Everything you need to know before raising your prices

So you are thinking about charging premium pricing. You are finally ready to take that step in your business as an online coach. But, there’s a catch: you don’t know what you need to do to make it happen.
And I get it, when I decided to raise my prices, I too felt a little bit weary. It’s not a decision that is to be made lightly and there are tons of things you need to consider BEFORE you simply change the number on your webpage.

So, what needs to happen before you can start commanding premium pricing? Here I share with you all that you need to know in order to make it happen.

Also, I created this free guide with the 5 most common branding and website mistakes that are keeping you from charging what you’re worth.

Before raising your prices, you need to consider the reasons why you are doing it, and the level of value your clients are receiving from you as well. A couple of years ago, I decided that I wanted to change my price range. To be honest with you, the decision was made completely based upon what I needed to make as my income. However, I understood that if I was going to be changing my range, it would also mean that I needed to deliver more than I was giving my clients at the time.

The reason for this? I knew that in order to convince my audience to pay my new prices, I would need to be able to justify the change. So what I did was study as much as I could and create a system that would be 100% unique to me and my work. I looked at notes from my MBA, started doing *a ton* of online courses, hired coaches and did all the things necessary for upleveling. I spent hours on Pinterest, reading article after article after article. Learning as much as I possibly could. After I gathered all the information I needed, I brought the best parts together to create something that would not only be unique to me, but give my clients premium results as well.

Once I was ready, I raised my prices. The first clients that paid my new price was able to make back the investment about 2 weeks after we launched their new brand. This showed me that I had made the right choice.

The reason I share my story with you is because YOU need to consider what you have to do in order to give your clients premium results. You can’t expect to change your prices and hope for the best. That’s not how it works. Specially if you don’t have a HUGE track record behind you. Of course, if you DO already have clients getting MASSIVE results, the decision to raise your prices will be a lot easier.

So, look at what you are currently offering, and analyze whether you are ready to raise your prices offering your services (or products) in the same way you are doing today. If not, make any change that is necessary for it to be worth every last cent.

Charging higher prices means being able to give your clients the value that is represented by the money they’re giving you. Essentially, if they are paying more, they expect more from you as well.

Related: How to build a business + brand that command premium pricing (even if you’re just starting out OR have never charged high prices before)

This is the great thing about raising your prices. It means that the people that make the decision and say yes to you, are people that will be 100% more committed. This means that they will follow your lead and respect you SO. MUCH. MORE.

It’s simple, think about when you go out to a super fancy restaurant. Your attitude, your language and even your attire are completely different to when you go to a McDonald’s, right? You are on your best behavior. The same thing happens when your clients come to you. You gain much more respect and value if your prices are higher. This means you will actually be attracting the best possible clients.

So, let’s say you added a TON of value to your offer. Let’s say you are getting your clients premium results. This is still not enough to give you the upper hand to start charging more. This is when branding plays a HUGE role in all of it.

I talk about 5 common branding mistakes that could be keeping you from charging higher prices right here. Make sure to download this guide:

There are a few things in terms of branding that are necessary to be in place for you to make this change. The first one? How you position yourself. Positioning basically is all about how your business is perceived in the market. So, literally, the mental position you have in their minds as compared to others. What happens is, you want to make sure that you position yourself in a way that would make them want to hire you over anyone else. And the way you do this is by making sure your communication is strong enough and focused on results. I talked about positioning and it’s importance in this article.
Usually, people focus their communication around the tangible benefits that they are capable of giving others. So, you would talk about helping them make more money or saving their time, or [insert feature]. But, here’s the thing, in order to position yourself as a premium brand, it’s much more important that you communicate more based on the true benefits you are giving your clients. These are psychological, social, or any other intangible things they are receiving.

For example, my communication before I changed my prices, was focused on being a designer that made logos and webpages. These ‘benefits’ were all about deliverables, but not about heart.

What I understood is that in order to position myself as a premium brand, I needed to differentiate myself from everyone else. Saying I was ‘just’ a designer, made me no different from the thousands of designers out there doing the same. What happens when you fail to position or differentiate yourself is that you enter a price war that takes you straight to the bottom. What I did to change my positioning was completely transform the way I was communicating. I changed it all to start saying:

Can you see how this is different than me just talking about what the tangible benefits are?

So, look at your communication and analyze how you can step it up and start focusing on results. I mean, real results. The ones that can’t necessarily be measured, but are more important than any other one out there.

Of course, making sure you are ACTUALLY reflecting your value is CRUCIAL to make it work. You can’t simply raise your prices and have your brand and your complete client experience still be at a lower price. What does your brand look like right now?
You also want to think of the type of experience you are building for your clients. For example, part of what I do is send them gifts in the mail after we are done working together with a nice, hand-written note. The price of the gift? It’s completely irrelevant. What’s important is that I thought about them and I’m giving them something that makes them feel really special.

What does your website look like right now? Does it look like a business that is premium? Does it reflect the value you are offering? This is extremely important for you to consider, because without the visual to back up your quality, you will absolutely lose the opportunity to bring in the right people.

The truth is, that even when they tell us otherwise, we all judge a book by it’s cover. If you are here talking about how much your work is worth, but simply aren’t looking like a valuable brand, it’s going to make it extremely difficult for you to convince your leads that you bring in the quality you say. On the other hand, if you have a brand that looks high-end, have a beautiful website with all the systems in place, have details for your clients that could go from emails to hand-written notes and are making sure everything that comes out of your business is high-end, guess what types of clients you are going to attract?

One example I always like to give is that of a restaurant that has the BEST food in the world, with the most experience chef, but serving their food on paper plates and in a really sketchy place. Sure, you might get lucky and have your restaurant become this cool underground place, OR (more likely) no one will come in. And if they do come in your place, what sort of customer do you think you will bring in? How many people will be willing to pay top-dollar for your food if the surroundings look really bad?

This is an example for a client I have been working on recently. Brian’s coaching business didn’t truly reflect his value. Even though the content he was sharing was extremely valuable, it was still lacking in reflecting his worth.

So, we worked on truly changing the way everything looked and how he communicated with his audience, making sure to build his presence and position him as a premium brand as well.

Can you see how this now looks more like a premium brand? Making this change enables you to charge the right price for your business. Because you aren’t just talking the talk, but you are now walking the walk. As in, you look like a premium brand as well.

Finally, one of the biggest and most important advice I can give you regarding raising your prices is this: don’t do it alone. I can tell you from my experience that raising my prices was only possible because I had the support surrounding me to make the change.
I hired the coaches that were able to give me the strategy to make the change. You can’t expect to have the same strategy, the same brand, talking to the same audience in the same way you have been talking to them so far, and get different results. That’s not how that works.

Hire the people that will be there to lift you up. To give you the strenght to know that what you do is really worth it. To help you deal with doubts and fear. To help you have a brand that represent how incredible you are. To teach you the strategies necessary to bring in the right clients.

It absolutely CAN happen for you. It’s simply a matter of making sure your mind, your strategies and your brand are all in the right place. I can tell you that if you do all the things I listed here but you don’t believe you are worth, you will never get a client that believes in you enough. So, getting the support and someone that is capable of finding your strengths and helping you communicate with your audience is going to make the difference in you doing what it takes to raise your prices and get paid what you deserve to be paid.

That’s it! That’s what needs to happen for you to charge higher prices! Remember to download the free guide I created with the 5 most common mistakes keeping you from charging premium pricing for your business.