“Fo’-Free” - How to price your
service-based business

What should I charge? What should my products be sold for? Should I offer things for free? Does offering ‘freebies’ diminish my value?

This week’s ‘post based on music lyrics’ is very topical for service based businesses. When the product – is YOU!

If I had a dollar for every time I was asked, “How do you put a price on myself? How can I put a price on the value I deliver to my clients? And the continual pondering about, “What can my clients really afford?”, well I’d be able to provide my services for free!  

This week I have been asking my network how they have tackled these questions. 

Find out what our combined top tips are for pricing, selling yourself and not doing everything, “fo’ free”. 

1. Charge something – anything!

You’ve just started. You need to get testimonials, you need to get references and referrals for your word of mouth business, you need to build practice, hours, experience in the field that you want to ‘be known for’. You want to start telling and showing people what you now, do, what you sell, what value you bring but … you can’t bring yourself to charge for it. 

Stop. Right. There. 

Charge a cup of coffee, a bottle of wine, raise an invoice for a slice of cake, ask for something (anything) in return. 

This practice begins to set the foundation for you to begin some negotiation practice! Yes, you heard me. You get something, they also get something. Mutually beneficial negotiation where you both, are getting value – and it’s not ‘fo’ free’. 

2. Just ask…

Someone you know might benefit from your new service. You would like to get paid for it. What a perfect combo!

When you are first starting out, ask a potential client how much they would charge for the value that you bring?

When prototyping our first workshop for @thegrowco we asked our first 3 clients that exact question. “We’ve told you, and shown you what you’d be getting, how much would you pay for this [service/product]?”. 

We followed up with, “What would make this more valuable to you?” And, “What was missing that you would have loved to have seen”. 

All valuable input to the current service and also any future enhancements in the pipeline. By just asking, we made the content more relevant and rich by listening to what made us different to all the others – out there. 

3. Benchmarking beware

Market analysis and benchmarking with your competitors is risky business. Please benchmark but remember that you shouldn’t hang your hat solely upon this when pricing up your services. 

Unless you personally purchase and experience each and everyone of your ‘competitors’ service,  it is very hard to compare and contrast your value to another’s. 

You are unique and offer something that no one else does. Your competitors are doing something similar. The key word is ‘similar’ – not same.  

Start with a price that is in the ballpark of your competitors. Be comfortable with it. After all, you can always change it later!

What tips do you have for those pricing services? What other questions do you have around pricing your products or service? 

I’d love to hear about them. Book in some time to chat here if you want to make the most of a complementary 30 minute discussion on all things career, business and strategy.