7 Ways To Raise Your Rates With Confidence
Raising your rates is never just about asking for more money or hiking a fee. It’s all about moving to the next level of your business at the right time, with both you and your clients feeling good about it.
Here are seven ways to help you get to that step naturally and easily.
1. Know Your Worth
Before you raise your rates, create a specific goal for the new annual figure you arrive at. That means knowing your “why”, doing research on your competitors, and reaffirming your ideal client. Know both your actual value in terms of what you do and your experience and accreditations and your perceived value to your ideal client. The more specific you are and the more carefully you analyze every facet, the more you will realize your own worth and appreciate yourself, your journey, and where you are today.
2. Ask With Confidence
You owe nobody an explanation for your rates; nor do you have to apologize. In fact, if you feel like you want to apologize, you haven’t done all the homework in tip number one. Confidence comes from a place of knowledge.
3. Always Add Value When You Raise Your Rates
If you want clients and new prospects to accept your rates without quibbling, show them the increased value, and focus on how this will move them closer to their big results.
Again, do the research to find out exactly what would be the most value-enhancing addition in your ideal client’s eyes.
4. Count Your Successes
If you’re having trouble justifying a price hike to yourself, first think of your successes. Write down who you’ve helped, how you helped them and what you helped them do. Then write down their ‘Before’ and ‘After’ results. When you’ve done that, raise your rates to reflect the value you now realize you habitually provide.
5. Take The "Personal" Out Of The Price Hikes
If you have just created new coaching packages, make like the SaaS companies and send her a link to a page with three options, highlighting the one you feel would suit your client best. This puts the ball firmly in your client’s court while making her (correctly) feel that she has complete control over her decision. This takes the ‘personal’ out of announcing price hikes, which is often the factor that makes asking for higher fees feel so difficult.
6. Give Advance Notice
Don’t just spring a rate increase on your clients. Set a deadline – one that is neither too short nor too long (the end of the month is a good one, if you tell them after the first session of the month – psychologically and budget-wise for clients). And send out reminders to your client list.
7. Point Out Your Increased Value Prior To Your Price Hikes
A great way to do this with existing clients: Ask them to update their testimonials when you let them know you’re going to be raising your prices. Do this by following the format in the next tip.
If you have more ideas like this, don’t hesitate to share them in the comments.
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