How to Price Your Online Product

Tara Bryan: 00:00:05

Hey, everybody is Tara Bryan. And you are listening to the course building secrets podcast. Whether you're a coach or a CEO, the success of your team and clients is based on your ability to deliver a consistent experience and guide them on the fastest path to results. This podcast will give you practical real life tips that you can use today to build your online experiences that get results and create raving fans. Why? So you can monetize your expertise and serve more people without adding more time or team to your business? If you're looking to uncover your million dollar framework, package it and use it to scale you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Tara Bryan: 00:00:51

I want to talk briefly about how to price your offer. So often people come to me say, Well, I don't know how much my course should be, I don't know how much my product should be? How much should I charge for it? What is the price that it should be? And so often, the question isn't what the price or cost is? The The question is, what is the value that my solution provides to somebody else? What is the value that they're going to get by implementing what you're doing? And that is actually the question to start with. Because here's the deal, if you can, you know, save somebody a bunch of money, or make somebody a bunch of money, or improve a relationship or add some sort of addition to a relationship, or if you're making a change, right, your result is quantifiable, and there is a clear before and there's a clear after, then the pricing is around the value that they associate with that. So if I can make somebody an extra $100,000 a year, then I think about okay, so if I my solution, make somebody $100,000 a year, then what is it that I can charge to provide that value for my clients? Which is a very different conversation than how much does my think cost? And so, you know, when people are asking me about kind of the art of pricing, that's where I start is, what is the result that you're giving? And how do you make it quantifiable? How do you make it into something that you can measure? And and that's really the key is, is measure that results? And the measurement has to be something that you can, that's tangible, right? So that immediately somebody says, well, but my result isn't tangible. My result is delivering, you know, something that you can't measure, like improving happiness, for example, you can't measure that, okay, well, then take it a step further and saying, If I have an increase in happiness, what does that do for my life? What how do you measure that? Can you measure it in, you know, getting a new job and making more money? Can you measure it in in, you know, finding a significant other or improving a relationship, you need to come up with some sort of tangible value. So dig deeper into that result. And and what getting that result does for somebody, right, because at the end of the day, people are going to buy your solution because it solves a problem that they have. And if it doesn't solve a problem, then you've got to figure out the problem you're solving first, and then figure out the result, what's the tangible value that you're able to get for them? Again, if you're not solving a problem, people aren't going to take out their wallet, because it's not going to be painful enough, it's not going to have any sense of urgency, it's not going to be something that they're actively trying to do. It may be a nice to have, but it's not a need to have in the need to have is where you find people who who want to solve that problem. And people who value their time, their energy and their money. And they want to you know, use that to solve the problem that you are uniquely qualified to give them. So if you are if you have a topic that you're like, well, it doesn't really solve a problem, then dive into what part of that topic would actually solve a problem. Sometimes it's going smaller, or most of the time, it's going smaller into the topic in order to find that find something specific that you can do in terms of a problem. So for example, I have a client right now who is she specializes in helping people Improve their customer service. So they can have, you know, better relationships, they can retain employees, they can have less complaints that you know, all sorts of different reasons why you would take customer service training. So instead of saying, Well, I offer customer service training, because everybody needs to know how to, you know, treat their clients or their customers? Well, it's really digging down one layer deeper and saying, Okay, from a company perspective, if I want the company to invest money, time and resources into my solution, the the reason for them doing that has to be very clear. By providing your people with customer service training, you will, you know, reduce your, your complaints that you have, which in turn helps you have more happy customers, which increases your referrals and increases your ratings on Google or whatever, right? That's very tangible. You may have a problem with turnover, people are leaving, because their customers are super unhappy, and it's causing a toxic work environment. Right, so So what are like dig into the real reasons, and then that's what you use, then, to help people see the value in purchasing your solution, then it doesn't so much matter what how much it costs, right? Because the pain is more than the pain of them taking out their wallet, right? So really think through that when you're thinking about the art of pricing, then if you're really struggling with those two things, because that's where you start. The third thing I would say to do is to really look at your offer, and how do you make that offer so awesome and juicy, that it seems like they're getting a deal by buying your thing. Because the thing that you're selling, and the offer you put together are two different things, which we could have a whole episode just on that. But really think about what you're offering and how to make it a no brainer, right? So take something that, you know, everybody has customer service training and, and create an offer around it. That just makes it a no brainer for that company to be able to purchase and use to solve their problem. Then the fourth thing I would say, and this is where I go through the activity, because it's sometimes people need kind of that concrete, like, how much how much do I need to charge in order to break even? How much do I need to charge in order to, you know, actually have a viable business?

Tara Bryan: 00:07:46

How much do I need to charge to make this worth my while, right? So look at that number, do the math, figure it out to take your expenses, and, you know, cost per unit and all of that, do all of that. So you know sort of that minimum price you need to charge. But don't get hung up there. Because that may help you just know kind of your, your minimum. Right? Just stay in business. But that's not actually what you're bringing to market, you're bringing to market how the value of what you're providing and the problem that you're solving. And really looking at it from that perspective. But be clear on what your costs are, be clear on what you need in order to stay in business. Because at the end of the day, you have a business, you don't have, you know, a product that you're just selling, right, you're have a business that you're supporting. And the purpose of business is a transaction between value and money, right, you need to be making money in order to stay in business. And so therefore, you know, the value that you're providing needs to be more than the cost that it takes to run your business. So that is another whole conversation that we can have. But when you're looking at pricing, if that makes you feel more comfortable. Just go there as your minimum. But when you are really thinking at about what value you want to charge for what you have, think about the other factors that I that I talked to you about. I'm going to give you a little tough love here at the end, which is sometimes people get really hung up on what they think the market will spend. Well, my market doesn't have any money, my market won't pay for this, my market need, you know, my product needs to be low cost because my market won't pay. And I'm going to challenge you on that because what that says is your market doesn't see the value between giving up their money and what you have to offer. And so you have to go back to the initial problem result equation Solve for that. If you can sell for that, then you have a viable product. If you cannot sell for that you say, well, there isn't really a need, or there's not really a tangible result that somebody gets from this thing or this topic, then you're right, they're not going to pay, because they're not going to see how it solves their problem. And if they don't have a problem, they're not going to buy. And so again, go back to that activity. And you may have to drill down more within your topic, in order to actually get to that pain or problem that somebody has or a company has, that makes them willing to pay the money. If you have, say you have a company and you have a customer service problem. And as as the example, and you say, well, we have this problem, but we don't have any, we don't have any money. The question becomes, how much money are you spending on that customer service problem, right? In retention of clients, it's three to five times more expensive to find a new client than it is just to keep or retain the ones that you have, that has financial impact. Turnover, it's much more expensive to hire a new employee than it is to keep the employees that you have and keep them happy. Right. So when you think about what my client doesn't have any money to pay for this, that actually is false, what is happening is the money that they're paying, because they have a problem is just not clearly defined. Right? If you could transform an industry and literally look at how to sell how to save their hard costs, then you you are providing value, you are providing a solution that changes how they're looking at either making money or keeping money or, you know, becoming more successful as as a company, because at the end of the day, if they're a business, they need to make a profit, they need to retain customers, and they need to retain and hire the right people.

Tara Bryan: 00:12:22

Those are three main issues that every company has. And so if your solution doesn't tie into one of those particular problems, then you need to figure out how how your topic how your solution can get there, because people don't pay for information. People don't pay for, you know, something that doesn't solve their problem. And so how do you solve their problem? In some cases, like if you're solving this customer service training, perhaps they don't have their own internal customer service training program, and they need one, because if they were to build one in house, it would be much more expensive. Perhaps they don't have a training team that can do customer service training, you're providing them with with a solution that's already created, doesn't require resources, and is something that, you know, probably saves them, travel time, seat time, instructor time. And all sorts of other things that are very tangible in terms of numbers, the more you can capture those, the more what you're charging will seem like a deal because you're offering a solution to a particular problem. So there you go, there is my corresponding secret for the day, really dial in all of these different factors as you're looking at your pricing, because it's not just what's the cheapest thing out there. It's not just asking people, What do you want to pay for this? Because people want people want to pay and what they will pay are two totally different things. Right? And, and just look at your own buying habits to look at that. And that is the key to being able to really look at what you're offering and how to make it into something that allows you to invest in you know, building your business, invest in other programs, invest in making the program better, invest in resources and tools and people that help you make a bigger impact in the world. And and this is where it all starts is really looking at this from a strategic perspective. And art of pricing is more than just how much something costs. So there you go. There is your course building secret for today.