What do OBM clients want? The 7 things no one is telling you.

Hey. Hey rock stars. Welcome to the next episode of The Audacious OBM. So today our episode is called “What do OBM Clients Want? The Seven Things No One is Telling You”, and I know it’s a little bit provocative of title, isn’t it? So this episode came about as I was thinking, what are the things that I see online business managers trying to do to please clients that aren’t quite working, and what could they be doing instead?

What have I seen that lands successfully? So that’s why we’re going to be talking about these seven things. I’m actually going to tell you what they are. I’m not going to keep it a secret. And I want you to understand that they are non-traditional. They are not your typical things where someone will say to you, oh, you need to be able to type up a letter.

This is not the level I’m talking about. I’m talking about the real ooey gooey things that make clients love you. So, let’s dig in. All right. The first thing is initiative and proactivity. When we’re talking about initiative and proactivity in terms of being an online business manager, it is more than just the average Joe.

Being proactive for an everyday person is things like setting your alarm so that you get up on time to go to work or it is being proactive is filling up your car the day before you need to go somewhere and not on your way to your meeting. But when you’re an online business manager, there’s a whole new level and we cannot operate at a different standard, a general standard, otherwise, it kind of takes away from our value and the value that we bring to a business. It is this higher level of initiative and proactivity. What I’m talking about is the ability to look forward and further forward than people generally would if you’re project planning or if you are trying to deliver an operation smoothly.

You need to be able to look forward and even preempt some of the things that might go wrong or some of the things that might go right, and if something goes really right, knowing what action is needed at that time to enhance that result. So it is all about looking further. Into the future, and then looking at the different pathways that might occur.

And when we’re talking about initiative, we’re talking about looking at all of the moving pieces. You have to be able to see the whole chess board, not just your pawn, the whole thing. And see, okay. I know this team member has said to me that they’re out of action this week. What are we gonna do about that?

It is more than just looking at what that team member is responsible for, but it’s also looking at all the flow on effects from that team member being gone. This then dictates whether we need to find a replacement, whether we just need to push timelines out. And what the other team members are going to need because they’re down a human. They might need to shift their workflow and their workload, or it might mean that we are never going to meet a really important deadline that we were banking on.

So it’s all about using as much of your thought as you can to preempt issues arising. And when they do. Having the capability to review and think of potential solutions and going back to a client with those, not just going back with, we have this problem and I think that’s going to cause more problems.

What if you added the solution? We have this problem, it’s going to put the rest of the team behind or under pressure. I don’t think it can wait until Susie gets back. Here are three people I think we can reach out to who might be able to help. It’s gonna cost you $500. I think it’s worth the investment. Otherwise we’re going to have to change the delivery date of this job.

It’s a different conversation, right? All right, so that was number one. You need to have initiative and you need to be hugely proactive.

Number two, structured communication. This seems like a simple one, and it is simple, but it is incredible how many times we forget to do this, and that is to communicate clients love, communication, and structured communication.

Now, I’m not saying you need to talk everybody’s ears off with details they don’t need. I’m saying you need a plan with your client about when you are going to communicate, what you’re going to communicate, how you’re going to communicate, so that they know what they can expect and they know. Okay. If I want an answer to something or I need something, this is how I go about asking.

This is the easiest way. And so an easy way to do this is to create some rules. Now, I’m not saying that they’re hard and fast rules. But it might be okay, we’re going to have a weekly call on a Monday, and that’s when we’re going to review the week before’s workload, what was accomplished, what is now overdue, and the things that are coming up and what looks like it might be at risk, what needing to rectify that and do operational planning.

Then we might come together once a month and do a strategic plan for the following month, or in between, we might use Slack to communicate. So if we need further clarification on little things, we can jump in there and ask the question. If you need something urgently, you can email me and you’ll get a reply within 24 hours.

All of these things are explaining different avenues your client can use to communicate with them and the different avenues you will use to communicate with your client. It also gives them a really simple way to know when to hear from you. So if you express, okay, I’m gonna let you know when we’ve hit this point of the project, or I will let you know the second that I have completed this piece of work that the graphic designer is waiting on, because then, you know, we’re three days away from launch. I will communicate with you if one of these three crucial things happen, or you will hear from me, you know, at the end of every project. Like, what is it and when can they expect to hear something? And if you want my honest advice, communicate more.

Purposefully communicate more. So not with irrelevant updates, with genuine updates, but possibly more so than you naturally would because they don’t know what you are doing. They’re sitting somewhere else wondering, and it’s really easy fix.

Number three, radical responsibility. When we talk about radical responsibility.

We’re talking about our role in a business and when things go right and when things go wrong. If you make a mistake, apologize and own it, and then investigate it. Work out what has happened, why it happened, and how you can make sure it doesn’t happen again, preferably before the client notices. So if something has gone wrong and you’ve seen it, Work out the game plan to rectify it, then come back to your client.

Don’t come to them just with a problem and you might not be able to solve everything without them. It is more about the approach and the attitude. It is also really important that we see everything we work on as a group effort, it is you and the rest of the team. Even if it is just you and your client, you’re a team.

And what we don’t wanna do is constantly shift blame to other people. And you might feel like, Hey, this was not my fault, but do you really need to highlight that? Because the chances are if there is a repeating situation, And there’s issue after issue after issue. The likelihood is one of those issues are yours.

But if it’s just, you know, things happen and sometimes things don’t go to plan. And if it’s one of those times, then your client will know that it’s not some big issue that you have or be looking to place blame on anybody.

The best thing that you can do is accept the responsibility.

“I see this has gone wrong. I’m going to find out what my role was in it and how I can help contribute so that in the future this doesn’t happen again.”

It’s taking that responsibility and it’s not just blaming, oh, that’s because such and such did this, or didn’t do this.

Well, can I tell you something? If someone didn’t do something, you’re an online business manager, so. It’s kind of your job to make sure they’re doing it and make sure they know they need to do it.

So if there is an issue where we’ve got a team member who, although we’ve put in everything in place so that they can be successful, why isn’t it working? And then it’s your job to try and help resolve that issue.

And if the answer, in the long term is, well, that person doesn’t really fit our team, that’s the answer. But it’s still not a place where we just go, no, no, no. It was their fault. If we put ourselves in the middle of it, we’re gonna come up with a better answer, and we’re not gonna come off as defensive all the time, or someone who’s not willing to help we’ll be solution focused and your clients will feel more secure.

Number four is invested expertise and experience. Now, I haven’t just said expertise and experience. I’ve said invested. And why have I said that? Clients want to feel like their business, their life effort, the empire that they have built is in safe hands. They want to be able to work with somebody that they trust and somebody who knows what they’re doing.

But not only do they need to know what they’re doing, they need to be able to show, you need to be able to show, that you can tailor your knowledge and your experience to this specific client. It is not a one approach fits all solution. Just because this approach worked in one situation doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best solution for this client.

There’s lots of different factors, and it’s your job to consider them and then to explain to your client why this is the best approach for them, specifically. And share your experience and your expertise and how that looks for them. Again, it’s going, they’re going to see that you are designing a plan around them and what they need, not just a cookie cutter approach.

Number five, amplifying team member strengths in your role as an online business manager. It’s part of your job to coordinate the team, and the biggest thing you want to avoid is having the team offside. So, coming into the team explaining why you are there and that you are not there to overrule or override them, that you are there to support them, and that is your job.

And with that support comes your responsibility that we spoke about. So you’re going to be invested in how they’re progressing because you want to be able to jump in and help or give them the resources they need to create big outcomes. You need to be able to look at different team members and identify what their strengths are, and then add in what you can to bring out those strengths even more so. If you know that the web developer works far better with really detailed instructions that are given a week before, then start doing that. If you know that that’s when the best work happens, put those things in place so that the relationship with the web developer is fantastic. They feel supported.

They feel like they can do their best work, and that you are in their corner. If they get stuck or they have a problem they cannot solve, they can come to you and you will direct them. That’s the ideal situation here. The more that you can bring out the best in the team, the more value you add to a client’s business.

And honestly, the more fun it is. It’s like working with a group of people that you really like and you enjoy. You’ve got a whole crew of colleagues, that are a joy to work with.

Number six, a partner. Clients want. A partner, they don’t just want an invoice at the end of the month or before the month.

They want someone who is doing it with them every day. Someone they feel is invested, who knows their business, who can hold their business with care, who can be a sounding board for their ideas. Now let’s talk about visionaries. They have so many ideas, so many, and quite often they can’t choose between them, but that’s your strong suit.

You’re logical and practical, and can see how different ideas can roll out and where they fit. So you are the perfect sounding board, and you have to create a space where clients feel they can share these ideas and these vulnerabilities with you, and then it’s your job to support them with kindness and with honesty.

It is no good just being a yes man because that’s not what a partner is. Partner doesn’t just say yes all the time, but they give genuine feedback and advice. And they help bring these things to life. That’s your job.

If your client feels like you’re partnering with them, you end up with a really respectful and symbiotic relationship and it’s the best thing ever. Really. It makes people really easy to work with. It means that you can have bigger and better ideas if you don’t have to be worried about what someone is thinking about you, or if they’re gonna judge your idea, or if you’re going to look silly or that your business sense is going to be questioned, then all of a sudden you can have the popcorn discussions.

The ones where all of the ideas just get said, and then you narrow them down and look for the good ones. It really means that you can have open and honest conversations, and that will change everything, and it will make your clients feel like they’re not doing this alone, because running a business alone is one of the hardest things someone can do.

And the final one, number seven, clients want to lead. And to be led. So, how do they want to lead? They have created a business, possibly. It’s only been them for quite a long time. Now. There’s another person, or now there’s a team. They still want to feel connected. They still want to have the final say. They still want to be able to have ideas and have their thoughts and their visions amplified, activated, implemented. They want to be the face and the voice of that brand. They want to lead, they want to be respected and seen, and all of those things are totally valid. But here’s what that doesn’t mean. That doesn’t mean they want to manage every person and all the jobs that all these people have to do.

It doesn’t mean they want to be on the end of every email. It doesn’t mean they wanna be so overrun by the operations of the business that they can’t actually be the visionary. They don’t have the space. And without space, you don’t have the room for creativity, which is where all brilliant visionary ideas come from.

For this, they want to be led. They want you to come to them and say to them, this is where you are needed in your zone of genius. Here’s when I need it. Here’s how you have to do it. Or, Hey, we’ve got some critical points. That really need your understanding and your insight because you know this industry better than anybody else, or I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but we’ve had some consistent feedback about the program and I think it’s valid.

Everybody is asking for a call schedule, and I think that that would be really helpful. Here’s how I want to go about it. So it’s bringing them different things that they should know about, not necessarily that they have to go and do, but things that will be valuable to them or that will help shape the business.

And then they want you to lead that solution and to get it to happen and be live and then see the outcome. They want you to tell them in this aspect, which is where we go back to being partners. Sometimes they lead. Sometimes you lead.

So there they are. Those are the seven things, and like I said, they’re probably not things everybody talks about, but I can tell you from personal experience, these are the things that get me the best feedback with clients.

And none of it is, “I really wish you had a degree in blah”, because at the end of the day, that does not help them grow their business exponentially, whereas all of these things will. So, have a go even try one of them. If you’re not used to doing all these things, pick one. Add them to your toolkit and then come back and tell me what the result was.

What response did you get? Did you see a change? Thanks so much for listening. I’ll catch you next week.

Here’s how you can turn awkward money conversations into smooth transactions 

 

Dear OBM client – please pay me. How to stop feeling like you’re begging for money

 

Hello. Hello. Welcome to the next episode of The Audacious OBM. Alright, today is our last episode in my mini-series on pricing. And yes, I realized that I just, context switched between we and my, please forgive me. All right, so this episode is called. Dear OBM client, please pay me how to stop feeling like you are begging for money.

Now, you might be thinking, what does this mean, Leanne? And essentially it means how do we set our business up so that we don’t run into situations where we feel like we’re a charity? Or we are scared to talk about pricing or to follow up on unpaid bills, we don’t ever wanna be in a position where we’ve delivered our service.

“Hey, I’ve been your OBM for a month and I noticed that you haven’t paid your bill yet.” “Hey, I’ve been your OBM for two months and I noticed that you haven’t paid any of your bills yet.” “Hey, it’s been three months and now I’m starting to get really worried” and now I’ve got people chasing me to pay my bills cos you haven’t paid me and it’s getting really awkward.

From the get go, how can we put an end to that cycle? Let’s stop the cycle before it even starts. Now, a lot of this will have to do with money mindset and how we feel about money and our money stories, and there are so many different people you can go to to learn about the mindset behind money. But I just wanna give you a few tips.

And hopefully some things that you can put in place that will quickly, change your trajectory with money. So the first one is the thought. So when we come to talking about pricing and money and how much we’re going to charge in our business, our thought usually, not for everyone, but a lot of the time is something like, “uh”, or apprehension or, “ah, I’m gonna have to talk about money next.”

Or how do I tell them how much it’s gonna cost? So how can we move away from that? Because with that thought becomes more thoughts and comes feelings. And feelings of being uncomfortable. Or avoidance. So we just, we wanna change that. And I noticed that that’s how I felt talking about pricing a few years ago.

And then I thought, but what if I loved pricing? What if I loved talking about money? And that’s what I tested. I pretended that I loved talking about money. Now, not in a conceited way, but I remember having a conversation with a new lead and we chatted about all the things we were gonna do and I was really excited about it.

And then I thought, okay, we’re gonna have to talk about money. And so I said to this client, Hey, I guess we should have the money conversation. And they replied with, oh, I love talking about money. And all of a sudden I went, oh, and I felt relief. Let’s just talk about money like it’s a thing.

And we did. We set the price, we moved on, did the job, it went fantastic. And so from then on, I’ve made that my premise. I love talking about money. They love talking about money. It’s just a conversation, a box we have to tick. And so it gives me all of the exciting emotions instead of all the scary ones.

So we wanna change our perception a little bit, and we wanna change the feel of conversations to joy. Let’s have some joy when we’re talking about money because what we’re talking about is solving a problem for someone and hey, I really wanna do that for you. So I know creating this podcast now, I was so nervous, I’m still nervous, but if I compare my nerves to, but what if something I say actually helps someone else?

It trumps it every time. I like to help people. And if I have to get over my insecurities to do that, then that’s what I have to do. It’s the same with money. Let’s bring that “I love money”. Money brings joy because money helps people. And so see if you can change that emotion a little bit just by flipping it on its head every time we get that icky feeling.

“No, no. I love talking about money. They love talking about money. It’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be great.” See what it does. I dare you. 

The next thing is the process. So when we were talking about bringing joy into the conversation, we were talking about increasing the emotion around that, increasing the feeling with the process.

The aim here is actually to do the opposite. It’s to decrease the emotion. So sometimes we feel safer when we have a process in place and we know exactly what’s coming and what we have to do. It makes us feel safe and secure and confident. So to help with stop feeling like you are begging. Let’s put a process in place so we know when, how, what increases are going to look like and start having those conversations.

Okay. When I get a new lead, it’s at this point that we start to talk about money. This is how my pricing works. This is when you’ll get charged. This is when we’ll start looking at increasing that price or decreasing that price if it’s, you know, based on scope. And just explain it. Do the work beforehand so that you have a process, because then it’s just a matter of moving through that and we’re OBMs, right?

So we’re good at this. Pretend that you are doing this for one of your clients. What would it look like? Now? Go and do it for you. You can totally do it. You’ve got this. And then see, how that impacts the experience you have with leads and clients when talking about money. And just by being prepared, you’re going to eliminate a lot of that, hesitancy or people not paying their bills and having to chase people and feel like you’re begging.

The more prepared you are and the more straight up you are with people about what to expect and how it works. They can be prepared and that’s how we get ahead of that cycle of we’re three months in and I haven’t seen a dollar, let’s just stop it before it starts. 

Okay. Then let’s look at knowing where your pricing sits in the market.

And what that means. There are people who structure themselves as, I’m gonna charge a really low amount and I’m gonna sell a lot of them, and then it’s gonna be really easy. I can sell that easily because it’s cheap and because I don’t feel like I have to justify the amount that this is gonna cost someone.

You know, if you were selling a house for $2, I’m sure you would have millions of people wanting to buy that, but unfortunately you don’t have a million houses to sell for $2. You would just be broke and have a lot of angry customers. Then the opposite is to price really high and have less customers and really show the value that you are giving them.

So you’re gonna sit somewhere between the bottom and the top. We all do. And it’s important that you know where in the market you are because you can start to measure how much you’re gonna have to coach this sale. How much anchoring do you have to do of this price to explain the value of it?

Because something that. We look at when we are, when we’re looking at sales pages, for example, if you have something that is quite cheap and you have a sales page that’s a thousand miles long and talks about hundreds and hundreds of different benefits that this offer has, by the time we’re in the third paragraph, we’re going, okay, you’re telling me it’s $4, but it’s got a thousand benefits.

What’s the catch? All of a sudden I’m thinking, this is too good to be true, and what are you hiding from me? So it’s really knowing where you sit and what the expectation is of people and how they’re going to perceive that offer to how much information you give them and when you give them the information, simply knowing that your price is in the premium range or the high end range means that, you know, that type of client is probably gonna wanna know a little bit more detail on how it all works. Cos they wanna make sure they’re making a good decision, a wise decision, and that’s a great thing. Whereas if you were selling, a downloadable, that was a no-brainer.

You don’t have to do all of that. And people don’t really want you to, they just wanna give you the money quickly. It’s a quick transaction. Otherwise you end up undoing the sale, which is not what we want either. So another way to move away from begging people to pay you is to give them the information they need at the level that they need it from the get go.

Another thing we need to do, is look for red flags if we’re having conversations that are too pointed or asking if there are late fees or talking about how they haven’t launched anything yet, but they’re sure it’s going to be really successful. And how long till they see ROI and are you going to help them increase sales as an OBM

if I was sitting there hearing these kinds of things, I would think, okay, what kind of person am I talking to? Because different people require different, questions answered, detail, the way they think is different. But if it sounded like a little bit of an alarm, I would automatically put in place things to prevent this being a risk to me.

And that would be a “we don’t start anything until we’re paid first”, then we do it. There’s all different ways you can approach it, but what I’m saying is you don’t have to take every job that lands in your lap, and you don’t have to assume every person is in the most amazing financial position.

So just make sure you put in place some things to prevent there being overdue, outstanding invoices for people that potentially can never pay them. Then you won’t have to beg for money. It’ll always be paid at start. It’s a good feeling. Right? 

Okay. Then two more things to go. 

One, use the pricing for pacifiers theory.

Now, yes, I 100% made up this theory, and it’s something that I just started saying. And you might be kind of going, okay, Leanne, what the heck? So I know now I have had many, many little people in my time, which means I have had many, many little people awake and crying in the middle of the night. And then, I’ve also been awake and crying in the middle of the night cos I’m tired or begging them to go back to sleep.

It’s awful when you’re half asleep and all you wanna do is go back to sleep and you can’t because you have to soothe this poor little cute child. Now I have always been a fan of the pacifier, so my kids all had dummies and. One of them in particular had many, many dumps. She had a box full of pacifiers, and the reason for that is we kept losing them.

And very quickly did I decide that not being able to find a pacifier was certainly not a problem that I wanted in my life. And. It got to the point where one night, in the middle of the night, she’s crying and I can’t find a pacifier, and I’m running around and I’m turning all the lights on, and I’m looking everywhere for this pacifier like it is gold.

And then thinking, all right, maybe I’m gonna have to find a shop that’s open 24 hours a day. And. I wish there was someone that would just come to my house and give me a dummy. That’s all I want from life. And you go to the shop and you pay $4 for a pacifier. But in that moment, man, I would’ve paid hundreds, and I’m not even joking.

If someone would bring me a pacifier and I could go to sleep and she could go to sleep and life would be better again. It’s worth so much money to me, more than the $4 of waiting until morning and going to the shop. So how can we apply this to business? Essentially, it’s more about knowing who you are selling to, knowing what it is that is really, really important to your clients and pricing based on that, including THAT in your service because I tell you someone who said to me, if you just wait until morning, you can get it for $4, or you can pay me $200 right now and I’ll bring it to you. I’m skipping the $4 thing. I did not want a cheap thing right then. And I wouldn’t have felt ripped off. I wouldn’t have been complaining.

I just would’ve been so happy that someone could actually help me when I needed help. And if we can set up our services so that whatever we are doing is providing that level of value and that level of benefit, you can charge more and it’s totally worth it and people will happily, happily pay you instead of you constantly asking, it’ll just be, please, please take my money.

I need help. And that’s absolutely where we wanna be. Win-win for everybody. 

And then the last thing, now this is really crucial for if you wanna stop feeling like a beggar. And if you wanna stop chasing money or chasing invoices or feeling concerned about having money conversations. The key here is to do what you said you were going to do.

Now, it seems obvious, but a lot of the time we say one thing and what we do is another, or something happens and the outcome gets a little bit skewed, and that’s not nice for anybody. But if we can know what we’re selling and then deliver what we’re selling every time or above expectation, you’ll find clients are happy to pay their invoices, they’re happy to be contributing to you like you contribute to them.

And if there is, a cash flow situation, which that just happens in life and in business, sometimes there’s lots of cash, sometimes there’s not. And then you wait a week and all of a sudden there’s lots Again, it’s just the way cash flow works. But if you find we’re in one of the decreases in cash flow situation and you are consistently doing what you say you are going to do and delivering over and above, you’re going to be one of the first people that gets their invoices paid.

Because that’s the way that your clients can honor you back. And if that’s what’s happening, you’ve got people who are happy to pay you and people who know that the second that the funds land in their account, you are who they’re going to. Then you’re not going to be begging for any money.

You’ve built a cycle where the bills get paid themselves, and that’s what we want to happen. And just to be clear, I’m not saying to let client invoices pile up and to just keep working in hope that someone’s going to pay them. That’s not really wise. But I’m saying if you can create a really great experience and show that you’re trustworthy and keep giving your clients the benefit that you’ve said you’re going to give them, you’re going to have happier clients who want to pay you.

And for there to be less defaults and overdue invoices. So that’s my little thought on how to stop being a beggar for money. And to feel confident when talking about money and pricing instead of feeling scared or icky. We want a win-win for everybody every time. If you found any of this helpful, if you are going to go and implement any of this, please, please let us know.

I would love for this to be a two-way conversation. Have a great week, guys. See you next week. 

 

How to set your prices confidently, build a thriving business, and create a lasting impact

 

6 Critical things every OBM should consider when setting your price

 Hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode of The Audacious OBM. I’m Leanne, and we’re going be talking about six things every OBM should consider when setting your price. The reason I wanted to talk about this is because I know as OBMs we can struggle with pricing, knowing what to price, knowing what to include in our pricing, knowing when to talk about pricing, where to put our pricing.

 

It can get a little bit icky and we can feel a little bit confronted. So I thought it might be a good idea just to start having some more conversations and make it easier for each other to price better and price profitably. 

 

In the last episode, we talked about the different kinds of pricing structures, success factors, challenges, considerations when setting your price, and that’s what we’re going to dive in a little bit deeper today.

 

So, there are six things I wanna talk to you about. And these are the things that I think it’s worth the investment of time to think about before setting a dollar figure on your services. So those six things, are you, your expenses, the experience you create, the people you’ll need, the profit and the impact you wanna create.

 

Now, I’m gonna go through these in a little bit more detail each, and hopefully by the end of it, it’ll make sense and it’ll make your pricing journey a little bit smoother.

 

You’ll know what to include even if you don’t know exactly what your price should be, at least you know you’ve got your bases covered, and then that can make you feel heaps more confident in itself. 

 

All right, so the first one YOU. Since I started my business, I have always paid myself. I built a business to support me and I didn’t want to wait a really long time till my business could finally afford me.

 

So from the beginning, I paid myself and my business would have to pay me and pay everything else it needed to, for me to see it as a success. Now things don’t always go to plan, so please don’t feel bad if you don’t pay yourself or you’re still trying to get there. This was just the approach that I took, and it was always that even if it was a small amount, I wanted to consider me first.

 

I didn’t want it to be something where I waited a year or two and then went, oh, I can finally pay me now. I wanted it to be front and center, as front and center as something I was going to do. This was going to happen. Otherwise this business wouldn’t survive and I wanted it to, this is what I wanted.

 

So I factored in me first. 

 

Then I factored in my expenses, which is number two. Now. I was a bookkeeper, so. I know a little bit more than some about expenses and the different distribution of expenses and the types of expenses, and I know that it’s easy to get lost in the detail. So for the sake of this episode, let’s just say expenses is everything that your business has to cover to operate and keep growing.

 

And I want you to consider those in your price. When you’re setting a price, you need to be able to cover all different kinds of expenses, little ones and big ones. So if you are having a really great month, your expenses shouldn’t change too dramatically or the amount that you’ve allocated for expenses shouldn’t. 

 

You might find that some months you don’t have to pay for a lot of things. This month. I just had to pay for, my monthly Zoom fee. But then you might get to another month and you might need a new laptop, and that’s a really big expense. And so all of a sudden you pause a little bit on the really big expense. And it’s not astronomical.

 

I’m not saying go out and spend millions on things you don’t need. It’s always things that you need and are practical. But I want you to build them into your pricing so that then it doesn’t matter when in the year you are or what month it is, you have already thought about and allocated some money for those expenses because you are not in a situation where you can just go, okay, this month I’m going to quadruple my prices and charge all my clients four times as much because I need to buy a new laptop.

 

And the next month I’m gonna reduce it again. That’s just not good business sense. If you can make that work and people go for it, then by all means, please share your secrets. But I’ve not seen anyone successfully do that yet. So an easier way around it is to building your expenses to your overall price.

 

Then, the third thing we need to think about when setting price is experience. Now this is something that dawned on me once I was in business for a few years, and that was I like to make people feel good, and I didn’t want it to be a battle of “Can the business afford it? And can the business afford paying all of its expenses and doing this nice thing, this thing that’s gonna make my clients feel valued?”

 

I didn’t want it to be that constant tension. I wanted to be able to show people that I appreciate them in all different ways without it tipping the ship over. So then I thought about, okay, what would those things look like and how much would it cost? I just brainstormed a little bit and went, okay, so I built a buffer.

 

That is my experience factor buffer. And so it can be big and little things. It might be a card, it might be a chocolate bar, it might be a birthday present, or it might be sympathy flowers. It can be all different things, but I’ve built it in to my price so that when it comes to it, I don’t have to hesitate.

 

I don’t have to go, oh, do we really have the revenue to cover this because it’s built into my pricing structure. So then it just becomes about following the process through and creating that experience. That experience becomes a given. And that was just something that I really like. And now that I’ve built it into my pricing structure, makes me happier, makes my clients happier, win-win, right?

 

Which brings me to people. So the fourth thing we should consider is people. And the main reason I wanted to talk about this was because it might just be you in your business right now. But I want you to think about the future a little bit and what happens if you’re really successful? What happens if you finally get to the point where you have leads, upon leads, upon leads? Then what? Because chances are you won’t be able to do it all. And what happens when you won’t be able to do it all? You are going to have to pay other people to do it. And that means that every time you add more people into your business, it’s not just the people that you have to pay, it’s the systems to facilitate it as well.

 

Like it’s just, it’s not really as black and white as it can seem. So I just want you to think about, now, if I had to bring on another person, whether that’s a contractor, an employee, a subcontractor, someone to build your website, a consultant, whoever it might be, factor into your pricing, that person might need to exist so that then when it comes to it, you’ve already got a little bit of a game plan so that every new client you get.

 

It’s not just covering like the basic, basic basicness of business. It has room to cover you, your expenses and more people. So I just want you to start thinking about that and building it in now so that when you get to the point where you’ve got lots of leads and you want to scale, you don’t have to be stopped in your tracks and go, oh, but now I’m not gonna get paid coz I have to pay someone else.

 

And I didn’t really think about that. Or I didn’t think about these extra expenses that would go with that, and then all of a sudden all your attraction and that awesome feeling that you get stops because you don’t quite know what to do, coz you didn’t expect it. But if you build people into your pricing structure, that won’t happen.

 

Okay. Awesome thing number five that we should consider when setting our price is profit. Now let me be clear, profit is not breadcrumbs. Profit is not the thing that is left at the end IF there happens to be anything left that you sweep up and put somewhere. Profit is what is there when you decide, okay, business is done, or I wanna give this business to someone else, what are you going to walk away with?

 

What has that business contributed to you and your family and your life and your wealth outside of, “oh, it paid me every week.” We want there to be some profit. We wanna build up that asset. And so it’s a little bit like with superannuation or retirement savings. We put some money away every single week.

 

Or our employers put money away for us every week that we don’t see and we don’t touch because it’s for when we are older and when we need it more. And all these years we’ve been. Building up this cache of money for when we are going to need it, and we don’t touch it. In the meantime, only under very extreme circumstances are we even allowed to access that money.

 

It’s similar for a profit to business. It’s the money that the business is putting away, putting away, putting away, and it’s so that when you walk away, you’ve actually got an asset. It’s going to make the rest of your life easier because it had existed, and that’s what we want. We don’t just want business to be a job where, yeah, we get paid, we get paid well, we have a great time. We want it to serve our entire life. And building in a profit percentage into your pricing structure will allow you to do that. 

 

And then, you know, okay, every new client I get or this type of service that I sell, I’m going to put this much away. That’s the profit. And that builds and builds and builds over time.

 

And then when you close your business, that bit, that asset is yours. It’s built in. And then the final thing that. I wanna bring to your attention when you are setting your price and determining how much you should charge and what it should include, please consider your impact. So what I’ve learned about people is very rarely do we just want something for us.

 

Usually we’re passionate about other things. Or, there are things in the world that we see that we go, I wish I could do something, or someone should do something about that. And you opt out. I can’t do it because I don’t have the resources. Or you’re stretched so, so thin that when it comes to contributing something that you think will make a really big difference, you hesitate.

 

But what if it didn’t have to be like that? And what if you built-in impact into your pricing structure similar to the way you do it with profit? And what if you really thought about, okay, if this business existed to solve this problem or to improve this system? Or to help these people pick something, something that is important, something that you can anchor to, and then build it into your pricing structure.

 

You’re going to change the world. You’re going to make an impact because with every dollar that you make, you are contributing to this thing, whatever it is. So that it doesn’t feel like you’re constantly scrambling for money so that you can finally make the impact that you want, but instead you are building that impact into everything that you do.

 

Can you imagine what that would be like? And then going to work every day and knowing that just doing what you do is.  ticking that box and helping the world in the way that you want to. It’s making a change, small or big. And so let’s take the hesitancy out because why not? If we can from the start, let’s do that.

 

Nothing’s stopping us. We’re the ones that get to choose and we can just start small. That’s the final thing that I just wanna mention is with all of these things, I think you will build a really good pricing structure if you can consider these six things. But I also know you might not be there today, and that’s okay.

 

It also doesn’t have to be overnight, and you don’t have to, start really big. If you don’t have one of these things included in the way you set up your prices at the moment and you know that you want to, just start with a really small amount and then increase it over time, because then it becomes easy, like easy to the point of if all you can manage is 10 cents.

 

Now 10 cents is nothing. You cannot even buy a Chupa Chup with that anymore. So if I was to say to you, just put 10 cents away from every transaction for your impact or for your profit or for your experience, could you do it? My guess is yes, it’s a starting point and then you increase it and eventually it won’t be 10 cents anymore.

 

It might be $10, might be a hundred dollars. It might be a thousand dollars. You don’t know what the future holds, but you can kind of control that pathway. And so I really encourage you that no matter where you’re at now, to think about your pricing and to remember that you are in control, you can make this work for you, and that there are things we can implement that makes pricing a little less stressful and even feel good.

 

So I hope that, helps. I hope that you have a little bit more clarity and a way to make pricing feel successful and less scary, less icky. Let me know how you feel about pricing or what your biggest pricing question is.

 

DM me on Insta @audaciousempires or send us an email or head over to our website, audaciousempires.com.

 

We love people. We love to help.  Have a great week, everybody.