Lessons

Lesson Info

Create Your Price Strategy

This segment is all about creating your pricing strategy, and I'm going to talk more about what strategy means because it's a word that we throw around a lot and we talk, we just don't know what it means. It sounds like having a plan, but it's not just having a plan, but I can tell you what's not a plan and selling mohr is not a plan. How many of you guys want to sell more? Yeah, I know we all want to sell more this on a plan you need to know how you're going to sell more. You need to know why you're going to sell more. You need to know who you're going to sell more to. You need to have deadlines associated with that, their disk decisions that go into that selling mohr isn't a plan, he specific goals and a specific strategy to achieve what you really want. We covered the goals in the first two lessons you set personal spending goals, he said. Business spending goals, those those goals are hugely important to the decisions that you're now going to make. Now you also need that specific s...

trategy. So what? His strategy strategy is the path of decision making that you take to reach your goals. You've got goals, you're here, your goals air over there, the path that you take between those two things are all the decisions that you need to make. I'm gonna sell that these people, but not these people. I'm going to market with this story, but not that story going to choose this social media platform, but not that one. I'm going to choose this for my website, but not that thing. All of those decisions I know they could be so scary when you say yes to a particular strategy or saying no to everything else, and it can be scary when you say yes to a higher price, absolutely you're saying no, the people who can't afford that it's part of the territory, but when you say yes to a specific price, you're also saying yes to a whole market of people who are expecting that price who are expecting a certain quality from your head products were expecting a certain story. Is that a certain set of details? And you can use that to your advantage? You can use that to their advantage. So strategy is this whole path of decision making you take to reach your goal on what I what I've done before we got started here is to ask our studio audience to really think about some of those decisions that they're struggling with. So that they can be your voice here in the studio, I want to help you get through some of those decision making quandaries that you have. So what are some of those decisions that you're wrestling with now, in light of the first six lessons that we did in this class, what are some of those decisions that you're wrestling with in terms of how you're going to price your products, who you're going to market them? Tio, what kind of values story you're going to tell behind them and how you're gonna position your products? Yes, I am a lean johann from crafty, preachy bunny, so I just dipped into the online business for, like, eight months ago, so I'm selling on at sea for the first time, but I've been member for a couple years before for buying supplies and stuff, so I'm just wondering, like, ah, for newbie like me, sure, I stink at sea for now, or should I create a website like I'm planning to producing up website and create mom my own website? So I don't know, because I'm thinking, like, at sea has, like, a lot off kostya morality, so I can reach to them easily, well, almost almost easily, because there are a lot of competitors to argue, I just go out from that sand and just be independent by myself yeah so this is a strategy question that I'm sure a lot of people are wrestling with right now a syquest strategy question a lot of people have been wrestling with for a long time a tely stas long as etc has existed. So what you want to think about there is is at sea the market that you want to have associated with your products are the people that you want to sell to you that you need to sell tio are they on etc or would you be better off cultivating an audience that's specific to your product that you can better you could almost hand select that audience um it's not that I think people should get off etc at all. I don't think that at all it's that I think that is a very artificial market and that if you're going to play the game you play the game and that's your strategy if you want to build a business that works beyond that very artificial market, you need to be independent from that if you want to beam or in control of the decisions that you make instead of the decisions that you need to make being dictated to you by this marketplace then you need to be independent aa lot of people would be very happy to have a lot of that decision making done for them and that's great, you know kind of a roundabout example of this is the difference between starting a business and franchising a business at the end. You both you own those businesses, right? A franchise he owns that business? Sure, there's some things that they're just licensing it still there business, but most of the tough decisions are actually dictated for them, right? So they're they're told, you know, this is the new special. This is the pricing in your market. This is, you know, the marketing message that we have for you this month, they get that stuff delivered to them that's awesome. Those people are amazing managers, their amazing executives, that kind of work, that system to make it good for that there is nothing wrong with that. But if you are someone who wants to be in control of all of those different pieces that it's time for you to do your own thing, and I think you know, having your own website even having your own e commerce web site doesn't have to be expensive can dimension square space as one of the sponsors for this prize package that's been put together for this conference and squarespace is a phenomenal platform where for very little per month, you can have a fully featured e commerce system really great looking website. Just super cool, I mean, they've really improved their product in the last few year shopify is another great example. I use a storefront called sells s e a l z dot com to sell my e books my digital products, but you can also use that for physical products as well, not sets up really nicely and you can map that to your domain so that you don't have to worry about all the hard stuff you only worry about the easy stuff easy, eso again, that's a perfect strategic question do you want a win playing the game, or do you wanna win playing your game? Either way is a perfectly fine answer and that's the thing that's, what makes strategy so hard is that you can win either game. Either way, you decide to go on the path you can win, which is it that is best for you? What is your unique skill set best suited for? So in light of that answer, what do you think your decision's going to be? I think I'm still scare like how can I drive customer to my own website together? I want to control my own web site because the ecstatic and all the how does start out a brand represent itself, but then I'm just a fracas at sea has a lot of customer already, so I can is he like people browsing like two, two or a crow? She ate and one off my product would be one off the list, right? And from the website perspective, I still cannot see like how people just googling stuff, and then my website been appealing to pop during something like so there's a lot of technical considerations and a lot of tactical khun federations that go into that the nice thing about technical and tactical things, is it there's? There is this literal step by step how to plan of those things if you want tio rank number one for a mega roomie, you could do that by following a plant. I'm not going to say it's going to be easy. I'm not even going to say it may not be extremely expensive, but you could do it and there's like there's step by step plans that will tell you how to do that same thing with selling on at sea. I think the idea of selling on etsy is the amount of traffic that's there doesn't mean that that's, how many people are looking at your product on, but also doesn't mean that those air, the right people looking at your product, and so that's why I say that that really dictates a lot of decisions to you, you have to price in the pricing scheme. Teo be ah product that people are even going to click on and that might not be the price that works for you so that's a big that's a big part of the consideration on dh again you can take control of the traffic that comes in you know we talked about advertising today and how you have to work that into your price that might be the route that you take where instead of ranking number one for ceo you just by the adwords at the top you know baby to two outfits that I don't know how expensive that is to buy on average it's probably not that the same kind of thing on facebook you can do the same thing and you can manufacture that traffic to your website so again there's that once you make the strategic decision the tactical and technical parts of that are very often one two three house how to you know step by step plans okay cool other strategic decisions that you're wrestling with right now daisy I know for myself it's it's a little bit how to make an actionable task list because it's a little overwhelming like ok I need toe revisit my copyrighting so that it reflects my values during reflect you know revisit my prices I have tio look at my my whole branding look at my advertising strategy it's like where do you even begin? Because it's it's overwhelming when you look at it all the different things that you want to do in order to sort of shift your business you know after today's class where it needs to go and you're like you have to do all this like do I do my photos first so I do the copyrighting first under the prices first like what what he gets what s o I would start with your prices uh because that's going to give you really good information if you change your prices and things just keep on selling maybe you have less work to do than you thought you did which is a distinct possibility and something I hear an awful lot of if you change your prices and everyone drops off then you know maybe you get some e mails or people way some concerns for you and you can start you know, piece mailing that together but it start with your prices and then from there I really I'd actually look at what can you take a look away instead of what can you change or what's going to cause you more work? What could you take away our their features that you don't need is there are there details you've added to your visual branding that aren't necessary and maybe aren't helping? So what can you edit out to make the story more consistent of what is easier for you to control or to break it down into a smaller list of tasks and then I just start banging things out the order that you do them in probably doesn't matter that much I think in a very visual business photography is probably the number one thing that you can tackle and improve if you have already really great photography the next thing to look at is how can I merchandise that photography better instead of just taking a picture in a white box can I take a picture in a white box and do a really nicely merchandise shots that I'm telling a better story if your photography is crappy and please be ruthless about whether your photography is crappy or not then that's the number that that is probably the number one thing after prices that I would address yes sorry not to hog all the questions that this might just pertain to people like myself who do artwork or to the illustration where I'm often trying to figure out should I have a photo of it in a frame or in a frame on a wall or just a scan of the piece itself so that it's very clear all of them I do all of them on the nice thing about art is that there are a lot of services that you can use that will do that for years that instead of taking photographs of it you're placing it digitally in different environments I think that is a totally fine way to go as long as it looks good, you don't need to set up a photo shoot, reach new art piece that you do that that would be insane. Okay, cool let's, come back to more strategic questions in a bit for now, let's, keep moving, so revisit the goals you set in lessons one and two if you need to go back through your workbook, think about that if if you've got them top of mind, maybe you're really excited about some of the goals that you said. I hope that you are because just like daisy said, this could be overwhelming, and one of the ways that you make it less overwhelming for yourself is to really focus on the goals that you have when you have really specific goals. The tactical start stuff starts falling into place because you're motivated to get it done when you're just trying to make your business work when you're just trying to sell more where's, the motivation, where's the urgency. Speaking of which, where is that fire under your but that's going to get this stuff done? Make sure you remind yourself of your personal and business goals every single day, whether it's a financial goal and you've broken it down day by day, week by week, month by month. So that you know where you're at, maybe you've got a great sales dashboard that you take a look at every day or maybe it's more of a story for you. Maybe you know that when certain things get accomplished that much closer to that personal or business goal that you've set check in with that every single day until that's the routine that you have that every single day you're moving toward that goal so that your actions day today are connected to that goal that you have so that you know, when someone e mails you and they say this is too expensive, you can say, I'm sorry to hear that good luck to you now rights or when someone e mails you and say a retailer emails you and says I'd like thirty of that you're not crying because you're you've priced your product incorrectly right now you can see e s this is what I've been waiting for, I'm prepared that is that's the value of checking in with your goals every day. Now everything has a brand new context when you send out that email that says I'm raising my prices by fifty percent on october first get it while you get it well, get it now you're checking in with that goal, you know why you're sending that email? It's not just because you're making more money you're not feeling manipulative, you're not feeling greedy, you're feeling connected to what you started this business for in the first place, so I've got a question for you do these goals, seymour achievable now to these goals, seymour achievable now with the prices that you've set give the urge to set new goals based on the prices that you've come up with in your business now that you've done the math, now that you started thinking about the sales and how you're going to bring those sales and so do your goals feel more achievable now? Love to hear from the studio audience tell me what one of those goals was that you said at the beginning one of your personal spending goals, one of those big changes that you wanted to make in your life or business and then tell me, does that feel more achievable now? And why? Anitra, uh, one of my goals is to spend more money on travel, okay, every year I'd like to go somewhere, um and that seems very achievable now very, very achievable because now I want three prices the new prices are set, it makes it really, you know I can I can do this, you can see where that money is gonna get allocated, you can see words, how it's going to come in and where it's going to go yeah, and I want to provide another challenge for you with this particular goal, I want you to have travel both as a business goal and as a personal goal. So I want you to make sure that you are expensing travel every year because your business is based around other parts of the world, right? There is a lot of expenses that you can take there that's going to mitigate some of that product profit when it comes to tax time. Right? And so that you can get a lot of personal fulfillment out of that particular business school. But then I also want you to make sure you've got travel on the personal side to travel that's just for you, it's not about getting inspired for the business that's not about looking at galeries halfway across the world but it's a just about you all right? And I want you to make sure that you've got the money in your plan to do both. Okay? Okay. Yes. It's another goal that you guys said at the beginning. Yes. Element easy juvenile hall design. We make home decor gifts where the goals that I I really would love to do more of his to travel and teach in different countries with my husband and even just going through some of the numbers aside from doubling prices, which is what my numbers came up with a man I think in order to even just keep it at that doubled rate uh I need to be able to train some more people to make the things that I make because that will cost a little bit less and it can be done when I'm not there um and then that will also allow me to find new customers in other countries while they're making them so I think that's I have to let go of a little bit of control of how perfect the items are maybe maybe not, but even they're not getting just you know, the only time they did have you involved new people into your business get up a little bit of exactly that that really great personal lesson that we all have to learn myself included yeah yeah yeah that's that's really, really excellent so you're thinking not just in terms of what it's going to cost you to travel but how much time it's going to cost you to travel tio so does that that feels more achievable now. Yes, I think that that would help a lot as faras customers paying twice I don't know maybe in traveling and finding more customers that will balance out maybe some of the customers that I might lose so it may be a little up and down in the beginning but but yeah, I think the bottom line really comes down tio having I just need extra extra hands yeah, you know the best part about doubling your prices is when you double your price is you get more than twice the time back in your life if even if you sell only half of what you are selling before so you can double your prices sell half of what you were selling before and get more than double the time back right? Because you're selling it takes less time to sell less, which is awesome right now like I said before that doesn't always happen sometimes you double your prices and you still more, which is a wonderful quality problem to have we talked about that in another course I think terrorist swagger is talking about that later this week efficiency and productivity yeah so great how about one more goal? Tiffany, you talked about your air stream? Is that the goal you want to talk about waken talk about that okay to talk about the business one let's talk about the business school what's a little business school is to launch a membership area so community to me is very important hand making creatives feel like they're not alone in struggling with the same legal questions that everybody is struggling with and so to develop a membership area that development cost is quite expensive and so I think that by rethinking about both how I am planning on pricing and maybe how in planning on launching it that the battle seems a little bit more achievable now awesome excellent, excellent excellent thank you guys for sharing so how does the way you want your products to be perceived affect the way you set goals for your business growth? How do you how does the way you want your products to be perceived affect the way you set goals for your business growth? In other words, visit this is a lot of strategy this is a big strategic question because if the way you want your prices to be perceived is that you want to be accessible affordable kind of the lower end of the market maybe quality materials aren't so important to you but but reach is even make very different decisions about the goals that you have for business growth you might need to see scale to ten thousand customers ten thousand transactions a month and that that has a lot of different investment in it then say who's saying, you know I want to go to the high end of the market I don't need to sell that much per month maybe I need ten transactions a month then you're gonna make very different investment goals has has the way you want your products to be perceived adjusted those goals at off for you or have they reinforced them definitely has changed or has really clarified and focus where I should be going because I was serving ah wide range of clients and given the question he had posed, but what's your personal go what's your business goal. What I'm realizing now is that I need to play more to my, my, my researcher background and my academic background, to serve more of the clients who are doing more big strategic planning, where that type of skills that would feed into their their purpose. Yeah, but it's thing point, I mean, so fantastic see, and this is this is why to me, talking about pricing is so fun. I mean, we've spent maybe, what, forty five minutes today, doing some math, looking at some formulas, and that was important, but pricing is about so much more and getting that price right, really thinking intentionally about how much you're charging in terms of your goals in terms of your business, in terms of your class customers, in terms of the value story means that you can get that kind of clarity about the direction for your business, and when you have that kind of clarity, you have the kind of confidence that allows you to really stand behind those prices that you're charging, whether there with low end or the high end or somewhere in between, that is fantastic. Thank you for sharing that. How does the way you want your products to be perceived affect the way that you will price them, I want to hear from somebody who saw a mismatch from the way they want their prices to be perceived versus the price that they're pricing them at now, who saw a mismatch between that positioning perception piece and the price is that they're charging right now, somebody had to flee. My name is wesley, make jury and leather goods. Um, I personally perceived my my prices to be a little bit lower than they actually should be. So if I want to cater to the customer that I want, I'm going to have to price it up. I'm going to make him worth more to, you know, the people's eyes when they check it out. Yes, yes, so your low price right now could be a hindrance to the people, the people that you want to have buying the right people to buy these products, actually making a purchase. Yeah, I'm sure there are people out in the online audience that air thinking the exact same thing. I am keeping the right people from buying because my prices are too low, it works the other way, too. Absolutely, I'm not going to say that it doesn't, but for most of you, it's, thie otherway around, anyone else have a mismatch between perception and price on the track? I definitely had a realization today that I think he said it best your your best customers are waiting for you. I think that kind of summed up all of the the turmoil and the it's kind of fear that I've been having over the few years that I've had my business is, where are my eyes, my tribe? Where where are the people? That that the product resonates with them because of the product itself, but also the price and they don't think twice about it, they almost expected to be at that price point. And I realized today that as it stands, I prices are kind of playing it safe, and I think that's why I've been having a safe level of growth stocks, right? Right and that's what the rig looks saying, oh, no wonder, no wonder this no wonder that no one, you know, and I go to certain events to sell and, you know, I think minute mentioned the silence that you get people and just kind of wondering, well, why, you know, and I realized because I'm not priced at the right level, which means I'm not attracting the right audience, right? So right now going in the race shows you might not be in the right stores, all of these different things I hear so often, I mean, what's the number one thing people want me to teach marketing what's the number one thing people want to learn marketing why? Because they think marketing solves all the problems. The more people find out about your product, the more you're going to sell about it new bargaining screen I live marketing please don't get me wrong I think marketing fixes all sorts of problems, but if you don't get the's strategic questions right and price being one of the biggest ones, all the marketing in the world is not going to make your business work if you can't reach the right people. If you can't tell the right story, if when they arrive on your website, they feel uncomfortable, confuse just a little off, they're not going to buy and now you spent all this money all this time doing this. This is how businesses that make that do make plenty of sales still don't work because it's not the right sales it's not the right people. It's not the right anything so price is such a huge piece of actually being able to get your marketing right about getting your publicity right. So absolutely thanks for sharing that. So tweet me how does the way you want your products to be perceived affect the way you will price them you've heard from the group now. I'm gonna go back and check my twitter feed, and I want to see all your fantastic answers to this how does the way you want your products to be perceived affect the way you will price them? Kind of and you know, we have people in the chat rooms as well. S o one that read, scorpio says all red square I want to be perceived as valuable, not affordable. Nice, thank that great one. Yeah, so let me just say something about the word affordable. I don't remember what the link is or I would tell you, I wrote a lot of post about how affordable is a bad word. There are so much more per se nice words that you can use accessible is one of the best ones because accessible doesn't imply cheap, affordable implies cheap, accessible implies valuable. You can have something that's, lower priced and still be valuable, but it's not affordable it's accessible everything is affordable if I told you I've got a one page document that can show you how to make fifty thousand dollars in your business tomorrow, it's ten thousand dollars would you like to buy it? You'd be kind of silly to not buy now, sure, there's other things that go into it, but still that's an affordable fifty thousand dollars money making solution, right? Would you pay ten thousand dollars for a fifty thousand dollars return that's affordable, affordable it's just such an in precise word valuable accessible much more precise I love it great and people are sharing some of their own house from today as well the lp saying I realized while talking about re pricing that my work is worth more I want the details on the technique to be appreciated and I think that the higher price helps that hell absolutely reception that those are detailed and, you know, special technique yeah, absolutely now let's talk about another way that your price strategy can change strategy in the rest of your business and that's the way the that market and sell what it is that you create we started talking about this a little bit just now with the mitre how does the way your market and sell your products change because of the prices you've set, what channels are now off limits or what new opportunities do you see for marketing one channel that we talked about about potentially being off limits for some of you are some of the craft marketplaces that exist at sea being one of them as he makes a lot of sense for some people it may not make sense for you just because there's tons of money going through it and tons of traffic going through it doesn't mean that it's the right way to market and sell your products, it doesn't mean that it's influencing the way people perceive your brands in the right way. So what are some of the new opportunities you guys see for marketing based on the new set of prices that you have? Yeah, kitty, thank you. So right now, when I first started, I considered a kn online marketplace like it's you and there are also also several fabulous alternatives, dante, which I just tweeted about recently, but I ultimately chose to develop my own site not only because I had the tech background, but also because I wanted to control the conversation. And so what I this is actually a question that kind of aims right down the middle of this topic, so what's bubbled up to the surface for me is that I absolutely need to change my pricing, and I'm now excited to do it because I now know exactly who I want to bring. I wasn't really clear, I mean, I kind of knew, but now I can like I wrote it down it's all identified it's perfect. So what I'm divided on is as I've been looking at, how to put myself out there there's camp a that says absolutely do google analytics pinterest focus, you know other other facebook ads you know, pour your time and attention into these and that'll get you your traffic, then there's can't be that says you don't actually need any of that. The marketing is all in the conversation. You need to position yourself to talk and have a dialogue and the word of mouth and the fandom will spread you and then all that can be secondary. So what I feel like right now is time and energy is a finite resource when you're kind of launching yourself out there and there's always the pressure to make the right decision on obviously both are completely valuable invalid. So I guess what I'm teetering on is which one should get the attention first? Yeah, yeah, so these two sides of the same coin for me, they're not an either or it's both, and you have to do both. So where you can edit this down so it's not so overwhelming, is that you need to think about where is the conversation already happening? Is there a facebook page? Is their facebook group is there a pinterest page? Pinterest are aboard? Is there an instagram account? Is there a convention website for him? Something like that? Where is that conversation already happening? And then how can he leverage that through advertising through participation through just social media creation? Teo teo, promote your product to get the word out about your brand. But where most people go wrong is that they try to do all of it. I want you to start with one of those conversations on dh, so that might mean participating in a facebook group and running an ad that coincides with that so you take that conversation and you pull it into a facebook ad and you target a specific community or specific keywords with that facebook ad that ties into the conversation reinforces it brings people back to where you want them to be that makes sense it does, although I guess my only question would be the purpose of joining that group would actually to be, you know, making heartful connections and have that tribe feeling you don't just want to go in there and advertise yourself and these things are not mutually exclusive. You can both, uh, promote resonate in the group and have that benefit your business, which is why I would advise you doing an advertising strategy alongside of it so that you feel less compelled to promote your business in the group you focus on resonating in the group and then you bring promotional content that brings that revenue resonance into a place where you can capitalize on it in your business so it's like steep you get in the group and you steep yourself and you really understand what people are saying and then you take that and turn it into the other side of the conversation that riyadh that's the observation engine that's wonderful yeah, thank you for that. Um okay, so another thing that I want you guys to think about in terms of pricing, marketing and selling is what kind of shows that you're going to. So what kind of farmers markets? What kind of craft fairs, what kind of fine craft fairs, what kind of fine art fairs, what kind of galleries were kind of events? What kind of trade shows some of those shows events are right for your price point? And some of them are not it's the same reason I might choose to speak at one conference and not speaking another conference that one might not be a fit for me for my audience for my price point for what I want to talk about, whereas another one is you need to think about the same thing for you just because you can do a weekend show just because that weekend is free doesn't mean you should show up at that show even if the show only cost you fifty bucks it's I mean, come on that's a weekend of your time gone that's tons of bad information about customers into your brain if you go to a show and all people do is haggle with you because you shouldn't be there, your product shouldn't be there because they don't understand you have beaten yourself down several pegs. Making a pricing strategy means that you make this decisions that support your business, support your brand, support your story and support the confidence that you have in your prices and the way you market and sell your products is a huge a piece of that because marketing is about conversation because it's about connection because it's about the community that you're building up around your brand, if your marketing in ways that don't match your prices, then you're getting all of this bad information, you're not creating good relationships, you're creating destructive relationships and, man, that stuff can beat you down. And I bet that if not all of you, most of you have experienced that at some point a detroit? Yes? Oh, yes, oh, yes, she says. So really creating a price strategy is about being willing to say no opportunities that don't work for the market. You want to be selling tio the value story that you want to be telling the differentiating factors of your business, all those things that we've just talked about let's talk about making some money now, shall we say? All right, this is what I make fever things to do with people I set this up is a quarterly sales plan, but guess what? If you multiply this times four you get an annual sales plan ok? But mostly I just didn't have any more room on the slide you get three months in a quarterly sales plan is really great for holiday marketing so you can use this particular one to go in and plan out your october, november, december or november, december, january whatever makes sense for your business but then I would challenge you to really create a sales plan for the whole rest of the year as well, just like we started the day off instead of budgeting how much you can spend out of a certain amount of money asking you to think about how much you want to spend instead of thinking how am I going to do teo or what do you do? What do I think I'm going to sell in a certain month? I want you to set a sales goal and figure out how to get there ok? I think we do way too much trying to project our sales and way too little saying I want to sell this much when you say I want to sell this much you're empowering yourself to make a plan to get there it's just like when I said use what you want not what you have as your baseline a sales projection is what you have it's you know it's last year sales plus a little bit more that's boring and is not helpful when you say I want to make twice as much as what I have made last year because that's going to support me reaching this goal. Now you've got a number that you can use to create a marketing and sales plan that's going that's going to reach that. So I've done this a little bit differently than I normally do specifically for this group of makers and designers and crafty folks on broken this down into four different pieces. Your revenue goal, which is going to be your total revenue month by month by month. This is not your labor. This is not your profit. This is not how much you get to take home. This is the total amount of money that's coming into your business, and then I want you to break that down by unit sales school based on the new prices that you've created. How much of each item do you want to sell that month? Some months you might sell more of one unit or one item, other months he's might some more of another. You know, at christmas time gifts are really important there really key, obviously, and so there tends to be a certain price point that that works out to in every business. The high priced things don't sell as well during that time, the low price thanks don't sell us well during that time. Other times of the year, you might find that people are really in the markets splurge depending on what your businesses and so you might see that you sell mohr of the higher end item or more war of a lower and item depending on where you're at. You wantto you want to kind of figure out what I what I want to sell? What I think I'm going to sell item by item in your unit sales school so that it adds up through that revenue goal. This is part of the planning, because if you know I want to sell twenty of this unit versus five of that unit, I'm sorry by twenty of this item versus five of this item where you going to put in your email marketing that month? The one you want to sell twenty what are you going to put on facebook? The one you want to sell? Twenty of the five will take care of itself. So this is about now steering the direction that you're going to take, steering your ship and the way you want it to go to reach that revenue goal. Now I want you to pull up the income bowl. This is the money that's going towards that personal spending plan for many of you, this is going to be part of a big part of your labor. Money is still coming back to you, it's. Definitely including some of your profit. Or maybe not. Maybe maybe all of your profit is being reinvested right now. But this is the money that you are paying yourself every month. What do you want that number to be? Depending on your business? That number may be really dictated for you. If I felt this much, I get this much back for others of you. You might have a lot of wiggle room there, and you can really play with that. Depending on what your particular goals are, you could also choose to start here instead of here. If I want my income goal to be ten thousand dollars in a month, what does that mean? I need to do in revenue. And then what does that mean? I need to do in unit sales. You can really start anywhere in this chart to fill out the rest of it, and then this last line is sales opportunity or sales cycle, this is what you're going to be talking about. To make those goals happen so holidays you're going to be talking about gifts and maybe you get more specific and you talk about gifts for mom or gifts for kids or guests for husbands or gifts for co workers right? This is your opportunity to plan out month by month these air the conversations that I'm going to have to reach the revenue goal that I want to have if you're doing this over the year you're gonna want to mark out mohr holidays so you could take that annual plan you could say ok valentine's day happens every february on so people need to buy their valentine's day gifts for me four weeks ahead of time which means I actually need to talk about valentine's day in january so january goes and month one on your revenue plan and so then that means you you put your bump for sales right in january not in february or maybe you go to your retailers and they need tio by their big orders from you and so you actually you put it back in december it's part of your your december bump right? But you need to be thinking about those things what am I gonna message out to create the revenue that I want to create in my business based on the prices that I set for my products so I'd like to talk through this with someone at least a little bed um let's go with let's go we're actually let's bring him a nature back up we've kind of been following your saga throughout the day and I'd like to put a capstone on that all right so you want to talk about the holidays can't okay let me talk about politics so let's do october november december does that work for you? Eh so what do you want your revenue let's actually work backwards since december is probably the not the easiest to forecast that the easiest to set a goal for and then we can go backwards what do you want your revenue goal to be in december of this year hello all these fine people reflection designed that calm election came out with a c I would like for the month of december my my revenue to be and upwards of five thousand dollars all right, I think that's very doable I think it's on the little side of doable very am again thank you. Yeah, yeah I should have brought a calculator up with me but okay, so tell me what kind of income goal that would mean for you what would you be taking home out of that if anything uh I would be taking two thirds of that oh, great. Ok, excellent! I think you couldn't you could increase your overhead overhead his love? Yes, I would highly recommend you increasing your overhead uh more advertising or I think you should be not taking home uh more than fifty percent of your right now okay give me room to backtrack on that but just like I think you could make more money if you spend more money and I think that you could exponentially make more money in that like sure you're only taking home fifty percent of it now but I'm making so much more money that I have so much more money to play with that kind of thing so yeah so I actually look at maybe you know, like I said, an advertising by maybe working with a pr person or least or maybe hiring an assistant that can help you reach out tio pr something like that because I think your product the trend for your problem there's always that trend in the marketplace right sometimes you know around the world design or african design is really, really hot but it's always there like it's always a trend it's always something you could get placement for so that might be a really good place to spend some money. Yeah. So unit sales gold what about would that work out to do you have an idea? Not an exact idea but at least um I need to increase the floor pillows the amount of floor polo going those air at a higher price point as it is now so if I increase that price they would really be a bigger seller so I need to sell more of those nice is that eyes that a big seller for you that you're just that you just need to do more of or is that sort of like the hidden product in your business that you know I think it's been jim okay? I'm just I'm just wondering if that floor pillows air actually another opportunity to differentiate like to make that the star of your brand and really focus on that because when I hear I could make a lot more money if I sold some of those I like that story and I also think that it plays into some of the other different parts of your brand and in terms of differentiation I think that you know, everyone throws everyone and their sister sells throw pillows not everyone and their sister excels we're close yes so just some thoughts whole lot less competition in terms of wholesaling that andi it could make just such a fun looking booth tio all right, how much of this do you want to be wholesale and how much do you want to be resale? Eighty twenty wholesale ok, fantastic. So how are you gonna make that happen? How much are you wholesaling right now? Zero zero ok, that uh right now I have an ongoing spreadsheet of retailers that I'm researching it also that I've reaching out to say I am contacting okay potential retailers and keeping track of responses and line she so my life she's is done uh well you gotta have toe changing I know I was just thinking that so can you on that you have that here tio by your line she does not have to be fancy it has to be it has the right information has to be there right? Get some great photography done if you haven't already and just have a simple line chief no offense I just I think that's one of those details that kind of scares people away from the stuff do you need all these fancy and you catalog and any line sheet and I needed this and that and on, you know, it's just all these things that keep people away from this really important stream of revenue because if you're gonna wholesale eighty twenty, you need to get wholesale orders in so that you could get production done so that you can get them in stores by october so that money is actually going to be coming in on october, not in december. This is prime selling season for the holidays in terms of wholesale like megan right now is at new york now, right? She is telling her holiday stuff I mean, she doesn't make holiday stuff but she's selling the things that will be gifted at the holidays this year, right now, and so you need to be doing the exact same thing the buyers that you want to sell to are spending their money in new york. Now, right now, I was terrible sense you, if you miss this window, you're missing buying dollars, not to scare you thes other kinds of things that you need to think about when you're creating this kind of revenue plan. This could be an incredibly empowering device for planning your business, but you need to think about who's doing what, when, what are the messages that are going to matter and when so that you can mark that money down in the right boxes? If you plan to make all your money in december, and then you wait until december to do all your marketing, you've missed the window where you can actually make the most money. The window for you to make the most money is next month in october. Okay, that's, what this that's and that's another reason that kind of plan is so important on dso, you can take your prices and do your unit sales goals so that, you know, like this is this is what I want these orders to convey assist of when you have an idea of what the right order from you is, you're going to be confident than in suggesting that to a retailer, well let me tell you floor pillows are the thing right now and so what I would do is put it together on order of six salar pillows that you're sure you've got a fantastic display that's going to hit my minimum order and so that's all you need to do six floor pillows, minimum order met and we can get these to you in fifteen days something like that, right? And so when you've got it planned out like that to the dollar amount to the number of units that you're selling that puts you in control when you're talking to someone talking to a buyer and they might come back and say, you know, six doesn't work for works for us let's throw in for throw pillows too, and you'd be like, great. All right, what does it matter? But you said that, you know, what's gonna work for your business, it's also how you go about setting minimum orders, right? I mean, there's a lot that goes into that, but you need to know per price per piece all of that so that a minimum order is the right size order put in a store makes sense. Yes. Ok, cool before before I let you go, what are some of the other sales opportunities that you specifically have throughout the year that you're going to want to be planning for, um I like the valentine's day okay idea because I've been toying with doing ah heart shaped pillows with really unique textiles so neat um and other shapes but the heart seems to relieve similar scene fun yeah are there any textile patterns that have like love or family meaning behind them yeah that could be really great I can't really great that's also the kind of thing that could work for like a kickstarter project tio I've got a new collection I want to bring in these new prints you know import these new prints that all mean these different things and have it launched for valentine's day that could be that's the story that you can use on something like a kick starter or at sea yeah he has the new crowdfunding where preordering feature as well I'm not sure if it's available for the public yet but they're working on it and it's pretty cool eh so that's another thing that you could be thinking about as well any other sales opportunities definitely up my whole sale um coming up with you knew unique products I was also thinking about um doing pillows that are in shapes of letters um expanding outside of pillows to maybe do incorporate aprons and mitts using the the textiles for the cook or the aspiring chef um but I don't want to go too far out of the product line till I master I pillows yes I want you to focus and instead look for opportunity like built in opportunities so some of those are going to be holidays for sure, another thing that's going to be built in is new collections, not necessarily new products, but new collections of the same product. You know, we're retiring. These prints were bringing these new prince and that's an event that's a big sales opportunity, that kind of thing should be on everyone's plan. The other thing that you're going tio get to think about now is when are all the different trade shows that you want to go? Teo so you need to have on your plan all of those trade shows marked down so that you can use megan's wonderful wholesaling class and think about the publicity that you're going to dio ahead of time think about the postcards that you're going to send out think about what retailers you really want to target while you're there all of that kind of stuff, you didn't need to do that ahead of time, so you market in on your plan. This is when the revenues coming in and this is when the marketing window starts makes sense. Yes, cool, and then you can start really, because you mean to think ahead for trade shows, so right now I don't know if you can still get into the january new york now or not but you're going to be getting close to that deadline, so I'd be looking at that definitely for next august, of course, there's more than just new york, you could go to dallas, you could go to atlanta. You could go, teo l a probably all of those markets are good for you on. Do you want to see when those are for twenty sixteen and put it on your calendar now so that you can make sure you get all those applications and and you can get make sure you've got it all, you know, all throughout your strategic plan for your business, including your revenue plan. Okay? Yes. Cool. Hey, look, talking about making money. Thank you. Need all right? Any other? Yeah. Questions to give anitra another shadow. Another opportunity to say the name of your site online because more people were asking again. Or maybe I'll just go to shadow it's reflections with the k, right? Yes. So reflection, design and you can find her on facebook as well and instagram and instagram her. Thank you for being our case. Did one of you thank you and questions about putting together a revenue plan, sales opportunities that you should be looking at decisions that you need to make in your business based on the prices that you've decided to charge now you guys are super smart well is now a good time to ask some of the questions that have been percolating through the day now would be the perfect time. Great. So I had several people ask about about having certain products at sort of a lower price point and then having certain products at a higher price point and if that's sort of a conflict can you have sort of a lower price thing and then the higher end version on dh it does that work for your brand or would it devalue it? Yeah, so that's a really good question what you don't want to have is two versions to similar versions of the same thing a drastically different price points you can have a limited edition print at one price point and an original art piece at a whole different price point and you need to know that there might be overlapping those customers, but your target is two different groups, right? When you're thinking about two different price points think in terms of two different target market it's um wow, this I could talk for a whole day about this particular topic it's not necessarily true that people work their way up the value chain for you so it's sometimes there's like a gateway drug product like megan talks about she is a single black necklace that she's calls her gateway necklace and from there potentially people can buy a more expensive, slightly more expensive one, and then maybe at the high end of her brand, people enter your value system and all different places. So I think, it's it's, if you're going tohave drastically different price points, you need to think in terms of drastically different markets, but in that case, I would go back to that question of who your customers want to become. What is that identity that's important to them? Because the thing is, you might have two different very different markets demographically, but aspirational e there are very similar market they might that the people who are aspiring tio uh, you know, too, that identity, but don't have the cash might come in at the lower price point, the people who are aspiring to that identity and dio are going to come in at the higher price point. So really think in terms of what is the identity of my customer, regardless of how much money they have in their wallet and in that case, always always think about the story of your brand. The positioning, the details at the higher end, because people who are used to spending more money are also more discriminating with those details, right? People who are used to spending at the lower end are much more forgiving, right? I mean being honest about where I come from right the things that I don't spend a lot of money on, I don't have a very high expectation of what the experience is the things that I do spend a lot of money, I have a very precise, nice expectation exceeding someone's expectation is not a bad thing coming in under their expectations is that can kill your business, so if you're going to sell it to drastically different price points like that it's absolutely possible, but you need to anchor your business at the higher end and then be like, look and I also have this, you know, much more accessible thing that you could buy yeah about it. What do you think of the old saying? You get what you pay for and and how this applies to kind of the psychological and of us putting out there something that we believe people are getting what they paid for? Yes, I think that you get what you pay for is more true than we like, I think, especially as makers way like to think that we can make something impeccably crafted and sell it at a low price point, but I hope that one of the things you've taken out of today is that that doesn't work, that you're sending all of these signals to your customer that say not that isn't this a great deal but there's something wrong with this and, you know, obviously it works at the high end too, if you set that high price point and you don't deliver on it with the products, people aren't going to come back to you, it's not that people aren't willing to spend money, it really in today's economy, especially the trend, is to spend money on what you love and to not spend money on the stuff that you don't love that's in the air right now, you can take advantage of it, but you better deliver because those people who are willing to spend more on the things that you make, they know what they're buying, they know what to expect, and if you don't deliver on it, you're really hurting your business for the long term. Thank you. Absolutely. Any other questions from down here before we start to wrap up? No. Great. Okay, so I hope you've learned today that price is about so much more than something called then what? Something costs it's about more than the labor, the materials, the overhead that goes into creating it. It's about the story behind your business, it's about the way you want to be positioned in the market, it's about how much your product means to someone all the details that go into it. So I'd love to know via twitter and via a studio audience what have you learned about everything that effects price? Was there anything that I talked about today that surprised you are that maybe you hadn't been considering for your business? What have you learned today about everything that affects price he's got the end of day quiet yeah hi, I'm alina so I guess ah what what three struck me is like you have to get you set your you have to know your audience either you want to go high end or low end like it's possible to do do have flow and prices or low and customer and high end but you have to decide which one fits your product and then the stories behind it and how much he tell you put into it I think that's important yeah, absolutely it's all about being intentional you charge whatever you want including on the low end of your market you have to be intentional about everything else that goes into that you have to make sure that it works for you tiffany tiffany stately my website is artist dd and I help artists on dh creative people be a little less afraid of the law and one thing that really jumped out to me was the fact that my product can help them tell their story on how I can use that to help them accomplish their goals and do what they want to do and chief those kinds of things absolutely that's why we buy so many of the things that we buy because they reinforce their identity, they reinforce the story that we want to tell about ourselves I mean, when you think about clothing that's what clothing is right? It's, what are accessories are and absolutely it's what our digital products and services are as well, they reflect who we are, how we want to be seen by other people about one more share. Yeah, I am fanny living was she on a budget? I help people simplify their finances so they can be smarter with their money, and I have ah, I was trying what I got from today is just I feel a little more confident about what I'm charging now because before I was I tried to tell me different prices for my e book it's called budging made easy, and I went from trying like pay what you want, like from a dollar to twenty seven dollars and seeing what people paid for two like trying like fifteen dollars and now it's twenty seven dollars and and even though I charged like twenty seven dollars is still the same people who buy in every time they buy it's like I'm still surprised like, well, like I'm body like like I'm still shocked that gets the same amount of people who buy it like even those double the price so I think I came here to learn like why am I charging this much? And and I'm worth it like it's worth it for me to charge more so that I can support my family and and not to feel bad about it and not to feel like guilt that entrepreneurs phil no exactly that's wonderful now it's your turn to to go home and take that and create new products you could do the same thing with and really think about how can I take what I've learned about the value story behind this e book and turn it into a course or ah podcast sponsorship or a block sponsorship or whatever it might be for you next so that's fantastic thanks for sharing that. All right, well, as everyone's been saying, price tells a story and price can help you reach your goals on your own terms by being intentional about what you choose for your price by saying, this is what I'm going to price my products at your taking a huge step in the direction of your goals on your terms so one more I think one more tweet tweet me what story do you want? What story do you want your prices to tell? What story do you want your prices to tell day that you're getting what you pay for it. So high quality food, interesting flavors, you something that your whole family is going to love it, and I really think this class should be called your best customers are waiting for you. Yeah, right, yeah, nature, what do you want? Your prices to? What story do you want your prices to tell, um, that you can create a home that feels fully expressed, reflective of who you are. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful kitty, the story I want my prices to tell is that you can wear jewelry that absolutely shares your passions with the world that tells a story about who you are and that jewellery doesn't have to be. Let me let me back that, and the jewelry when you wear it can absolutely be of equality that you take with you no matter where you go. So all the way up, tio, you know, if you're earning six figures in a high rise office, the jewelry that tells a story about what you love and why you love it can go with you. Awesome, I love it. So this is my yeah, well, I just wanted to sort of echo just debbie o'neill says the fact that price tells a story, I never thought about it in those terms, and therefore, you know, just changing your mind set about price tells this story. Fantastic! Yes price is not about ah formula prices and about a set of numbers price is a story it's, one of the biggest storytelling components that you have in your business, and I hope what you've learned today is a way to empower yourself with that story and with the prices that you charge. So thank you, everyone, for being here for participating! Thank you to everyone online. Go empower yourself with the prices that you charge! All right, way to kick off our craft! We air there's been so much activity on that hashtag craft week two thousand fifteen on what a great way just I think, pricing khun b one of the scariest things for people who and so breaking through that and giving people some methodical ways, but also strategic ways to think about pricing their products has been really, really incredible. Thank you before we say goodbye, though one of thank terry gentilly terror out let's talk a little bit about where people can follow up with you, so of course you can find me at turner, gentilly, dot com there's all sorts of great free resources you can download there, and then he find me a twitter, of course at terry gentilly and on my facebook page, facebook dot com slash terry gentilly, business strategist. One word sorry about that, so go ahead and head over tio. Two terrorists. Facebook page terrorists, always a pleasure to have you here. Thanks everyone.