Discounting Your Prices (D&K)

Kyle Wood: Hello, and welcome back to the Kyle and Dale show. My name is Kyle Wood and with me is

Dale Sidebottom: Dale Sidebottom. I’m your cohost. Hello Kyle.

Kyle Wood: Hello. So with, in a couple of months where this is end of September, where we’re interviewing us in a couple of months, we are approaching. Biggest sales days of the year, which, you know, used to be just an American thing because it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving, black Friday, and then cyber Monday came from that as well.

But now it’s become an international thing with, I assume if it’s hit Australia, it’s hit several other countries that the U S as well. So, um, I guess with everything going online and digital, so, uh, I thought it would be an interesting time to talk about. Uh, so I think that’s been in my mind because of that, like pricing, how to price, what you do, what products, um, Like the running discounts.

Should you discount your product? Should you not? Uh, I also saw an interesting question the other day, um, that someone posed, which was, uh, should you charge different customers, different rates, um, which had sparked an interesting discussion in the comments. So I thought, you know, we could talk about some of these things today because I think, um, you know, money is often something.

Uh, people have a lot of baggage, you know, myself included around what your worth can be. You know, it feels very uncomfortable and it can get very difficult to know, you know, am I charging the right thing? Uh, and there’s also different advice. And then some people are like, don’t never discount like that.

And I know we’ve talked on the podcast about not discounting, but I’d love to revisit that again today. And, uh, and then other people, yeah, like. Obviously Seth and took calls at the rice, the bottom where you try and. Something I’m cheaper than your competitor. Um, you know, with a smaller profit margin, but then inevitably someone else is going to come along and trumpet, make it for even the smaller profit margin.

And you end up just like racing to these like really low quality crappy companies that, um, that aren’t making enough money that can’t look after this stuff, all of this kind of stuff. So, yeah. Good discussion have today. Yeah. Does that sound interesting to you

Dale Sidebottom: though? Yeah, it does call and, and I think, uh, when, uh, the about four or five years ago, when I first, oh, black Friday, great opportunity or sale, I think I did it for about two years and I do huge sales on like everything, memberships, whatever I had.

Um, and I found that. The retention rate of those people that bought at that level would be mint. Like they would all leave within the next year before, you know, the annual cycle came around, particularly for memberships. Um, and what I found was my perceived value of my product was. Wasn’t there because I was giving it away at ridiculously low prices.

So they didn’t value it either. And I know we’ve spoken about this and that giving things away for free. I used to do that as well. And I think from learning and everything growing as a business and a person, I don’t do any discounts now. And I won’t be participating in black Friday or cyber Monday.

Because first of all, that’s unfair for my members that have been paying the yearly fee all along that they’ve been paying that rate. Or if I was going to sell my book or my daily mission guys, physical products, that’s unfair to people that have. Paid the full price for those previously. Um, and it’s exactly the same with doing speaking gigs.

Like people say, oh, you’d quite expensive. It’s true. We don’t have that much. That’s fine. Maybe if you find a way to subsidize, you might get another workplace in market and other schooling and you can split the cost. And I’ve done exactly the same online. Um, because I know last year I severely cut my price, like 75% and yes, I got a lot of words.

But I don’t think it was valued and it didn’t have the same impact. Whereas this year I’m charging my normal keynote fee, my normal hourly rate, my normally day rate, if they want to date event, even though it’s online because I’m in Melbourne lockdown and yes, I’m not getting as many, but the ones I’m getting a quality and I appreciate it.

And I value me as a presenter instead of just saying yes and doing it for whatever. So, um, as hard as he sees and like we just spoke about. How do you know what to charge, where you don’t? Um, and it’s all trial and error, but the one thing I’ve found is whenever have discounted myself, people don’t appreciate me.

They don’t value myself my products or what I’m delivering near as much as what they get when I stand tall and charge my normal fade, because I’m proud of my resources. I’m proud of the quality of God. And I don’t want to jeopardize previous members or members I’ve got now paying clients. Oh, I discounting something that they’ve paid top value for.

So that’s, I know it’s a little bit of a rant call, but I didn’t just come to that. And I’m not just saying I’ve never discounted because I have, I’ve tried everything. And then what I’ve found is it doesn’t work for me. And like you said, it’s you constantly chasing it to get those people who just waiting.

To go on a sale till they buy. And I’ve been honest now I’ll never do another sale again. And the reason being is I don’t want my members to feel like I’m shortchanging them. Sorry. That’s me personally. Maybe. I don’t know. I know you’ve experimented with sales and things I’ve used, but you don’t really do them anymore either.

Yeah.

Kyle Wood: Yeah. There’s a few things there. What you said, um, you talked about sort of three different types of products. You talked about a memberships. A physical, physical products, and then also your like speaking presenting fee. And I think that makes sense to approach. I know at the moment you’re across the board, but approaching each of them from.

Perspective because yeah, it makes absolute sense not to discount your speaking presenting fee because that’s, that’s kind of the product. Do you want people to work their way up to, like, you might have a discounted low end product. It doesn’t, I don’t think it really works with your business model and your sort of thing, but you might have, I guess you have like your free webinars, you run and you’ve had business come out of those.

These free, where you’re offering a lot of value and it gives an opportunity to create a relationship. So I think that’s where I’m seeing with sales, the potential for it’s having other people come into your products, into your sort of circle of, of as a buyer. And then, um, it being an opportunity for them to.

You know, become long-term customers going forward. Uh, but yeah, there’s so much in what you said that you kind of like went through the whole topic and one guy

at a time.

Dale Sidebottom: Oh, just get excited. You know that, but like what you’re saying there, um, Do things to build a relationship. And if you’re just charging for everything that you’re offering, you’re not going to have an opportunity to build that relationship. And I think that’s where it’s really important to have different products like a podcast.

And I mean, and that’s a really great way for building that content, having YouTube videos so people can see your face and all that stuff. And then, you know, yes, I do offer a lot of free webinars, which is quality content, and I get pre experts and professionals to deliver that as well. And that is all building my brand and giving me credibility because then if people want to then become part of the community or get me to speak Obama, Rachel says, and that’s the premium.

And that’s, I can charge that because I’m giving all the other stuff why, and I’m building that credibility. I’m not just always asking people to put. In or put their hand in their pocket. Um, and I think to go with that as well, that I’ve really noticed over COVID when, you know, face to face is really just, it stopped.

So if that was my only means of income, and I know a lot of other sort of trainers and speakers and stuff that were really at the start, they’re like, what do I do? Because. 95% of my income comes from me physically being in front of people. So I think I know this is going off topic as well, but it’s important to have different revenue streams, but also figuring out the pricing to them.

So, yeah, I know I did give everything away at the start there got for myself, but, um, I think like, and again, it’s having. Structures. Do you know what I mean? If people want to get in the low end, then they could, for me personally, I’ve got some daily mission cards that they can, uh, get as well. I mean, they can get stuff like that or there’s a book, then there’s a membership.

Then they can get people, then they can get me speaking. So there’s progressions as I’ve built that up. Um, so I dunno, but like, Hey, are you. Uh, fuse out or unpack it, but I didn’t just come like that. It’s been, you know, seven, eight years in the making. Um, it looks very professional now and it looks good, but I didn’t know that when I was starting out that I was gonna have these products or what I’d be doing, I think you just create as you go in and figure it out and, and try like try the sales, try things that might work for you personally being you.

We have spoken a lot about this. It doesn’t, it doesn’t really work because we don’t like selling that much. Whereas other people like doing big sales funnels and things like that, that’s not really how we operate. Yeah.

Kyle Wood: Yeah. Um, yeah, I think a good place to start with that would be to talk about like pricing and maybe like free or not.

Um, and then, and then we can talk about maybe discounting at the end because that I guess is a more complicated. New ads, nuanced thing. So, so with pricing, um, okay. Let’s see. So let’s maybe start talking about pricing. We’ll talk about value. That’s really, what’s getting someone to part money with you. So it’s, it’s all I think, you know, there’s it say you work a trade where you’re going to someone’s house.

The old school way of sort of charging for that, or you send your car to the mechanic, um, like a, uh, an independent mechanic. You’ll see, you know, all of the parts you’ll get charged and then you get charged labor and that’s how much it will cost. But now, you know, like the big dealerships have like fixed price servicing now.

So you pay like one fee and that they’re gonna make sure that they. Everything, all the pots they need to pay for, everything’s going to fit into there. So they’re looking at what’s the value, like is someone going to feel like, you know, $300 for a cost service? Is that going to feel like good value to them?

Like they a good value for their money versus the sort of older style of pricing, which. This is how much it cost me personally to do this and signed is going to pass those costs on to you. Um, but yeah, you know, that can fluctuate. So I think when it comes to delivery a service like training people, you know, fitness industry or speaking, things like that.

And I think you’ll agree with it. It can be much better to think about like a fixed price. Costs it’s like, this is what it costs. It’s then up to me to make sure that I deliver what you expect for that cost. And, um, you know, that I get it done in. Quick enough time, amount of time that I’m not spending hours and hours and hours.

Um, and then not making any money on

Dale Sidebottom: this. Yeah. And, and I love that, that analogy you’ve just brought up there about mechanics that are still remember going to certain mechanics. You’d be like going in. I hope this isn’t too much because you don’t know how you guessing. And I used to hate hearing people speak.

So when I was a teacher, the main reason why I wanted to start a bit. They weren’t engaging for one. And at the end note, always try and sell you something. So normally now, as part of my fate within the room, whatever I’m talking about, that is part of it. So they get everything that I’ve mentioned or they get everything I’ve spoken about to get to the end of my talk and say, I know you’ve enjoyed it.

Now you can buy my membership. Now you can buy my book. So Jeremy you chart, you put that into your face and it might be a discount, right? Because it doesn’t matter because then the day they’re going to become, if people hear you speak, they like what you’ve created. You want them using your resources because.

Your best advertising or your best referrals, because there’ll be talking about the quality that you provided and the content that you didn’t make them pay for after you finished talking, or while you’re going about it and sort of like a Daniel’s direction, you know, but wait, there’s more, there’s more, they’re sucking people in by giving them so much because which really takes away from the number one product.

Or if you’re going to buy some things you don’t want, you don’t want to stay off in a vacuum as well. You want the pain. Trying to make it sound all amazing. And really those pants might’ve been just good by themselves, but they’ve diluted that because now you get a spiking off in a vacuum. So, um,

Kyle Wood: well you get to it’s like, I only need one pan of away if you call them the next 15 minutes, you’ll get three presents sorted.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It’s like, yes, it does make you question the value. Uh, but you know, they do do a good job in those, in those infomercials of like layering in the value. So they like explaining the value, you know, they show you, they got the person like demonstrating it in the background. Uh, yeah, they, they actually probably like TV those TV commercial.

What do they call them? Like, um, yeah, they’re, they’re, they’re probably a good way to. Obviously, I want to do it like that, just to see how they like layer in the value and make it as the person watching you can be like, oh, okay. I can, now I can now tell that if I spend $80 on this, I’m going to get what feels like good value to me.

Yeah. Um, of course then what’s the biggest thing with infomercials. It’s like buyer’s remorse, which is that feeling you have after you buy something and you regret it, you’re like, oh, I really wish I hadn’t spent this money on this. It might even be before it’s arrived. Um, you know, if you’ve ordered something online, you know, like, oh, I just, this isn’t as good as I, this isn’t as good as I thought it would be.

Yeah. And that’s, so that’s something we need to think about is, you know, our, our products actually delivering that value. I think you can feel justified charging a premium price if people are having that feeling, not just right off their buyer, but like once they use the product as well, that they’re like, this is good, um, value.

Yeah. And you can even survey just one thing, sorry to even survey your customers and say, Hey, do you feel like what I offer you is good value for money? Um, And see what comes back to you. And you’ll probably be surprised, uh, if you have to ask that, you’d probably be surprised that that’d be like, yes, this is maybe too good.

They, you know, they would encourage you to put your prices up.

Dale Sidebottom: So yeah, it’s sort of goes both ways. Doesn’t it? That, um, and also like doing that as well, by getting feedback or asking, what would you like more. Or is there some area that I can help you with and I’ll create something full that all of you speaking or whatever, you know, is it something that maybe didn’t hit the mark or what, what did you like the most?

And that really gives you an idea of what people loved and what they want more of, because we, you don’t know personally people’s experience of a product or an experience. We can only go by what we’re seeing in the room, whereas. People may be in the moment they’re enjoying it. Whereas that feedback.

Really gives you direction of where you need to go. And if your feedback’s constantly good, then you know, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t keep putting your price up because you’re good at what you do. And people value it more when you are top end, but you can’t start there. They were like, you can’t just be straight to the top because you need to build out that credibility.

And, and likely to say before, I think everything comes down to relationships. People are willing to pay for our membership sites call because. They know us and we’ve built a relationship by offering things for free, but not all for free, but you build that relationship. You don’t just make people pay all the time.

And I think, I think that’s one thing that, you know, you don’t want to give everything away for free. It’s finding that balance and I don’t know how, how did you. You know, you still offer a lot of content for free on your bootcamp ideas site, but then if people want to become party community, then they become party membership site.

And I think that’s, yeah, that’s a really nice combination because you’re not making people pay for everything. They can get it, but if they want it in an, in a top end product, it’s easy to find whatever they want then yes. Instead of searching hours and hours long, you blog, that’s what they need to do.

Kyle Wood: Yeah. Yeah. So it’s kind of like quality of life, uh, type stuff, uh, making something more convenient. Um, so that can be ways of thinking about how to charge for what you do. Um, if you offering that sort of, that sort of product and what’s for free. So for free, I guess if I feel like I’m getting something back from them, like, like.

So like, you know, if I’m, if it’s giving me their attention, um, in, in a positive way, because I’m providing like, you know, helpful resources, then that’s something that I might offer for free so that I can get. Their attention so that when I do have something to sell, when I do have a course coming up, when I do have a product that I think might be a good fit for them, then you know, the stage is set that I can, um, sell it to them.

Whereas a lot of people do things sort of the opposite way around that focus on either creating the product. Um, and then. Uh, you know, like they don’t have anyone to sell it to anyone’s attention and then you have to resort to things like, you know, buying ads and stuff like that. Um, which to get people’s attention and that’s kind of.

And, you know, it’s not a great way to get people’s attention much better to like build trust by. I feel like putting your foot forward. Like you do. I feel like with your webinars, you know, you offer them to people. Uh, if they want the recording, they’ve gotta become a member, but you give them an opportunity to participate for free and see what you’re about.

And I, yeah, I think that’s, um, Yeah, I think I know this P there’s always people who are going to be opposite to the traditional models, but I think that’s a good model to be a part of like how what’s a way that someone can interact with your brand, your company, you for free and get a taste of like, is this person legit?

You know, do they know what they’re talking about? Can I help me. So can you, maybe you can help them in a small way for free, um, and just to build that trust, then be for them to be there and be like, oh, okay. I see they’ve also got this course or I see, you know, they also do face-to-face training or they do online training or something like that.

I mean, you know, they’d be more likely to take that next step.

Dale Sidebottom: Yeah. And, and, and lack of a lot of people though, you’d you always going to have. Alright, people that follow you or whatever, that will never buy anything, they will never, ever want to pay for anything. And now just do everything for free. You don’t know who they’re talking to or who they sharing it with at the end.

So like, yes, that, and it used to annoy me. Starting out in my boot camps. Back when I was running them every Saturday call, it would be for free. Well, like, just so I could get people could bring friends and they could bring people and not have these three girls. It would just come every Saturday for free.

And at annoyed me at the stop, they don’t realize they had told a couple of friends and they’d sign up and you can’t worry about that because you don’t know the impact you’re having on them. And you don’t know the situation that they’re in. They may not.

But showing up, being consistent and providing something really good for them, they could be your best advertising instead of spending that money on Facebook ads or Google ads or whatever, to try and sell a product, they will sell stuff for you if you’re authentic enough. And I think that’s a hard thing to get your head around as well.

Those people that will keep showing up when they don’t have to pay, but don’t expect like, it’s like kindness, I suppose. Like, don’t do it if it’s free and expect something in return, like do it because of the impact it can have on somebody else and what that will do for your brand. Um, and that’s a foreign line and it took me a long time to get my head around and not sort of.

Take it personally that people didn’t want to pay for things. Um, but you ended up getting that back down the track. Um, and that might be easy for us to say when we’ve been doing this for years, but like, like you’ve just got to realize it’s an investment and that’s why, if you are starting out on something by yourself, don’t give up your day job, make sure you’ve still got an income coming in.

So then while you’re building it, then you’re not so reliant on charging for each product you create, because then that desperation. Through selling is it’s not attractive for anyone. I used to do that. And I know you’ve seen that as well, mate.

Kyle Wood: Yeah. You want to be coming from a place of like, of confidence because that’s actually what attracts people, um, not, not neediness, you know, anyone who’s been in a relationship on either side would probably, everyone’s probably been on both sides of that.

Um, you felt that, uh, I feel like this is a good segue to discount. Because I think that’s where discounting or, you know, running a sale can be helpful is for those, there might be people in, you don’t know what their financial background is. You don’t know what, but it gives them an opportunity to try your product.

I don’t think it’s something you should do all the time, because that would. You know, reduce the cost, um, reduce the perceived value. Uh, but I think also understanding that some people and I’m like this, like I can afford full price for some things, and I’m happy to pay full price and it doesn’t bother me too much when, when that company then runs, you know, a sale or something like that.

Maybe if I was like a new customer and just signed up and then they ran a style. But I think, um, if you’re going to run a sale, then thing give people, like give people a heads up, um, and look at packaging, what you offer in a, in a different way. So it feels like a different product because someone might’ve just signed up for one of your courses and paid full price, um, And now you’re offering this package has got everything, but maybe they didn’t want everything else so that, you know, they’re happy with that.

So I think giving people a heads up, if you’re gonna run a sale or discount, um, and then yeah, packaging in, um, you know, more value into that as well can be, can be a helpful way to think about it. And then yet infrequency, unless the other side of this is. In this is marketing. Seth Godin talks about JC penny, which is like a beak, like a Kmart kind of thing in, in the U S and, um, they had a new like CEO come in and he’s like, all right, turn, JC penny around.

And we’re no longer going to be like, you know, this low end like Kmart. So we’re going to be like, maybe it’s, you know, becoming more high end. We’re going to stop discounting, you know, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Anyway, they’re like sales just plummeted because. The customers when they actually went out and did some like customer surveys, their customers love.

You know, getting a bargain that loved the sales. Cause then that’s the type of, so it’s like knowing your audience as well. Like they, this type of this is the top person who loved cutting out coupons, you know, loved getting the pamphlet, the thing each week and looking through what deal can I get this?

Like, what deal can I get this week? And when they cut that away, they alienated that customer base. So I think knowing your customers as well, I use. Um, trying to attract high-end clients. No don’t run discounts because for those people, they want to say, I spent this much money on, you know, I, my personal trainer costs $250 an hour.

Like they want to tell people about that. I say I got a $500 haircut. They want to tell people. But if you’re appealing to a wider spread customer, or like, for me, it’s like a lot of people who would just getting started in their business. Like I’m not going to have like lots of high-end, um, products, because I want to make it accessible to a wide community of people.

So. Those are my thoughts on discounted. Cause I was very like no discount, no discount discount. And now I’m actually, I’m going to put some stuff together for, for black Friday, but I am being very selective about what products I include, what ones I don’t. Um, and it would probably be, yeah. Yeah, it’s not going to be a brand new product.

It’ll probably be stuff that I’ve had for a while. And that someone new who’s come across my stuff hasn’t, you know, had a look at my products yet and give them an opportunity to. Have a look and get started.

Dale Sidebottom: I think that’s a really good way of putting it. And sort of the only thing I would say was, um, start of last year when Australia went through their terrific bushfires, call it weight, taken up and we put together an amazing package to raise money, raise $10,000 and something I’m still really proud of that we’re able to do together.

That’s when I would be inclined. To do something. If I’m not, I’m not selling for myself, if that makes sense. Um, and we didn’t take any of the profit. We gave everything away, but we’ll helping someone else. So that was, that was the last time that I did a sale or a bundle or anything like that. And, um, the reason being is that.

I’ve learnt over the years, that every time you release something new, that if it’s normally the same people that will buy it. So I don’t want to be constantly asking people to buy things. And now they’re all in one place like you with, um, with your membership. So I lock myself everything I creates in there.

So there’s no hidden fees or extras if they want it, they need to go there. Um, but yeah, if there was another disaster or something like that, then yes, I would be happy. To put a bundle together or do a sale to benefit somebody else, not myself. Um, that’s another way that people can get into the market or if they’ve been following us or whatever, you can get into it.

But I, that, that would be my only way that I personally would do it again. And that’s just because when I was, when you were talking there, I’m thinking about everything I do really, like you said, I want people. Getting me to speak. I want to, I want to be doing it virtually, or I want to be doing in the room and that’s my top end product.

Whereas what you’re trying to do, cause you’re trying to build up a relationship and you want people to know how your community, so there’s, there’s a couple of different things. Like, yes, I I’m really happy when people come by my community and sign up and things. But my top end product is where I want people really going.

So I try and leverage everything around more resources that people love it. And they want to say more or they want to say it in person. They get me speaking. And for me, that’s not worked in any area of my business, diluting that value and what I deliver. Um, and that’s, yeah, that’s been a lot of trial and error, like I said, and I’ve only just figured that out and yeah.

Yeah, that’s where everyone’s different. And I like what you’re saying that now. And it makes a lot of sense that people that may have just started following you, but don’t really know that they want to get in there into the market, but they don’t want to go straight into a boot craft and sign up as a membership.

So we’ll get them onsite as well. And it’s not going to dilute your members that have been loyal for so many years. So that does make sense to me.

Kyle Wood: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Uh, yeah. And that’s good reflecting your stuff as well. That it’s, uh, so yeah, and that’s why I wanted to have this conversation because I wanted to see sort of what conclusions we came to out of it.

And I think, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It’s like, what’s your main, what being, what’s the guests, the journey you want someone to have as a customer of yours. Um, and yours is like, I want to reach people who appreciate me as a speaker and hire me to come speak at their company. Um, and yeah, for me, it’s more like, uh, I’ve got, um, a bunch of products.

Uh, I want, uh, I do know that yeah, once someone buys one, they tend to become, come to other things. Um, and then, you know, I do want to run like a lot of events and things like that. So I’m like, if I can get some people in. Buying my products. Then when, you know, we can run live events or workshops and stuff like that again, um, there’ll be like a bigger pool of people who’ve experienced what I’ve create and trust me to, um, to come experience something.

Bigger or more expensive, something that then I wouldn’t discount.

Dale Sidebottom: Yeah. And I think like what you just said there, that when people follow you, that’s great. When people join up for free, that’s great. But once they pay for something and they like it, they become a, I don’t know if safeguard and said this already, but that the superfan shouldn’t mean gradually.

Really embracing you as a person and what you’re creating, and you want to have those small increments, so people can do that. They can get some skin in the game without going crazy, but you don’t want to you and you want that product to be top end as well, because then that’s how you really get them part of what you’re doing and build your brand and your community and things like that.

So, um, To sort of, sort of finish up, call it pricing bloody tough at sorry, hot. And I don’t think there’s any right or wrong way to do it, but, um, it’s, I think it is important to test things out and see what works for you, but it really comes down to building a relationship with people and the better relationship you can have with more people, the bigger your brand will be.

Um, and if that’s charging with free it’s whatever, um, you know, that’s, that’s what you’ve got to sort of figure out.

Kyle Wood: Yeah. A hundred percent. Awesome. Alright, thanks so much, Dale, for this excellent episode on pricing and looking forward to an excellent,

Dale Sidebottom: yeah. Sorry for giving away all my secrets within the

Kyle Wood: first two minutes.

That’s good. And then gave us like lots of different directions

Dale Sidebottom: as he, as least as you can tell, we don’t script these. We just literally talk to each other and say, calls fights dropping guys. God, you live. You probably told all your secrets.

Kyle Wood: See ya