230. Pricing Your Services to INCREASE Revenue [Coaching Call]

Power Hours are highly discounted one on one strategy sessions specifically for Accelerator students to help them get unstuck from a specific thing in their business so they can scale super quickly. Felicia joined the Accelerator only a month ago in February, and it was also only her second month in business, which is absolutely crazy to me. As you'll hear in this call, Felicia is not here for a slow and steady build.

This girl wants the tools and strategies to scale quickly and she is ready to do the work. And so when she dropped into my DMs and asked if she could join the Accelerator, even though she was brand new to business, my response was, if you're willing to do the work, I'm willing and ready to teach you. One of the very first things we did with Felicia when she very first joined the program was to edit her marketing.

All of her marketing and her copy was focused on a very DIY couple and that was causing her to be price shopped quite a bit and also attract a couple that didn't have the budget of the packages that she was charging. So she was losing a ton of clients and she was really attracting a very unideal couple for her pricing. So her marketing did not match her pricing. So we fixed that right away.

In just the few weeks that she's been inside the program, she's Edited her marketing, her messaging, her sales funnel, and her pricing. And y'all, this is crazy. In her first month in business, she did 400 in sales, which is nothing to sneeze at as a brand new business owner. But in her second month in business, which is when she joined the Accelerator, she has booked $14,000 in business, which is absolutely mind blowing. You guys listen, this isn't magic. It's strategy.

It's strong marketing, a strategic sales funnel, and profitable packages. It's the triple threat method that I teach to scaling your six figure business. I'm excited for you to listen in on this call. And hey, if you are ready for this kind of support, as you are building your dream business, you can apply to be part of the accelerator as well. Just head over to brandegaar. com slash apply. And we would love to see you inside. All right, let's get into this strategic call with Felicia.

Okay. So let's get into it. these calls, just so you know, are really for you. So like, let's start where you want to start. I just started my business two months ago, actually, but I wanted to like jump in and get everything correct from the start. which is why I like signed up for your course, because I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing. And I'd rather just make the investment at the beginning and then know what I'm doing, make sure everything's set up from the get go.

Everything has been really actually pretty good so far. The first month it was at like, I made like $400, which is really embarrassing because there was someone that wanted to do like a graduation party, which I don't even do, but I was like, okay, sure. Now I have to actually go do it for like no dollars, but it's okay. And then this month, um, is doing really good. I'm at 7, 000 for this month, so I'm pretty happy with that, but. But it's a lot of events and I felt like I charged way too low.

It's mostly wedding management, like day of coordination, but it wasn't the price that I actually wanted and just like your clients, I ended up like lowering it way down. Which I'm okay with, but obviously, long term, I don't want to do that. I mean, but it helps with your portfolio as a professional. Yeah, so that's why I was like, okay, it's okay. And plus, like, I do need to get more experience. Like, that hands on experience is worth it to me.

so right now you're saying one of your biggest challenges is pricing. Yes. So, so yes. And I can see it getting a little bit better because my, so my wedding management package is $2500. Um, originally I was getting like super price shops. And I think when I, you told me to stop saying DIY and I like. Got rid of that everywhere, like on my website, everything.

And it might just be a coincidence or it might've actually worked because two days ago, I finally got like my first, uh, full wedding management package for 2, 500 and she didn't even question it. She just was like, okay, yes. And then she went and signed it. Um, but before that, yeah, I was getting a lot of people saying, Hey, can you do a custom package? Can you do, um, like $1,100?, blah, blah, blah. And I was just saying yes, because I was desperate.

in San Diego, like there's a lot of planners when they do like wedding management here. Yeah. Like 3, 500 for wedding management, mine is 2, 500. And I feel pretty happy with that because since I'm brand new, I can't really Go higher. I don't think so. I mean, you can, but you know, like, I always try to explain to my students, right? Like, You can charge whatever you want. as long as you are going to deliver the service, which if you know you're good at what you do, then you can.

The trick is though that, You're going to have so many referral sources that you can charge more because the leads just come in without you doing anything, right? Yeah. In the beginning, it's not that you can't charge more because you're new. It's just more because the fact that it's like, I don't have that many leads coming in. I need to book the ones that come, right? Exactly. As you get more and more leads, you can raise that price because you won't need to book those weddings as much.

So I feel really good about the 2, 500 as well, knowing that you can always increase that as you go. and I honestly, Felicia, 100%, the reason you were getting price shopped is because your messaging was so. Day of coordination. And it was like, you need a day of coordinator, you need a wedding manager. I think it's confusing. Yeah. That's what I was saying too. I think it's because I was, my original thing was I was trying to do something that, something different, like that no one's doing.

So like wedding manager. You know, people don't like use that term as much. I got like a lot of people messaging me being like, what's a wedding manager? Like, wow, I've only heard of a planner and coordinator, but realistically, I'm doing the same thing as a coordinator planner. So it was like, I think that people were getting confused. even I was like, I can't wait till I get to talk to her because I don't understand what a wedding manager is. So, okay. So let's talk about your other pricing.

You're at 2, 500 for event management. And then what are your other packages I'm looking at? So, um, for full service and design, I feel pretty low, but it's at 7, 000. And I think the main reason I'm doing this, obviously, is because I'm new. Like, I just don't have any photos. So one of the things I think you could do is talk about the experience of working with you.

Start and then have reels and carousels and things that talk about the posh experience and show some of the mockups that you've done. I actually wouldn't just even make it one blog. Like if you have, let's say you have a mockup. and you know what the couple was going for. And you can say, the couple described X, Y, Z, this is what they were looking for. This is the design we created. Here's why we use these elements in their design. Here's what the mock up looked like, right?

Okay. Because I think talking about that experience is more powerful than what the overall look is the look is helpful. Don't get me wrong. Yeah. Yeah. You're designing their look, right? Yeah. So explaining how you pull that out of your couple and how you get those details and how you bring them to life through the design, I think would actually be more powerful than just showing the finished product anyway. So you only have two services, it looks like, is that right?

Yes. Yes. So I only have two. I just felt like with partial, I was just like a little confused. Like I felt like everything, the lines like kind of get blurred.

So I wasn't really like sure about adding that just because honestly, I don't even understand, like, What you do at Partial, um, because I felt like when I used to work for another planner, she ended up taking off Partial also because she started getting people like blurring the lines and just starting to take more advantage and, you know, treating her as like full service and it just was really difficult.

Um, I'm definitely open to adding more services if you think it's like, if that's beneficial. It is. 100 percent And I can tell you how to fix the blurred lines too. So we went through that for years and years too. And I was just like, I hate this. I hate partials so much. and then really it's, it's an us problem. It's not a client problem. Because We don't understand how to put the parameters on that package. So then it just becomes like, what do you do? What do we do? We don't really know.

So the reason you want a middle package because sales psychology is your most popular package will become your middle package. And why you want that is because while wedding management is great, if you could get 4, 500 on the day instead of 2, 500 and only a little bit more work, sign me up all day long. Right?

Okay. Yeah. So what we need to do with our partial plan service is we want to create a partial plan that has a lot of perceived value to the client because it's going to save them a ton of time, but takes you very little time, right? So, the other thing I want you to think about with a partial plan is that A partial plan is not your middle package in between wedding management and full. It's an enhancement to wedding management. Full service client is a completely different client mentality.

A full service client books full service because they're looking for someone to take their vision and bring it to life. Like they're busy, they have busy careers, they They value their time more than their money. And so they want a good deal, but they understand that they're paying for a service. A partial plan and a wedding management client are different. They're just different buyers. They're more like, I know I need help, but I value my money and I want help, but I, I don't want that. Right.

I want to still be very. So when you think about that, when you think about it from that perspective, there's two things that are at play. One, you never, ever, ever want to downsell a full service and a partial because they're not even similar. Right. So you never wanna have a client that's like, I'm really thinking about full service, but I've already booked my venue. And you're like, oh, well then just do partial. No, because they're not okay.

But what you would do is a client that's looking for day of or wedding management and they're like, I know I need wedding management. Like that's a given. Yeah. But I feel like I'm still a little overwhelmed by like, what vendors do I book and like what order do I do things in? Yeah. And you're like, that's what our partial planning is for. Right. Okay. I do want you to think about just one other thing too, and I talk about this a lot, which is like the cheese pizza analogy, right?

So it's like, your wedding management service, I know you said at the beginning of this call, it includes a lot, and we want to get rid of that. So what we want to do, we want to think about your services like a pizza. When you order a cheese pizza, right, you call your local pizza place, you order a cheese pizza, it's hot, it's cheesy, it's delicious, but it has no toppings, right? You didn't pay for toppings, you're not getting the toppings. It's still delicious.

It doesn't take away from the fact that it's a great pizza. It's just a basic pizza. If you want mushrooms and anchovies and all the things, you're going to have to pay for that. So you want your wedding management service to be similar. You want it to be everything that they need and nothing that they want. We're gonna sell them into partial planning is that we're gonna add those things that they want. We're gonna add the topics, we're gonna offer this a premium, right?

Okay. Yes. So let's talk through your three packages or two now. Add in the third one? Yes. Okay. So we obviously have the initial booking consultation. We have two logistics meetings, timeline creation, vendor communication, uh, one month out. Okay. Um, you get access to all your planning, eBooks, access to our online planning portal. One final venue walkthrough, rehearsal, coordinator, assistant, and 12 hours on the wedding day.

Okay. So, what I want to do here is I'd like to, take out the two logistics meetings. Okay. And I would like to take out the final venue walkthrough. Okay. And replace that with a final details meeting. Okay. It can be done either in person or Zoom. You don't say that, but the reason for that is because we think, oh, well, we have to do a final venue walkthrough, but as you do more and more weddings, you're going to start working at the same venues over and over.

And it, like, at some point you're gonna be like, dude, I literally don't know. Like, I Okay. I don't need it. The client might want you there and they can pay for that. You don't need it to be able to flawlessly execute it.

Now, that said, if a client books us for wedding management and we've never worked at their venue before, or it's a newer venue for us, we would suggest that the final details meeting is at the venue because we know for us to execute that wedding well, we're going to need to do a walkthrough with them. Okay. Yeah. But I don't want to guarantee it as part of my service because. Then I'm going to need to re watch it. Right. And I don't want to.

Okay, so that's what I would look at for your wedding management. Now, the only other thing that you could consider, and this is 100 percent up to you. Okay. Is some planners offer. Unlimited communication via email, some offers no communication until a certain point, um, because you're not going to have those 2 logistics meetings. I'd say. I think 1 month for your takeover is probably too close now, like, because it's not even going to be enough time to get all the details together.

We personally take over 90 days. I think that's a little early, but it's just easier for us to say, yeah, you can 60 days. Okay. Okay. And that's for vendor communication. You said, right? Right. So we do the way that we, I mean, ours looks very similar to this. Like we, you don't have to, you know, in your, on your website, you don't need to say a ton of stuff.

You just kind of giving main bullets, but in your actual contract, you're going to want to let them know, like, you know, we start communicating or your service starts at what point, right? Okay. Is it 90 days out? Is it 60 days out? Whatever it is. And then I love that you give them access to these other things because they cost you nothing. You've got them already. So it's an added bonus for booking with you. So I love it.

And then in terms of like client communication, you're talking about the email, does that also start 90 days to like for the clients to be able to email me or what do you recommend for that? Oh, that's, that's literally 100 percent up to you. There is no, but what I was talking about is like for us, we do allow unlimited communication with us via email for our management because I have someone on my team that handles it.

Okay. And we've just noticed it makes our life easier if they like, Hey, I'm looking for a DJ. I'm really not sure what one would be best. You know, I have 2, 500. Who would you suggest? Okay. It's just easier for us to email them back and give them our suggestions. And do you feel like it ever, I feel like most clients wouldn't do this, but I'm sure there's a few. Like, do you think that any of them ever, like, take advantage and try to use you as, like, full service?

Like, hey, review this contract for me. Do this. Like, what, has that ever happened? It does. Well, it did. And so what we did was we have one person on our team, which for now would be you, though I know you're looking to grow and scale fast, right? What I would suggest for you though, Felicia, is to, um, have a dummy email address that is literally just like, Events at Posh because, and then make your signature not from you for these weddings so that they're not like falling in love with you.

You can just say, my team will answer. Right? Or like, and like posh team or the ladies at Posh. So that they're not thinking it's you. And what happens is you want to, you have to set those boundaries. So, like, emails and says, hey, am I taking a look at your proposal? I would say, hey, that's actually something that we do as part of our partial service.

If you'd like to upgrade, I can certainly, Because we say right in the beginning and right in our welcome guide that our event management clients are welcome to send us questions, but we don't review contracts. We don't negotiate contracts. We don't communicate like any of that. So really good thing. I mean, honestly, it hasn't been a problem since we've set those clear boundaries. and then we do offer, like if they say the email and they're like, I am literally stuck. I'm so overwhelmed.

I feel. Like I'm just, I don't even know what to do next. And I just go, um, can you help? We do have a link where they can book a one hour call with someone on our team to just get them. And so we call that a power hour, kind of like these, and we just call to get them unstuck. And that's something that you have like an extra fee for. Okay. So versus 300. I mean, I think you could probably charge three, 500, whatever feels okay for you.

But that's the way so that if they email you and they're like, I'm so overwhelmed, I'm so stressed that you don't email them back and be like, sorry, that sucks. You only booked our management service. Like you want to be able to offer them a solution, but again, you're giving them your time. They're going to need to pay for it. Right. Okay. Yeah. And then like setting these, these boundaries, like, okay, with our wedding management package, we don't review contracts, like blah, blah, blah.

That's an add on. Do you mention that during the consultation or is that, does that like scare people away? No, I don't mention it during consultation is all the things we do. Okay, like talk about the things you don't do. but it would be detailed in the contract, right? So in the contract, you're not going to say we don't do this, we don't do this, but you could say, yeah, we provide unlimited email communication for questions and advice. However, we don't review contracts.

Okay. and then in your welcome guide, because you definitely have a welcome guide, I have a template for inside the accelerator. So that's like once they look at it, yeah, so jump into the accelerator, grab the welcome guide. I think it's under sales, under the sales module. Okay. You would create your welcome guide, and it's basically just like, we're so excited to have you with the Posh Vows family.

Here's what to expect in your planning, and we have a separate one for event management, one for partial, one for full. And it's like for the event management one, it'll say something like, I think ours says something like, you know, you have unlimited email communication with our team throughout the process. What are some of the questions that most of our clients ask? And we'll list, like, and we'll say, What are some questions that we wouldn't be able to answer with this service?

And we'll say like, can you review my floor proposal? Can you do this? And we'll say, if you need more help, you can book a power hour with our team. okay, so for your partial, what I would consider adding, so your full right now is 7, 000, which is too low. We're going to increase that and we'll go back to that. But what I'd like to see from your partial is We want to make an enhancement to your wedding management, so we want to add toppings.

I would like to see you around 4, 500 for your apartment. Okay. And so with that, that's where you can look at adding some of these things back in, like the two logistics meetings, right? Okay. Um, you can also add in custom vendor referrals, so instead of just giving them your vendor list, which is included in the portal for event management, You would maybe that first logistics meeting would be talking about their budget, right? You can help them fill out their budget.

So with our partial plan, that is our very first call. We don't budget for them. We're not responsible for it for partial planning, but we do create it for them so that they have an idea of in each category. Okay. Um, so that could be one of those calls, right? and then from there, you can give them custom vendor referrals based on that budget. So you already know who's a good vendor for them. That's going to be good. So, you can do that. and then I would maybe put the final walkthrough back in.

Okay, a venue walkthrough. that's all I would add in. I wouldn't add any more because you're going to charge 2, 000 more, but you're going to give them two additional meetings, a custom vendor referrals. I would add budget creation in here if you think that's a thing. I think that's a massive value. We sell it like my clients on a sales call. I'm like.

Listen, this is like the most, this is the best thing that's included in our partial plan because from the beginning, like, we had a client the other day that said they have a 75, 000 budget. She was like, is that even reasonable for what we're trying to do? They don't know. They made up the number. And so I'm like, well, the very first thing we do in our partial plan is do a budget call with you.

And we literally give you a whole budget with all the line items of what you're going to spend so that when you start booking your vendors, you're not using monopoly money. Like, you know, right. Oh my gosh, that's so awesome. So I think that would be helpful. And then the final venue walkthrough and it's 4, 500. Okay, now think about the value you've created for that client, but how it's only what another maybe 10 hours of work for you. Yeah Exactly.

Okay, so that's what your commercial would be. Okay, and now I'm thinking like for the wedding management Should I even be giving them all of these like guides that I've created? Do you think? That's like too much. Yeah, I would. We give our event management clients access to everything we keep inside our portal because what does it mean to us? It costs me nothing. Nothing. Yeah. We're still not doing it for them, but if they want to use our budget tool, they can do it.

They can go in and throw their money. They can go in and You know, create their timeline earlier than we're going to create it. They can use our guides. Cause okay. And then in terms of like, because what I was doing originally also, which I think was like way too much is I was like creating a custom, like checklist for them and all those things. Like, I, is it like those types of things you're not doing for them? Right. And wedding management. Cause that's, that's where it's getting like full.

Oh yeah. You're creating zero custom things like they book and you turn their portal on and That's it. Like, done. So now I would have like a sample checklist inside your portal. I would have a sample budget. We also have created sample timelines. So like, you know, if you're doing a first look, here's a sample timeline. Because we're not making until 90 days out, so they're wanting to know what time they can play around with it, right? On their own.

Yes. That's things that, yeah, I, you, you set it and forget it with event management and, okay. And again, it's not because, it's not like, oh, that's a crappy service. It's actually a really, really good service. But they plan a hundred percent on their own. You execute their plan flawlessly. Okay. Right. Okay. Virtual, you're think of partial as like you're a coach along the way. Okay. Right. Like coaching them. So you're a lot more involved in communicating with them.

You're giving them custom intervals. You're telling them how much to spend in their budget, but they're still doing it all on their own. And the full, so full service is, is a whole different client. It's, the client is, they, like I said, they value their time. They, they, they want an epic celebration, but they just don't have the time to pull it off. And they just don't want to pull it off. They're like, I don't want to deal with it, but they do have fun in their planning.

And so what we always tell our clients is we do everything with, and for you. So you can be as involved as you want. I honestly have clients. I'm not even kidding you. I might see face to face one time during their entire plan. They don't have time. They're like, I trust you. Yeah. That's what we want, right? With a full service. Um, and then we have others that are like, no, I really want to go to all the vendor meetings. And I'm like, that's fine.

Come along, you know, um, but they still want us to manage everything for them. So the things I would say with full service is that also here on your website, this is an incredible amount of text. So I actually go use this as a model. Honestly, for most of my clients, I tell them not to put bullet points at all. Like I don't want them to see bullet points at all, but yours are very. Broad. So I like that. Okay. But like with, we do not need this much detail. client, they just don't care.

They don't care. Yeah. They wanna things like, so if you're gonna add bullets here, it would be something that says like everything included in our event management package plus, because we don't need to re-list everything that's in event management. Yeah. Obviously we're doing all of that, right? Yeah. Plus. Venue selection as needed. We don't take out part of the fee if they already have their venue, but if you still need a venue, we do your venue selection.

It would be things like venue selection, stationary, We assemble and mail all your invitations, hotel room blocks. Contracting of all of your vendors, like all the things, right? Okay. So we're going to put all of that here. Okay. what we don't want to do here you get seven meetings, you get 90 hours, no, like every client will be different. And there's, we do not want to say that. We just want to tell them the broad strokes of the things that we're going to handle for them. Right.

Okay. Um, because some people will be out of state and that they won't need seven meetings. They don't even, you know, okay. And if I don't do the bullet points, I mean, what, what do you recommend? Like, do I just, would I just. Do like a little overview paragraph or like Exactly what you have on the left hand side. I mean, honestly, if you redid all of your services right here, I would take the whole right side out and just center them, center the left side.

Okay, and you think that's, like, is that what you prefer versus the bullet point? 100%. Okay, that's what I'll do then. Now, remember, there's levels of buying, right? So on your website, you're just explaining to them who this service is for. Okay. So that's why you only need the paragraph. Now when they reach out and they ask you for pricing, that's where the bullet points are going to come in handy.

So you're going to want a pricing guide that you can send to them that has more of this kind of information, more details. Still need paragraphs of information like this. Yeah, bullet points of all the things that you're going to do should be in your pricing guide because now they're more interested And then your contract is going to have things like we're there in 30 minutes before the first vendor and you know, okay Okay, perfect. That makes sense. Okay, let's talk about your pricing for this.

I really want to push you to a percentage based model for your full service. Okay. Most planners who are just starting out are so afraid of percentage based, they feel like they can't do it, so they don't. And I'm telling you, if I could go back and charge percentage based for the last 10 years that I was not doing it, I would be so rich because I, the amount of money we left on the table and you know, we bend over backwards for our full service clients. So for any of our clients, really.

And so we're doing the work. And here's the challenge most of the time when a client comes to you at the very beginning of their planning, they don't even fully know what they want. And so they're trying to describe it. And so you're pricing it based on what they're describing right now. But as that vision changes, as people get involved, as money becomes available, all of a sudden they went from, I have a 60, 000 budget with, you know, 80 people to I'm spending 150, 000 budget.

We're flying a band in from New York. Like. Yeah. Yeah. And so, that's fine. You can totally do that. But the way you priced yourself was for that original vision, and now you're doing so much more work. And this is how you get overwhelmed. This is how you don't make enough money.

Okay. So, what I would encourage you to do is I would speak at percentage based, in the budget that you manage, and you can have a minimum of 7, 000, so you can make it well below 7, 000, but as you get bigger clients, bigger budgets, more involved in the wedding, you would make more money from those weddings. Okay. And is it typically like 10%? So that's up to you. I would start at 10%. Okay. tell me this.

What would you say do you think would be your average budget, their average budget for their wedding for a full service client? like 70, 000. It's like starting. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too, like 60 to 80 is kind of the for a, and then they go up from there. Right. Okay. So I actually really like 10% with a minimum of 7,000 for you because that looks. You play in that sweet spot of the 60 to 80 and not alienate them.

Okay. But when you see a client that has 100, 120, 150, and they want more, there's going to be more involved, you're going to scale with them versus I'm 7, 000, right? Yes. The reason I prefer percentage based, especially when you're starting out is because if you said you're 7, 000 to a couple who has 150, 000 budget, they're going to think you're too cheap and something's wrong.

by saying our fee is 10 percent with a minimum of 7, 000 makes them understand, okay, it's going to be 15, 000 for me, right? Does that make sense? Yes. It does. So I would direct you to two things. There's a, I have a podcast with Nicole Moore, um, on percentage based pricing. So if you haven't listened to those, go listen. Okay. But then inside the accelerator under expert calls.

We actually did a deep dive into how to price this, how to make the contract, how to keep the budget, and make sure you understand how to do the budget for a full service or for a percentage fee. so the call you have today, because you already have put 7, 000 on your website, the way I would do it, is I would say our fee is 7, 000 up to, uh, an 85, 000 budget, right? Up to 85, 000. That gives you some flexibility, and then anything over 85, 000, then we would charge a 10 percent production fee.

Okay. Okay. Got it. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. And so that way you've got that little insurance pocket there and you've got it if you need it. Um, and honestly, that's actually how we sold percentage based with the first probably 12 months that we did it because it just felt for us. Yeah. Now we're just straight 15%. But, and you scale that percent as you, again, when you try to push up the prices to do less again. Okay, 10 percent and 12 percent then and you start raising your minimum.

We're 10, 000 minimum or 12, 000 minimum, right? For now, I think I love 10 percent with the 7, 000. Okay, that's what I'll do. Perfect. Okay, so how does this all feel? No, it feels a lot better because I was like really like this whole service section I was really like confused about and just like I was like, I don't know and I changed it a hundred times Because I just really didn't know like what to put and like no, I feel a lot better like way better.

So And what I think is really important to give yourself some grace on is like, I think the reason you were getting price shopped in the beginning, really it does go back to the fact that you had a different messaging on social media. I think you really nailed your messaging. I think you have nailed your website. Everything about everything you're putting out looks luxury to me. so I think you're going to stop getting price shopped.

And I think you still fall in like a, I think you've found a great price point where you're not going to get DIY clients. Yeah, you're not alienating the average client either. I'm so excited. Thank you. You make me feel so much better. Okay, CEO, if you listened to that call and you were like, yes, this is the kind of support that I need in my business. And I am so ready to break through the wall and just scale the heck out of my business.

Then I want to invite you to join me inside the accelerator. Just head over to brandegaar. com slash apply, fill out all of the information and then I'll drop into your DM so we can chat about whether it's the right program for you and what your business can look like. in just a few short months. do not wait to get help inside your business. I'm telling you, your business could look wildly different this time next year.