pricing

The Psychology of Pricing

 in Guest Post  tagged Kim L. Price / price / pricing / proposal / psychology

Every coach who charges for their services has to decide upon a price. In today’s guest post Kim L. Price shares some of hir expertise and experience as she focuses on:

The Psychology of Pricing

By Kim L. Price
"The Psychology of Pricing' by Kim L. Clark

Have you ever wondered why whenever you buy something at the store, every store, the price is always something like $6.99 or $7,4.95 and never $7.00 or $75.00? Maybe you guessed it’s because of some psychological theory and if that’s what you thought, you were right. Pricing strategy is influenced by much more than the cost to produce the item or provide the service. Those who determine prices, whether self-employed Solopreneurs or corporate marketers, are advised to be attuned to the prevailing psychological inclinations of their prospective customers when considering how to price products and services.

There is a compelling reason that in every retail outlet, the prices nearly always end in .99, .98, or 95 and almost never end in .00. The reason for this unusual practice is based on the discipline called number psychology. Research in this area has persuasively shown that buyers—that is, your customers—do not like zeros. As a result, the vast majority of retail stores will not sell items for $100.00, they instead sell them for $99.95. Why? Because number psychology studies have shown that customers associate zeros with premium prices that they’d rather not pay.

At work here is an intriguing phenomenon known as the left digit effect. The effect causes our brains to (mis)interpret that $99.95 price tag as having a value closer to $99.00, instead of $100.00. Lindsay van Thoen, columnist for The Freelancer’s Union, says that our clients are like any other consumers and that when pricing contract proposals, Solopreneur consultants should keep the left digit effect in mind, follow the lead of retailers and banish zeros from our proposals, to make it easier for clients to agree to our prices.

When we are invited to submit a proposal, it is a good day. Here comes money! The last thing we want to do is to wind up in a wrestling match with a client who wants to nickel and dime us over the price. Unfortunately, clients sometimes feel that Solopreneurs inflate price quotes, even when an itemized accounting is provided. A figure that does not appear to be rounded-off, but rather seems to be specifically customized to the services requested, and contains few zeros, is said by number psychology experts to counteract the feeling that a project fee has been “rounded-up.” A price quote that contains whole numbers is more trust-inspiring and believable to certain clients.

In other words, avoid pricing a project at $5,000.00, because there are too many zeros involved. Number psychology research indicates that we’re better off pricing at $4,825.00 or even $5,175.00.

Pricing pundit Rafi Mohammed, founder and CEO of the consulting firm Pricing for Profit in Cambridge, MA, offers two more pieces of advice to keep in mind about pricing. First, our prices must reflect the value that clients place on the requested service and second, different clients place different value on given services. Other ways to make it more palatable for clients to accept our proposals are:

1) Ask the client to specify the project budget and work with him/her to provide services that you can afford to provide within that amount.

2) Provide three levels of service: good, better and best, so that clients can choose services according to their needs and budget and in a way that reflects the value placed.

A good pricing strategy is an important part of the marketing plan. It sets the stage for building a profitable enterprise. It is imperative to set prices that reflect the client’s value of what we sell and, equally important, to help clients agree that you and your prices are trustworthy.

Thanks for reading,

Kim

About Kim L. Clark

Kim L. Clark is an external strategy and marketing consultant who brings agile talent to the for-profit and not-for-profit organization leaders with whom she works. To learn how your organization can benefit when you work with Kim, please visit http://polishedprofessionalsboston.com.

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How much is your coaching worth?

 in Coaching  tagged business coach / business coaching / career coaching / coach / coaches / coaching / coaching content / coaching courses / coaching qualifications / coaching session / coaching skills / coaching techniques / executive coach / leadership coaching / life coach / life coaches / life coaching / performance coaching / pricing / resource / value

The TV was on in a room I was in the other day and it was showing a daytime TV programme which involved 3 interior designers and antique experts each buying a house gift for a specific family. Each expert had a different monetary amount to spend buying their gift.

The family can only choose one gift to keep, which they do before finding out who brought the gift and how much that expert had to spend. As part of the show we got to see the families discussion about which gift was worth what price tag.

It was interesting to see what they valued in line with their lifestyle, personal preferences, tastes and needs. The value that the family was finding in each gift and their guess at a price tag was not in line with the actually amount that it cost.

So how does this apply to coaching? One of the things I often see coaches doing, particularly those just starting out, is deciding upon their price purely by looking at how much they want to charge per hour.

I’ve attended trainings in the past which taught that the way to decide upon your price is to decide upon the monthly/annual income you want from coaching and then the number of coaching sessions you want to carry out in that time. Dividing the financial amount you want by the number of coaching sessions gives you a price to charge per coaching session.

While this can be a useful piece of information to give an indication about the practicalities about the number of hours you want to be coaching for etc. I have to be honest, it’s not my preferred method of pricing a package.

There is lots that can be said about pricing and I want to focus primarily today on what value your coaching is worth. However, as I have mentioned the exercise above I wanted to briefly add an extra point. Interestingly, on the trainings I’ve seen this done there was no mention of being aware of what outgoings that you have in connection with your coaching. If you are planning on running a profitable coaching practice this information is useful to know!

However, as the family on the tv demonstrated with their house gifts, the “value is in the eye of the beholder.”

I invite you to consider the value that your coaching brings to your ideal clients, both emotionally, financially and practically. As well as what it costs them emotionally, financially and practically if they don’t choose to work with you.