I wanna write a new book about the art of charging higher prices:
How to overcome your own mental blocks around charging more…
How to make the technical changes that need to be made to your offers and positioning…
How to get people to happily pay you at new and higher prices.
I don’t know yet how I will organize this book. But I do have a bunch of ideas for the content to include.
Since one of my ideas for charging higher prices is to give away stuff for free in certain circumstances, here are 17 ways to charge higher prices, for you to use and profit from today:
#1. Just double your prices right now, without waiting, and then make whatever changes this new price forces you into
Yes, it can be done.
#2. Specialize
People will pay more for an all-black German shepherd than they will for a mottled mixed-breed mutt, even if both ultimately have two ears, four legs, one tail, and the ability to bark.
#3. Sell an outcome, not deliverables
In other words, sell the house, not the hammer.
#4. Deliver a more complete outcome
(I heard this advice from a “sales closer agency” that takes people’s $5k offers and turns them into $50k offers, and makes their clients and themselves tens of millions per year.)
Example: if you sell a live event, then instead of selling just entry to the event and what’s inside, sell a package that includes a hotel room, a flight, transportation from the airport, and maybe dinner at a fancy restaurant with the organizers of the event. And charge a premium on top of each.
#5. Sell a bigger outcome
instead of helping people get a client worth $1k, help them get a client worth $10k. Instead of helping them close one $1k client, help them close three $1k clients.
#6. Guarantee the outcome
My $31k auction went to $31k in large part because of the guarantee.
#7. Sell something scarce vs. something common
You might have something legitimately scarce (“the last five copies ever that will ever be printed”) or you can have something artificially scarce (“only five spots open this entire year”).
#8. Sell yourself vs. selling your solution
If you have an audience and your audience likes you, you can sell yourself first and foremost. This is a special and easy kind of scarcity that nobody can take away from you or challenge you on.
As an example, consider the dozens of “how to write emails” courses that popped up over the past 2-3 years. Many of them sold, and well — to the audiences of the person creating the course, and to nobody else.
#9. Go after the Maverick segment rather than the Goose segment of your market
For more on this distinction, check here. Or read this to see where I first got the idea.
#10. Go to a richer market
Example: people wanting to learn improv comedy vs. trial lawyers. Who will pay more?
#11. Position yourself as the premier solution
A few examples: Rolex, Harvard, Jay Abraham.
#12. Offer “real-world value” bonuses vs. “valued at” bonuses
The information in this email is “valued at” $10,000, by me personally, based on my extensive research and deep introspection.
Do you think I could use this “valued at $10k” email as a bonus for a legit $10k offer, and make the $10k offer feel effectively free?
No?
You don’t think so?
Well, maybe you will, after I take this information and turn it into a 4-week cohort I start charging $10k for, and start selling over and over to my list.
#13. Ask for future money rather than present money
The most money I ever made while working as a freelance copywriter came to me after I asked a client to let me write emails for them for free, on commission only.
They agreed, and offered me 20% of the profits made.
In this way, it became routine for me to get paid $500 for an email it took me 15 minutes to write, and $1k per email was not unheard of either.
There’s no way the client would have agreed to pay me such rates out of pocket. But out of profit? Different story.
#14. Get your prospects thinking what it costs not to buy rather than what it costs to buy
This is a classic lesson from sales trainer David Sandler.
#15. Reframe or repackage your core offer into something valued more
I once put on an entire $197 training about this… but for just one example, take a look here. (Just don’t write me asking for the offer at that link.)
#16. Charge for things you do for free now.
Research… replying to emails… sales calls…
… who says you have to do them for free?
Charging for such things automatically pushes everything else up also. Your perceived value rises. Plus you now have something you can anchor your other offers to, or offer as a real-world-value bonus.
(On the other hand, it can be better to give things away for free than to discount them. I’ll just leave it at that for now.)
#17. Change format
Books sell for $-$$. A one-evening Zoom training sells for $$-$$$. A course sells for $$$-$$$$. An in-person training sells for $$$$-$$$$$.
Same info, same outcome, but the format affects how people value that info, and what they are willing to pay for it.
… and that makes 17.
Did I miss anything? Do you have extra ideas for how to charge more?
Let me know, and maybe I will include your ideas in my new book, and put your name up in the “acknowledgements” marquee, with lights shining on it, right at the front. Thanks in advance.