Quoted 10X more than the competition, and closed the sale!

Congrats!

And you are right. I lowballed at first, but certainly not anymore. In fact I cringe when I see the low prices some posters here suggest. I'm not talking when offering services here to other warriors or being a subcontractor. I'm talking when you're out there prospecting and busting your balls getting clients.


Say you make 10 sales at $300 = $3000

And now, you raise your price and thus lose some sales (and BTW many times you WON'T lose any...)

At 7 sales at $900 = $6300, more than TWICE the money, for 70% of the previous workload, and dealing many times with less troublesome clients. Isn't that better? Even with half the previous sales you'd make a lot more money! You really think you'd lose half you sales if you raise your prices? Why settle for less?


Of course, there is a limit to what we can sell it for.

At 3 sales at $2000= $6000, it would be still twice the amount of profits. But you got a lot more "NOs" that can demoralize you, and you get less clients to upsell further work now and in the future. But it would still be twice the money for 30% of the workload... And if you provide the value you can sell one site at $3000 and make the same as the previous 10 sales, with a lot more time to get more clients or enjoy life.

Don't sell yourselves short!

Hello there,

congratulations on your great deal. Once again the old truth is confirmed - price is all about perception of value.

Just make sure you deliver


Cheers,
Rob Konrad

Congratulations! not only have you stood your ground but you also saved your client from potential failure.

I find to help justify the price difference is:
" that it's not about the cost of providing the mechanic, it's the cost of offering your experience that sells

The way some clients look at pricing is often that they think the better you are the cheaper you should charge as you should be able to do it quicker then others.

Naturally that sucks and is totaly incorrect!

This is why I find it is essential not to charge by the hour as a client can use this with a stick to beat you with.

It's all about the benefits to them and your experience to help make that happen - not simply installing a wordpress and customising the template etc!

great stuff, did you get this client from a website enquiry?

Nice.... It's one important thing to understand. If you mark up your prices, you can work with higher qualified prospects with more money.

Its true, people have the mentality "you get what you pay for". I can tell so many stories about this, but yours is good enough, it makes the point.

This is a great post for the reason you stated in your thread. "A lot of you don't think there are people out there that will pay certain prices." There are a few too many Warriors on here trying to discourage others to not charge that much. Or saying that no business is going to pay that much for a certain type of service. The fact of that matter is businesses are and will pay for these services happily.

Of course we are not in the business of ripping ppl off, but I'm also I'm the business of making money for my time and energy. Ya sure I can get a facebook fanpage built for $40 when I outsource it so should I sell it to a client for $50? You can, but I'm going to charge them at least $200 because the value that I can explain to them clear as day that it adds to there facebook marketing efforts.

You are not going to build a successful business by continuously low balling customers just to get business.

Sean

It's all about the value and what you are offering.

A $300 website and a $3,000 website should be two different beasts. Our company would never go with the $300 website as it would never meet our needs. So I know there are lots of companies out there that need more than a basic $300 website. That said people should not be pitching price first either way. You should talk to the customer and even bring back a proposal in a few days. Maybe even have more than one option if you are not sure where their budget it. Say their budget is $2,000. Maybe have a $1,500 and $3,000 proposal as options besides the $2,000. That budget may go up($1,500 should be purposely too little for too much money and the $3,000 should show the best value and have great additions to the $2,000)

But the one thing I always caution here is that some n00bs seem to think you can charge more without offering more and doing more.

If you provide a $300 website to a guy who paid $3,000 he will not be happy. I'm one of those people discouraging people from charging too much. There is nothing wrong with selling $5,000 websites but most of people who are taking our advice here have no idea how to create a $5,000 website. You can't take a WP theme and spend an hour modifying it and expect someone to pay you thousands. That is a classic example of a $300 website.

You have to provide value and value is not hype. Yes your website may bring me $30,000 more in profit this year but if all you provide me with is a $300 website where it took you and hour i am a fool to pay you $3,000 for it no matter how much business it will bring me. And business owners and managers normally have good BS meters so they see through the guys doing it.

It's why I talk so much about people using tried and true methods of pricing their services. You should have an idea what your time is worth. You should have an idea what it will cost to outsource. And you should have an idea how long the project will take you once you talk to you prospect.

Just because the company can afford a $5,000 website doesn't mean you make a $300 one and charge them $5,000. No you need to create a $5,000 website and explain why it will be better than the basic one they may even have hinted they wanted.

A lot of people here tell people to do the same work but charge one company more and another less. That does not help you in the long term. If you build a $300 website for Joe Plumber and he recommends you to his brother who is VP at Deere you should not be selling Deere a $300 website for $10,000. But year you should be selling them on a $10,000 website, monthly maintenance, and hosting. And yes hosting for deere will be more because you will want a dedicated server.

The key is you are doing more and offering more not just charging more.

I see a lot of big numbers tossed out and some are just silly like that girl who was trying to sell a $2,500 fanpage(we never got details from the guy who heard her pitch to know if it had more value than a $300 one). But I think this forum breeds people who pitch prices that are too high for what they are offering. They basically shoot themselves in the foot and wonder why their closing ratio is so low or why they have been doing this for months and have no clients.

Trust me that guy who needs the $300 website knows other people and some of them need $5,000 websites. Some need $10,000 a month SEO. And once you have been doing this long enough maybe those are the only people you should be targeting but for the n00bs who don't understand what more should be going into a $5,000 website they are simply shooting themselves in the foot and making it harder for everyone else out there.

If I have heard 10 lame pitches this week for over priced SEO services do you think I am going to listen to yours? Even though you might be offering what i need at the right price? Do you see how people like this harm everyone doing offline marketing?

They make people like me. The people you are pitching too so unwilling to even listen to you unless you think outside the box. To pitch me on SEO service these days you would have to get me into a seminar or be local and show up. I ignore all emails and politely hang up on all phone calls.

Considering the emails and phone calls I get I know I am a prospective client for all of you.

Never low ball. If a service is worth $5,000 charge $5,000. But don't over price things just because a company can pay. Give them value and you will get referrals.

Honestly if you are at the point where you are selling $5,000 plus websites a great deal of your business should be from referrals. And while someone can choose to start by going after hgh end customers myself i would never tell a n00b to start there unless they had confidence in themselves to delivery on it.

Mess up a $300 website and you refund and lose some face. Mess up a $5,000 website and you could sink your business and even be sued. Especially if you false represent it with hype.

Inspirational. People really do have the money to pay you what you're with. I guess it's all about sticking to your guns and having a long list of prospects that you can sell to.

IAmNameless -- that's awesome! After gaining my first client and then reading how people charge $300 & less for SEO, I've been wondering why people do valuable work for so low.

Glad to k now there are people out there who will pay you well for what you can do for them. Sweet stuff.