Do you feel like a fraud when it comes to telling customers what you charge? Are you striving to charge good money for what you offer but unsure if your price is right? If so you're not alone. Many people struggle with this and sometimes for good reason too. In…
Dirty, disgusting discounting habits. They are killing your business and it needs to stop…now. Have you ever granted a discount because: it was easy, you felt ashamed of your prices, guilty to charge that much, anxious or afraid to ask for it, too lazy to stand up for your value,…
It's time to face your pricing fears. When it's your own business, pricing and fear often show up as a dynamic duo...and not in a good way. It's a major reason why many young businesses struggle so much to get to a sustainably profitable state. You have to recognize when…
Traditionally we think of value being derived simply from the functions & features of a product or service. But what about the influence of a company's purpose or their impact on the world, how does that affect value perception. And how is that reflected in what you can charge? That's…
This week I released my newest tool the self-assessment Pricing Scorecard. I've had a Scorecard for a while now. Many of you have used it and shared your learnings and insights with me. The new one is a self-assessment tool, meaning you can download it immediately and use it without…
There's a huge temptation for small businesses to try to compete on price. Especially with new business it's often the "go to" strategy. In fact, most businesses spend more time, energy and creativity trying to lower their prices then they doing putting efforts into maintaining or raising prices. Competing on…
Pricing without reason. Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey was a popular party game at children's birthday party. It was a lot of fun but terribly frustrating to get it right. Your dizzy, often pointed in the wrong direction and blind folded. Making it really difficult to do anything much less get the poor donkey…
When it comes to making decisions about pricing in your business you are as important a part of the equation as is your customers. Too often people don't take that into consideration and then find themselves with the wrong prices. In this episode of Live with the Pricing Lady, expert…
How do I know the price of my book? You'd think that pricing a book is pretty straightforward. But there are, just like anything else, many different things that influences how you set the price. How you're using the book in your offering. What your goals are with the book.…
We have a joke amongst pricing professionals that when pricing goes well, every one (all the departments like sales, finance and marketing) claims responsibility. When it’s not, they’re pointing fingers of accusation at one another. What’s also interesting is how often people leave pricing out of the discussion until the…
Many entrepreneurs are afraid to choose a single target customer group because they fear if they do they won't sell to anyone else. However the opposite is true. By being too general in who you're targeting you will weed many people out because your message and offer will be too…
In this episode, we focused on a different aspect of profit optimization, cost management. We're talking about how to improve the bottom line in your business from the other side. Yes, I'm always saying focus on price and value. That's true most businesses don't focus on them enough. But that…
Small businesses spend way too much time and energy trying to lower prices and not nearly enough finding ways to get better prices. Even when they know their prices should be higher they're often afraid of raising them and instead do nothing. There's nothing to fear when you know what…
Pricing brings out a lot of internal conflict around money, success and worthiness. More often than not people feel like they'll be judged as an imposter if they charge "those" kinds of prices. Reality is if they're delivering the value not only can they but they should be. All this…
Most of the time when it comes to pricing people are focused on THE NUMBER. That's the full extent of what they think of as pricing. BUT words matter in pricing. In fact, quite often the words matter more than the price itself. One thing you can do to improve…
Price setting is a thought process not a mathematical calculation. Often when people ask me how they should know what to charge they expect me to give them a formula to make the calculation. Price setting isn't as simple as that. Companies that treat it as a math problem are…
The new year is a new opportunity to take those important steps towards better profitability in your business. The fastest route to that is by improving your pricing. The question is what can you do? In this episode of Live with the Pricing Lady I'll share with you 5 (pricing)…
Many clients ask me the question "How do I know when to change my prices?" I realize that they are asking mostly because they are afraid to do it. Often they know it's time but the fear of losing even one customer is so horrible they can't reconcile it in…
Do you know the value delivered to customer(s)? Reality is if you don't value what you deliver your customers, chances are no one else will either. Too often business owners don't really believe in what they deliver. On the surface they say and do seemingly the right things, but at…
When it comes to customers asking for discounts the urge to simply say yes can be hard to resist. Let's face it's an easy thing to do. And an easy way out of what feels like a difficult discussion. Sometimes you're even tempted to preemptively offer a discount. However the…
One of the things that holds many service providers back in their pricing is the idea that the value of their services is directly proportional to the time it takes you to deliver the service. Here's what I say... "Time is just the wrapper your service comes in." Think about…
Years ago one of my bosses came to me and said, "Janene, you've got to help me. The management team is having a heated debate about what's more important value pricing or transactional pricing. As I'm not the expert, I need to know what to tell them. So, which is…
Price and brand are intricately connected. Both topics drive perceptions and customer behavior. As a business owner you need to understand how they influence what people do and what they're willing to pay. We need to understand why so many are willing to pay more for brands and what that…
A Pricing Strategy is the first step to setting your prices. More than that it will help you steer your business in the right direction and ensure that your pricing is setup to support your business objectives. Without one it's like playing the children's game pin the tail on the…