What To Do When Someone Says Your Charges Are Too Expensive

What’s expensive? Based on the market rate, or based on their bank accounts?

One of the most common things new entrepreneurs struggle with is pricing. You think you’re worth this much, but you worry other people may not think so. You’re not far off. There will be people who think so. In fact, it’s mind-boggling how many people will think so at the beginning when you’re just starting your online venture.

(For simplicity’s sake I’m going to use funnel building and design as an example because that was what I was doing at that moment in time, but honestly, it can be anything — from social media management to bookkeeping to copywriting, whatever your niche is.)

I sometimes think it must be a law of nature to meet clients that do not appreciate us first, before we find those that do. After all, I believe no one starts their online journey being crystal clear about who their dream clients will be. In fact, what most entrepreneurs want at the beginning of the journey is just one thing, and that is to earn more money.

It is all very well to have more successful people tell you — don’t do this to earn money. Do this to serve the people you want to serve, and money will naturally come. That’s honestly easier said than done when you’re frantically planning how to pay off your next car loan, or house loan.

However, the journey to serve the clients you want to serve, and to help the people you want to help, does come around after some time. Certainly not in the beginning, and when I heard someone preaching about serving, I’d be like is he trying to guilt trip me into thinking that wanting to earn some cash is wrong? He must be two bricks short of a load — I mean I knew he wasn’t, but this is one thing I honestly discourage coaches and gurus from doing — not initially, at least. I mean here you have someone desperate to earn money and they put their trust in you, so technically they’re your customer, and they handed over what little savings they had to you — and you go and say hey, let’s not worry about earning money, serve who you wanna serve, and the money will come.

You can teach them about their dream clients, of course — but let’s talk about serving after they’ve closed a few sales and are more financially stable. Then we’ll talk about serving.

It’s also very common to hear coaches and other people telling us — hey, you’re worth it. Value your own time. Don’t bargain. Don’t let people push your price down. However, when you’re really desperate for a customer (I think we’ve all been there — or are still there) any money is still money. It is only after several transactions and good feedback from happy clients that you gain enough confidence to say NO to bargaining. It is only after you start getting more repeat clients and referrals that you feel confident enough to stick to your guns when it comes to pricing.

When someone tries to bargain, technically —

1. They don’t see your time as valuable. Since they don’t, you’ll have to do that for yourself. Don’t take it personally. Some hop on a Zoom call not knowing what to expect, and were maybe not even ready to make a decision to begin with. Some go on with the sole purpose of pushing your price down because they want cheap labor.
   Detach yourself from the results. Remind them why they are meeting you in the first place. Ask them what kind of results they expect to see from the funnel you’re building and the designs you’re creating for them, in the next 30 days, and in the next 90 days. That’ll remind them of how much they are actually looking to earn, and you will drive it in that for the price you’re charging, they can expect to make 10x (for example) the return based on the sales projections they just gave you. Focus more on their results, and less on what you can do for them.
2. They can afford it, but they don’t want to. They like your work, but not your price.
   This is where I have to repeat something I heard before in the past. “If they’re difficult on the ask, they’re gonna be difficult on the task.” This is risky. You can convince them to take you, but there are chances that they’ll want to pile on the demands on you later in the day. They’ll want more bang for their buck (they feel). They’ll want an extra page, not agreed to in the beginning. They’ll want two designs, so they can do split testing. All I can say is, unless you don’t mind all these (and maybe some of you don’t), prepare yourself a contract. Hey, a contract doesn’t have to be full of legal jargon or incomprehensible words. A clear cut agreement protecting yourself and your client (say, for example, there’ll be strictly no refunds on payments made as a protection for yourself, and then, designs and funnel build will be completed and handed over to the client within the date stipulated above for balance of payment to be made, as protection for your client). This makes them feel that the contract is fair and covers their interests too, so you kick off the agreement or project with mutual satisfaction on both sides.
3. They honestly think they cannot afford you.
   To me, this is very subjective. If they want something bad enough, they will afford you. One thing I learnt is that one can always become resourceful. I could hardly afford my coach back then, but I got resourceful and came up with some money for it by requesting to work extra at the pharmacy and putting the payment on the card to buy myself some time. If they truly believe that your designs will help them, then they will come up with the money, but again, this depends on how well you craft your offer and how you yourself (especially as a rookie) believe you can make a difference in their business. It is sometimes also a matter of priority. Some will say they cannot afford it, while sipping out of a Starbucks and typing from their Iphone 10 or 11 or something (I’m an Android user).

The story of Kenneth Cole has always inspired me. This excerpt below was one I read from Hello Magazine —

“Kenneth Cole’s shoe career got off to a rocky start in 1982 when he set up shop in a borrowed trailer outside a New York City trade show because he couldn’t afford the cost of displaying his shoes at the event. There was just one problem. “ NYC only grants trailer parking permits to utility companies and filmmakers shooting movies. I changed our company letterhead… to Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc,” says the American shoe designer, “and the next day applied for a permit to shoot a full length film entitled, The Birth Of A Shoe Company.” And the ploy worked. Kenneth and his makeshift “movie” showroom sold 40,000 pairs of shoes in just two days.” — because everyone had to pass by his trailer before entering the building for the shoe event. To me, that was being crazy (in a good way) resourceful.

I remembered after getting a few clients and becoming better and better in designing and funnel building, I decided to increase my prices. At that point in time (one year later after I started designing for real), I was charging $1500 for a full funnel build plus design, including follow up funnels and a free 4 week tweak after the completion of project. It worked out badly because clients dragged their payments — they’d pay me 50% upfront, and then took their time replying to me about their feedback and edits, and only paid me the balance about 8 weeks later. It was crazy. I was tied to them for 2 months, and while I did have other projects in between, being a solo entrepreneur, it was hard to juggle several clients at once. I realized that they took the 4 week free tweak very literally, and took advantage of it to pay me as late as they could.

I decided to craft a new offer. I increased the price by 50%, reduced the 4 week tweak to 2 weeks, set the agreement to have the funnel done and dusted in 7 days (meaning I’d get full payment within 7 days), and limited myself to only 1 client per week.

Before putting the offer out there, I tested it on a group of women entrepreneurs, asking for their feedback. 90% were very supportive and said I was still undercharging, because in my new offer, I’d included two sessions of 1 to 1 edits with me — ie instead of discussing over DM or emails, we’d meet up, I’d screen share their funnel on Zoom, and I’d edit and update everything they wanted to change, live for them to see. There was no limit to the duration of the Zoom call — the point was the personal service that I could give them, where no other designers (none I’ve seen so far, anyway) could. One client took 3.5 hours. I missed lunch. She was very happy and she paid me immediately after. That was worth the missed lunch.

The other 10% said that my offer was too costly — I’d ramped it up to $2297 — they said they could get virtual assistants from other countries at a much cheaper price for the same quality of work. I disagreed. How could they compare my work to others when they’d never worked with me? Being a graduate of the Clickfunnels Design School, I knew the secrets to design hacking. A pretty funnel and a pretty funnel that converts, to me, are two very different things. I told them — I can make pretty funnels for you too, that suits your taste— but it may not be the formula to converting your visitors into paying customers. You may like it, but then you’re not a designer hacker, so you may not know it but your taste may need some changes. That’s where a designer hacker comes in — we hack your competitors’ designs. We take all the elements that work, and then mold them to your branding, making it unique. You’ll then have the design recipe for success. They were not convinced, but it was OK — all feedback were valuable to me, and I would know what to expect from prospects when it came to my new pricing.

This is not to say charging below $2297 or even $1500 is too low. When I first started, I only charged $500 for a full funnel build with design. I was watching YouTube videos and trying to figure out Clickfunnels at that point (this was right around the time I started CF Design School). It was good, because all I wanted at that point in time was to gain experience and collect as much social proof as I could. Market rate for funnel charging? Honestly there’s no clear rate — it can be as low as $500, and it can go as high as 5 figures.

I think I can safely say that for beginners, it’s all about social proof and testimonials. Go out there, offer designs (or whatever it is that you’re offering) at discounted prices, and get good at it. Collect your feedback. You can always ask them to give you feedback via DMs, or you can email them a proper google form with the necessary questions on how they felt about you and your service. This helps you to improve and also pinpoint what you can change to secure more clients in future.

Source: Baamboozle

I aim to help working mothers leave their 9–5, be able to spend more time with their families, and bring their skills online to start an online business. For mothers who are in the 9–5, looking to go online, and start a business of your own — even if you’re aren’t ready to leave the workforce yet, but you want to start a side hustle — you can always download my free checklist that allows you to get a head start on how you can do this without going through the trials that I did. I’ll be sharing more about my journey as I transitioned from a full time professional to a near-jobless mother, to an online entrepreneur.

Get your free cheat sheet now, and remember to follow my blog for more sharing sessions!