272 - Pricing Mindset with Kristin Sweeting

things. So this spring, when she reached out and said she wanted to do a podcast swap, I was like, fantastic. And we're both talking about the subject of pricing. So I am on her show talking about pricing from kind of my perspective, and that episode will be aired over here as well. But she is here on this can't be that hard taking over today to talk about pricing

mindset. And I know that so many of us are currently experiencing fewer inquiries, feeling more pressure on the inquiries that do come in, and you may be questioning your pricing, you may be in a place where you're like, am I charging too much? Am I charging too little? How do I stand out in the market, all these different things, and that sort of noise in your head can get really confusing and really loud. So I love the episode that Kristin is sharing today, this has so many great gold nuggets

in it. So make sure that you've got a notebook handy for this one. And with that, I will turn it over to Kristin.

so good. I cannot wait to get it in your ears. So we're gonna talk about psychology of pricing, we're going to talk about how to make something really valuable. And figuring out how to price by working backwards from your goals. How to evaluate your capacity, keeping expenses, low and predictable, planning for slow months and regulating our nervous systems. Ooh, that always happen that we always need that one raising our prices, don't we finding aligned partners and taking good care of

them. And, and yeah, we're going to talk about all of it. So that's a little quick overview on what we're going to talk about today. And I'm going to dive into each of those topics

as we go. So I first just want to mention that pricing is such a tough, touchy topic, because I think it brings up a lot of our own fears and pains around our own childhood or our own growing up or just the things that we believe about the world, it makes us consider what makes us think we should be saying we're valuable, it makes us think back to, you know, when we felt like we were excluded from a cool group. And like if we try to raise our prices, are we now saying like, we're too cool for

you. There's all these kind of thoughts that come up when we are starting to move in our pricing that we really have to consider and we have to deal with and a lot of times have to process through with someone else and be like, Why is this a thing that is keeping me stuck.

So I just want to say that that is a super, super common thing to come up when we're working through a pricing raise is to have all these things where you're like, why am I thinking about that thing that happened when I was in middle school? It's so common because it's really tied to these pieces of our identity, and our story and these things that we've always said that we believed, and we have to work through them in a way that is consistent with our

with our being. So if this is a hard topic for you just know that it is for everybody. And there's a lot of different reasons why talking about our

own value is hard for us. If you listened to the episode Rosa and I did about recovering from religious trauma that can be one reason that raising pricing can be really hard to is these things that are really ingrained in us about how we should act, who we should be what we should charge to be a good person, a lot of those things really come up when we start moving forward with our business. So even if religion isn't something that has, has created this for us, there's a lot of other things in

society. A lot of other reasons why this is hard. So I'm just want to have a little shout out to this. This program that I've loved that is kind of self hypnosis that has helped work through some of the things that come up around pricing to be magnetic, they have an app. And it's like a membership and you listen to recordings, that kind of help. It's like a meditation. But I've really enjoyed those.

And I found them super helpful along with therapy and reprogramming some of these self worth things that come up anytime we talk about pricing. Sojust know that it's not all. It's not all just business strategy. There's a lot of psychological reasons why this is hard to. So as we talk about psychological things behind pricing, let's jump in to the psychology of pricing. So we'll kind of leave some of the mindset stuff to the

professionals, therapists. And if you want to explore some self hypnosis, you know, definitely do that. But let's jump into kind of like the psychology around pricing tiers. And the reason why we don't just have to raise our price to $50 at a time. And there's a lot more that we can do strategically as

we're raising our prices. So when we jump into being a photographer, or creative, a lot of times, we're just looking around and seeing what other people are charging, and basing what we charge on that number. So maybe the first wedding you did was a couple $100, mine was $500. It was the amount that I felt comfortable charging for the first one plus what my friend could pay, and we just agreed on that number. And add there wasn't a whole lot of

reason behind it. I think at the beginning, that makes a lot of sense. You're wanting to get experience, you're wanting to build your portfolio, I did a lot of photoshoots for free at the beginning. And anytime I've done a new business, my coaching business, I coached for free for a long time, just like I did photography for free for a long time before I felt confident

enough to start charging. And once you're ready to run a business, we really don't have to start so low and inch up, we can set a price based on our time, our experience, the quality that we're delivering our portfolio, there's a lot of things that go into it. And when I'm working with a client on a pricing intensive or in the mastermind, we take a lot of those things into consideration

as we're setting prices. And as we're up leveling pricing, they have to go along with your experience and your location and your portfolio and all these things. But I think one of the things that I see people do, and it's super normal is to think like I need to set a price and then slowly slowly raise because I don't want to lose clients or I don't want to upset anybody.

Or I don't want to look greedy or whatever the thought is and we slowly inch our prices up instead of kind of making these really intentional strategic moves to move from one position in the market to another. So one of the things that I think is really interesting about our brains is that we start categorizing different prices into different tiers. And our brains like to round up to

certain numbers. That's why like, you know, 799, is what you might see at Walmart for something instead of $8, we, we justify to ourselves that that's a $7 thing just because of the 99. Or it's more affordable somehow. So that's one example of using price pricing psychology and the other direction. But there's also thinking, thinking strategically about different tiers of pricing. So for example, like $500 is a tier $1,000 is a tier $2,500 is a tier $5,000 is a tier, and then the next tier is

$10,000. So our brain is jumping from 5000 to 10,000, from 10 to 20, or 25, from 25 to 50. And from 50 to 100. So you see as the numbers get bigger, are the spaces in between them get bigger as well. So someone is going to have usually like a $5,000 budget or a $10,000 budget. And there's a lot of room in the middle that's kind of mucky. And so when I'm working with a client around pricing, a lot of times we're trying to get their their packages closer to either five

or to 10. Because the human brain wants to round it to one of those numbers. And I'll give you an example. So for a long, long time I charged around $5,000. So I think the first the first package there was like 4500. And then I raised my base from 45 to 49. And then from 49 to 2520 to 5020 to 50. All of those numbers are so close to five the brain automatically is rounding it to 5000 and so Then when I started to raise up from there, I think I tried to start

at 60 to 50. And it just wasn't working for me for some reason. And so when I started to feel resistance there, instead of lowering back down to five, I raised to 7500. From there, I raised to 10, or 12,000. From there, I raised to 25,000 as a starting price. So to think in terms of tiers, it doesn't work at that level to raise 1000 by 1000 by 1000. Or if you're lower in pricing like 100 by 100, by 100. Because our brains are wanting to be closer to these

kind of anchor numbers. So going back to that 5000 Number, if you're charging, if you're wanting to charge about 5000, for wedding photography, you could charge 4900 If you're wanting to be on the side of OH MY budgets 5000. But I'm saving a little bit with this photographer here, or 50 to 50, if you want to feel to feel like people are, are paying a little more than they thought they were going to, but it's still close enough to five that they want to

stretch. So you get to make that decision based on kind of how you're wanting to interact with your client, how you're wanting them to feel when they hire you do you want them to feel like they're getting a deal, or do you want them to feel like they're splurging a little bit. So even some of that can be really helpful when we're going into pricing things of deciding which side of that we want to be

branded on. Because our pricing is part of our branding, it's part of what we get to communicate to the world about what we do, and how we do it and who we work with, and how we show up in the art that we're showing up in in our experience and the level of client experience that we're giving. So our pricing is a whole part of that big picture. So a lot of times when I do a pricing raise, I'm not just doing a couple $100 at a time, I'm making a big,

intentional choice. Based on a lot of different factors that we'll talk about in this episode, I just doubled almost everything that I offer in price, I doubled the price, instead of inching it up because it was all tied to values that I hold really dear, a way that I want to work with clients, a belief that I actually was under charging, and a lot of the things that I was already offering. And I needed to match my price up to the level that I

was offering for people. So you may be in that place to where you realize, man, I've been doing this for a really long time. And my prices are not reflecting are not matching. The experience that I'm giving to people, lots of clients I work with are in that boat. And they come to me and I'm like, Listen, you are just way too good to be charging what you're charging, let's really look at this and figure out how to get your prices up so that it can be reflecting what you're already

doing. Another tip with pricing psychology is to create a anchor package or a big, like everything you offer needs to be in one of your packages. So a lot of times I see people only offering one base offer, or putting a starting price on their website. And what you do when you're putting that on your website, or you're only having one starting package is people's brains get really caught on that

number. So if you say my wedding started 3500, they see that number and have a really hard time moving past that number. What an anchor package does, if you're working with with packages, is shows that there is this big package that you offer. Gosh, that sounded dirty. There's this, everything that you offer is in one of your

offerings. And so it really makes everything else look look affordable by comparison, it's anchoring that larger price for them, instead of having an anchor at the cheapest that you offer, the lowest that you offer. So that helps kind of expand what people are expecting, expand what they can expect what they can think about

what they can dream about. So it's not just helping you it's also helping them of being like, oh, there are all these other options I didn't even consider, there's more value that I can add to my package. There's these other things that I could, you know, dream about as it comes to my photography or my graphic designer, whatever kind of business that you own, you're helping you're helping someone think bigger when you do this.

So I also just want to say that there is something really inspiring about you taking a courageous leap to claim your value to the world and in the marketplace and in front of your peers. There's something that that expands the energy for everybody around you. It gives other people these opportunities. It sets other people's visions on and something beyond what they had dreamed of. So just know that taking courageous leaps also expands people around you, it

also expands your clients. I was, I was considering being in a coaching program, I've done a bunch of coaching programs for myself, because I love coaching, I love growing, I love meeting someone and getting to see up close how they run their business. And I have done one that was a 25 grand program that spelt like such a huge number when I did it. And it was so expansive for me. And I just reached out about another one,

and it was 50 grand. And there was something about her claiming that and having that courageous price where I was like, Well shit, like, this person is expanding my view of what is possible in my profession. And so when we do that, when we take scary leaps in our own profession, we also get to expand people's views of what's possible in our peers and for our clients. Like, like, it was exciting for me to see her charging that and to consider

paying her that. So just know that it also helps the people that we're working with, and the people around us, when we claim that, that place in the market when we say, Hey, I have this level of expertise, and I'm ready to go for it. And I'm not scared. Oh, that feels good, right? So I'm just maybe being the bug in your ear telling you to think about it. Maybe it's time to make your own scary move in the marketplace to really claim that position that you probably already are and just

don't realize it. So anyways, that's my pep talk. Let's move on to the next section. So part two, moving on from pricing psychology is how do we really make something valuable? What really makes something valuable? Is it just that we, you know, I think we get this idea that we're sitting over here being like, I don't want so and so to think that I just am so great, and I'm just like, oh, you should pay me all this money, because I just think I'm the

best person ever. You know, I think that's what holds a lot of us back from charging more is like who are you to do that, you know, you get that little snotty voice in our head that's like, Who are you to do that. And just assume that's what people will think of us when we start making big pricing jumps. But we do want to ground what we're offering in something that is

really valuable. We never want what we're charging to be way weighed down on the other end, and the value that we're delivering isn't weighing it back on the other side. So we need that balance. So I'm I referenced this a lot. Harvard Business Review has a pyramid of values that have shaped like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and it kind of has all these elements of value divided into sections based on kind of basic

human needs. So you can Google this, it's Harvard Business Review, elements of value, it's a chart, I use this all the time. So the bottom level of the pyramid is functional value. So if you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it says all humans have the same basic fundamental needs. The bottom is like safety, you know, our physical needs, we need to be fed and to be safe and to be clothed and to be sheltered. And

those are basic needs. And then we as we move up, we need love and belonging, and acceptance. And as we move up from there, we want to become the best version of ourselves and to grow and to aspire to bigger and better things and to help people and then up at the top is like self transcendence where we're becoming this best version of ourselves, we all have these

needs. And as the as the lower rungs of needs are met, we are then allowed to move up the pyramid because our brains let us focus on higher and higher cognitive functions. So, this elements of value pyramid is structured, similarly, functional is at the bottom, emotional is the next rung up then life changing then social

impact. So at the bottom, there are things like saves time, saves money, you know, has makes things easier reduces stress, as you move up, there's, you know, provides access is fun is entertaining is you know, has all these emotional components. And the next step up with life changing is affiliation and belonging, becoming the best version of yourself kind of this like self actualization. And then up at the top is the self

transcendence. So when we are thinking about how to add value into our business, we can look at all the different sections of the client journey and say how do we add as many of these elements of value as possible into each section of our client journey, what I mean by client journey, is you have the pre like how people experience you online on your website, like the

pre reach out. This is like the dating where people are swiping and are like, okay, kinda like this person's vibe kind of don't, you know, I'm always gonna relate it back to dating. And then you have the next section, which is where someone comes to your website, and they click and they fill out your contact form, and they reach out, and then you're talking with them, like this is the next section, how can you add as much value as possible to that

section. And then you have the next part, which is the time between when you connect, connect with them and work with them. And then you have the time where you work with them, and then you have the time after you work with them. And then you have the time, following up after the after the after. So it's this very long journey, especially if you are a wedding photographer or a photographer at all, a client journey is long, it's a long relationship. And it starts way before most

people realize it starts. So if you can, and it goes way farther than most people think that it ends. So if you can add as much value as possible on each of those sides, and in the middle, you are creating more value around what you do. And you can confidently say I am worth the price that I'm charging. Because I have created so much value for the people that are working with

me. Does that not like super inspire you and get you lit up like I just feel so lit up talking about it of like, we can use our gifts and talents to create so much freakin value for people that it changes their lives. And then we can charge the amount of money we need to charge that it changes our lives. That is so freakin cool. And this is why I love talking about pricing is because it's this beautiful exchange, this generous, give and give. And

it's just amazing, right? So on the opposite side, when we're always trying to undercut someone when we're always thinking in fear of I need to lower my prices because no one's booking like that energy just starts to squeeze the life out of us. And I'm not saying this from a place of No, I've never done this, I've I've definitely lowered my pricing out of fear. And I know that it never feels good. It builds resentment, it brings in people that are not aligned to me because I'm just

grasping at straws. So. So let's breathe through this together and step into that expansion together. That feels so exciting to me, I hope it does to you to two more things I want to mention on this. Because I made notes about them, I feel like I should mention them is there is often a main thing that your client needs. And it's not what you think. So when you can if you can figure this out, if you can figure it out by yourself great with a journal and a pen. If you can go back through your

client reviews, great. If you can work with a coach that can help you figure this out. There is one main thing that your specific client needs. That's probably not what you think. And when you figure out what this is, it changes every way that you talk to your client, about the work that you do. It just changes everything. And it creates something so much more valuable, because you're really pinpointing that thing for people. So I want to encourage you to find your thing, because

most people's is different. And it's going to be something specific for you and your client. And the other thing I was going to mention is that you want to have one thing that you can communicate over and over again, that you do differently, that matters to your client. So make it simple for people figure out your elevator pitch, figure out the one thing that you can really hit home, you can really drive home, because people

aren't going to hear. If you try to list 10 things that you do well, like, you need to find the one thing that matters the most to them to talk about. Moving on to our next section. I sing on

coaching calls, it's fine. Okay, so this section is about how to figure out what you want with your life, your goals, your lifestyle goals, why you started your business in the first place for whether it's freedom or for extra time or to be there with your kids or to travel or whatever that is figuring that out and then working backwards. So this is not the only way to figure out pricing, but it is one way. And I think it can be helpful to at least set some

goals for ourselves. So as an example, maybe you have a full time job and so you only want to do one shoot a week max or take on one project a week. So okay, you need to say how many weeks in a year can you take a shoot? How much money do you want to make from those shoots in a year and then work backwards to find a price I need to make X amount

per shoot. So just some quick back of the napkin calculations there or I want to do To 10 weddings a year, because then you have to have the why like why you just, it's not just some random number it's like, well, because I want to have, you know, two or three weekends every month where I can go to my kids soccer games, or I can hang out with my friends or my spouse has a full time job. So I want to hang out with them. Or just like, feels like life happens on the weekends. And I don't want

to be working every weekend. So picking that number and being like, okay, so to make this X amount of goal number, after my expenses, I need to charge X amount for each wedding. So it's kind of that like working backwards, maybe you want to take two months off in the summer to be with your kids while they're out of school, or to go to Italy and eat pasta for a month or two months, you know, like having those goals will help you set some of those pricing as you work backwards.

Okay, so here's some other random ones just to get you thinking, I want to shoot one weekend, a month, and the rest just on weekdays, I want to take Christmas time off every year, I want to live a month in every country in another country every year, I want to take the summer off, I want to work two days a week or two nights a week, or, you know, any of these can be things that you can start with

and work backwards from. And it'll help give you at least some idea of a range for weddings, shoots, projects, like service based projects that you can then either set as a goal of okay $10,000 is what I need to be making per wedding. I'm not there yet, how can I start working towards that. So I can do the 10 weddings a year for 10k. Or I can do the five weddings a year for 20k. Or I can do the 20 weddings a year for 10k. Whatever that is for

you start to set that goal. So we know what we're moving towards. Tied with this is regularly evaluating our capacity, our capacity is going to keep changing over the life of our business. I don't think people talk about this enough. And the reason I'm really passionate about it is because I've had an autoimmune disease. I've had a high risk pregnancy, I've had a really tough baby with a lot of colic that didn't sleep, I've been a breadwinner.

I've been a single parent, I've lost a parent, I've had all kinds of things happen in my personal life. And my capacity is just not what a lot of people's is like I have never been able to shoot 30 to 40 weddings a year. Nor did I ever want to like my capacity is just different than a lot of people's. And it's changed a lot depending on what's going on in

my personal life. So when we have people that we're working with who are going through something tough, we say, hey, we need to look at how your capacity has changed. And we need to adjust your pricing based on that if you're used to being fully booked with six shoots a week, but you're going through something really tough, we really need to change that and figure out how to give you more space to deal with the thing that's going on in your

life. Because you matter most really you do like your health and your well being matters. Number one. So make sure you're regularly checking in and evaluating your capacity. And it's okay to change your pricing. When your capacity changes, the more the less available something is, the more valuable it becomes. And none of us can be available 24/7 That's just not how human beings work. So I want to send you a lot of love, if this part is really

hitting hard. Because we want to keep having our level of work match with what we're wanting. And we need to make sure that we're either adding or taking away as we're figuring out what's working for us in each season. This can also work the opposite way. I've definitely had clients who have been like, I'm kind of bored, I think I want to work more. And like great, you know, either adding something personal or more work into your into your calendar is great. And we can always

brainstorm ways to add more. But a lot of times I feel like the thing that's harder for us is taking away and creating space and learning to get a little uncomfortable with some some quiet right? Especially for entrepreneurs, we just have figured out how to go go go and are not great with slowing down and resting and taking care of ourselves. And I think if you feel that way, that's a lot of us. Okay, the next part I want to talk about is keeping expenses low and predictable.

Our profit margins really matter. They're really important. You can definitely bring in 100k and spend 100k. And that doesn't help us hit most of our goals that we're going to have. So knowing how much we're making for each wedding shoot or project. This is a call out for film shooters. cuz I empathize, I've definitely spent every cent that I've made on a wedding before on the film.

So just make sure that you're setting a budget and knowing what your what knowing what you're going to be paying per thing that you're doing so that you make sure you're paying yourself first. I've really loved the book Profit First, I didn't read the whole book,

honestly. But his system where you pay yourself first, and then you decide what expenses you're going to do from each thing after that, like that really helped a lot of things for me, it was like, I can't stop, I can't not pay myself, that's something I feel like a lot of creatives do is really Oh, we love the art, we love the all these things, we want to do all this fun, it's for you know, it's for creativity law. And that's great. But like we do

still have physical needs. So make sure we're paying ourselves first, before we get carried away, and doing all these other fun things. So know your expenses for each project to figure out where we find ourselves going over budget. And then what policies do we need to change to accommodate contingencies? If we see things going over a lot, or travel ends up being way more than we

thought? Like, is there any policy we can change that accommodates the contingency plan, if something goes wrong, if something happens, um, I My car broke down on a way to a wedding the other day, I mean, this, I obviously don't charge my client for this. But like, I had to immediately go and like rent a car and drive the car up to where the wedding was. And that was a really unexpected expense, just out of the blue.

So make sure that when we're pricing things, we also plan for like kind of the worst case scenario. And then every six months reevaluate spending based on your goals there, sometimes we will might want to invest in education, new gear, workshops, conferences, what investments line up with what you're focusing on. So not everyone's the same. This is my cycle, I find myself in kind of waves, I have like an extrovert cycle and an introvert cycle. So in my extrovert cycle, I'm a guest on

a bunch of podcasts. And I'm speaking at conferences, and I'm putting myself out there and I'm networking with all these people and extrovert, extrovert extrovert. And then I have like a hard swing into my introvert cycle, or I'm working in my business, and I'm designing a new course, and I'm not leaving my house. And my cycles really need to line up with where my money is going. So in the introvert cycle, I'm investing a

lot more in certain things. And in my extrovert cycle, my growth cycle where I'm doing all the harvesting, and the pushing, and the, you know, the hustling a little bit, I hate that word. But you know, like, a little bit more of the outward stuff, the outward work, hiring coaches, all these things. And then the introvert, where I'm making sure my systems are good. And my accounting is good, and my family and my health and my self care, and all these things are

good. So that's me, that might not be you, but figure out your own cycles, and pair up your spending with those cycles, so that you kind of like start realizing how those go and making a plan for them. The next thing I want to talk about, and we just got a couple more here is planning for the slow months and regulating our nervous system, they should probably be two different things, but I put them together. So when you raise your prices, a lot of times we

might get less bookings. And that's kind of normal, we won probably did this to to shrink our volume a little bit like I was working too much. And so I raise my prices, so I did less weddings, and then our nervous systems freak out, because we're not getting booked at the level that we were before. And ah, you know, and you're kind of having to let your body readjust to a different pattern. It's like when you're on a treadmill and you're running at a certain speed and then you slow it down,

you're like what's wrong? Why am I going so slow. So just realize that our nervous systems need a second to catch up. If you've been used to running, when you slow down, it's not going to feel normal for a second. And that's totally normal to feel that way. So when you raise prices, you might get less bookings, especially at first. And that's kind of part of it. So make sure that whatever you need to feel safe is already set for you when you're making a

pricing raise. So if you're a person that needs a lot of safety and security, make sure there is savings in the bank. Make sure that there is another income stream somewhere, make sure you have your needs taken care of so that you can withstand some people saying no to you, people not hiring you at first, and getting into that groove of that new pricing so that you're not just like instantly flip flopping back to your old pricing when you start freaking out. So go in planning.

How can I make myself feel safe? How can I stay grounded? What self care things do I need to make sure that I stay really steady through this trend? mission. And who do I need to hang around to remind me that I'm worth charging more, we need people around us to remind us why we're making those moves, why we're doing something challenging or moving into this next space, we really are, who

we hang around, right. So have people that are going to keep you grounded and remind you of your goals and your vision and why you're making this scary, uncomfortable jump in the first place, I promise that is so so valuable is to have those people in your corner. And my very last point in this talk today is finding aligned partners and taking good care of them. When we're raising our pricing, we're going to be really, we're going to come up with the fact that like, not everyone is for us.

And that is okay. There are certain vendors that aren't going to want to work with you and you're not going to want to work with them, there are certain clients that aren't going to want to work with you, and maybe you're not going to work want to work with them, there are people that might say, You're too expensive there, there's just things that are

going to happen like that. And so we need to really work on finding the people that we love working with, that have shared common values that see the world that are that want to see the world the way you see the world. And that really, really love working with you and you love working with them. I promise that we all have these aligned partners and clients, we just have to speak clearly enough to

find them. Again, going back to dating, I really do think that everyone has a person, at least if not many people out there who are really lined up with them. And we just need to speak clearly enough about what we care about that they can find us and we can find them. So reminders here, quality over quantity, when it comes to aligned partners and aligned clients, we don't need to have everyone hire us, we don't need to have every vendor out there wanting to work with us, we just

need the right ones. So for years, most of my weddings came from like three or four people from specific clients that connected me with all their friends, specific vendors that we just really loved working together and really jived and we

had similar goals. And just like take really good care of each other, grow together, over deliver for them create opportunities for each other, and always lead with generosity and I promise you will find so much fulfillment in this price race in this new level in working with these new aligned clients and vendors, and a lot of it takes time. So I just want

to send some love there. And, and when when we have those moments of feeling rejected, just remember that our people are out there, and we're not for everybody. And that is okay, actually that is a beautiful thing. So pricing raises are about generosity, we create more and more ability to give our energy, our time our creativity and our talents to our clients, ourselves and our family when we create viable pricing structures and strategies, and I hope you know that you are worth it.

Wherever you're at in your path, keep expanding into the next season. There's a real magic when we're growing and creating. It shows up in our relationships, in our business. And in our happy creative souls.