Are you not charging enough for your offers? Here are some signs your offer might be underpriced

Struggling with your pricing? This is one of the toughest decisions faced by business owners—grappling with the question of what to charge for their offers. In today's episode, I reveal the tendency to undercharge, rather than overcharge, and the signs to look out for.

– Why we fall into the trap of undercharging, particularly at the beginning of our business journey
– When busy and burnt out can be a sign that it's time to re-evaluate your expertise
– How undercharging can attract the wrong clients, not the right ones
– When your audience doesn't value your offer enough to commit to it and how finding the ‘uncomfortable price point' promotes action
– The hidden message behind hitting your income ceiling and the value in reviewing your offer suite
– When the offer price does not accurately reflect the effort you put in and value you provide (and so resentment sets in)

 

Today we are talking pricing. Pricing is one of the toughest decisions that you will have to make in your business, and unfortunately, it's not as simple as setting your prices once, and then that's it. It's done forever, right? It's something that you will constantly have to make that decision over and over and over again at different stages in your business. 

Today, I'm talking about the tendency to undercharge and some signs that you might not be charging enough for your services and for your offers more generally. So whether that might be a program, a course, a membership, or even an e-book, there's a chance that you are undercharging.

Now, why is there this tendency to undercharge when we are just starting out? I think when you are coming into the business from the land of employment, it's very easy to look at the hourly rate that you got paid as an employee and think, well, maybe if I just charge a little bit more than that, then that's gonna be my hourly rate as a freelancer or as a business owner, but you're not taking into account all of the overheads, all of the other things that come into it when you are running a business. 

All of these things that you need to factor into your pricing. I think you also undercharge when you're just starting out because you don't yet value your expertise. You don't really understand the value it is in what you know and how you do it, because even though you might have got those results in your previous job, you probably haven't been working with clients yet, and you probably haven't seen those wins that your clients have had.

And the final reason why, or this happened to me a lot actually, was when one person would tell you, you know, I can't afford it. I'd give them my price and I'd send them my proposal and they'd be like, oh, that's too expensive for me. It's out of my budget and then that would send me into the spiral of, oh my goodness, are my prices too high? Should I drop my prices so that more people can afford to work with me? 

And it would be like the spiral of self-doubt all triggered because one person told me that my services weren't in their budget. But over time, ideally, you increase your prices as you start to build up more experience as you start to get that bank of client results.

But so many online business owners, when I see them, when they come to me, they're at this stage where they're still charging the same prices they've been charging for years, and those prices are not anywhere near indicative of the huge amount of value that they are giving in their services, in their courses, in their memberships, right?

So the very first sign that you are undercharging is that your prices have been the same for a while like we're talking more than a year. You haven't increased them as you've got more results and more experience, they've just stayed the same. 

 

Signs you might be undercharging your offers

Now, that wasn't one of the official five signs that you might be undercharging, but I think that's a pretty big one. So onto the actual five signs, you might be undercharging. 

 

Sign #1:

You are really busy and burnt out in your business because you have to take on lots of clients just to maintain your monthly income, or you're so far away from that monthly income goal and you're having to do all of this marketing to keep trying to get more clients in through the door, and you're just constantly pedaling on this hamster wheel, that's a big sign that you are not charging enough for what you do.

And being in this busy, burnt-out state actually keeps you in the cycle of undercharging because you are too busy to deliver the kind of experience and the kind of results that you could if you had fewer clients and you were able to give them really epic results at a higher price point. 

So chances are that you are probably already giving a really great experience, you're probably already over-delivering, and that doesn't help you to feel any less busy or burnt out because you got to keep bringing in more clients to keep peddling on your hamster wheel and keep bringing enough income in each month. 

And you know what? Chances are that if you are doing a really good job, which I'm sure if you're listening to this podcast, you probably are doing a really good job and delivering lots of value, your clients probably wouldn't mind a little price increase, just saying.

So a question for you to reflect on:

“How many clients would I need to work with at whatever my new higher price point would be and how much more value could I give them with the time that I have, because I'm only working with this number of clients going forward?” 

 

Sign #2:

You are not attracting your dream clients and instead, you are attracting painful clients. The ones who paid the least somehow always seem to expect the most, they seem to push your boundaries the most, they seem to ask for the most handholding. And the ones who paid more somehow seem to be a lot more self-sufficient. This is a general trend. Obviously, there are exceptions to the rules.

Now, undercharging does actually stop you from attracting your dream clients because they are probably seeking a premium experience, and that's an experience you can't deliver because you are too busy, burnt out and not charging enough, right? And you're having too much to work, too much to maintain that income.

So you can't actually deliver a premium experience because you would have to work even more. So instead, ask yourself, what kind of experience could I offer that my dream client would pay a premium price full?

 

Sign #3: 

Your clients don't value your offers. You know, maybe everyone is accepting your proposal straight away, or they're buying your offer with no questions asked, but then they take no action. These are the clients who you've created a marketing strategy for, and then they don't go and implement it. I had plenty of those back in the day when I did one-on-one stuff. The people who buy your course and then never start it, or they never finish it, or they never show up to the calls. 

So question to reflect on:

“What price point is slightly uncomfortable for your ideal client that it will make them take action but it's not so uncomfortable that you know you can't match it with the value in your offer? Where is that price point where you are delivering enough value to meet the price point and the price point's a little bit uncomfortable for your ideal client, so they're committed to taking action?”

 

Sign #4: 

You have reached an income ceiling in your business. Like whatever you do, you can't seem to earn more than this invisible income ceiling each month in your business and the misconception is that to break through the ceiling. All you have to do is do more, more marketing, get more clients, run some more Facebook ads, post some more Instagram reels, et cetera.

But often it's not actually a matter of doing more. Okay, this is not going to help. Doing more is not going to help and it's probably going to burn you out in the process, but instead it's going to require you to do things differently. That might mean increasing your prices, it might mean redesigning your offer suite to support that next iteration, that next level of your business.

So a question to ask yourself to reflect on this is:

“What do I need to change in my business to get to the next level of income that I desire?”

 

Sign #5:

You feel resentful towards your clients or your students. If you have a program or a course, when you are giving so much time and energy to your clients and they are paying an amount that you don't feel reflects the value you are giving, but for whatever reason you feel like you can't increase your prices, then yeah, of course, it's only natural. You're going to feel resentful towards them, but it's not their fault. They are only paying the price that you ask them to pay. 

And if you are bending over backward to deliver all of the things that they are asking for to meet their demands, then that's probably on you as well. That might be a sign that you need to have some stronger boundaries with them.

So instead ask yourself:

“What price point feels good for me for the level of value that I am providing and the results that my clients are getting?” 

What feels fair for the amount of value? What's the fair exchange? Because that's all it is, right? It's an exchange. It's an energy exchange. You are putting your energy and your expertise in, and your client is exchanging money for that results. 

 

Pin it?