Don't Justify Your Prices. Do This Instead.

you're probably feeling a lot of anxiety when you have to justify your prices I'm going to give you two different strategies that you can apply today so this becomes an issue of the past have you ever been in a position where a client who's interested in working with you and that you're also mutually interested in working with has asked you this very painful question why does it cost this much or I can't afford this and you start to go into panic attack you get that cold sweat your heart starts racing because you think my God

it's so long since I've heard from a prospect a live lead and now they're asking me this very difficult question I feel compelled to capitulate to compromise and lower my prices immediately and I I I don't know what my my brain freezes or maybe have a really strong negative emotional reaction like how dare you why would you say that to me you want to hit them back it's like that's an insult to me as a human being to my training and everything I've ever done how dare you it's indignant for you to even ask that

question and you give an unprofessional Outburst have you been in that situation I want to tell you a little story there's a friend of mine he called me late at night in a little bit of a similar situation where he was panick where a prospect that he really wanted to work work with because this person this guy was very influential High net worth High net worth person it's like I really want this gig and this friend of mine called me and like Chris they asked me like we can't afford this is too much money and

I really want to work with them what should I be doing and here's how I counseled him so first of all take a deep breath all business is a negotiation take your emotion out of it they're not insulting you it's just how two business people talk about a thing it's a price it's not you it's a price it's not your selfworth it's your price it's not the quality of your work it's none of those things and you need to remain super objective here and I've been in situations like this I was counseling this friend of

mine in the exact same way I've handled this very specific thing which is this if we know they want to work with you and you want to work with them this is a very good thing because when two parties are mutually interest in working together anything can happen and you can negotiate your way through all of it it's when one party doesn't want it that there's really no point so you want to work together and you see Mutual benefit this is what a deal is structured on this is the foundational layer you get to use

this line and I'm going to say it to you and hopefully you can use it in your own business which is hey it sounds like we want to work together which I'm very excited to do I can't do it for the price that you're asking for how can we get really creative and Design This in such a way that you get what you need the have to have and then we can talk about the nice to have so let's start there what is it that you have to have so if you're a videographer it could

be like we have to have the shoot we have to have to finish edit that's color graded those are the half to haves and it has to be delivered by this date we get that so with that that that's the MVP this doesn't work at all what are the nice stabes well it has some title design has a 3D animation product demo and it has some extravagant locations if we say that the basing that you want can be delivered for this price I can possibly give you one of those three which of those three are

the most important and critical to the success and based on what we talked about I feel like it's option two or option three but not option one so you can guide them through this process too to say like based on what you want you can spend money on these other things but I'm not sure that you're going to get good Roi on that and you guide them through that process where the client reaches out and say you know what we love that you're flexible we love your transparency your style of communication we actually think we

want all three we'll go find some more money how much more is it going to cost that's a wonderful outcome right you can say great fine we'll do that or if they're like you know what we got what we got for a budget which is more likely the case there of the three which one do you recommend then this is where you can really lean in on your expertise and and be an advisor or trusted on the project and say look as much as I want to make it look like that that's going to be

a lot of unnecessary money being spent let's save a couple bucks but this is where I think you're going to feel it and when you're going to get the best results given the objectives you're after and you can do that hey before we go any further my team just told me that over 60% of you that watch this channel are new viewers but you're not subscribed so I'm just going to ask you if you're finding this to be valuable please go ahead and hit the Subscribe button it helps us with analytics but more importantly allows

me to teach more people and to feel like I'm doing the right thing to help you make a living doing what it is that you love now this may be overwhelming for you because maybe you're still new in your business you're not used to sales and especially you're very conflict diverse I hear you I feel you but I want to point out a couple other things that might help you see this from a different perspective from a human psychological level you've heard me talk about this before so let me talk about this there's something I

need to clarify with all of you and I know there's a lot of emotional energy around this that some of you think the position that I take and the thing that I'm advising to you is very pompous and arrogant and it's the fastest way to go bankrupt but I just want to check in with you about the logic and how I'm looking at this what am I talking about a little while ago and we'll link that video right here so you can see it is I said in a in a workshop never justify your price

because justification is a sign of conceding the higher ground to your prospect and if we just map this out to other things then you'll see why it makes sense no your initial reaction is going to be very emotional like of course your clients need to know how you charge why you charge you got to tell a whole story but if you just pause that thought for a second and I want to look at things and introduce this concept to you and I've talked about it before it's called it's called the symmetry of logic where if

it works one way then it should work in most other ways but if only works in one instance and every other instance in your life it doesn't work maybe you have to question whether or not this is a truth or just something you want to hold on to be true let's talk about human dynamics because sales is human dynamics it's social relationships it's a construct right so if you meet somebody somebody of the opposite sex or whoever you're attracted to you really want to get together with them and you have some esteem you have some

self-confidence you think you have something to offer the world it's not like you're some kind of simp okay so you're an equal in this relationship you're not like a a Serial dater where you're just looking for body coun here you're looking for long-term relationship you think is this the one so you meet them if the first thing they say to you is like why should I date you they're asking you to justify to them why you're worthy of even having this conversation on a date now many of you are say hey no problem let me

explain well I have a good job and I I have good credit or I have a nice car how does that make you feel about you and what they're interested in are they interested in in something other than you or these markers for them is that the way you want to begin a relationship okay maybe you're comfortable giving those answers but let's try it the other way where you come up to someone that you're really attracted to that you like and the first thing you say to them is tell me why I should even talk

to you why should I date you would you ever do that and you're probably going to say no that's insulting Chris why would I do that I'm the one who's interested in them so we want to enter these relationships as equals we don't want to see the higher ground when they ask these kinds of questions and in most Industries other than the creative Services bace people do not justify their prices you go in and ask a car dealership why is a car price this way try that go to any supermarket and asking why does a

can of beans cost 78 cents why does that head of lettuce cost 54 cents or $3 why does this green juice cost $9 go to the car wash ask them why is it $9 some of them will explain some of them will not but many of them you're like this is uncomfortable to even ask so if it's uncomfortable for you to ask why do you think it's good for you to answer this kind of question your price is are your prices and through a series of your own calculations in terms of overhead profit margin cost

of living everything that you need your level of experience your level of quality you've determined this is your price and at this point all you can do and all you should do is present to your prospects this is the price I'm not really negotiable on the price if you don't want to work with me I totally understand cuz for every customer there's a vendor and I probably am not the right person for you and I find that any Prospect who immediately challenges being on the price and ask me to justify I already know it's going

to be a long day and I've done enough business where I'm like you know the last time I took on a client like that I didn't enjoy the experience and I want you to reflect back on your life the last time I dated a person that asked me all these questions for me to justify myself to make me prove myself to their parents that relationship did not go well and maybe it did work out for you and if it did by all means keep doing it we have to understand that if it doesn't apply in

most cases in our life why would it apply in this one way because you know why because we're so used to answering questions justifying ourselves pleasing other people cuz we're people Pleasers we're conflict diverse and we think every question is a legitimate question it is not not all questions are legitimate answering why is it this much or Justify Your Price is not a legitimate question in my opinion I know that sometimes when I share short clips with you all that you start to get really triggered with response like how come this person can be such

an arrogant a-hole and it's like the best way to lose all of your clients that's why I wanted to spend this time and give you a little bit more context and expand the conversation you can see it's from a point of view of support and love and to make sure that you don't just throw uh yourself at a project and and lose all semblance of self-respect and control CU actually your clients will respect you more for it so if you have additional questions or comments I'd love to hear them go ahead and drop them below

and I'll do my best to respond