How to put your prices DOWN

 “You need to get to the shop quick, they are offering 3 bottles of Prosecco for the price of one!”. Which is what I heard as I stepped off the bus, watching a stampede of students going on a Prosecco frenzy to the corner shop.

Everyone loves a bargain, but you have to be careful using discounts, because you don’t want to erode the perceived value of what you’re selling.

There are no stupid questions when it comes to pricing, even  “How do you put your prices DOWN?”

In June I was giving a talk to a room of financial professionals about pricing. When we got to the question & answers section, one guy asked exactly that: “how do you put your prices down?”.

Now, given that this was a room containing 99% men, and those audiences like to ask tricky questions for the sheer hell of it, he got a lot of confused stares from the rest of the audience, and I told him that I wouldn’t put my prices down, but would create a different product for new customers. I asked him why he wanted to put his prices down, and he just shrugged. And I didn’t think of it again.

Right now, I’m thinking I might owe him an apology, because actually communicating a price decrease can be just as tricky as telling clients your prices have gone up – especially if they are customers who have been buying from you at the higher price point.

I know this, because earlier this week I lowered the price of my PsychoPricing digital course for many reasons, including:

• I want to grow my customer base for digital products
• I want to help small business owners who want to educate themselves
• By keeping the price low, I can test more easily what the best sales strategy is, and it gives me more scope to experiment with the price model
• I can always put the price up next week (very likely).

Ultimately, your biggest cost is the process of acquiring a new customer. And after that, it’s all about keeping those customers happy.

I feel that treating your customers fairly is the cornerstone when putting your prices up or down! So for existing students (who had paid a higher price), I moved them on to a higher package, which includes personal consultancy with me. Time consuming? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.

Because by offering something of incredibly high value for a relatively low cost, I’m relying on existing clients to do the marketing for me. Word-of-mouth still beats any other marketing. Just ask a stampede of students.

And if you need help with pricing, get in touch.