I remember when the Labor Day holiday meant a 3-day weekend off of my corporate job. Lord knows I worked hard at that job. Yeah, I was finally making a total of 6-figures BUT I felt like cheap labor. I was always trying to pack 2 to 3 days of work into one day. I hardly ever got to enjoy a full lunch hour… and that’s if I even got a chance to get away from my desk where I more than likely had to choke down something quick and get back to work! On top of all of that, I seldom knew for sure what time I was going to get to leave for the day. I can tell you now –I DO NOT MISS WORKING IN CORPORATE AMERICA!!
A lot of people want to the freedom of owning their own business, but fear keeps them punching someone else’s clock. They experience the fear of steady income, fear of the being the one that makes all the decisions and therefore being the only one to blame for failure, fear of letting their family down, etc… Well, those of us that stepped out to become full-time Entrepreneurs also have fears. We fear letting our dreams die while we work way too hard to build someone else’s. We fear not having the freedom to work in ways that bring about the best results for us and our clients. We fear living a life of stress due to being unnecessarily overworked because of inadequate leadership and nonsensical company policies. We all have fears, you simply have to pick the ones you are willing to live with.
Being an Entrepreneur doesn’t mean that you will work less than 40 hours a week. In fact, a lot of Entrepreneurs work 50 to 60 hours a week (sometimes more if the business is just getting off the ground). The difference in working long hours for yourself and working them for someone else is that it isn’t just labor… it’s a labor of love. We experience milestones that keep us going: the first client that pays us full price, the first referral because we did a great job getting our past client results, another expert recognizing us as an expert and wanting to work with us, etc…
Even a labor of love needs to make money, so here are 3 bankable reminders:
- There is nothing wrong with having an beta/introductory price. However, as soon as you get your first round of clients the results promised, raise the price.
- If you focus on the client experience in addition to the client results, you will be worth a price higher than your competitors.
- When running sales, consider adding value to the product or package with bonuses rather than lowering your price.
Need help pricing your offers? Let’s talk about it.