One problem with friends and family is that they are well-meaning and they want you to succeed. And because they want you to succeed, they give you advice. And they may fall for that common misunderstanding that a lot of folks have that cutting your prices actually attracts buyers.
Now, price cutting may work sometimes for a can of green beans, let’s say, but you’re not a can of green beans. Discounting professional services transmits a signal of inferiority to potential buyers, leaving them scratching their heads and wondering what’s wrong. Now, in some cases, you might be giving the friends and family discount, in which case they don’t have any sense of value delivered relative to the price you charge. And it’s why I’m not a fan of friends and family discounts – at least. One reason.
Then, there are those so-called friends who are wallowing in their own business misery, they’re not charging enough for their own services and they don’t think anyone else can, either. And since they are struggling, they don’t want anyone else to get up out of the mud, either. These folks aren’t really your friends, but that’s another topic altogether.
If you want to get a better sense of how to price your services, ask someone who had no connection to you otherwise before they hired you, who has paid full price. Ask them what they’ve gained because of your intervention. Is it more time? Less stress? Then, ask them what their life now looks like with the time they gained and the stress they’ve unburdened. What’s all that worth to them? How are you pricing relative to that value you’ve delivered?
Further, if you dare ask someone who turned you down while they did so. You’ll be surprised to find, in a lot of cases, that they thought your price was too good to be true relative to the service offering you proposed.
Your friends and family may want you to succeed, but they won’t tell you all these things. So, ignore their pricing advice. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. If you want to connect with me directly, go to my website, JohnRay.co or send me an email, John@JohnRay.co.
About The Price and Value Journey
The title of this show describes the journey all professional services providers are on: building a services practice by seeking to convince the world of the value we offer, helping clients achieve the outcomes they desire, and trying to do all that at pricing which reflects the value we deliver.
If you feel like you’re working too hard for too little money in your solo or small firm practice, this show is for you. Even if you’re reasonably happy with your practice, you’ll hear ways to improve both your bottom line as well as the mindset you bring to your business.
The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.
John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey
John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.
John owns Ray Business Advisors, a business advisory practice. John’s services include advising solopreneur and small professional services firms on their pricing. John is passionate about the power of pricing for business owners, as changing pricing is the fastest way to change the profitability of a business. His clients are professionals who are selling their “grey matter,” such as attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, consultants, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.
In his other business, John is a Studio Owner, Producer, and Show Host with Business RadioX®, and works with business owners who want to do their own podcast. As a veteran B2B services provider, John’s special sauce is coaching B2B professionals to use a podcast to build relationships in a non-salesy way which translate into revenue.
John is the host of North Fulton Business Radio, Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Radio, Nashville Business Radio, Alpharetta Tech Talk, and Business Leaders Radio. house shows which feature a wide range of business leaders and companies. John has hosted and/or produced over 1,100 podcast episodes.
