Whenever I price something, I notice the strong “pull” of the “default” pricing, that is applying the “industry standard price” and calling it a day. Even though I should know better (and I do, mostly) it still seems like a tempting option.
The problem is, that I don’t get to decide which industry my clients see me in. I do price mentoring globally. Sounds simple, until you try to find the corresponding industry standard.
Do I apply the standard price for business consulting? What kind? Or maybe coaching? Also, the standard price in Croatia, where I live but only have 10% of sales, is different from overseas. My 2 biggest markets are Australia and Canada, but together they are only 60% of my sales. See what I mean?
And this is not even taking into account that within any of those industries, the price differences between the bargain-bin tier, the average, and the high-ticket tier services can be astronomical.
My advice would be: form your own price, and only try to find the exact industry people expect you to conform to if you get the following cues:
– clients act genuinely confused by your pricing
– repeated successful sales to unexpected types of clients
– competitors starting to copy your pricing policies.
If any of those sound familiar to you, there may be a costly problem caused by how you present yourself. I’ll talk about the next steps in the next email on Sunday.