14. "I Need You To Do It Cheap"

“I need you to do it cheap because I haven’t got much of a budget.” 

Claire overheard this in a coffee shop last week… and knew exactly how that story ends. 

In this episode, she talks about pricing, undercharging, and why lowering your prices to get work often brings the wrong kind of work. 

You’ll hear a very honest story about charging £100 a day, working through Christmas, and feeling like you’re paying people to hire you. And why that door you get through when you price low is rarely the one you actually want. 

Claire also shares simple, real-life examples that make pricing make sense. From £2,000 watches to £3,000 computers to £80 candles, and why the same person will happily spend money in one area but not another. 

Inside this episode, you’ll see how to: 

•  Stop pricing based on fear of what people might say 
•  Understand why cheap attracts the wrong clients 
•  Realise that not everyone is your customer, and that’s a good thing 
•  Start positioning yourself for people who are happy to pay for quality 

If you’ve been lowering your prices to get more work, or worrying that people will think you’re too expensive, this will give you a completely different way of looking at it.
 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to the Girls Mean Business Podcast, where we share business and marketing tips, advice and trade secrets to help you raise your game and build your brilliant business. Gets more clarity, more customers, and more sales. Here to show you how. Your host, Claire Mitchell.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Hello, it's Claire from the Girls Meme Business. Last week I was in a coffee shop and I was sitting there working, as you do, and the woman at the next table was on the phone to somebody, and I wasn't trying to listen in, but she was quite loud, and I heard her say, I need you to do it cheap because I haven't got much of a budget. And I just sat there thinking, oh no, because I knew exactly what was coming for the person on the other end of that phone, because I've been that person too many times. Years ago, I left my corporate job and I wanted to do marketing consultancy, so I charged myself out at£100 a day, which sounds fine until you work out that's about£12.50 an hour. And I priced myself there because I was desperate for work, and I thought it would get me customers, and it did, but I regretted it fast because I attracted clients who felt like they owned me. I was being dragged out to meetings constantly. I worked through two Christmas days because of deadlines, two of them, and I was absolutely fed up and exhausted and not making any real money because I needed so many days just to cover my costs. I sat there one day and thought, do you know what? I've got 15 years of corporate marketing experience. I have managed multi-million pound budgets, I have got two degrees, I've got marketing qualifications on top of that, and it feels like I'm paying people to hire me. That's what it felt like, it was ridiculous. And I think lots of us do this, especially when it feels like we need to get the money in fast, and we price ourselves low because we think it'll get us in the door, and it does, but the door it gets you through is not the one that you wanted. Now I've got a friend called Claire, yes, another one, and she would never buy a watch for anything less than£2,000. She wants Rolex or nothing, new or nothing. Um, quality is completely non-negotiable for her. That's just who she is. She's really well paid, got a very good job. Um, she'll pay£2,000 plus for a watch, she'll pay£3,000 for a bed, she wants the best sofa, the best handbag, she wants quality and everything. She can afford it, and she is not looking for cheap, she's never looking for cheap. And I get that, and some people are like that, and I'm like that too, but with different things. I don't care about the the watch or the the handbag or the sofa, I just buy nice things but not ridiculously expensive things. But I will happily spend£3,000 on a Mac computer without agonising over it because my computer is my business, it's on all day, I need it to be fast and reliable, it's doing a lot of work, and the idea of having something that's not quite right drives me mad. So£3,000 felt completely reasonable for the thing that I use more than anything else. So Claire and I both want quality just in different things. She wants it on a wrist, I want it on my desk. Now let's talk about Jo Malone. So when Jo Malone had her own business before she sold out to corporates, she used to charge£80 for a candle. I don't know what they cost now, but at£80 people bought them and they loved them and they gave them as special gifts and they felt good about it because to those people that candle was worth the£80. It wasn't just the wax and the fragrance they were paying for, it was the whole thing. The box, the ribbon, the feeling of treating somebody to something lovely, just everything. So you might sell handmade candles for£8 and feel guilty charging£8, thinking who's going to pay that for a candle? But to the right person, a beautifully made candle that smells incredible and burns for hours is a bargain. They'd pay£12, they'd pay£15. They just haven't found you yet because you're still hiding in Cheapville. You're still hiding where they're not looking. They don't want cheap candles. So I think what's happening is that we don't price based on what something is actually worth out there to our ideal customers. We price based on what we think somebody will say when they find out. We're imagining that person saying, How much? And we're preempting that reaction before they've even said anything. We're discounting our own stuff in our heads before anybody's asked us. So let me just tell you something. Your job is not to be affordable to everybody. Your job is to be the right thing for the right people. And the right people, when they find you, they don't haggle. They're your super customers, your ideal customers. They don't haggle, they don't ask you to do it for less. They say, Great, when can you start if it's a service? Or they pick it up and they just pay because they can see it for what it is, they can see the value. They're not looking for the cheapest jar of jam or the cheapest um massage therapist or the cheapest bunch of flowers or the cheapest anything. They're looking for the right one, and those are your people. And you find them by charging properly and talking about what you do in a way that makes it obvious who it's for. Okay, that's it from me today. See you tomorrow, lots of love. Bye for now. That's it from the Girls Mean Business Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Join us for even more fab tips, advice, interviews, and trade secrets to help you get more confidence, more clarity, more customers, and more sales. Connect with us on Facebook and Facebook.com forward slash the girls mean business. And check out our website at www.thegirlsmeanbusiness.com. See you next time.