How Much Should I Charge for My Services?
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Scott Greening: What do I charge for this?
Brooke Greening: What do I, how do I charge for this? I need to know what this investment is going to be. Otherwise, we're not gonna be able to sell it. If we don't have any idea of what the investment is going to be. We'll never sell it, because if we're confused about it. There's no way someone's gonna buy it from us.
Know, your numbers, especially if you're like, this is what I'm doing. I'm leaving corporate, I'm doing this. You need to know, what do you need to be making monthly?
And it's okay that we take a deep breath and we double it and we go from there. Not because we're trying to take advantage, not because we're like they can just afford it, but that is truly what the value is worth.
I do really want people to take a deep breath. I do want people to double usually what they're charging and to know that they're gonna be able to provide the support that they need for their clients.
Scott Greening: Happy day everyone. It's time for another episode of Sipping Matcha and helping you make more sales. Right at the beginning. I wanna invite you in to the conversation by sharing your question about sales, about growing your business at buildingmomentum.info/matcha. You can leave an anonymous question and we will share that on a future episode and give you some great advice from our resident matcha drinker.
And sales coach Brooke Greening who's joining us today, and we are continuing to be excited about iced matcha. Iced matcha clinking. Yay. You can hear the ice clinking in the glass and that. So today we are talking about a simple question that, that comes up for you often in one of your roles.
Mm-hmm. But the question is this. What do I charge for this? And, and really for a lot of us, and for those in service based businesses and service provider type of business B2B businesses, those types of things you're providing a service. And so there's not as much like correlation between materials and those types of things.
And so then charging gets really confusing. And how do I do that? How much mm-hmm. How much do I charge? Can I really make a living doing this thing? Those types of questions. Brooke, how, tell us more about the situation where this question comes up the most for you. Like, how did you, how do you learn?
How did you learn about this? How did we how do you deal with it? How do you interact with people about it?
Brooke Greening: Sure. There's different pieces when you're in sales. So if you are in an established business and they already have the things that you need to sell, you don't have to come up with what to charge.
So when I was, I had nothing to do with what was going on with how much that investment was going to be, they told me. And so then that's what I shared with all of the families. When you are starting your own business. In regards to coaching, consulting, like service-based businesses, you are usually having to come up with the products, then figure out how much they're going to be and then sell them.
And that is a lot of different pieces. And so as I've been with StoryBrand for over five years, they have asked me to work with people not only, who have just gotten certified through StoryBrand. So they're either trying to start their new agency. Or they're coaches of some sort and they're needing to try to figure out how do I build this business?
So we work with them. I work with them when I'm getting them all set up, and then we also work with them as they continue to keep growing their business. And this comes up time and time again. So whether they're just starting or they've been in business for a while and they have a new product or service that they wanna offer, they're trying to figure out.
What do I, how do I charge for this? I need to know what this investment is going to be. Otherwise, we're not gonna be able to sell it. If we don't have any idea of what the investment is going to be. We'll never sell it, because if we're confused about it. There's no way someone's gonna buy it from us.
'cause they have no idea what it is. So that's where this comes into play.
Scott Greening: And I like you, you touched on it briefly, but we went through this in our own business. Mm-hmm. We took this step, started our own business, you left the corporate world and we're a couple of weeks in, we're like, wait a minute?
Why is this hard? And we're like, yeah. Yeah. Like, I don't know how much stuff costs yet. Like we gotta we gotta, I don't have a product ladder. Right. I don't know
Brooke Greening: what I'm doing. Right. So we had to create it. And that's a whole nother episode. Yeah. We'll talk about that later for product buyers, but let's just talk.
Scott Greening: Yeah. So talk to us about talk to us about the principles and that, I know like the first thing that we'll talk about is there, there are some sort of like just economic realities of supply and demand. Mm-hmm. So what is that help just as somebody's getting started, if that's the situation that they're in, what does that look
Brooke Greening: like?
Yeah. As you're first getting started, you probably have a bigger, what we call like calendar. Like you have open times all over the place to be able to offer services. 'cause you're just getting your feet wet and you're just trying to figure these things out. So at that point, your services are probably going to be less because you're trying to figure things out.
You're going to do, you're doing different offers. All of that's happening. And then as it continues to grow and as your time becomes more limited and limited, then that pricing goes up. That's just a big. Bird's eye view and the one caution that I would give is know at least the line in the sand where you say, okay, even if I'm just trying to get, I'm not going below this amount.
Because if you have, if you're offering something so low, then what happens is you start having resentment because it's taking you, your client is getting frustrated. 'cause they feel like, well, hey, I paid you more than what you know, more than what was. Deserved and both of you are frustrated, it's not a good fit.
You wanna make sure that you feel comfortable and that you're proud of what you're, you are charging and that they they're able to get the results that they're looking for. But when you're first starting, it's really easy to be like I'm just gonna slash my prices because that way they'll hire me.
And that is not what we wanna do. So yes, you're gonna have it be lower in the beginning. But you have to know at least where the line in the sand is that you will not go lower with it.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And there, there are like those economic, like economies around the world. Like it's a fairly common principle of supply and demand and that.
Mm-hmm. But like the rest of the things that we're gonna talk about today, like the probably for many people, the price isn't. Yeah. As low as what you think it might be like there mm-hmm. It probably needs to be higher than what you're mm-hmm. Even in the very beginning. Yes. Of, of doing that.
So we talked about supply and demand and the realities of starting a business. Now the second principle is what?
Brooke Greening: Know your numbers, especially if you're like, this is what I'm doing. I'm leaving corporate, I'm doing this. You need to know, what do you need to be making on a monthly? Basis because that's gonna start helping you to figure out what you're gonna be creating and how many of those you need to be selling.
So you need to be able to know your numbers. And when we do that, we're saying, okay, what do I need to be making on a monthly basis? What is my goal for that? We're not saying you're married to that. We're not saying you can't ever increase that, but you have to have a good idea of what actually needs to be coming in on a monthly basis.
Scott Greening: Hey there, momentum Builders. It's Scott here from Sippin' Matcha and helping you make more sales. We're so glad that you're part of our podcast family. If you're finding this content valuable, could I ask you to do us a favor? Would you leave a review on your favorite podcast platform where you listen and connect with us at?
We'd love to, to hear your feedback, to connect with you, to see your comments, and it would help us get the word out about this podcast. Have a great day. Let's get back to the episode
Brooke Greening: And you're gonna be starting evaluating two ways to do that. You have like your hard costs. And those are things that are not going to change. So if you have subscriptions, you have fees for different certifications different things were like it's hardcore of what those expenses are and that's not going to change.
You need to know those. And then you need to also know what's happening in regards to the soft costs, and that is in regards to like your time and your emotional. Investment and I had no idea when we first started our business about the emotional investment piece, but that is massive because if you start taking on a client where you're constantly worried, are they gonna be paying me?
Am I providing the services that they need? Are they happy with what's going on? It takes away from what you're trying to do every moment you are actually working with your client to be able to bring those deliverables to them. You are taking away from being able to build your business. And so you have to take those things into consideration when you're figuring out what to charge.
'cause emotional investment and time are a really big thing, and it's not necessarily something you can calculate, but it makes a big difference in your business.
Scott Greening: Yeah. Again, like. For service business. One of the advantages of those types of businesses are like, there are fewer hard cost type of situations.
You're not buying machines for factories, you're not, you know, right. All of those types of things that, that go into some other types of businesses.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm.
Scott Greening: But. I think it's very easy for even established companies to forget about the soft costs that, both directly and indirectly that go into your business.
And so when you're calculating what to charge for people, you gotta remember it's not just your time. And we're gonna talk more about that type of thing. It's not just the costs that are involved, but it's. It's the time that it's taking away from other things. It's the mm-hmm. The marketing that goes into getting that conversation with it.
There's all this whole thing. And it's easy to lose sight of that and then to undervalue and say, well, I just, I'm just giving them like a PDF or I'm just giving them an hour of my time of advice, or, whatever the case may be. Right. There's way more that goes into it.
Brooke Greening: A hundred percent.
And that goes to our last point, that values are coming from the problems you solve, not the deliverables you are giving. That's how you determine value. You determine value by being able to say, okay, I can solve this problem and this problem, not in regards to, I can give you this deliverable and this deliverable.
And once you land on that, this is what I tell my clients all the time. I want you to take a deep breath and I want you to double. That you thought you were charging, because that's usually, and then I'm probably gonna tell you to double it again, but we do it one step at a time. But people feel like, oh, what I'm giving them maybe isn't that big of a deal, especially when we're in the service-based industry.
That's not it. To figure out what are they having and how can you be able to solve them. And that's what we talk about in our service sales framework. That's how we. That's how we form that conversation. We are understanding what their problems are and then how we can be able to fix those. And it is not going to be by a deliverable.
' cause deliverables do not bring the value up as much as solving their problems.
Scott Greening: Yeah. So I just wanted to highlight that for people like, that's a, should be a pretty big aha if you haven't figured this out. Like your value, what you can charge doesn't come directly from the delivery. That's part of it.
But the main part of the value that you're bringing is how much worth is there connected to the problem that you're solving And mm-hmm. That then allows you to raise your prices to charge a higher, and honestly, most people will be happy to pay it if you genuinely solve the problem that you're promising and you're genuinely helping with them because they'll say, okay,
This is what I signed up for. This is what I did. Yes. And it, it made everything gets easier.
Brooke Greening: And that's why when you're having the, these sales conversations, if we don't get the problem right, everything starts to unravel. So if we don't truly understand what is driving them, what's motivating them, there's no way we can actually be able to share how we can be able to help them.
So then you just like, every other competitor, and then they're just starting to look more at what is getting delivered. Instead of realizing that you're able to help solve their problems. Yep. And then that's why they say, that's too expensive. I don't wanna do that. Right.
Scott Greening: So we maybe can't without talking to you directly and understanding the specific business that's in mind, we can't unfortunately just give a blanket answer.
This is how much you should, no, this is how much you should charge. But it's almost always more than you think.
Brooke Greening: Just double it. Yeah.
Scott Greening: Just take a deep breath and double it. That's Brooke's advice. And remember that the price comes from the problem that you're solving.
Brooke Greening: Mm-hmm.
Scott Greening: Not necessarily the deliverable that you're giving in terms of the physical nature of it or the time that, that you put into solving the problem for That customer, yeah. So I know recently you helped somebody think through this and they were working on a proposal and a business opportunity, and they were all sorts of nervous on what to do. What happened there? How did that go?
Brooke Greening: Well, I said it, I said first of, and they were trying to figure out, what do I do? I haven't done this before. This is a much bigger project. How does this look? And so the very first thing was just like, Hey, let's take a deep breath and we need to double it. Like we need to start doubling it right now. And then let's talk about more of how you're able to help solve their problems and how we're gonna be talking about that. And in the end, they ended up taking it times four times what the original amount was. And they didn't even blink.
And they said, yep that's what we wanna do. And so if you are able to truly understand what your customer is facing and the pain points that they have. That makes it incredibly valuable. And we don't use that in a manipulative way of haha, sucker, I'm gonna just like gouge you in pricing.
No, that's not it. But if you're going to be helping them and a lot of people that I'm helping with, either they're doing sales or marketing or whatever it is, they're always helping businesses either solve problems that save them money or solve problems that make them money. That's a huge, and that's a huge, valuable piece.
And it's okay that we take a deep breath and we double it and we go from there. Not because we're trying to take advantage, not because we're like they can just afford it, but that is truly what the value is worth.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And that is a neat story. I know that person was obviously super excited to share that, that news, that oh my goodness, it actually it actually worked and this is what happened.
And it was it was pretty life changing. For them and their business and allowing them to take some great steps forward. So mm-hmm. That today, if people want to jump in and to learn more about how to actually do these things, how to. Set your prices in a way that is commiserate with this problem that you're, that was a fancy word.
I just used, I think, I hope I used it right. You always
Brooke Greening: use, you always use fancy words, Dr. Scott.
Scott Greening: That goes along with the value of the problem that you're solving and knowing your numbers and all those things. Brooke's Sales Accelerator Lab is a great place to do that. And she has a lab that starts every month that you can do with a group of people and get some great training that will allow you to do these things.
And so you can go to buildingmomentum.info/ accelerator. I got the, I think I got that all out. Building moment, buildingmomentum.info/accelerator, and you can find out whenever you're listening to this, when the next accelerator is starting and jump in. There's also a private one-on-one if group is not your jam.
You can do that and have a one-on-one experience with Brooke. And you can find all the information there.
Brooke, any final shots? Any advice? Any well wishes to all of our matcha drinkers out there, momentum Builders today?
Brooke Greening: I do really want people to take a deep breath. I do want people to double usually what they're charging and to know that they're gonna be able to provide the support that they need for their clients.
And it's humbling. It's also terrifying to feel like, oh my word, how am I gonna be able to do this? But look at what their problems are. Look at how you can be able to solve them, and then just confidently move forward with what you're going to be offering.
Scott Greening: There you go. You can do it. Let's go do it.
Let's make some more sales and drink some fun matcha or coffee along the way. Hope you have a great day.
Brooke Greening: Bye-bye.
