How to Price Your Services

My friend had a small photography business when I was still in college. He had a professional camera, a decent computer, and a printer. He couldn’t charge a high price because he felt that he was offering a low quality service. On the contrary, his pictures were amazing, but due to the low price that he asked, he couldn’t put the pictures on a good photo album or get them printed on high quality paper. Although his shots were great, the end product was horrible.

What we can get from this is that pricing too low is not only detrimental to you; it can also ruin your product, your relationship with your customer, and ultimately your reputation. If my friend asked for more money than what he intended, he could’ve produced a high-quality product, which made the customer happy. That same customer could’ve referred my friend to other people, but due to the low quality of the product, that never happened.

Another example is a couple operating a convenience store who offered free deliveries of their products like propane, water, groceries, and the like. People loved the idea of just calling and having their needs delivered. Their idea was so good, that they were so busy delivering orders the whole day up to the night. The thing is, they didn’t charge enough money for the deliveries, so they didn’t earn enough money to cover their overhead. Plus, they were so busy that they couldn’t keep up. They forgot orders, mis-delivered a few products, in short, their quality of service dropped due to the high volume of work.

You created a martial arts school for many reasons, and one of the reasons should be to earn money. If you set your price too low, you won’t earn enough money to live a comfortable life. Time and effort are also investments so make sure that those investments make a profit. And if you’ve noticed in my example, the quality of the service dropped because the couple could not focus. If you value your service and have confidence in what you’re offering, then setting a higher price should not be a problem. You would have fewer customers, but, you can focus your attention to those customers, and further increase the quality of your services and products. It’s a win-win situation.

The thing to remember is to value yourself, your business, your services, and your products. Believe, and have confidence to demand a price that will sustain your life and your business, while being able to provide the quality that you want your customers to experience. And besides, having a low price will only attract pure bargain shoppers; you wouldn’t want that, right?