0:00

If you currently have an offer out there that

0:03

isn't selling as well as you'd like and

0:05

you're thinking about lowering your price, don't

0:08

touch anything just yet. I

0:10

want you to listen through to the end of this episode,

0:12

because what I'm going to do here is share the

0:14

three key questions you

0:16

have to ask yourself before

0:19

touching your price. Hello,

0:53

welcome to the podcast. I'm

0:56

excited to chat with you about

0:58

pricing in this episode. Now,

1:00

before I get into that, I do want to share some

1:02

fun things that I've been up to and then some not so

1:04

fun things. So if you

1:07

listened to one of my earlier episodes, I

1:09

think back from January, so earlier this

1:11

year, I should say January 2023, I

1:13

talked about the importance of just stepping

1:15

away and giving yourself some space.

1:18

And sometimes that means stepping away from

1:20

your physical work environment. Stepping

1:22

away from commitments. Family.

1:25

Whatever it might be. And it

1:27

absolutely is a privilege and not something

1:30

that I know everyone can do. But

1:32

I had the opportunity this last

1:34

weekend, it was my birthday and my husband asked

1:36

me what I wanted and one of

1:38

the things that I wanted was a night away. And

1:41

it's funny, I had been thinking about it throughout the week

1:43

and he was like, you should go. And I'm like, well, no,

1:46

because you know, our daughter had a cough

1:48

and I thought, oh, maybe she'll need me. When

1:51

really like she was going to be totally fine

1:53

and my husband would take great care of her. And

1:55

I was in the shower on Friday afternoon and

1:57

at that point in time, I wasn't going to go.

2:00

And then I decided, no, I need

2:02

to do this. So Friday night,

2:04

I had stayed in one of my favorite

2:07

hotels in San Francisco. I had dinner

2:09

with girlfriends before, but I just had

2:11

a nice evening and

2:13

late morning to myself. So I didn't

2:16

spend all night, like watching Bravo, even

2:18

though if you've know me, you know, that I like some

2:20

good Real Housewives and all

2:22

that. But what I did do was read

2:24

a book that was recommended to me by my

2:26

friend, Sam, who is the founder

2:28

of Passionland. And she

2:30

reads, gosh, like 10 books

2:33

a week. And I don't.

2:35

So when she recommends a book to me,

2:38

and really, really is like, no, you have

2:41

to read this book, I listen. So

2:43

she referred this book to me. I have

2:45

it in my hand right now. You can't see it, but it's called

2:47

Chill and Prosper. It's by

2:49

Denise Duffield-Thomas. And

2:53

I have to say I was a little

2:55

unsure about it. I was like Chill

2:57

and Prosper. This kind of sounds too good to

2:59

be true. This sounds like one of

3:01

those books that's just like, get rich

3:03

quick. You don't have to work that hard. But

3:06

I really trusted my friend Sam and her advice.

3:08

And let me tell you, I read this

3:10

whole book cover to cover in a day.

3:13

Which is not typical for me. Like,

3:15

I, I will listen to audio books

3:17

here and there, but I don't sit and read a

3:19

physical book honestly ever.

3:22

It was a fantastic read. I

3:25

have like 20 neon sticky

3:27

notes all throughout it, because

3:30

there was just so much

3:32

clarity and I

3:34

dunno just the way that Denise shared information

3:37

that I had maybe even heard before, it

3:39

was just a refreshing new approach

3:42

to thinking. So this book talks about

3:44

mindset. It talks about your relationship

3:46

with money. It talks about business

3:48

models and marketing. And

3:51

it really I think is a great read if

3:53

you have been at this for a while.

3:56

So if you have an existing business and

3:59

you feel like you're burning the candle at both

4:01

ends, and you just want to

4:04

essentially work smarter and

4:06

not harder. This is it. This

4:08

is the book. So definitely check it out. I'll

4:10

include a link in the show notes.

4:13

So after that great relaxing weekend,

4:15

we definitely hit some bumps in the road this week with

4:17

our girls, we had some sicknesses,

4:20

we had some sleepless nights,

4:22

some transitions in preschool and daycare.

4:25

And honestly, it's kind of

4:27

par for the course. If you're a parent,

4:30

or if you remember being a parent of small children, then

4:32

you just know every week something's going to happen.

4:34

And I think between reading this book,

4:37

taking that time away and just going

4:39

through this last week, it was such a

4:42

strong reminder of the importance of

4:44

building a business that supports

4:46

your life rather than competing with

4:48

it. I was able to

4:51

flex my schedule to support my girls

4:53

and my family when it needed to happen. And

4:56

just do things that I normally wouldn't be able to

4:58

do if I was working a traditional

5:01

corporate job, or even if I had built

5:03

a business that had

5:05

me chained to my desk 24 7.

5:07

Now I'm continuing to work on this and

5:10

one of the things I learned from this book is asking

5:12

for help is important. It's a good thing.

5:14

And I'm trying to incorporate more help in my business.

5:17

But what I will say is that I've

5:19

never felt stronger about the importance

5:22

of having a life-first

5:24

business, a business that acknowledges the life

5:26

you have. Recognizes

5:28

that you have multiple demands

5:31

in your life. It isn't just about work

5:33

for many of you and not

5:35

making you feel bad about that. Not making that

5:38

a negative thing, but rather just

5:40

a piece in the entire picture. And

5:42

that is something that Denise talks quite

5:44

a bit about in the book. She does recognize

5:46

the fact that this idea of hustle

5:49

culture and pulling all nighters

5:51

and living off of energy drinks,

5:53

that is one way you can build a business. But

5:56

that is this quote bro mentality

5:58

around building a business that we all don't

6:01

have to subscribe to. We can still be successful

6:03

and do it on our terms. Okay,

6:06

so let's move into the meat

6:08

of today's episode. So

6:10

I wanted to talk to you about pricing

6:12

and specifically how

6:14

you should go about changing your pricing.

6:17

This episode was inspired by

6:19

a question that one of my students asked inside

6:22

The Profit Parfait. This is my

6:24

advanced program for experienced

6:27

online culinary business owners. And

6:29

so like her, there are others

6:31

in the program who have offers

6:33

out there. They have classes, they have courses,

6:36

they have memberships. And

6:38

she just asked the simple question:

6:40

should I lower my

6:42

price for my group classes? So

6:45

I figured I would share the advice that I told

6:47

her, and this advice

6:49

is going to apply no matter what it is you're selling.

6:52

I will use the term offer throughout this

6:54

episode. And an offer is just anything

6:56

that you put out there that you want people to take action

6:58

and sign up for, so it could be a class,

7:01

live or recorded. It could be a course.

7:04

It could be a membership. It could be one-on-one

7:06

coaching. You could also even say

7:08

that a freebie or a lead magnet

7:10

is an offer, even though they're not paying,

7:12

they are signing up and providing you

7:14

with their name and email address. If

7:16

you currently have an offer out there that isn't

7:19

selling as well as you'd like and you're

7:21

thinking about lowering your price, don't

7:23

touch anything just yet. I

7:25

want you to listen through to the end of this episode,

7:27

because what I'm going to do here is share the

7:30

three key questions you

7:32

have to ask yourself before

7:34

touching your price. And

7:36

it will help you get to a place where you

7:38

are making decisions based off

7:40

of data, not just how

7:42

you might be feeling. Because

7:45

that's the key here. Being a business

7:47

owner, especially being a solopreneur is

7:49

an emotional roller coaster. And many of you already

7:51

know this. There are highs and there are lows,

7:54

sometimes in the same day. So

7:56

it's challenging to just trust our gut

7:58

or listen to how we feel when it comes

8:00

to decisions like pricing. Because

8:03

for whatever reason, if

8:05

no one is buying what we're selling, I

8:08

know that it's easy to take

8:10

it personally. And think

8:12

that, oh, wait, who

8:14

am I to think that I can charge x

8:17

number of dollars for my service. We

8:19

start to question our value. We start

8:22

to fall into imposter syndrome.

8:24

And we stop believing all the things

8:27

that we needed to believe to build up

8:29

the confidence to put ourselves out there and sell.

8:31

So, what do we do? We lower the price.

8:34

We lower the price from a place of

8:36

fear rather than thinking

8:38

about things holistically and really

8:40

considering what other things

8:43

may be impacting our sales

8:46

outside of price. So

8:48

let's move right into the questions. If

8:50

you have a pen and paper handy, jot

8:52

them down. I will recap them at the end of this episode.

8:55

But I think you're going to want to take notes,

8:57

especially if you are in front of your

9:00

computer or you have a notepad

9:02

handy. So the first question

9:04

to ask yourself, before you change your price is

9:06

this: are enough people viewing

9:09

your offer's sales page? Now

9:11

why is this important? Okay. Why do

9:13

I care about how many unique

9:16

page views your sales page is getting?

9:18

It's because we need to make data-driven

9:20

decisions. If two

9:22

people saw your sales page last

9:25

week and no one bought,

9:27

that's very different than if a thousand

9:30

people saw and no one

9:32

bought. If two people landed

9:34

on your sales page last week and no one

9:36

bought, that actually is

9:38

not a pricing problem. But

9:41

again, if a hundred people or a thousand people

9:43

saw your page and no one bought, then

9:45

we have to keep digging. Okay. So

9:48

we need to think about how many people actually

9:50

see your sales page. Because if you

9:53

aren't getting enough people to

9:55

see your sales page, your problem

9:57

is getting traffic to your page.

9:59

And that's when you want to work on other activities

10:02

in your marketing that increase awareness

10:05

and improve engagement. So if

10:07

we think about a marketing funnel, at the top

10:09

we have awareness, then we have engagement

10:12

and at the bottom we have conversion

10:14

or purchase. If we don't have

10:16

enough people coming into the top of the funnel,

10:18

then we absolutely are not going

10:20

to have enough people at the bottom of the funnel.

10:23

Naturally people fall out. In

10:25

marketing, we call this the conversion rate.

10:27

So if you had 20 unique

10:30

visitors last week on

10:32

your sales page and one of those

10:34

people purchased well, that

10:36

is a 5% conversion rate. One

10:39

divided by 20. And that's actually

10:41

a pretty good conversion rate. This is a key

10:43

metric you need to know. I hinted at this

10:45

earlier, but you can calculate your conversion

10:47

rate, not only for your paid offers,

10:50

but even for your freebies or your lead magnets.

10:53

I track this every single week

10:55

with my Culinary Roadmap. I know

10:57

how many people landed on the opt-in

10:59

page to sign up for the freebie.

11:02

And I know how many people actually signed up

11:04

for the freebie. And so that's a

11:06

conversion rate I monitor every

11:08

single week to make sure that I attract the right

11:10

people and continue to grow my list

11:13

through my freebie. Okay.

11:15

So now's the time to ask yourself, how

11:17

many page views am I getting on my

11:19

sales pages for my offers. And we

11:21

want to, again, look at unique page views because

11:24

unique means unique individuals.

11:26

You don't want to double count someone who visits your

11:28

page twice because it's still one person.

11:31

If you are getting a lot of traffic, let's say

11:34

you have at least a hundred page views

11:36

to date on your sales page and

11:39

your conversion rate is

11:41

below 3%,

11:43

it could be pricing that's

11:46

impacting your sales. But

11:48

it could also be who you're

11:50

targeting, how you talk about your offer,

11:53

what's inside the offer. There are a lot

11:55

of other things that could be impacting your sales

11:58

beyond pricing. So the

12:00

next question to think about is

12:02

are the right people seeing

12:05

your offer? So first we talked

12:07

about are enough people looking

12:09

at your offer? The next question

12:11

is, well, are they the right people?

12:14

Because you might be getting decent traffic

12:16

to your sales page. But if it's not

12:18

selling, it could just be that you're attracting

12:21

the wrong types of people. For

12:23

example. If your course teaches

12:26

advanced bread baking, but all

12:28

of your page visitors are beginners. Then

12:30

there's a disconnect between your

12:32

offer and the

12:35

skill level of your ideal student. This

12:37

can be really common if you talk

12:39

a lot about beginner skills and strategies

12:42

on your Instagram but then what you've created

12:44

for them is too advanced. Hint,

12:47

hint, I've done this in the past. And

12:49

that gap of knowledge will absolutely

12:52

impact your conversion. People won't

12:54

buy. In another example, let's

12:56

say you speak to busy moms. That's

12:59

your audience. But you present

13:01

this really massive, bulky

13:03

online course that has tons of homework

13:06

and live calls in the middle of the day.

13:09

Well, there's a mismatch again between

13:12

your audience and your offer. So,

13:14

how do you know if the right people are seeing your

13:17

offer? This is why

13:19

I love email marketing. You

13:21

can actually track who

13:23

clicks links in the emails you send.

13:26

So, If you talk about your course, your

13:28

classes or your membership in your

13:30

emails, let's say you send an email

13:33

announcing enrollment opening

13:35

for your course. Well, when

13:37

people click on that link that

13:39

indicates that they're somewhat interested. If

13:42

people are clicking, but not buying,

13:45

you can use that click

13:47

as information to dig

13:49

deeper. You could reach out

13:51

to them and ask them to hop on a call

13:53

with you, gather some insights.

13:56

Why was this offer perhaps not right

13:58

for them? This is a great way

14:00

to learn more about why someone

14:02

may not be buying. But

14:05

I will say one of the things that

14:07

typically happens is that they

14:09

all say that the price was too high. Does

14:11

that mean you should lower it? No.

14:14

We're going to learn how to dig a little bit deeper

14:16

because it isn't always about

14:19

the amount of money. More

14:21

often than not it's about the value.

14:24

Question three, is this: well,

14:27

actually it's a two part question. Is

14:29

it clear what you're offering? Are

14:31

you focusing on the value versus

14:34

what they get? So

14:37

there are two things here to think about. The

14:39

first is around clarity. Some

14:41

sales pages are just super

14:44

confusing and aren't clear.

14:47

It should be very obvious when someone

14:49

lands on your sales page: who

14:52

your course is for? Why should

14:54

someone take your classes? What's

14:56

the purpose of your membership? If

14:59

you can't answer these questions for

15:01

your reader or your audience,

15:04

then they are going to have a

15:06

very hard time figuring out if

15:08

this is right for them and if they should pull

15:10

out their wallet and spend money on your program.

15:13

There's a quote out there. I don't even

15:15

know who came up with this glow.

15:17

It's been recycled and you used a thousand

15:20

times, but it is so very true. And it's that

15:22

a confused person never

15:24

buys. A confused

15:27

person never buys. So if

15:29

someone is looking at your sales page and

15:31

they just don't get it, they're

15:33

not going to email you. They're not going to use

15:35

your little chat widget. They'll just exit

15:37

out. Right? If someone

15:40

emails you a question. And that means

15:42

they're highly motivated and it also probably

15:44

means that dozens of other people had that same

15:46

question, but didn't bother to

15:49

ask which in many cases

15:51

means that you're leaving money on the table. So

15:53

you really want to make sure that your pages are

15:55

clear. The other

15:57

thing to think about is

16:00

this idea that your sales page should focus

16:02

on the value? Oftentimes

16:05

sales pages focus so much on the what

16:08

they got, versus the why it

16:10

matters. I see this a

16:12

lot with class sales pages,

16:14

right? We're talking like a 90 minute

16:17

Zoom class. And most

16:19

of the time it's just a page that has

16:22

the date, the time, the logistics,

16:25

the recipes, the refund

16:27

policy. And that's it.

16:30

You are missing a huge opportunity

16:33

to convert people to being students if

16:35

you don't think about why

16:37

the class matters. What

16:40

will taking your class, empower your student

16:42

to do? If you're teaching

16:44

a busy parent how to meal prep, well,

16:47

are you just listing the class date and time

16:50

and what you're going to teach them? Or are you

16:52

highlighting their pain points? Are you highlighting

16:54

their desires and what the end

16:56

goal could be for them. Is your

16:58

class going to help them save time? Is

17:00

your class going to help them be more confident?

17:03

Maybe not feel so frazzled in the morning?

17:06

People aren't paying you to get three

17:08

recipes, a replay, a workbook,

17:11

six modules, whatever it is.

17:13

They're paying you to experience a transformation.

17:16

Maybe it's saving time. Maybe it's saving

17:19

money, having more confidence,

17:21

just being happier in the kitchen, whatever

17:23

it may be. You need to know

17:26

what that motivation is, what

17:28

that transformation is that they're craving. And

17:30

make sure that you use it everywhere in your

17:32

marketing, especially on your sales

17:34

pages. So, how do you know

17:36

if your page isn't clear or

17:38

if you're not focusing on the right

17:41

things? This is a tough

17:43

one because when you are in your own business

17:45

and you are in the weeds and you've stared

17:48

at the same sales page

17:50

for days, weeks, maybe

17:52

months. You start

17:55

to miss that 30,000 foot

17:57

view. And this is where it can be really

17:59

helpful to ask someone who's outside

18:01

of your business. Now, I don't want

18:03

you to just ask anyone. I

18:05

want you to be careful here, because I do know that many

18:07

of you have leaned on

18:10

your partners and family members

18:12

in the past for business advice. And

18:15

they most likely are not your

18:17

target audience. They

18:19

have not started businesses before.

18:22

And they're just trying to protect you and keep you

18:24

safe, which oftentimes means,

18:26

uh, critiquing your work

18:28

in a way that may not be the most productive.

18:31

So I encourage you, when you seek advice

18:34

to ask someone who has

18:36

been in the game. They've been in the arena.

18:38

So it could be working with a coach, a

18:40

copywriter or a savvy

18:43

friend who's also an entrepreneur

18:45

who understands the process.

18:49

I have people that I lean into,

18:51

I call them my business besties, and

18:53

it's really helpful to have those people

18:55

you can just call up or,

18:58

you know, share your screen and have them

19:00

give you that feedback. And I do it

19:02

for them as well. So this

19:04

is when it's really helpful to just have that community

19:07

around you. We've had people in our program

19:09

who continue to stay in touch with one another

19:11

and just tap into each other for

19:14

this type of support, because it's always

19:16

easier to look at someone else's

19:18

business, their sales page, whatever it

19:20

is, and point out areas

19:23

of improvement. Rather than

19:25

like, just looking at your own work. So

19:27

having fresh eyes on it will be very,

19:30

very helpful. Whenever you ask

19:32

someone to give you that feedback though, they'll make sure you let

19:34

them know who your ideal student or who

19:36

your ideal client is. Help

19:38

them understand what their motivations are,

19:40

what they care about, what are their pain points.

19:43

You basically want to prep them so that they

19:45

can look at that sales page through

19:47

the lens of your ideal client.

19:51

So I talked a little bit about this idea of

19:53

price versus value, and let's

19:55

dive into it more. Because again,

19:57

I ask people, why didn't you buy, why didn't

19:59

you enroll? Some people will say

20:01

it's not the right time or the content

20:03

wasn't relevant for me or whatnot.

20:07

But nine times

20:09

out of 10, probably even more than 90% of

20:11

the time, they'll just say the price was too

20:13

high. If I lowered

20:15

my price every time I heard

20:17

that my price was too high. I

20:20

would be selling my program

20:22

for zero. It would be free.

20:25

It's a good thing I didn't listen to that feedback because

20:27

there is more behind someone

20:30

saying that something is too expensive

20:32

or that the price is too high. Now I

20:34

will caveat this by saying there

20:36

are people who really

20:39

want to invest in my program or in other people's

20:41

programs, but they just don't have the

20:43

money. And that I

20:45

absolutely respect. And my whole

20:47

position is to never put anyone in

20:50

like a financially dire situation

20:52

to enroll. I don't think it brings good

20:54

energy into their work in the program. It

20:56

adds a layer of stress that

20:59

is just a challenge for everyone

21:01

involved. So I'm not talking

21:03

about someone not having

21:06

that money in their bank account. What we're

21:08

talking about now is this idea

21:10

of something being worth

21:12

an investment. So the difference between

21:14

price and value can be,

21:17

I think best explained what this example. So

21:20

$10,000 is a lot of money.

21:23

Right? For me, for most of you listening,

21:25

I don't think you would just blindly hand someone

21:27

$10,000. So

21:30

if someone decided to sell you a

21:32

copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking,

21:35

I have it right here in front of me, if

21:37

they offered that to you for $10,000,

21:40

would you buy it? No, you wouldn't.

21:42

Why? Well because the value of

21:44

that book is probably somewhere

21:46

between 30 to $40. It

21:49

is not $10,000, no matter how

21:51

much you love Julia Child. No matter

21:53

how much you enjoy the recipes in that

21:55

book. You are not going to pay more than

21:57

the value of the book to you. Now

22:00

what if that same person

22:02

said that you could travel back

22:04

in time and cook with Julia Child for

22:06

$10,000. Same amount.

22:09

We're talking $10,000 here. I

22:11

think many of you would absolutely

22:14

move forward with that. And if you

22:16

didn't have $10,000, I bet you'd

22:18

find a way. Why?

22:20

Because of the value. Would

22:23

you call that experience expensive? $10,000

22:27

is a lot of money but is

22:29

it expensive for you to spend that amount

22:31

to be able to travel back in time and cook

22:33

with Julia Child. I don't think so.

22:36

We have to think about the price in

22:39

relation to the value. What it is

22:41

that you are getting or what it is that your students

22:44

are getting. So when someone tells you

22:46

your class is too expensive, that doesn't

22:48

mean you run and you log into your

22:50

sales page software and you lower the price.

22:53

What it does mean is that you spend

22:55

more time thinking about whether

22:57

or not they're the right person for your offer.

23:00

And if they are, have you communicated

23:02

the value to them on your sales page?

23:06

So to recap the three questions to consider

23:08

before lowering your price are these:

23:10

first off are enough people viewing

23:13

your offer's sales page? Are

23:15

the right people seeing your offer?

23:18

And the third question is around clarity

23:20

is it clear what you're offering and are

23:22

you focusing on value versus

23:25

just what they get? Thank

23:27

you so much for listening to this episode. If

23:30

you have any other questions around pricing,

23:32

let me know to send me a DM on Instagram.

23:35

I love creating topics in

23:37

response to what's on your mind in the moment,

23:40

so don't be shy. Thanks again for listening

23:42

and I'll be back here next week with another episode.