Not trapping yourself with intro pricing

So many of my clients have used intro pricing, or beta pricing, for new offers to jump start sales. 

It’s a great idea, and can work really well. Offer the first people to step into a new offer a special price, offer a significant discount off what the regular price will be, and you can get an influx of folks to experience your offer, collect testimonials and case studies, and just get some good energy flowing.

Once the offer feels more solid, the pricing can go up!

However… I’ve seen people trap themselves with intro pricing in ways that are really uncomfortable.

Here are three of the most common ways.

Giving too much of a discount.

Going big with discounts can be incredibly generous, beautiful and can open up the energy in significant ways.

If an offer will be hundreds of dollars, or over a thousand, offering it completely for free, or for less than $100, can really work against you.

I get it, it can be scary, will people buy it at all? So, the reaction is to avoid the question by plunging the price to where one doesn’t have to confront that issue. 

It’s okay, you can charge a decent price even for an intro or beta offer.

Promising too many of an intro offer.

Sometimes folks will say a special price that otherwise feels great to the business owner, but that it’s available for the first 100 people, or some equivalent number.

Very often folks don’t have a good sense of how long it will take to sell that many. We’re used to seeing mainstream businesses, larger companies, sell thousands, hundreds of thousands of somethings. So one hundred doesn’t seem like very many.

In our size of boutique businesses, one hundred can be a significant number. If a business owner says this introductory offer is available for the first one hundred, but they have 100 people on their list, or 500, or even 2000… how long will it take to sell 100?

If, a year later, 20 or 30 or even 80 of them have been sold… what do you do? You can break your word and change things, you really can. 

But, better to have a good sense of what’s possible in the first place. How many would help get the energy going? How many would help you get a cash influx that means something?

Twenty? Go with numbers that reflect how many are in your audience.

Promising too much access for too little.

I’ve seen the strategy where someone will make an offer that gives someone “lifetime access.” My opinion is that that’s a lot to give, and requires a lot of inner clarity that that’s what you want to do.

Lifetime access gets complicated quickly. How long do you have to have it up and available before “lifetime access” is no longer true? What do you have to do for folks if you ever take it down?

And, if “lifetime access” just means the life of the offer, how do you convey that without it sounding shifty?

The idea is to create safety and be generous, but I don’t think it has the effect most business owners hope for. It ends up being an unnecessary offer.

Plus, if people love your offer and are using it, why not get the recurring revenue from it, especially in early stages of your business? If it’s an annual membership, why not get a second payment in a year? If it’s a course, why not get a second payment for them to take it again?

As usual, guidance is better than strategy.

If you have strong, clear inner guidance to do one of the three above, then go for it! Don’t let my strategic experience stop you.  Seriously, your heart is the number one expert in this. Trust yourself if your guidance is truly clear.

I explain these three examples of overgiving in intro offers because so often it’s not guidance, but fear, or reactivity that has folks doing one of the three. When I (consensually) give clients some pushback, the most common answer is, “Oh, I had a niggle that it didn’t feel right,” or, “wow, I never considered it from that angle, it does feel off when I take in the big picture.”

Considering making an offer like this? Do this first.

I recommend taking some time in your heart and your body- see what the offer truly feels like in you. 

If you have any kind of reaction, take your time with it. Don’t push past it, don’t just get rid of the offer, either. What’s the rush? Take your time…

First, if you’re doing more than one of these together, like low price and lifetime access, for instance, try dropping one of those, and then see how it feels.

Regardless, take your time feeling into the offer in your heart. Embrace your deep desire to be generous and do right by people, your yearning to do well and be supported, and your desire to have people respond and engage with your good work.

When you embrace all of these (and any other feelings you might have), and then sit with the pricing, where do those needs balance out? What special price or offer feels like it makes the work accessible, invites people in, and doesn’t leave you stretched or unsupported?

When you settle into that, then go for it.

I want to see all of our healers, transformational workers, permaculturists, and other people doing needed work in this world to be really supported. 

Questions? Pushback? I’d love to hear.

with love,

Mark Silver, M.Div.

Heart of Business, Inc. Every act of business can be an act of love.