Creators: Be a ‘Rounding Error’ for Your Next Customer and Win the Sale
We can’t serve everyone. So, serve those who won’t blink at your next invoice
Pricing is a tough bird. As new creators we want don’t want to seem greedy, or that we’re too big for our hip waders. But we work so hard for our customers. We go above, around, and through, to ensure our output is top-notch.
So why not ask a fair wage for our work?
One of the biggest issues with pricing has nothing to do with our work, or how nervous (or confident) we are to present our next invoice to a valuable customer. Nope. The biggest issue starts before the project is conceived, or the meeting is had. The biggest problem with pricing is in the picking.
If we want to charge top-dollar for our work, we’ve got to choose top-dollar clients.
Creators get all surprised when they roll-out Rolex-level pricing to a mac-and-cheese crowd. We get so wrapped in our new business, we lose sight of the people in our tribe. I’ve done it. Maybe you’ve done it. We feel as if our customers will pay for anything we create, as long as it’s valuable.
This isn’t true.
Customers operate on a scale, just as our business does. If we want to operate a premium business, we can’t attract sub-prime customers. We don’t want our people to mortgage their homes to pay for our services. We want them to be in a position to enjoy our work without any financial stress to their livelihood.
So, it’s important who we target from the get-go.
We want our invoice to be a rounding-error for our client. As if it’s a small blip on the bank statement. We’ll charge a 10X fee, but we’ll provide 100X results. These customers aren’t frivolous, but large price tags are common in their lives.
It’s not any harder to sell a high-ticket client, versus a sub-prime one. The customer service will be easier too. The more people pay for your work, the less they’ll hassle you with the small details. I get a hundred-times more customer service issues with my free email course than I do with anything I’ve sold.
Our pricing trains our tribe.
When we ask for high-prices we elevate the status of our work. Even if most of the people in your tribe will not purchase what you offer, your elevated pricing increases the potential value of your work for everyone.
Your non-buying customers will also feel your work has more value if you charge high-value prices. You never know when a non-buyer will turn into a buyer.
Sometimes we get enticed by commodity pricing.
An entry-level product can be a great strategy in many markets. But if your business wants to cater to rounding-error clients, you probably won’t want to build a list of people willing to buy your hundred-dollar course.
But we’ve got to think about this model before we build our business.
It’s hard to build a big list of the wrong people and undo the mistake later. It’s important we decide who we should serve, before we serve them.
Rounding errors mean fewer clients
When we work for fewer clients, we have fewer headaches. Not only can we spend more time doing our best work, and less time promoting it, but we also gain more freedom.
If you offer a $10,000 consulting package, you don’t have to sell many of those per year to earn a good income. If your highest-priced product is a $2.99 eBook, you’ve got to earn ~3,400 customers for every one customer who buys the big package.
Plus, you’ve got to repeat your marketing efforts on a never-ending treadmill in order to grow your low-price business. With a rounding-error business, the marketing can be more-targeted. You’ve got room for customization. And you can pay a lot more for advertising when the LTV of a high-price customer is 100X a low-price one.
But we don’t all cater to rounding-error clients.
That’s OK. We can also adopt the value ladder approach, where we offer a variety of services to varying degrees of customers. On the low-end we’ve got the renegade, do-it-yourselfers. On the other, we’ve got the people who want a turn-key solution (and they’re willing to pay for it).
There are few steadfast rules.
Design your game the way you want to play it.
We’re waiting for you.
(Enroll in My Free Email Masterclass. Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers.)
August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. A self-proclaimed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indie authors how to write books that sell and how to sell more of those books once they’re written. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.
