Tag: Raising Your Prices

Pricing Strategy: The Smart Way 🐂 (Dan Kennedy’s Price Strategy)

Posted on by brianjpombo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Brian talks about Dan Kennedy’s list of 9 ways people fail at pricing in business from his Price Strategy book.

Transcription

Pricing strategy, the smart way.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

Let’s talk about pricing strategy, shall we?

Because every business, if you’re selling stuff, you got to price things. If you’re pricing things it’s based on something.

Now there, I’m setting aside all the businesses that have very strict rules on how to price things. I understand if you’re in those industries, there are certain things it’s legal you’ve got to follow.

There are ways around, those are all the things that everyone is stuck in. But I’m not gonna get into the details, because that goes a little bit deeper. We’re not going to hit on that right now.

What I want to hit on is the general idea of pricing strategy, or my favorite books on this, and I’ll give you a review of it sometimes the no BS Price Strategy. This is by Dan Kennedy and Jason Maher’s.

Excellent book on this, like I said, I’ll go into more depth on this book in the future. And I’ve talked about it in the past, it’s excellent, it’s my favorite book on pricing strategy.

So when you’re sitting down and you are either pricing things for the first time, or you’re reconsidering your prices, and saying, you know, maybe I can go a little higher, or maybe my stuff isn’t cheap enough, you got to think about these types of things.

And my one of my favorite things in this book is right off the bat chapter one first page in the book, which is technically page three, but it’s the first page of the first chapter.

This is by Dan Kennedy in the chapter titled price and fee failures. Okay, there’s many ways to fail at price strategy. Here’s a short list.

So there’s nine things I want you to think about this. And whether you’re doing these things or not the first one right off the bat, number one, pricing by textbook formulas, industry norms, or other standard means.

Is that how you came up with your prices?

That’s a very common way that many people come up with their prices.

Number two, excess concern about competitors lower prices.

Once again, this is something that people fall into over and over again, I talk about this in my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business.

If you’re consumed with competition, go get this book. It’s a short book.

This is a thicker book, this is a thin book, it’s a tiny little book that I wrote, you can get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

But I’ll continue with Dan Kennedy, the number three, this is these are the ways to fail at pricing, attracting customers who buy by price.

So if their main focus is price, when they’re deciding whether to buy from you or not, that might be a huge mistake for you.

Not always, but it can be a huge mistake.

Number four, predetermine belief system about what they’ll pay. Do you think you know what they’ll pay without having actual proof without having tested the limits on how much or how little they’re willing to pay for something?

That’s a big one.

Number five, permitting apples to apples comparisons. If you’re comparing things, apples to apples, and there’s a specific, there’s a specificity to that, and we’ll talk about that in the future. But that’s a real danger.

Number six, insufficient different differentiation.

Have you not made clear how different you are from perceived competition from perceived other options, for the same solution, whatever the solution is that you’re providing?

Number seven, not offering premium price options.

Okay, not having the option for premium price. I’m not saying you don’t have lower price things. But do you not also offer a premium price?

That can be a huge, huge problem.

Number eight ignorance or stupidity about business math.

That’s something we talked about a lot here. Math is really one of the main things in business math is just the concept of, do you know how to increase numbers just by switching around how you look at things. That’s pricing in a nutshell.

Number nine poor self esteem, business esteem or feelings of not deserving more.

So do you have something deep down that’s keeping you from raising prices because of something personal. Because you think that your business shouldn’t make that much or you shouldn’t make that much that once again, these are this just a shortlist.

These are nine things that he talks about right off the bat in this book, and goes into more depth later on in the book. But I mean that just talking about textbook formulas, many people would buy, I know I did, I bought this looking for a formula on how to do price strategy.

He doesn’t offer that he offers a way of thinking about it differently. And this book actually changed my entire perspective on business and took me in a direction.

More of the Dan Kennedy’s of the world, and the Jay Abraham’s and all these people that discuss business more in terms of very clear black and white principles, and also using direct response marketing, which is huge difference.

If you haven’t looked into these types of things, you should look deeper. Start with my book, check this out.

I also give you other places to go. I think I also mentioned this book in this book, because it’s been such a huge impact on my life, looking at pricing differently can dramatically change your business, just that one idea of changing your prices without changing anything else can change everything for you.

Hopefully, all that makes sense to you. We’ll go into more detail in the future. But that’s just a little taste for tonight.

We’ll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.

Scary Pricing Strategies 🧟‍♂️💲

Posted on by brianjpombo

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Some thoughts on raising your prices, from chapter seven of Brian’s new book, 9 Ways To Amazon-Proof Your Business.

Amazon-Proof Your Business➡️ https://brianjpombo.com/amazonbook/

Transcription

Scary pricing strategies.

Hi, I’m Brian Pombo. Welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

Today we’re going to talk about a specific chapter from my book. And I’m gonna give you a little drawing on the dollar store whiteboard here.

That one of the chapters in my book, I believe, is chapter nine. Let me just double check that. No, excuse me, chapter seven, is the seventh way of Amazon proofing your business.

That’s what I call offer bigger.

And what offer bigger is all about is really, it’s a pricing strategy. It’s to offer enough quality to your customers, your clientele, whatever, you offer enough quality, that to necessitate raising your prices. Really, that’s what it comes down to.

There’s a great book, let me see I just had it here. Here is, I’ve mentioned before aboutabout Dan Kennedy’s NOBS Pricing Strategy. That’s a fabulous book him and Jason Marrs wrote that it’s a really excellent one, it was an early primer that I read that really got me into this way of thinking.

And this is another good one, this is an old, older older one. But if you could find an old copy of this, this is a good one. This is how to sell at prices higher than your competitors. Really good one.

And you can see it’s all about competition. That was what was why I was drawn toward this one. And it’s a, it’s a good one. It’s got lots of good good facts and figures, but really brings it all down to a mathematical level.

And it’s funny because most of us don’t sit down actually think this out, we say well, if I raise my prices, I’m going to have fewer customers.

And that couldn’t be the case, it isn’t always the case.

Quite often, I’ve seen my chair a little bit here, quite often I’ve seen it where it’s the opposite, where a person will go about raising the prices significantly, and end up with more customers, even for things that are regularly that are bought on a regular basis.

So let’s say you have a service, you know, some type of service or subscription and just for the sake of argument, let’s say they’re spending 100 bucks, hundred bucks a month, on on your service, right?

Let’s say you were to take and let’s say you’ve got I mean, we’ll make the math as easy as possible here. Let’s say you’ve got I mean, just for the sake of argument, let’s just say 1000 customers, you got 1000 customers 1000 bucks a month, right?

So you’ve got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You’ve got…what was that, 100,000 coming in?

Yeah, of course, hundred thousand. You got 100,000 bucks coming in.

Don’t you love my writing here this is what makes this fun.

Okay, trying to figure out what I’m actually writing down. I’m not a doctor, believe it or not just play one on TV, we’ve got let’s say you doubled it.

You doubled it to 200 bucks a month, right?

What you’re charging, you completely double it, you just straight down the line, you tell everybody Hey, it’s going up. It’s going up next month, just due to COVID.

That’s what everyone’s blaming everything on nowadays. COVID. So due to COVID.

And everything we’ve had, we’ve had to raise our prices, we’re gonna be offering much more quality, that’s the best thing is if you can tie it to showing that they’re getting more value for the same price. That’s extremely helpful.

And that’s I go through that in my book.

By the way, if you want a free copy of, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, go to AmazonProofBook.com. That’s AmazonProofBook.com, you think I’d be able to read it right off the screen, because I’ve got it there for you to see.

But you can read it there.

If you’re watching this on video. If you’re listening to this, it’s AmazonProofBook.com free copy of my book.

Now, let’s go back to our example. You raise your prices, you double your prices across the board. Let’s just say this decimate you. Let’s say half of your people fall off, you know net net amount meaning you’ve got new people signing up every month.

But let’s say, overall that cut your cut everything in half. Oh my gosh. You got 500 instead of 1000 subscribers paying 100 paying now $200 a month.

So what’s that bring it to, right?

You haven’t lost anything, right?

If you’re if you’re pretty decent at math, you realize you’ve lost nothing. But you’ve gained something here. And you so yeah, but you’ve lost you’ve lost half your customer base. How could you be gaining anything?

No, you’ve lost you’ve gained something because you have 500 more loyal customers and you’ve dropped your lease. Loyal customers, those are also the ones that give you the most amount of headache, then they have the most amount of compliance, you’ll see it immediately. I’m not saying you should go out and double your prices right away, this is just an example.

The point is, is that things have to, things have to change drastically for it not to be worthwhile to raise your prices. And all you have to do is change your focus from that point on once you have, I mean, honestly, a smaller customer base also allows you to narrow your focus on your marketing, because that’s going to give you more of an idea.

Okay, who are the people that dropped off?

Who could not afford or did not see themselves as being able to value that this, what you’re providing them at the hundred dollar point?

How many of them were not able to do that?

And how can we differentiate between doing our marketing early on so you can narrow your marketing focus, use the same amount that you’ve been spending on marketing, but put it more towards the ideal marketplace, that that alone can be huge to what you’re doing.

Because now you’re bringing in people that are closer to the type of person you’re looking for. Like I said, I’m not saying you need to raise your prices by doubling them. But I’m not saying you shouldn’t either.

Maybe you need to triple your prices, maybe you need to offer just a step up for people who want to take it you allow them to stay where they’re at. Or if they want something that’s worth twice as much, or 10 times as much more, here’s all the value you’re going to get by doing that. And allow people to self select, to be able to move out of that frame.

Either way, I found over and over and over again, with clients, you’re usually under charging across the board, you’re under charging. And when you’re under charging, you’re undervaluing what you’re providing automatically.

And if you’re undervaluing it, your customer, your end user is going to undervalue it too, they will not see it as valuable.

Whereas if it hurts a little I heard someone say this once, that if you’re not getting a little bit of a…..if you’re not getting somebody with a little bit of pain in their voice, when they hear you give them the price, you’re probably priced too low.

And this is a weird way of thinking I understand. But there’s a relativity thing to this. And it’s very much about math, it’s very much about being reality based, which I talk a lot about, it’s one of the third pillars, excuse me, reality grounded, is the third pillars and BrianJPombo.com that we practice.

So this is something you got to challenge yourself on if you if you’re new to this, and this is kind of bending your noodle a little bit, go check out Dan Kennedy’s book, and go get a copy of my book, 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business. That’ll be a good primer.

I’ve also got some good recommendations on other things that you can get into, to kind of challenge yourself, challenge yourself. If you don’t believe me, challenge it.

Do some of the numbers on your own, see how many people would have to drop off for you to lose money by doubling your prices by tripling your prices.

These are quick ways to be able to up your profit. So main reason why I’m able to go in and help business owners double and triple their profits. So if you’d like me to be able to help you with that, start with my book. I only work with people that have been through some my materials for they understand where I’m coming from.

So I’m not wasting my time. I’m not wasting your time.

So start with my book, go check that out. There’s some opportunities there to be able to talk with me one on one. And we’ll be back here tomorrow plug in.

We’ll meet again and go through these things. We do this every night. So come on back and we’ll talk again. In the meantime, get out there and let the magic happen.