- Don't get me started on starting prices. Listen to this episode. You might hear me up on a soapbox. Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the "Wedding Business Solutions" podcast. I had yet another discussion the other day with someone about pricing and displaying pricing and transparency. And this person, this company had done surveying some of their customers and a lot of them were asking for, you know being able to put a starting price on this website or on their own website and starting price was their kind of preferred way to do it. And if you've heard anything that I've done on this another episode I did on pricing or anything in my books, "Shut Up and Sell More" or "Why are They Ghosting Me" or any of the books. You'll hear me talk about that my least favorite way to display pricing is starting price. And what this comes down to is very simply think about yourself as a customer.
When you're a customer, you want to see something in terms of pricing. And when someone says, "Our prices start at." That's what you think you're going to pay because it's the only number you've heard. It's a psychological effect. As a matter of fact, that when you only hear one price that's the number you expect to pay. And if your prices don't vary much for that particular product or service starting price is fine. It's a fine way to do what you're trying to do which is to say, if you don't have this much to spend then don't reach out to us. That's what you're trying to say. The problem with it is, is you're selling from the bottom up and if there is a variance in your price and it could be based on the time of the year, the day of the week the services that they pick, if that's what it is, the problem is that you're selling from the bottom up which is the least expensive thing you have. And the thing that you probably don't want to sell. And if you've worked with me as a consultant or mastermind or something like that, or sales training, you know that profitability is what I want you to have. Not just more sales. I want you to have more profitable sales. And selling from the bottom up actually works against that.
Psychologically, I'm actually listening to a new book, I'll talk about it in not it's a new book for me, I should say, not a new book by Robert Cialdini on "Influence". And he's a very well known PhD that has talked about this type of stuff for many, many, many years. So when you have the comparison of the numbers, right and I like to do price range, when you have a comparison of the numbers and then you tell them what they're going to pay and it's less than the top number, it actually makes that number seem more palatable because of the comparison.
One of my clients put on his website a starting price and then the most popular without putting the top number. And what that says is, "Here's where we start. But most people are going to spend a lot more than that." And that's what you're saying, psychologically that's what you're saying. One of the examples in this book, and I'll just, this is the only one I'll give 'cause I'll talk about it more when I finish the book. Although what is a 20 hour audiobook? It was talking about a men's wear store where they told their staff, listen, if somebody comes in to buy a suit and maybe some other things, accessories sell the suit first. The most expensive thing first. 'Cause then when you say that these are the shoes the shoes might have seemed expensive if that was the only price they had heard so far but in comparison to how much they spent on the suit they're going to seem not so bad even at the same exact price.
So why are starting prices bad? Starting price is bad because people might feel it's bait and switch when you tell them how much it actually costs. And you've probably had that happen to you. I've had it happen to me where somebody told you our prices start at this and then you say, okay, this is what I need. And then they say, well yours is going to be this much. And it could be 50% more, a hundred percent more two times, three times, four times more than that. 'Cause a lot of you have very big price ranges. And when they tell you how much yours is, it's like well what happened to that? What happened to that other number, right? Because it was the only number that you heard.
So if you're going to use starting prices understand what you're doing, I consider it a self-inflicted wound that when you do that and then you have to try to sell people up from that and you might have difficulty with that. What you're trying to do is okay what you're trying to do is to say, listen if you don't have at least this much to spend then don't reach out to me. Some of you were thinking, okay but I'm able to upsell them I'm able to move them up from that number. Okay, good. You should be able to upsell people. You should be, 'cause your average price is probably not what your bottom price is.
I would much rather you spent time trying to convince people who already know they have your minimum or more to get the kind of results that they want and pay more for those results. 'Cause that's what we're doing. We're not just selling them more stuff we're selling them results that they want and they have to pay more to get those results right. I would rather you work with people who already knew they had something in the range than trying to convince someone who's below your range to get into the range or at the bottom of the range to get to the middle. And that's why putting a price range instead of a starting price sets those anchors. It's actually called anchoring where you set the low and the high anchor and then if you put the most popular or the average what most people spend somewhere in the middle or even below the middle, it says, we're capable of this range of work, but you don't have to go there. Whereas if you just do starting price then you're saying now you're 50% a hundred percent more, two times more, three times more four times more for the kind of results you want.
You want to attract the right customer. If you have a big range saying a starting price actually attracts people to the lower price which is again working against you. So these are self-inflicted wounds. If you're complaining that you're getting people that can't afford the kind of price you want to get and you have a starting price it could be that you're just fishing with the wrong bait. You're saying look at this low number and yes we have something for that. But what you're going to want is going to be this over here. And you're attracting people who want the low thing. So I want you to understand for first of all, from the consumer standpoint 'cause you are a consumer, I'm a consumer. And how do we feel when we see a starting price and our price is going to be a lot more than that. And then also, what is it signals does it send and how is it attracting not the people that you actually want, but different people that aren't the ones that are going to spend the kind of money that you want or that you have to kind of talk up and convince them to that. So please, I would prefer you don't use a starting price.
Don't be afraid to put your range either, right? There's also a psychological effect where if something's too low, you will not attract the right customer who wants better work. It's also in that book "Influence". I'll tell you the other stories when I talk more about it in another episode. But the idea being that something can be too low of a cost and therefore is not as attractive. There's an extreme example it's called Veblen Goods. I've mentioned this before. There was an economist, Thorstein Veblen, and he said that, "Some things are attractive because of the high price and that when the price comes down, the people that can afford the high price no longer want it." Right? It's like a think about a Birkin handbag for 10,000, $15,000, right? A lot of people can't afford that but there are people that can and they'll actually go on a waiting list to get one, right? But if that bag comes down to $1,500 where you could, I'm not saying you should, put that on your credit card 'cause you probably have that limit or more.
The people that can afford 15,000 don't want the $1,500 bag because a lot of people can have those. They want the things that others can't have, they want... That's the status symbol is how much they paid for it, right? How much the new Bugatti car that comes out for 3 million is sold out before the first one rolls off the line. 'Cause the people that can afford it they want to have what other people can't have. Price comes down, well, yeah, they can afford it the price is lower, they don't want it now they don't want it because it's more available to more people.
I've found with my business, I crossed the line at a certain point where I became desirable because of the higher price. I know a lot of my clients the same thing has happened where you raise your prices to a point where you now exclude people that used to do business with you but you now attract people that didn't before because the price was too low. So again, starting prices can work against you in many different ways. The only time I think it makes sense is when there isn't a big range. And that could be for some of your upsells, by the way. So let's say you're a venue or a caterer and somebody asks you about a different kind of linen, right? So maybe you give them black linens and white linens or black white or off-white as the choice. And they say, well, can I have, you know what's the color of the year? Magenta or something like that. Can I have that color? And you say, sure. Color linens start at... Because there may not be a big variance. Now the linen companies who are listening are going to tell me there is a big variance because we have regular linens and then we have fancy linens and then we have these well fancy textures and 3D stuff. I've seen them at some events, they're beautiful. But there could be a big range in that case. Don't do starting at right? Save the range from here to here. Most of the, our most popular ones are here. And that's a great way to do it, by the way, it's called the center stage effect, right?
Three things, give 'em three things. The one in the middle is appeared to be the best value. You should price yourself. If you listen to the other episodes I've done on this or in my books. Price yourself so that that middle one is one that gives you really good profit because that's the one more people are going to buy. If somebody goes up to the top one, great. But you want to price yourself so that when they buy the middle, 'cause the people tend to buy towards the middle, it's a safer choice, right? The bottom might be missing something that they need and the top one might be going crazy and we don't need all that stuff. They go for the safe choice in the middle.
So price yourself so that that one gives you good value. But if you have upsells that don't have a big range by all means say this is the starting price. I do have one client, I have a venue who has three packages and they have a starting price for each package as opposed to the starting price for all of them together which would be two low because they have a top package. So that's a kind of a variance on this one. And if that package itself doesn't have much of a variance sure this package starts at, this package starts at, that package starts at. That's another possibility there. So I'm going to get off my soapbox now about starting prices. You know how I feel about this. If you want to read more, they're in my books. Or feel free to shoot me an email, alan@weddingbusinesssolutions.com. Thanks for listening. See you on the next one.