Raise your price and explain it well to your regular customers
When you're done, you know how much to raise and how much notice to give, and whether you keep the old price for your regulars or raise theirs too. You'll have a message written that explains it without sounding like an excuse or a punishment.
It costs you more to deliver the service than it did a year ago, but raising the price scares you: the customer who's been with you the longest is exactly the one you don't want to lose. Raise the price for everyone and they might feel punished. Keep the old price for them and you don't know for how long, or how to say it without sounding like an excuse or a threat.
Here you first calculate how much to raise, using a formula based on what things cost you today, not a rough guess. Then you decide what price applies to your existing customers and set an end date for the old price, one they know about from the start. By the end you'll have the email written that announces the increase as a fact, plus the response for when someone threatens to leave.
This is for someone who already has steady customers and needs to raise prices without hurting the relationship. It's not for someone starting their first business who doesn't have anyone paying the old price yet.
- Calculate the new price based on what it costs you today to deliver the service
- Decide which customers keep the old price, and until when
- Set the date the new price kicks in, based on what each customer has already committed to
- Write the email that announces the increase, plus the response for anyone who threatens to leave
It helps to have on hand what it costs you today to deliver your service: materials, hours, and fixed costs.
The 6 lessons
In the order it makes the most sense to read them.
- 1
How much you need to raise it, not whether you should raise it
By the end you'll have the new price calculated from what it costs you today to deliver the service, not a rough guess, plus the formula to repeat it for every service in your lineup.
7 min - 2
For your existing customers: old price or new price?
You'll walk away knowing which price applies to each customer based on what they already bought, with the notice written for anyone with something already in progress.
7 min - 3
The regular price doesn't last forever
Every old price you keep for a customer already has an end date, decided that same day and known to them from the start.
4 min - 4
The sooner you say it, the better
By the end you'll have the date the new price kicks in, calculated based on what each type of customer has already committed to with you, and you'll know that date doesn't move once it's set.
7 min - 5
The email that raises the price without apologizing
You'll walk away with the email written that announces the increase as a fact, not an apology, ready for you to update the date and price and send.
7 min - 6
You repeat the new price, you don't negotiate it customer by customer
You'll walk away with the response written for when someone threatens to leave over the price, and the one case where you do make an exception.
4 min