Raising Prices is Not Just About Making More Money
No, contrary to what some might think, raising prices is not just about making more money. For small and medium-sized business owners, better pricing allows for reinvestment in the business which benefits employees and clients.
The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.
TRANSCRIPT
John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello. I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. Raising prices is not just about making more money. Occasionally, I run into people who, in a bad attempt at humor, tell me that I’m contributing to the inflation problem because of my encouragement to professional services firm owners to tend to their pricing. I also get a few who, in a backhanded way, accused me of giving license to business owners to be “greedy”. That’s a big load of buffalo bagels, folks, and that’s as kind as I can be about it.
John Ray: [00:00:36] What the uninformed don’t realize, or sometimes they don’t choose to understand, is that arguably the biggest challenge small business owners face, and particularly professional services providers who are pricing what’s between their ears, is adequately pricing their product or service. Because of this struggle, the entire business suffers. Because of inadequate pricing, employees don’t get the raises they should receive leading to unnecessary turnover.
John Ray: [00:01:09] The business itself doesn’t get the cash flow needed for reinvestment to improve customer experience or add client benefits. There’s not enough financial flexibility to allow the business owner to work on the business instead of in it. Maybe, most important, the business owner suffers personally. They experience a high stress level, which, untended, leads to burnout, problems at home, and worse.
John Ray: [00:01:38] Small business owners are not like a corporate behemoth squeezing out every little penny possible, such as the one with a website in which you’ll go check out an item, come back a few minutes later to buy, and you’ll find the price has gone up a few dollars because your online behavior that they’re tracking surreptitiously predicts that you’re ready to buy.
John Ray: [00:01:59] I talked to one of my clients recently about this subject. He said something that I love, that one of the benefits of better pricing is that you fall in love with the business all over again. I just love that. He went on to talk about how the stress of business ownership gets lowered. You create a better life and you get time back. We talked about how time is a vanishing asset which can never be replaced.
John Ray: [00:02:28] In reflecting on our conversation later, I also thought about giving back. Small business owners overall are extraordinarily generous. They come at life wanting to help people and solve their problems. This characteristic extends over to their community involvement. They love being able to give back. Many owners I know put funding a cause important to them high on the list of reasons for leaving corporate to start their own business.
John Ray: [00:02:58] Sure, there are some bad actors among small business owners, but I find they’re the exception. The preponderance of small business owners I know, if anything, are too selfless. And that’s one reason I’m passionate about pricing.
John Ray: [00:03:15] I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of the series can be found at pricevaluejourney.com. And if you’d like to send me a note, you can email me, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.
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, 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 1,500 podcast episodes.
