Pricing, especially for people who set the price for the product or service, and deliver the product or perform the service, can be very tricky. It’s easy to confuse the price you need to charge for what you make or do, with your self esteem.

You can combat this two ways:

1. Research what your competition sells their work for

2. Figure out how much value you deliver, and set your price at some fraction of that value.

Research is pretty easy to do: the internet is an unlimited source of pricing information; and even in the unlikely event that you can’t find an exact price for what you do, you can pick up the phone and call someone outside your area and ask what they charge for a similar product or service.

If you do this research, you’ll find that there is a huge range of prices for almost every product or service sold. People who go to the local barber shop and pay $11.00 (plus tip) for a haircut may be flabbergasted (or horrified) to know that you can pay $400 for a man’s haircut (and even higher for a woman’s cut). In my field, you can pay a coach $25 an hour, or $5,000, depending on who you hire.

Why would someone pay $400 for a haircut? Why would someone hire a coach for $5,000 an hour? Because they feel like they receive much more value than the cost they incur. Perhaps the $400 hair cut makes you look a lot better on TV, hiking your ratings and securing your contract for the next five years. Maybe the $5,000 coach showed you how to break through a barrier that had been blocking you forever, enabling you to triple your income.

Farfetched? The $400 haircut and the $5,000 per hour coach both exist. More than one person is willing to pay for these rates for that kind of value.

If you haven’t raised your prices recently, or if you simply want to expand your mind on the subject, read these blog posts.

www.fluentself.com/blog/biggification/the-art-and-science-of-pricing/

www.fluentself.com/blog/biggification/coming-up-with-prices/

http://www.shaboominc.com/blog/ (read the November 20th post called “Does Your Pricing Prevent Customers from Committing?”

Do you need to raise your prices? Are you afraid? What’s next for you?