Pricing is a marketing issue

I’m writing a book at the moment.  It’s my first proper book, and it’s due to be published early next year.  It’s all about business pricing. I’m 9276 words in so far, or 23.19% of the way through, according to my spreadsheet.

To make sure I finish it, I want to tell you guys about it, so I’m accountable and have to finish what I started. Taking my own medicine, in fact. This is a little glimpse of the introductory chapter, and I’ll be giving away and testing out some more excerpts as I go along. Comments, encouragement and supplies of posh coffee (this writer’s favourite fuel) are all welcome.

[Update – I did finally finish the book, and it’s available right here…]

The price is right

I’m Julia Chanteray, and I’ve been running the Joy of Business for the past 12 years. The Joy of Business is all about helping little companies grow up to be bigger companies. My job is to help people to make more money, and have more fun.

This book is to give away one of my secret weapons in my crusade to help people build their businesses.

Here it is: you probably need to charge more money

Not exactly rocket science, is it? It’s pretty obvious that if you charge more, you’ll make more money.

Anyway, that saves you having to spend any money on actually buying the book, and you’re all set now. Right? All you have to do is…(probably) charge more money.

My other secret weapon

The other “secret weapon” I use with lots of my clients is this one: pricing is a marketing issue.

How (and what) you charge for the stuff you sell affects how your customers see you. If you charge bottom dollar, your customers probably won’t appreciate you, and may well not see what you sell as being as good as one of your competitors. Your stuff might be a million times better than the other guy’s, but if you price it cheap, they won’t think it’s as good.

The rest of my Sweetspot pricing book is about those two issues – it helps you to work out how much more money  you need to charge to earn your target income, and how to feel confident that you’re charging the right price for your business. Not too much, and not too little, but the right price for you. Your sweetspot price. And the book will help you to start to do the work that you need to bring in the business at the right price.

Who is it for

This book is not for people who work in big companies. If you have more than 150 staff, you probably have esoteric pricing matrices, and goodness knows what to help you with setting your price. If you’re reading this and you work for a corporate, put the book back on the electronic shelf right now – unless you’re thinking about leaving that world and setting up your own company, in which case you should be walking to the checkout, cos you’re going to need this baby.

Sweetspot Pricing is for people who want to get serious about their business.

Maybe you’re a freelancer who wants to get paid what you’re worth, but you’re not really sure what that is. This book will help you to work that out.

Maybe you’ve got a business which is doing okay, but you know that it could be making more money. You want the first and most obvious way of increasing turnover, but you’re not really sure how much to raise prices by, or whether it’s too cheeky.

Or maybe you’ve got a business which is in serious trouble, and you want to know if that’s because your pricing is all wrong. Quite possibly, it is.

As you read more, you’ll see that I’m very serious about helping businesses to make more money. I’ve had the sleepless nights in the past because of cash flow nightmares, and it was horrible. I don’t want anyone to have to go through that.

I think that we all deserve to make decent money, and not have to worry about cash flow, making payroll, or about long-term financial security. This book (and my work at the Joy of Business) is all about helping people to create enough money to live a good life, and not have to worry about whether you can afford to invest in your marketing or pay your rent.

Why you should read it

There are lots of books and blogs out there about pricing. There are lots of sets of instructions from the business schools on how to do pricing “properly”. I’ve read them.

Sweetspot Pricing takes all of that knowledge, throws out the out of date and the crappy thinking about pricing, and distils it into a short, easy to read manual for small businesses who want to grow into bigger businesses. If that describes you, a friend of yours, or your partner (or your boss) then you should be reading this book.

It helps if you pay for it too. Not just because I’d like some money for all the hours I spent on it (although I would) but because if you pay cash for it, you’ll take more notice of it. Price is a marketing issue, remember.

Sweetspot Pricing is now available. Tra la!

It took a while. Three years, in fact. But my second book, Sweetspot Pricing is now out there and available. Here’s how to get your copy of the book which is changing people’s lives.

And if you want to a few more hints on pricing

A simple way to increase your prices

Pricing strategies for business