Today’s video is a couple of tips to help build your ‘pricing confidence’ and make sure you’re getting paid what your advice is worth. You deserve it.
If you prefer to read it… see below.
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Pricing…have you got it nailed?
If you’re like most Advisers, the answer’s no.
So, I know so many Advisers at the moment that keep saying to me, “Kim. Kim, Kim, I’m not getting paid properly.”
Or this is a really nice problem to have, “I’m getting so many clients, I can’t keep up.”
So, both cases, albeit both problems, are pricing issues and both can be solved by having a look at your pricing.
And if you haven’t reviewed your pricing in the last 12 months, then this might just be the chance to do it.
You deserve it, right?
You’re running a business.
So a couple of things that’s really important that you do when it comes to being more confident and raising your prices.
You’ve got to know what it costs you to deliver the advice.
Now, yes, it might mean doing an activity-based costing exercise or a cost to serve.
Some of you have probably done that many times.
If you haven’t done it in the last year, maybe it’s time to do it again, and if you’ve never done it, definitely time to do it.
How can you possibly put a price on something when you don’t even know what it costs you to deliver it?
So that’s the first thing.
Second thing is to really raise your pricing confidence is to bring pricing or the cost of your advice as early as you can into not only the conversation, but the process.
So, I know Advisers who actually put it on their website.
I get that you can’t always put an actual price, because you need to get to know the client and what’s involved, especially if you do have quite a range of how you can look after and serve a client.
But at least giving them a ballpark so that the first time I don’t hear about it is at the end of the very first meeting with you.
You haven’t given me any time to really think about it and assess.
Because there are some clients that your price is going to be too much no matter what.
No matter what you say, no matter how much value they see they’re going to get, it’s going to be too much.
It’s out of the ballpark of what they’re ever going to even consider reasonable.
You don’t want them, okay?
You don’t want to speak to them.
You don’t want to waste their time or yours.
So at least by bringing that conversation earlier on, or at least giving me a guide, then it means that when we get to the time we have that conversation or you send it to me, if that’s the way you do it, it’s not so big a shock.
Here’s the other thing, when you tell someone the price or the ballpark, stop speaking.
Silence.
Yes, it’s a little bit uncomfortable, especially if I’m talking two, three, four seconds worth of silence.
You’ve just said the price, “so that’s going to be $3,000.”
Or, “It’s going to be in the ballpark of about four or $5,000.”
Don’t speak.
They need time to digest what you’ve just said.
Okay?
And when you jump back in, and often we jump in almost trying to justify, “oh and what you get is this and what you get is that and blah, blah, blah, and we’ve got different options for you to pay for it.”
They haven’t even had time to really take in and absorb what you’ve just said.
That silence allows them to do it.
It also gives you an air of confidence that, “hey, this is what it is.”
So there is no room for negotiation because of that level of confidence.
There’s a full stop at the end of what you’ve just said, not a question mark, which allows them to negotiate.
The silence says there is no negotiation.
And thirdly, where it does get a little bit uncomfortable, what happens is the clients then jump in and what they jump in with is any concerns, questions, objections, queries that they have, and that’s a good thing.
You want them to do that because it means they’re seriously thinking about it.
If it just brushes over and carries on, that’s not always a good thing.
Or it means you’re way too cheap and you need to do something about it.
So you’re giving great advice.
You’re changing people’s lives.
You deserve to get paid for it properly.
It’s got to be fair to the client, but it also has to be fair to you.
You’re running a business, you deserve it.
Get paid what the advice is worth because it will also mean the clients will take and get more value out of it at the same time.
Because YOU are a Valuable Adviser.