When it comes to women and pricing, there  is a great deal of anxiety.  In fact the whole topic of money is taboo  for most of us, women business owners.

We were raised not to discuss money, not to order the most expensive thing on the menu and to be grateful for what we received because money doesn’t grow on trees.  I think this contributes heavily to why women hesitate to raise their prices.  Let’s take a look at the top three excuses women business owners give for why they can’t raise their prices.

Excuse #1 – They feel they don’t have the experience so they can’t charge as much as their competitors

A majority of women business owners seem to be equipped with a very powerful internal voice that constantly picks away at their self-esteem. It is pervasive and holds great power over how we think about ourselves and our business.  I recently heard Arianna Huffington speak and even she admitted to having a voice telling her she wasn’t good enough.  When women business owners hear that voice and then listen to their competition’s marketing efforts, it is no wonder they feel like they are less experienced and not worth a price increase.

A client I was working with recently was constantly questioning if she was worth what she charged.  She had been in business for 5 years and never once taken a price increase.  She was charging $55 per hour even though she knew most of her competitors were up to $75.

I had her do a cost analysis for the service she provided. What she discovered was that for all the work she was doing for $36,000 per year, would cost her client $500,000 if they had to hire other people to replace her.

Just the act of seeing how much she was actually doing and how much value she was bringing her client she realized that a price increase was not only overdue but deserved.  She finally raised her prices and increased her monthly take home by $5000 per month.

Excuse #2 – They’re trying to beat the competition by pricing lower

The second reason I hear, and I hear this A LOT… is that they want to provide a low cost alternative so that everyone has the ability to hire them.  This has been shown to be a poor pricing strategy except with a very high volume business.

In most cases, people purchase products and services that are important to them and that solve their problem in the most effective manner.  Price is not the main factor in their decision. By charging so much less than the competition you are positioning yourself as a bargain version and lowering your worth. I did this myself when I started my recruiting business.  I was lowering my price to be cheaper than my competition hoping to attract clients and what really happened was that I called the quality of my service into question and attracted fewer clients.  When I raised my prices I also raised my perceived value and started attracting more clients.

Excuse #3 – My clients won’t pay more

The third excuse I hear quite often is that “my clients won’t pay that.”

Did you know that in most cases when businesses take a price increase that makes sense they lose very few clients.  The ones they do lose are usually the ones who weren’t valuing the product or service anyway.

I worked with a hairdresser who owned her own shop. She was priced well below the average for her town. She was convinced that her customers would stop coming to her if she raised her prices.  We did a competitive study and realized that if she raised her prices to be in line with other salons her customers could leave but the best they would be able to get for less was one of the value haircut chains.

Once I finally convinced her to raise her prices she was surprised when not one customer left or even complained.  Turns out most of them where there because she gave a good haircut and not because of her low prices.

Your Next Steps…

If you are a woman business owner and you are making excuses about why you can’t raise your prices, then you may be making much less than you deserve.  Pricing is one of the most important factors for a successful business.  If you don’t price yourself correctly you will not only make less money, but you run the risk of having your customer devalue what you do.  Stop making excuses and figure out today if a price increase is what your business needs.

If you would like help with this, I would like to invite you to sign up for a free price assessment and I will help you gain an understanding of  why your business is not growing like you want.  Renewed excitement that YOU CAN develop prices that make real money.

The secret system women use to grow their business confidence so they can raise their prices and an opportunity to make all that happen quickly.  Visit my site at http://www.accelerateher.com/get-started to sign up today.

Most women I know, me included can tell you to the ounce how much we weigh each day.  We are totally invested in staying on top of how much we have lost or gained so we can make adjustments to our diet and exercise routine before things get out of hand.

What I find interesting is that as women business owners we don’t pay the same amount of attention to our profit margins.  Ask yourself this… Are you watching your profit margins on a daily basis like you watch your weight?  How about a weekly basis or even a monthly basis?  Not unlike your weight, your profit margin will help predict the health of your business yet I find that most women never look at this number once they set their prices initially.

Can you imagine not checking your weight after you were born?  That is basically what you are doing when you don’t check your profit margins as your business grows and changes.  You would never consider doing that with our weight.  In fact I know women who weigh themselves in the morning and before bed.

Think about how much better off your business would be if you paid that type of close attention to your profit margin…

…you would recognize immediately if there was a problem.

….you would be able to make changes that would keep your business growing instead of working for a few years only to find yourself working for very litte due to inflation or a change in your market’s financial health.

…..You would be able to have the peace of mind or the sheer joy that comes with knowing you are making money and not just punching a clock to earn less than your worth.

One suggestion I have to stay on top of your costs is to institute “Finance Friday.”  

To do that you set aside an hour or two each and every Friday to examine your finances, pay your bills, check out any new price increases impacting your cost of goods, stalk the competition to see if they are adjusting their prices  and just get comfortable with your overall profit margins.  You should already know what profit margin you need to maintain to stay solvent so this is just a “weigh in” so to speak.

A spa owner I was working with, mentioned that she was very overwhelmed with her expenses because she was having trouble staying on top of her costs.  She was totally stressed out because each month her costs seemed to go up and she was making less and less profit.   We instituted Finance Fridays for her and it changed her business.  She now knows where she is with her profits and with her expenses each week.

Her comment to me was, “I feel so much more in control of my business since starting “Finance Fridays.”

How my client’s business went from struggling to major expansion…

Because she was not staying on top of  and taking control of her costs she was not able to minimize waste and maximize profits.  Turns out because she wasn’t paying attention to her purchases, she had a lot more inventory of supplies than she needed and this was tying up her available capital that she could have been using to advertise and market her business.  Once she made some changes, she started to see the growth she hoped for and she just announced that her business has outgrown her initial space and she is moving into a new building.

If you would like to take control of your profits I want to invite you to sign up for a complimentary pricing review so you can make sure you have prices that are set correctly and then you can institute “Finance Fridays” for yourself.  You will be amazed at how much stress it will relieve.  Sign up here for your free review: http://www.accelerateher.com/get-started

We are taught as young girls that if someone asks us to do something we do it, even if it is not really what we want to do.  We are taught to be selfless.  In many cases this is an honorable thought, but in business it will hurt you.  If you accept every offer your customers make especially if that offer doesn’t cover your cost of goods, you will find that you are struggling to make a profit.

Did you know that according to The Wall Street Journal women business owners average revenues are only 27% of what men owners make?  If you are not saying no to your customers you may be contributing to this statistic.

When you are willing to say no your value goes up.

Your customers will respect what you have to offer more if you stand firm on the prices that you set.  If you set your prices accurately then you should know what your cost of goods are and what you need to make for your gross profit margin.  When a customer makes an offer that is not in alignment with that pricing you must get comfortable saying no.

I had this very situation happen to me just recently.  In my recruiting business, I had a customer who I had worked with for the last three years very successfully.  They were bought out by a larger company after we had signed our contract.  A month ago, I got an email saying they were updating all the old contracts and wanted me to sign a new contract with the new company.  After looking closely at the contract I noticed that they were lowering my rates from 20% to 15%.  I have determined for my business that 20% is the lowest fee I am willing to accept.

When I talked to my Director of Recruiting she was ready to accept 15% so we didn’t lose the contract.  I was not.  I told her we could not afford to accept it and that we were worth more.

I said no.

I thanked them for their interest but told them we didn’t recruit for 15% and to let us know if anything changed.  I figured that was the end of it.  A week later I got a call asking for my help filling a position and I politely declined telling the person who contacted me that their company was not willing to pay my rate.  Although a little part of me wanted to cave in and take the job, I didn’t and saying no was empowering. It made me feel like I had value that wasn’t available in the discount section.

The other interesting thing that happened after I stood my ground was interesting.  Two weeks later, I got an email from the company saying that their HR President recognized that we had done such good work for them in the past that they would be willing to pay our 20% fee.  So not only did I refuse to work for less than I was comfortable with, my customer, then recognized my value and agreed to pay my price.

If you would like to feel comfortable with your own pricing so you can also stand firm, I invite you to sign up for my “We’re Worth More Initiative.” As a member you will be the first to learn about and get your hands on my new training program “From Mediocre to Millions: How to Set Prices that produce Profits.”  Initiative members will get a special price for this product, but you must be a member.

As a member you will also receive guidance and support immediately.  I will give you a free copy of my book “Earn What You’re Worth: A good girls guide to asking for more” You will also get access to our private LinkedIn group where we provide free coaching and invitations to ‘members only’ webinars and live events and you will get bi-weekly videos with tips and advice on how to build your business confidence and price yourself right so you can earn what you’re worth.

Join us today.  http://accelerateher.com/join-us/

I am constantly reminded of business theory when I watch my daughter’s softball team. Recently her team played in a softball tournament. Her team arrived at the tournament extremely confident after having experienced two pretty hefty wins in a row. They were slated to play a team who they were told was winless so they sat back and relaxed.

I know you can see the foreshadowing here right?

You guessed it, they got crushed.

They were over confident so they didn’t put their best foot forward and played their less experienced players.  The game was lost before the first inning was over…at least mentally.  They were down by 8 runs and never recovered.

Do you do this to your business?

Do you underestimate your competition or worse yet know nothing about them?  Do you only put your best foot forward when you think the competition is worthy?  If so you may find yourself losing before the end of the first.   Not understanding your competition will really handicap your business.

When you go into a sales call and you don’t understand what your competition offers or charges you are entering in with your third string players.  You also run the risk of getting crushed.

How an executive recruiter failed to understand her competition and how she was earning much less than the industry average.

A recruiter I know Sandy who was not new to business, but was new to the field of recruiting.  She had a successful career in corporate America and was constantly pairing people with jobs as a courtesy. When she decided to leave her corporate position, she thought it might be fun to open her own recruiting business…so she did.

What she failed to do was examine her competition and the industry as a whole.  She set her prices 75% less than the industry average and then proceeded to hang out her shingle.  When she approached potential clients they wondered what was wrong because she charges so much less than the other recruiters.

This called her quality of service into question and made it much more difficult to generate business.  When you don’t know what your competition is charging it is like playing a ball game with your third string.  You might make a sale but it will be much harder than if you had the first string in or had all the information about your opponents.

What could Sandy do to stop this from ever happening again?

Simple, she could learn more about the industry and her competition. If Sandy hired me to help I would take her through the Revenue AccelerateHER system where she would learn how to get very familiar with her marketplace and understanding what she needs to offer and how to price herself correctly.  Sandy would transform her business from struggling to a market leader.

What can you do now to get to stop underestimating your competition? 

• Make sure you have your first string in the game all the time. When you think no one will notice, you will probably get beat out.
• Understand what your competition is up to and be ready to play hard at the same level and
• Get support from other women who already do this.  We learn how to win by talking to and watching those women who already have the answers we need.

If you are in need of some support and guidance so you can learn to compete on equal footing with your competition, then I invite you to join the “We’re Worth More Initiative” and start connecting with me and other women business owners.

You will receive guidance and support immediately.  I will give you a free copy of my book “Earn What You’re Worth: A good girls guide to asking for more” You will get access to our private LinkedIn group where we provide free coaching and invitations to members only webinars and live events and you will get bi-weekly videos with tips and advice on how to build your business confidence and price yourself right so you can earn what you’re worth.

Join us for free today. 

When you think about this items we covet, they are not the items from the discount stores.  They are expensive brand names that we attach value to.

• We choose Mercedes over Kia.
• We choose Kate Spade over Target’s Cherokee
• We choose iPod over no name mp3 players.

Why… because they have a perceived value.

It makes me wonder why, when women run their businesses, it takes them so long to realize that charging too little is putting them in the same category as Kia, Target and the no name MP3 player.

Think about the thought process you have when you purchase those products.  You buy them because it is all you can afford at that time and you continue to hope that you will someday be the proud owner of the more impressive brand.

You probably buy it knowing that it is not as good, but it will do temporarily until you can afford the more expensive product.  Or you buy it because it is not super important to you.

Now ask yourself… is that how you want people to feel when they purchase from you? I don’t think so.  I know for me I want people to need to by my product more than life itself.  I don’t want to be a purchase just because they can’t afford something else.

Besides, Not Getting Paid What You Are Worth – Here Are Some More Ways Charging Too Little Will Harm Your Business

By pricing yourself too low you devalue what you offer.  Your customers don’t give you the respect you deserve and that is not good for building a business or a brand.

I speak here from experience.

At one point in the early days of my recruiting business, I didn’t not have the confidence in what I was offering.  I was questioning my own expertise and starting to doubt my worth.  Because of my state of mind I started to lower my prices with the hopes that I would attract customers because I was much less expensive.  What wound up happening was my prospective customers were not taking me seriously.

Because I was so much lower than the national average they didn’t think I could do a good job.  All of their doubt in my ability added fuel to my own doubt and things started spiraling out of control.  I got to the point where I was accepting 12% fees when the industry average was 20% and many recruiters were earning between 25 and 30%  I had effectively become the Kia of the recruiting world.

I turned this all around when I discovered the value that I offered and raised my prices.

An amazing thing happened.

When I decided that I would no longer work for less than 20% and routinely made 25-30% I started attracting more high level clients. They started valuing my service and paying close attention to the candidates I was submitting leading to more placements.  I was providing the same service for 12% but because I was placing no value on that service neither were my customers.

To Get Me to the Place Where I Realized That I Needed to Raise My Prices, I Needed Some Support. 

I would like to offer similar support to you right now.

If you are in need of some support and guidance so you can understand your value and raise your prices, then I invite you to join the “We’re Worth More Initiative” and start connecting with me and other women business owners.

You will receive guidance and support immediately.  I will give you a free copy of my book “Earn What You’re Worth: A good girls guide to asking for more”  You will get access to our private LinkedIn group where we provide free coaching and initiations to members only webinars and live events and you will get bi-weekly videos with tips and advice on how to build your business confidence and price yourself right so you can earn what you’re worth.

Join us for free today

Is the famous line “build it and they will come” hurting women business owners?  I say yes.  We all know that line and many people  use it as motivation when they start their businesses,  but is that line misleading?  In the movie, ghosts of dead baseball players convince Kevin Costner’s character to build a baseball diamond in his corn field so they can have a place to play ball.  They convince him that if he builds it people will pay to come watch and ultimately save his farm.   On his journey to build the field his family doesn’t understand and people don’t appreciate his vision, but he is not deterred. In great Hollywood style he is rewarded at the end of the movie with a stream of cars coming to pay to watch the game.

Although I love this movie and I think it is iconic, I also think it has set women business owners up to fail.  More and more women are deciding to start businesses and are faced with the similar challenges to Kevin Costner.  Their family questions or doesn’t appreciate their vision or their friends sometimes are less than supportive.  Still the determined among us push forward anyway because we believe and we are able to tune out the naysayers.  (That’s what I admire most about women business owners.)  Unfortunately where some of us run a muck is when it comes to doing the work that is required to market and sell. It is almost never like the movie where we build it and the customers start streaming in ” just because.”  We actually need to market and sell.  For some of us this is a real stumbling block.

When we are young women  we are told that it is impolite to self promote.  We are taught to fly under the radar doing “good.”  For whatever reason we are taught that is more important to be selfless and go unnoticed than to do something amazing and stand in our greatness so other notice.  This flies directly in the face of solid business logic and it plays into why I think “build it and they will come” is negatively influencing women business owners’ ultimate success.   In order to be a success in business you need to shine. You need to be unafraid to tell people about all the good things you are up to and stop worrying if it makes you look self promoting.  One reason attributed to why women business owners don’t make as much money as men is that we are not as comfortable marketing and selling ourselves.  We don’t tell people how good we are and we sit back and expect them to notice for themselves.  That isn’t realistic.

Recently, I was coaching a client who was struggling because she wasn’t making sales calls; selling made her feel pushy and uncomfortable.  She was sitting around waiting for customers to come to her. When they weren’t she was beating herself up.  After pointing out that she wasn’t selling anything because she wasn’t asking anyone to buy she developed a plan to change that and things are starting to turn around

Ladies,let’s be honest, “build it and they will come” only happens in the movies. If you want to build a successful business earning what you’re worth you need to change the soundtrack in your head from “build it they will come” to  “ Keep shouting it from the roof top  until they come”  If all the focus is on the building and no focus is on the marketing and sales , I can assure you very few will come.

Let’s stand together as women business owners and support each other to market and sell.  As we start to earn more, we blaze a path for the women who will follow us. It has been shown that if we takes steps to increase our income level, our daughters who follow us into business ownership will make more too.  To do my part and support the women business owners,  I have started an Initiative focused on women supporting other women on our quest to earn what we’re worth.  I invite you to join us.  It is called the “We’re Worth More” Initiative.  Find out how to join at www.accelerateher.com/join-us.

I talk a great deal a bout the “good girl” beliefs we have encoded in our brains from our childhood. Today I realized just how those memories and impressions from our past impact us as adults.

It all started with
my daughter eating apple pie for breakfast. (Don’t judge, she smeared peanut butter on it for protein!) When I was growing up my father used to have a monthly poker game. The wife whose husband was hosting the game each month would prepare a mid game spread. My mom always included her famous apple pie in her spread. While my daughter was eating her slice of Nana’s apple pie left over from the Super Bowl party, I was telling her how much I looked forward to the morning after poker. I would get up early and run to the kitchen in hopes that apple pie would be left. If there was, that would be my breakfast. I can still feel my excitement when I was successful in my quest for pie and watching her eat her pie this morning had me feeling like a little girl again.

While I was watching her eat I was hit with another memory. When I was growing up my family didn’t have a television, so our house was either very quiet or filled with classical music. The lack of distraction made is very easy to focus your mind on bigger things and I was always thinking and planning for my future. Today, as I sat in the quiet of the morning talking with my daughter before she left for school, I realized that my parents had programmed me to think in silence. Even as an adult, I sit in my office all day with no noise. I don’t listen to music and I have no television on for background noise. That is how I think best.

If those two memories have such a profound effect on the person I am today, it is totally understandable that the beliefs our parents shared with us about morals and social acceptance will still be impacting us as well. They are almost subconscious, just like sitting in the quiet office is for me. Until today, I didn’t realize why that was my preference. I now wonder, if I had grown up with constant background noise, if I would require it? I guess I will never know.

I encourage you to think about the beliefs you inherited from your parents and decide if they are beliefs that may be impacting your career or business. I think when you do; you will find that some are having a positive impact, while others are a hindrance  If you would like to learn more about swapping out some of the good girl beliefs you have for a more powerful set, I encourage you to join the We’re Worth More Initiative. We focus on that as well as building confidence in yourself and your business as well as how to earn what you’re worth. Check it out: http://www.accelerateher.com/join-us

There are lots of catch phrases thrown around in the media that sound good, but are somewhat unclear.  The most recent catch phrase I have been using is “business confidence.”

What exactly is Business confidence? Let me explain.  It is…

• Knowing that your business provides a top shelf service. Most women business owners deal with some level of self doubt around their business that shows up in different ways.  They may not want to charge a higher price, they may not feel comfortable making sales calls, or they may not see their value at all.  By knowing that you provide a valuable service better than most everything else out there, you will feel business confident.
•  Knowing that your business has an  identity.  Research shows that people buy not because of what you sell or how you sell, they buy because of why you sell.  The identity that your brand has is the most important thing to your customers.  If you don’t know why you do what you do then your customers will not see as much value in your product or service.  If you have a great handle on your “why” then it will be much easier to position yourself in the market and your customers will see a reason to purchase from you instead of from your competitor who is not as clear on their own “why.”  Once you know why you do what you do, your business confidence will flourish.
• Knowing  what you are worth.  Women business owners lag behind men in profits because of their fear around pricing correctly.  To overcome that fear, you need to become intimately familiar with your competition.  Part of why women don’t charge what they are worth is because they have on pricing blinders. We are taught when we are young that we need to be selfless and give to those in need; a noble intention for sure, but not when you are running a business. In order to make sure you are business confident you need to understand how the rest of your market charges and what they offer.

There you have it, the definition of business confidence. If you want to expand your business confidence pay close attention to what you know and make sure it includes the three things listed above.

If you would like to learn more about boosting your business confidence then you need to  immediately join our “We’re Worth More Initiative” before we start our Confidence Challenge.  The challenge  is for members only and it is a video challenge focused on helping you grow your confidence not only personally, but professionally as well.  To sign up  all you need to do is  click here.

Today I tried out a new ice cream store.  They were having a grand opening celebration and giving away free ice cream to all.  My guess is they were hoping to take capture some of the very saturated ice cream market and make a good impression so that when I was looking for ice cream they would be top of mind.

Here is what they did well.

• They got lots of people through the door.
•  They had a good product.
• They have attractive decor
• It was clean.

Here’s what they could have done better.

• They had a bad system of checking people in. It was awkward and didn’t move people quickly through the line.  Having to wait in line to get your ice cream even if it is free doesn’t leave a good taste in your mouth.
• Not collecting emails or getting people to like you on Facebook missed an opportunity to connect with your audience after they left the store.
• The owner wasn’t standing out front welcoming people and introducing herself so she missed an opportunity to make a personal connection.  Remember people buy from those they know like and trust.  The market for ice cream in my town is tight; by introducing herself and connecting with each person she would have made them feel more like family and want to come back.
• They could have given a coupon for next week to bring all those people back for a second taste.

If you want to ensure that you are earning what you’re worth, you must pay attention to the details and have a plan that leaves people with the right first impression.  When my 13 year old daughter left the new ice cream shop she said, “It is just like all the other shops.” I am confident that was not the reaction the owner was hoping for.  If we had left feeling more of a connection my daughter’s impression might have been different.

If you are looking for help earning what you’re worth, then I invite you to sign up for a complimentary discovery session and see how we can work together and make shifts in your business so you do just that. Click Here to sign up.

I love the New Year because of the promise of a new start. Anything that happened last year is now behind me and I can change what I wasn’t pleased with. This year is especially exciting because I spent the last six months changing what I wasn’t pleased with in my business. Changing your business is always difficult because you put your heart and soul into building it so when you realize that things need to be adjusted it is hard to pull it all down. Building a business is like birthing a child. Once they are here you have trouble seeing their faults.

For the last six months I have been looking for faults in my business and boy that is hard. It is humbling to admit that you missed things that were so simple, but now that I have looked through the microscope and changed what wasn’t working I am excited to see what will happen in 2013.

I did for my own business what I have my coaching clients do for their business and it had the same effect.

Here is what I learned from following my own system:

•  I have some strong skills that set me apart from my competition.
• I know more about my business than anyone else so I can talk confidently.
• I have systems set up so that I provide consistent service.
• I know why I charge what I charge so I can confidently talk price.

If you are looking to take control of your business and feel confident that you are doing your best, than I encourage you to take a close look at what you do and use the New Year as an excuse to rework what is not working so you too can explode your business in the New Year.

If I can help you with this initiative, please don’t hesitate to sign up for a discovery session so we can discuss what’s going on and how I can help you shift things to create different results.