Learn Your Worth
Everything has a value. Of course there are the obvious things like houses, cars and jewelry but there’s also intangibles like going to amusement parks, spending time with family and friends or taking in a lecture. The same applies to your inventory; what you already have in your hands. If you’ve never determined the value of what you’ve created before, now may be a good time to do so while you’re setting up plans for 2018. It’s easier to do than you may think.
If you’ve completed the task from the first part of this series “Taking Inventory” pull out your sheet. This is where Google will become your best friend.
Take a look at what your competitors are doing as well as others in your industry. Pull up their websites, peruse their offerings, perhaps even join their mailing list to see what happens. Research is definitely the key here. More specifically take some of the items on your list and Google how much people charge for them. Use long-tail searches to get the best results (typing in a full question or sentence specific to the item you’re searching for).
An example could be “what’s the going rate for personal trainers in my area?” this is what you may find in the results:
Another example could be “What’s the average charge for speaking engagements?” Results could show the following:
Regarding those teachable moments, I’m sure the lessons you’ve learned from them helped you develop a better process, gain new skills or find the proper way to go about an action. Don’t be embarrassed by your missteps, be empowered. Write them down, spell out the steps you took and document the process. Someone else can benefit from your lessons. Sharing them could catapult you to the “expert thought leader” category which could open up speaking opportunities.
Once you’ve gathered pricing data on the items you’ve searched for, consider what your costs are to develop your resources (time and expense), and determine a competitive price range that you can charge. Download this pricing worksheet to help. Be sure to set a bottom line price which will be the price you do not go below. Also, be careful not to price yourself so much lower than your competitors. That would do one of two things: 1. What you’re offering could be perceived as a lesser value or 2. You could attract the wrong type of clientele.
Take your time researching this part as well. There’s a lot of information out there and learning how to effectively use Google to navigate to the right results will give you insight into pricing yourself competitively.
Stay tuned for the final installment and putting it all together.
