Business Basics 1: Pricing Strategy and Do You Have One?

My new weekly series ‘Business Basics’ will be looking this week, at the subject of charging for your product or services.

What seems like a very straightforward process can be fraught with anxiety over what to charge, what to ask for and what we think of ourselves.

Pricing is always a tricky subject when you’re starting out in business.  At some point we have to sit down and work out our pricing strategy.  This can be based on many factors including:

  • What the market can stand
  • What the economy is like
  • What your financial needs are
  • What your level of skill is
  • What the competition is charging
  • What your customers want to pay
  • What customers are willing to pay
  • And even your self worth

After I graduated from my therapy course and before we were all let loose on the general public, we were invited to a business workshop were we would be offered training in how to set up in private practice.

One of the trainers was an accountant and she gave us all a small piece of paper to write down how much we were going to charge as an hourly rate.  She then collected the papers in and proceeded to read them out to us all.

We were horrified!

First of all, the differences in rates were staggering.  Secondly, the majority of them were very low and just could not sustain anyone in business for very long.  She had her work cut out.  Next week I’ll share with you, what she shared with us . . . . . .

Do you have a pricing strategy?  Has it changed over the years? Have you put your prices up recently?  Or down because of the recession?  Do share . . .