No matter how large or small the business is —it is a fact that every entrepreneur wants to increase their price rate. As expected, almost all of us will never do it. Why? Because we're scared. We have so many doubts in ourselves, "What if I can’t live up to the expectations?" We often think, "What if my clients go to my competitor?" We speculate, "what if I screw this up, will I be accountable?"
Honestly, based on my experience, most of these worries are groundless. Actually, raising your rates will not only increase your revenue, but it could also make you appear more appealing to the client.
Here are the tips you could do to get the best rates for your business.
1. Be clear on your offer/services.
Having a general offer will face a difficulty in asking for higher rates because clients will never feel intimidated by an unclear service offering, they can easily find services, maybe cheaper than your asking rate. We all want for services that are made specially for us. For example, photographers specialize in event or senior portraits? It is because they’re aware that if they have a service specific to a client, they have the chance to ask for a higher price.
If you can solve a specific problem, then you can charge a much higher price. It means that you need to find your niche or offer your services in a more targeted way. Take time to rethink your current offers and how you can improve it to solve a more specific problem for your clients. Then you can charge for it. 2. Make price raises a regular part of business.
It's really difficult for some of us to raise our rates because we never had an intention of doing it in the first place. We just realized one day that we are pricing too low to meet our financial goal. Despite that, we seldom do anything about it. We hesitate to increase our price until it’s the “right time.” Waiting for the right time often means waiting for a long period of time. But instead, I recommend planning a rate increase into your business.
If you plan to increase your hourly rate by $20 after every three clients, then you remove the emotions linked to it. It is simply a business goal that you’re planning to make happen. When customer number five shows up, you raise the price. And that's that. This strategy rate hikes can easily be explained to clients—if ever, they ask.
3. Offer an upsell or cross-sell.
Another option you can do is to offer an upsell (type of add-on service) or a cross-sell (an additional product or services) to your signature offering. This will look attractive and engaging to your customers while keeping the current price of your services the same, and while making more profit in general.
If your business is selling fried chicken, then maybe you could sell desserts or soft drinks as upsell. Or maybe you could offer a free delivery service and have them order worth $200 dollars to avail for it.
You could also offer quite similar products to upsell and is often a great idea because it continues to fill the solution that the customer needs, but in a more comprehensive way. These methods allow you to earn more from the same number of customers—even if you aren’t directly raising your price.
4. Offer your services in a different block of time
If you are charging an hourly rate, you should also consider shifting to a bi-weekly or monthly rate—or even longer if that works for you. For example, you charge $30 per hour. That's $1200 in a 40-hour week. If you could switch to charging clients weekly for $1300 per month? That’s a $100 raise without so much effort.
Immediate changes like this can give you a fast rate increase—and because the client is looking at the package in a new time setting, they rarely bother from it. Groceries and supermarkets do this all the time with different quantities, sizes and prices.
Additionally, the longer the time frame you sell, the less you have to worry about selling. If you sell your service in two-month blocks, then you only need to find 6 clients annually. 3-month blocks or 6-month blocks? One-hour blocks? Could be a lot of selling and much effort on your part. 5. Offer financing to your clients
There’s no perfect way of pricing your products or services but whatever route you choose to try raising your rates, the only way you can discover the best rate for your business is to try and find it. Another way to give your business a boost is to offer consumer financing to your clients. Give your customer the hassle-free payment method by partnering with Sals Capital. This also serves as a working capital when your business has unpaid customer invoices that you can’t wait to be paid. You can use invoices to get cash now. For more information visit their website or call 332-334-1077.