Need to increase your prices? Here's 5 signs you're undercharging for your offers

Are you struggling with your pricing? This is one of the toughest decisions faced by business owners—grappling with the question of what to charge for their offers. In today's episode, I'm revealing the tendency for business owners to undercharge, rather than overcharge, and the signs to look out for.

- Why falling into the trap of undercharging, particularly at the beginning of your business journey, can be a fast tack to burn out.
- How undercharging can attract the wrong clients to your business, instead of the right ones.
- How finding the "uncomfortable price point" can promote action, especially when your audience doesn't value your offer enough to commit to it.
- The hidden message behind hitting your income ceiling and the value in reviewing your offer suite.
- When pricing does not accurately reflect the effort you're putting in and value that you're providing to your clients (and so resentment sets in).

SHOW LINKS:
- DM me “OLSM” on Instagram (@stephtaylor.co) to find out more about “Offer Less, Sell More” or visit https://stephtaylor.co/offer-less-sell-more
- Get my Daily Biz Booster emails: https://stephtaylor.co/DBB
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- Get The A-Z Podcast Launch Plan: https://stephtaylor.co/plp-ig
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
When you are giving so much time and energy to
your clients and they are paying an amount that you
don't feel reflects the value you are giving. But for
whatever reason, you feel like you can't increase your prices,
then yeah, of course it's only natural you're going to
feel resentful towards them. But it's not their fault. They
are only paying the price that asked them to pay.

(00:21):
Welcome to imperfect Action. I'm Steph Taylor. For years, I
read all the books, downloaded all the freebies, and did
all the courses, but it wasn't until I started taking
imperfect action that my business had its first million dollars. Here,
imperfect action is about doing things before you're ready, prioritizing
consistent action over perfect action, and moving forward even when

(00:44):
you're not sure you're doing it right. On this show,
you can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing tips and strategies
to build a business that brings you more profit, more freedom,
and even more joy. Are you on the list to
get my daily businesses? Every day, I'll send you a
bite sized prompt designed to help you grow your business

(01:05):
in a more intentional way. Sign up at steptaylor dot co.
Forward slash DBB or at the link in your show notes. Hey,
welcome back to In Perfect Action. This is episode eight
hundred and forty six, and today we are talking pricing.
Pricing is one of the toughest decisions that will have

(01:27):
to make in your business, and unfortunately it's not as
simple as setting your prices once and then that's it.
It's done forever, right, It's something that you will constantly
have to make that decision over and over and over
again at different stages business. Today, I'm talking about the
tendency to undercharge and some signs that you might not

(01:51):
be charging enough for your services and for your offers
more generally, so, whether that might be a program of course,
a membersh even an ebook, there's a chance that you
are charging. Now, why is there this tendency to under
charge when we're just starting out. I think when you're
coming into business from the land of employment, it's very

(02:14):
easy to look at the hourly rate that you got
paid as an employee and think, well, maybe if I
just charge a little bit more than that, then that's
going to be my hourly rate as a freelancer or
as a business owner. But you're not taking into account
all of the overheads, all of the other things that

(02:34):
come into it when you are running a business, all
these things that you need to factor into your price.
I think you're also under charge when you're just starting
out because you don't yet value your expertise. You don't
really understand the value it is in what you know
and how you do it. Because even though you might
have got those results in your previous job, you probably

(02:56):
haven't been working with clients yet, and you probably haven't
seen in those wins that your clients have put. And
the final reason why or this happened to me a lot,
actually was when one person would tell you I can't
afford it. I'd give them my price and I'd send
them my proposal and they'd be like, Oh, that's too
expensive for me. It's out of my budget. And then

(03:17):
that would send me into the spiral of Oh, my goodness,
are my prices too high? Should I drop my prices
so that more people can afford to work with me?
And it would be like the spiral of self doubt,
all triggered because one person told me that my services
weren't in their budget. But over time, ideally, who increase

(03:38):
your prices as you start to build up more experience
as you start to get that bank of client results,
the social proof ideally, right, But so many online business
owners when I see them, when they come to me,
they're at this stage where they're still charging the same
prices they've been charging for years, and those prices are

(04:02):
not anywhere near indicative of the huge amount of value
that they are giving in their services, in their courses,
in their memberships. Right, So the very first sign that
you are under charging is that your prices have been
the same for a while, Like we're talking more than
a year. You haven't increased them as as you've got
more results and more experience, they've just stayed the same.

(04:26):
And this one, like it's such a common one because
it's so easy, Like you've got clients that are just
paying those prices, there's very little resistance. Why go and
create the friction of a price increase. Why go and
tell your clients, Hey, I'm putting the price up. But

(04:47):
if they're the same price that you've been charging for
a while, you probably need to consider doing a price increase. Now,
that wasn't one of the official five signs that you
might be under charging, but I think that's a pretty big,
So onto the actual five signs you might be under
charging now. The first sign that you might not be
charging enough for your offers is you're really busy and

(05:09):
burnt out in your business because you have to take
on lots of clients just to maintain your monthly income
or you're so far away from that goal monthly income
and you're having to do all of this marketing to
keep trying to get more clients in through the door,
and you're just constantly pedling on this hamster wheel. That's
a big sign that you are not charging enough for

(05:31):
what you do. And being in this busy, burnt out
state actually keeps you in the cycle of undercharging because
you're too busy to deliver the kind of experience and
the kind of results that you could if you had
fewer clients and you were able to give them really
epic results at a higher price point. So chances are

(05:52):
that you are probably already giving a really great experience.
You're probably already over delivering, and that doesn't help you
to feel any less busy or burnt out, because you've
got to keep bringing in more clients to keep peddling
on your hamster wheel and keep bringing enough income in
each month, and you know what chances are that if

(06:14):
you are doing a really good job, which I'm sure
if you're listening to this podcast, you probably are doing
a really good job and delivering lots of value, your
clients probably wouldn't mind a little price increase. Just saying so,
a question for you to reflect on, how many clients
would I need to work with at whatever my new
higher price point would be, and how much more value

(06:38):
could I give them with the time that I have,
because I'm only working with this number that's going forward.
The second sign that you are under charging is you're
not attracting your dreams and instead you are attracting painful clients.
The ones who paid the least, somehow, they always seem
to expect the most, they seem to push your boundaries

(06:59):
the most, they seem to ask for the most handholding.
And the ones paid more somehow seem to be a
lot more self sufficient. This is a general trend. Obviously,
there are exceptions to the rules much of a generalization,
but this is a general trend I have noticed over
the years my Launch Magic and my Freedom fast Track
students who have paid you know, a couple of thousand

(07:21):
dollars to work with me. They know not to DM
me or email me and ask me questions about their business.
They know if they want an answer, they can ask
me in the Q and A calls, they can ask
me in the community, and that's where I respond. They
know not to flood my dms with messages. But on
the other hand, when I used to sell a thirty

(07:41):
seven dollar mini course, my emails and dms were full
of questions from people who thought that because they'd paid
thirty seven dollars, they would also now get access to
me to answer all of their questions about their specific
business situation, which unfortunately was not the case. Now, under
charging does actually stop you from attracting your dream clients

(08:03):
because they are probably seeking a premium experience, and that's
an experience you can't deliver because you're too busy, burnt
out and not charging enough right and you're having to
work too much to maintain that income. So you can't
actually deliver a premium experience because you would have to

(08:23):
work even more. So instead, ask yourself, what kind of
experience could I offer that my dream client would pay
a premium price for the next sign that you are
under charging in your business is your clients don't value
your offers. You know, maybe everyone is accepting your proposals
straight away, or they're buying your offer with no questions asked,

(08:46):
but then they take no action. These are the clients
who you've created a marketing strategy for and then they
don't go and implement it. I had plenty of those
back in the day when I did one on one stuff.
The people who buy your core and then never start
it right, or they never finish it, or they never
show up to the calls. In previous rounds of Launch Magic,

(09:08):
the price was actually a little bit lower, and it
used to really annoy me because people would sign up
and then they'd stop showing up to calls around week six.
So I put the price up. I said, you know what,
I'd actually rather have fewer students in the course, but
ones who are seriously committed to launching to getting that result.

(09:28):
The thing is, when we've invested in something and it
hurts a little bit, we're a lot more committed to
taking action and getting that result. And that's probably why
you haven't taken action on like half of the twenty
seven dollar courses that you've bought I mean, that's the
certain that's the reason for me. Right. But when I
invested twenty six thousand dollars in working with a coach

(09:50):
for six months, I showed up to every single call,
I did all of the homework, I took the action.
I saw the results because I had skin in the game.
That was a really painful investment for me, but I
got my value out of it because I was committed
to getting my value out of it. Whereas the twenty
seven dollar courses that I've bought, I've not made twenty

(10:11):
seven dollars back from a lot of those courses because
I've never really been committed to implementing it. So question
to reflect on what price point is slightly uncomfortable for
your ideal client that it will make them take action,
But it's not so uncomfortable that you know you can't
match it with the value in your office. Right, So

(10:32):
where is that price point where you are delivering enough
value to meet the price point and the price points
a little bit uncomfortable for your ideal client so they're
committed to taking action, all right? Sign number four, you
have reached an income ceiling in your business, Like whatever
you do, you can't seem to earn more than this

(10:53):
invisible income sealing each month in your business. And the
misconception is that to through the ceiling, all you have
to do is do more more marketing, get more clients,
run some more Facebook ads, post some more Instagram reils,
et cetera, et cetera, more, more, and more. But often
it's not actually a matter of doing more. Okay, this
is not gonna help. Doing more is not gonna help,

(11:15):
and it's probably gonna burn you out in the process.
But instead it's gonna require you to do things differently.
That might mean increasing your prices, it might mean redesigning
your offer suite to support that next iteration, that next
level of your business. And that's what I teach inside
offer Less sell More. It's my three three hour short

(11:36):
course to completely redesign and refine your offer suite because
the offers that got you to this stage in your
business probably aren't gonna be the same ones that get
you to the next level of business. You can find
out more about offer Less sell More at Steph Taylor
dot co slash olsm. There will be a link to
that in the show notes as well. So a question

(11:57):
to ask yourself to reflect on this is what do
I need to change in my business to get to
the next level income that I desire? All right? And
then the fifth and last one, the fifth sign that
you are undercharging in your business is that you feel
resentful towards your clients or your students. If you have

(12:19):
a program or course when you are giving so much
time and energy to your clients and they are paying
an amount that you don't feel reflects the value you
are giving. But for whatever reason, you feel like you
can't increase your prices, then yeah, of course it's only
natural you're going to feel resentful towards them. But it's
not their fault. They are only paying the price that

(12:40):
you ask them to pay. And if you are bending
over backwards to deliver all of the things that they
are asking for to meet their demands, then that's probably
on you as well. That might be a sign that
you need to have some stronger boundaries with them. So instead,
ask yourself what price point feels good for me for
the level of value that I am providing and the

(13:02):
results that my clients are getting. Now, this is what
feels good for you, not what do I think someone
will pay. It's what feels good for me. Right, what
feels fair for the amount of value? What's the fair exchange?
Because that's all it is, right, It's an exchange. It's
an energy exchange. You are putting your energy and your

(13:23):
expertise in and your client is exchanging money for that
the results. So what feels like a really fair exchange?
Price point feels like a fair exchange for you. So
there you have it. Five signs you are undercharging. Number one,
you're really busy and burnt out. Number two, you are
not attracting your dream clients. Number three, your clients don't

(13:44):
value your offers. Number four you have reached an income
sealing in your business. And number five you feel resentful
towards your clients. If you have thirty seconds and you've
learned something from this episode, please pop in a quick
rating and a review for me in Apple Podcasts. A
huge amount to me to be able to see that
I'm actually I have listeners. People are learning something from

(14:05):
my episode, and it also makes a difference for somebody
else who is considering listening to this show. So please
that is my one little ask for you as a
return for this episode, and that is Paul, Thank you
so much for listening, Catch you next time.