14. How to Overcome the Most Common Pricing Mistakes

Today we're talking all about some pricing mistakes. These are the top 5 most common pricing mistakes that I see photographers and creatives make. I'm also going to talk about how you can avoid them and also what to do instead. 

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Transcript

Today we're talking all about some pricing mistakes. And so these are the top 5 most common pricing mistakes that I see photographers and creatives make. And I'm going to talk about how you can avoid them and also what to do instead. 

Let's face it, most of us would rather be making art than running a successful business. But here's the thing. We can 100% do both. If you want a creative business that you and your clients adore and that supports the life of your dreams, you're in the right place. My name is Erica Ewing, and I'm here to challenge you to define your best life and then to cheer you on as you build a business that supports just that. Welcome to the Successful Creatives podcast.

Today we are talking about the 5 most common pricing mistakes that I see creatives making regularly. Two of them came up in my Super Attractor Academy coaching session last week. So I thought that that was really interesting because I had already had this topic planned. What I'm going to go over is the pricing mistakes that are very common. I'm going to talk about why. So there are really 2 big reasons that people get tripped up on pricing, and I'm going to dive into what each of those reasons are. Then I'm also going to tell you what you can do to, A, avoid those mistakes and really lean in and find exactly what you should be charging to book consistently your ideal clients and also to make your personal and business goals a reality.

Without further ado, the 5 most common pricing mistakes, and there is no shame if you are making any of these, know that you are not alone. Okay? The first 1 is simply making it up. Are you currently making up your prices? Do you charge what feels right? I was actually in a coaching session with 1 of my mentors and she was talking about using your intuition to figure out what you should be charging. I just feel like that's really not solid advice. Yes, you want to feel confident in your numbers, but it's not because of your intuition. Okay. But sometimes as creatives, we get wrapped up in this, right? Like we're so connected to our art, we're so connected to the service and the craft that we're creating, this experience that we're creating, that we sometimes feel like I can't charge that much. I can only charge this much. This is what feels right for me to charge. Have you ever just completely made up your pricing or are you doing that right now? 

Pricing mistake number 2, charging what your competitors are charging. So maybe you have looked around at other websites, other local competitor websites out there and you've set your prices around what you see them charging. You sort of consider it market, the like the going rate. I've heard this before, like market rate, right? But you have no idea where your competitors got their pricing. You have no idea if your competitors are profitable or not. You also have no idea of what their situation is. So if you are supporting your family, like for me, my business supports my family of 4. If I started charging prices that were in alignment with my competitor who is, you know, maybe like still living at home with her parents and she doesn't have a family to support. We are in very different places in our lives and we're in very different places in our business likely. So what she charges really should have no bearing on what I am charging. Right? But a lot of times it just feels really easy. Like we can convince ourselves that this is the price that people are paying because we see other people charging it. 

The 3rd most common pricing mistake is not factoring in your goals. I personally love the topic of pricing. I think that your prices are the key to your freedom. Okay? They are the key to setting up a really beautiful client experience, because you don't necessarily have to be the highest priced, but you do have to be factoring your expenses. I truly believe you have to be factoring in your goals. You show up to provide this creative service, something that's making your clients lives so much better. But if you're not in turn getting things that are making your life better, you're going to burn out. You're going to feel resentful. Okay. So not factoring in in your goals, I truly believe is one of the most devastating pricing mistakes. Because time is going to pass you by and you're not going to take that vacation. You're not going to purchase that home. You know, whatever it is on your heart that you wish you could do. When you say, I wish I could do this, I wish I could afford this, I wish there was enough money for this. Those are the things that you can, as an entrepreneur very easily factor into your pricing. That is how you make your personal goals a reality. That is how you bring so much joy into your business. And then that joy just carries over to your clients and the experience that you're able to bring to them. Because it's like in the airplane, like you're putting on your mask first and then you're putting on the mask of your neighbor, right? Like the more you're filling up your cup, the more you can share that with your clients, with your family and your friends. And it just continues to it's got like a ripple effect.

The 4th most common pricing mistake is discounting and it's discounting specifically out of fear. I have been guilty of this one for years. Like the first 5 years of my business I was secretly discounting. I'm going to explain why in a little bit. But if you ever do this, if you ever offer discounts. Not out of gratitude, not out of abundance, but out of fear. Fear of losing the booking, fear of making someone upset with you, fear of your clients being mad at you. You will have trouble making a profit and you will have trouble growing your business and you again will have trouble not burning out. Okay. 

The last most common pricing mistake is overstuffing. This happens when you have packages. I am a firm believer in packages. I know there's a lot of conversation right now about luxury photographers creating custom proposals, and I will do custom options for my clients. But I always start with packages. I want them to see the range of options that they can choose for themselves. Right. And packages really let me do that in a way that's easy, easy for both of us. They can see it up front, so it's very transparent and we sort of have a nice starting point for our discussions. Even if one of those isn't the perfect fit for them. But the issue here is when you overstuff your packages that they actually become unprofitable. This typically happens with that top package, right? We all know that we should have typically 3 to 4 packages and you want to have them tiered in terms of like high, medium, low investment level.

So obviously, the higher the investment level, the more your clients are going to get in their packages. But the trouble becomes when you're not comfortable with the package numbers and you feel like you have to fill up those packages with value. So particularly with the top package, you end up overstuffing it with so much that A, your clients don't actually want all of that, and so they're going to ask you to pull it out and B your top package ends up being less profitable than your lower 2 packages. This definitely hurts your profitability. 

Now, again, I just want to reiterate, if you are making any of these 5 most common pricing mistakes, do not feel any sort of shame for this because it's totally normal. That's why they're the most common. Right? Like these are the issues that I hear all of the time with pricing. And pricing is the thing that I get asked about the most. I love it too. So if you have any other questions or you feel like you're making a mistake, but it's not one of these, let me know because I would love to have this chat with you. 

So there are 2 big reasons why these pricing mistakes happen. Number 1, there is a lot of guilt and insecurity and fear that you feel around accepting money. If you feel this, if this is resonating with you, if you're like, you know, maybe you've never thought about it this way, you feel anxious when you talk about your prices. You feel really nervous when you get off a consultation about whether or not they're going to book with you. You feel like you're like crossing your fingers when you send out pricing that you're going to hear back. When you let your client know the total on their invoice, you feel really guilty. You have trouble accepting money and you feel like you're taking from your clients. This is all money mindset issues. The downside to this issues is these issues is that it really can be very deep rooted. So it might require a lot of internal work. The good news is this internal work is 100% completely possible. It is a practice. It's a money mindset practice. It's all rooted on this idea of scarcity. And if your childhood was anything like mine, you probably heard things like money doesn't grow on trees. We can't afford that. We don't have that money for that. It just felt like I grew up feeling like there just wasn't ever enough, there’s not enough to go around. That's that scarcity mindset. So it requires some retraining because there is enough to go around. Right? The universe has showed us that there are a lot of people doing really well. The cool thing is that the more money that you bring in, the more you can do and put that out into the universe. For other creatives, for people who are less fortunate, you get to make a difference with your money. So it really goes from retraining your brain from the scarcity place to a place of abundance and a place of enough-ness for everyone. 

Reach out to me if you want some resources to help with this. I'm so happy to send them over and support you in this. I grew up in a home with 2 parents. They eventually got a divorce when I was in college. It was a long time coming, in my entire childhood they fought a lot about money. Like in my memory, they fought about it on a daily basis and my husband's household was very much the same. So it's funny seeing now if you just get curious about how you grew up with money and how money played a role in your life as a child and the messages that you hear and then how that manifests as an adult.

Ben and I have always had this like, lackadaisical approach to money. So we've sort of lived through the battles over money and basically said, like to our core, we will never fight about money. We actually don't care about it. And so we had trouble bringing it in for a long time because we didn't respect it enough. Okay. So it's this like weird, fine balance. 

Then tie in the fact that we're heart centered creatives, we're empaths, right? Like we never we think about how other people feel and we never want to make them uncomfortable. We never want to make them suffer. So if you think about charging the prices that support your life, you sometimes think about taking from those people that you feel like need it just as much as you. Right. It's that guilt in receiving, it’s interesting. If you have a hard time receiving gifts from people like separate from money, separate from your business, if you have a hard time receiving someone doing something nice for you. So when giving you a gift, someone doing you a favor without repaying them back. Lean into that a little bit too, because that is all part of the receiving mindset. You've got some blocks right there. 

The 2nd big reason, and this is the one that gets me the most fired up, is that you're avoiding doing the work. What I mean by this is you're avoiding running your actual numbers. We just went through a pricing model in the Super Attractor Academy, and one of the photographers in the program has been in business for over 10 years. And she said, I can't believe I've never done this to this degree. Like, actually sitting down and running your numbers is so freeing. You get to learn exactly what you should be charging. So when I alluded to the fact that I'm going to tell you and help you find exactly the right price that you should be charging. So if you wish that there was a crystal ball out there that would just tell you what to charge, that people would book you at and that would pay your bills and support your goals. It is this. It's doing the work, running your numbers, running all of your expenses, figuring out what your personal goals cost and factoring that in. Then you get this big, beautiful budget that might feel slightly overwhelming. But then as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, you get to decide how you want to make that number happen. 

A lot of experts will say, raise your prices. There's a ton of emphasis on just raise your prices. I think that this is a really bad advice because when you raise your prices and you don't know why and you're just making it up and you're trusting your intuition, you're not going to have the confidence. You're going to feel insecure around those prices and you're going to have a hard time selling them. Now, the exception is if you are grossly underpriced and you know that and you're simply not raising your prices because you're uncomfortable, right?

It all again, comes back to doing the work. Once you see your hard numbers and you see the number that you actually have to bring in in order to make your life work, in order to stay in business, in order to bring joy into your life by making your goals happen. It is so freeing because then you get to decide the type of business you want to run to make that number right. Like you don't have to just raise your prices and be a luxury photographer. You can choose to take on more jobs if that brings you more joy. The goal there would be to run your business in a more efficient way, right? Like you can't provide luxury service at a budget price point. Okay. But you get to decide and having those numbers on paper, seeing what you should be charging, seeing the number that you need to bring in at the end of the month, at the end of the year. Figuring out what your hourly rate is, figuring out what your package prices have to be in order to hit your goals. It is so freeing and it is one of the most powerful, empowering parts of being a creative entrepreneur. Like lean in to doing the work. A lot of times we say we're creatives. I'm not good at the numbers. I think that's just an avoidance tactic and you don't have to be good at the numbers. There are a ton of resources. 

I have a pricing program if you want help with this. Dm me, ask me for my pricing program and it will literally walk you through this entire thing. There are a ton of resources out there that will guide you through this. Okay. I will say though, my pricing program is literally amazing If you haven't taken it yet, it's life changing, so reach out for that. I love it. I really, truly believe in it. It’s something that has supported my business for ten years and I've seen it transform other people's businesses.

So. You have some work to do if you're making any of these pricing mistakes or if, you know, in your heart of hearts that you don't feel confident in your pricing. Do the money mindset work and run your numbers. Okay, I guarantee you you will feel so much more confident. And clarity really brings confidence. You'll be confident in your prices. It avoids discounting. It avoids overstuffing. It avoids making it up. It avoids pricing based on your competitors. It doesn't matter what your competitors are charging when you know what you need to be charging. It includes factoring in your goals. All of those mistakes that we talked about. This is the solution to all of them. 

Now, I just want to leave you with one more thought. This is really around abundance and around thinking about your clients perspective. People like to invest in things that they value. Think about when you purchase something that you really value. You think about it beforehand, you do research, you get really excited. And then when you make that purchase, especially if it's a big ticket item, like a vacation or a car or a home or a nice piece of jewelry or whatever it is, a designer handbag. How excited do you feel? It's like endorphins are released and, you know, the rainbows are coming out of the sky and you feel just like grateful that you were able to make this purchase and you feel really aligned with your goals, right? You feel satisfied. You feel excited. Now, think about your client when they are coming to you, when they're saying that they're interested and they value the thing that you do and they want it. Part of that experience for them is making that investment. It's letting them commit to the things that they value, that lets them lean into their truest self and honestly, a part of that is investing, right? So you're doing them a disservice by not inviting them to invest fully. Think about that. That's a little bit of like a twist on how we think about pricing. They're coming to you because they want to invest, whether it be with you or a competitor. They want to spend the money because they value this thing and people get gratitude and enjoyment from investing in the things that they value. And there is enough for everyone. There is. I've realized this in my own life, and I truly, truly believe that pricing yourself, including your personal goals, really will bring you a ton of clarity and it will be absolutely life changing. 

Run your numbers. Figure out your hourly rate. Factor in your personal goals. And then once you have your pricing, all of the expenses, all of the numbers that you have to cover, create a business plan that lights you up to support that. Business plans don't have to be scary or hard. I love them. It's in my pricing program, too. I'm just going to put another little plug for my pricing program because it's great and it's really the key to your freedom. Your prices are the key to your freedom. If your business doesn't bring in a feeling of financial freedom right now, get excited because this is exactly how you can do it. 

I really hope that you liked this. If you got something out of it, would you leave me a review? I'd be so, so honored and would absolutely be doing a happy dance around my kitchen. Is there a topic you're hoping I'll talk about or a creative you'd love for me to interview? Let me know and I'll see if I can add it to the agenda.