The Pricing Pickle
If you’re an intrapreneur, you join a business. If you’re an entrepreneur, you create a business. If you’re a solopreneur, you are a business.
Pricing your products and services is challenging in all three situations, but I think it’s uniquely difficult for the solo business owner. You’re contending with all the variables and considerations that intra-and-entrepreneurs have to contemplate, with the additional complication of all your personal anxieties and insecurities piled on top, combined with a gigantic and unavoidable dose of utterly lacking an objective perspective.
Quite a pickle.
Pricing your own stuff as a solo pro can be a real challenge.
(Minor point: I don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, but money is completely made up, and everything about it is waaay more flexible and variable and intangible than we are taught as adolescents…)
Price is particularly weird because it does (at least) three things, completely independently of each other.
Price communicates things; price pays for things; and price buys things.
The things it’s communicating, paying for, and buying, can all have utterly and completely different values, but they all have to be encapsulated into a single price, which makes landing on a final number incredibly stressful.
Well… that’s not quite true… companies like Kathmandu have realised they can use two different values for price by saying “this jacket usually costs $800, but today you can buy it for $400”. This is an effort to communicate the quality of one price and the cost of another price. Even when, as a customer, we know no-one ever pays $800 for the jacket, it’s fairly effective.
Price is one of the most effective levers we have to pull to affect how people think about us and our offerings, how they value and commit to our programs, and—of course—how much profit we can make out of our work. Getting good at pricing yourself effectively is a critical skill to succeed as a solo pro.
If you want some guidance pricing your programs, come along to next week’s webinar. We’re going to explore all the myriad effects price can have, and experiment with how adjusting your prices could positively improve your business.
Sound good? You can register here.
On Friday December the 8th, a group of intrepid solo pros will be gathering in Melbourne for a value-packed day focused on growing your business.
It will be a combination of provocative new ideas to stretch your thinking, practical strategies to improve your business, and a wonderful opportunity to connect with and learn from a variety of others running a solo pro business just like yours.
If you love running a solopreneurial business but the loneliness is getting to you, come on down.
If the idea of working a thousand hours a year (or less) for an average of $500 an hour (or more) appeals to you, come on down.
If you want to make money meaningfully and freedomfully, come on down.
You can register here.