How To Convince Clients To Pay What You’re Really Worth
Last week we went through an easy exercise to discover your ideal pricing. I got a lot of feedback from that and it basically all came down to two points.
- Most WordPress developers want to (at least) double their rates
- A lot of people felt like they couldn't convince their clients to pay higher rates
Today we're going to be exploring both of those issues. You're going to come away from today's training session with a new understanding of what it takes to set yourself apart from all the other low-budget options your client may be considering. Let's dive in!
Will Your Pricing Allow You To Reach Your Income Goals?
One of the big realizations people had from last weeks training was that it's going to be really hard, maybe even impossible to hit their income goals with their current pricing structure. Most people would like to be bringing in at least $5k/month. The average price of a WordPress site is around $1,000. So that means you'd have to be building and launching a website every single week. That's a ton of clients to find and an unrealistic amount of work to do, especially for one person. Hiring on more people exacerbates the problem because now you have to split the revenue with someone. That means you have to find even more clients and build even more websites. Whether you bring on more people to help or not, the thing that needs to move is your price point.
But My Clients Won't Pay More
I heard a variety of reasons why people feel uneasy charging more.
- I don't want to overcharge my clients
- I'd never charge $3,000 for a just landing page (more on that later)
- Not all clients need a $5,000 website (we'll be talking about this too)
But, the #1 reason people feel like they can't double their rates is that they can't convince their clients to pay more.
Why Won't Clients Pay More?
Here's the bottom line: If all you do is double your rates, your clients are not going to see the value and they are not going to pay the prices you need and that you're really worth. The reason for this is that websites are not valuable. You can get a website for $500. I saw an ad on Facebook from a guy who would build a WordPress site for $50. People can build their own websites for free. My daughter's piano teacher built her own website on Wix and it looks great!
Selling $800 WordPress Sites Is A Bad Deal For Everyone
How can you, in good conscience, take $800 to deliver something that people can get for $500, or $50, or even for free? Sometimes when people first discover me and hear that I'm encouraging people to double their rates they say I'm encouraging people to overcharge their clients. But that is NOT AT ALL what I am saying. I'm actually saying the exact opposite!
The people who charge their clients between $500 and about $2,000 are the ones overcharging their clients. If all a client wants is a website, they can get that for $500 or less – maybe even free if they feel like spending a weekend with Wix.
On a budget of $800, you can't afford to spend the time it takes to use the website to drive business results. There are far too many things you have to do if you want the website to have an impact for your client. If you want to be hitting an income goal of $5,000/month you just can't afford to put the time in to get them the outcomes they are looking for – that they are counting on your for.
What Makes You Different?
If you want to double your project prices you have to do more than just double your rates. If all you do is double your rates you will obviously price yourself out of the market. Clients will just hop over to the next WordPress developer who charges half of what you just quoted.
If you take nothing else away from this session, take this.
If you can lead your clients to a higher level of success than they would be able to achieve on their own, then you have a premium consulting business.
Let's unpack that now.
Leading Your Clients To Success
Most people, in one way or another, put the entire burden of architecting the online strategy completely on the client. Then they show up with the technical skills to implement their client's strategy. This is what you are doing when you ask questions like this:
- What is your budget?
- What do you want your website to do?
- How many pages do you need?
- What are some other websites you like?
These question all show that you are NOT leading your client and are instead being lead by your client. If your client is going to be responsible for this level of strategy and planning, they can get anybody to implement it for cheaper than what you're offering. They might be able to do it themselves for free.
But, if you put together a business strategy and growth development plan that goes beyond what they can come up with on their own, then you are taking your client to heights hire than they otherwise could achieve.
This is what sets you apart from the low-budget competition. This is what sets you apart from the free DIY site builders out there. This is what launches you into an entirely new category that shines like a light in the darkness. This is what your clients really need. This is what they are counting on your for. This is what makes you worth the rates you want to be charging.
This Is Not For Everybody
There are some people out there who continue to insist on providing low-budget WordPress sites. That's cool. If that works for you and your clients, then great. But most of the people I talk to realize that low-budget WordPress sites are bad for everybody. They can't hit the income goals they need. Their clients aren't seeing any results and are frustrated. The WordPress economy as a whole catches a lot of flack for this stuff.
But the truth is that the WordPress economy has never been stronger. You can power amazing results for your clients with WordPress – more so now than ever before.
So again, you might be feeling like this isn't for you and that's cool. But if you are feeling like this is for you and you want to do better for yourself AND your clients, but you are feeling stuck. Maybe you don't know how to lead your clients effectively. Maybe you're wondering about your pricing or your marketing. Maybe you feel like you need some help connecting with the right clients. If you like what we're talking about here and want some help implementing this stuff into your business, let's talk.
Let's get on the phone for free. We'll spend 45 minutes diving into your business and figuring all this stuff out in the context of exactly what's going on for you right now.
Click this link and see what other people have thought about this call. If it looks good to you, then let's talk.
