why you should keep to premium pricing

Why you should stick to premium pricing (if that’s your thing)

After my break of maternity leave I went from having 6 months of work lined up, to nothing. Amongst the anxiety around whether or not I was ready to juggle a baby and work, I had massive amounts of fear around getting work. Where was my next job going to come from? What was I going to do next? Thankfully my existing client base pulled through and I got enough work to keep me going for a while.

In that time, however, in my moment of panic, that nasty fear kicked in and whispered to me “Your pricing is too high”. Stupidly I acted on this fear, and created some ‘budget’ offerings. I got plenty of interest and took on a few jobs in this space.

It was a massive mistake and here is 3 reasons I discovered why I shouldn’t have done it and what to do instead.

Money drives decisions

When you give people two options a premium and a budget, the people who are cash strapped are automatically going to choose the budget solution no matter what. They won’t look to whether or not it suits their needs, that’s your job to make sure what you give them is what they asked for.

You have to spend a lot of time making sure they understand that if they choose that option that they may be missing out on elements that they asked for originally.

There is a lot more at stake

When someone is on a tight budget and they over extend themselves to hire you, they will expect more from you. Regardless of the offering they choose, their expectations will be high.

For them, there is more anxiety around the project. This could be their food for the month, their marketing budget for the year. Potentially everything could be in your hands. So if there is a discussion about money or this is flagged through the sales process it’s something to consider if you want that burden on your shoulders.

When a client puts all their eggs in one basket by hiring you, they will expect all of you. They will assume that they are your only client. Even in your mind, you may only have limited time to spend on the project, they are still expecting to be your number one priority and often that’s not realistic for your position, especially if it’s one of your budget offerings.

Management time will soar

From the few budget projects I undertook I found that I spent triple the amount of time in project management mode, of what I would normally spend on a 12 week custom project. There was more time spent having conversations about what was not included /out of scope as opposed to really working on what the client needed.

Even if it’s outlined in your proposal, often it needs to be said multiple times for it to really sink in.

But what if you really want to help all the people?

If you want to cater to the budget clients, then think more about leveraging your time as opposed to scaling back your options. It could be creating products, workshops, training programs, doing group consulting or offering pre built options.

Don’t over extend yourself or drop your level of service, it’s a disservice to yourself and your customer which can have a long term affect on your business.