Be honest, how often when you share a product or service on instagram, facebook or in an email newsletter, do you, deliberately or otherwise, neglect to give the price?
How often do you not put a direct link to the thing that you are talking about, and instead just say that it’s ‘in my shop’ or ‘on my website’.
You are in business and regardless of what you are selling, services or products, people need to know what things cost and how they can buy it from you – otherwise you are not maximising your potential.
In my experience, both as a business owner and as a consumer, you really do nothing good by hiding the price or not displaying it prominently, or by failing to direct people to the thing they might genuinely want to buy.
If there’s no easy route to go find out more and buy, I will get distracted and in all likelihood, even if I was quite keen to buy, I will not follow it up later either.
And when you are selling a service such as consultancy, not being up front about your pricing only leads people to think that you must be expensive – otherwise why won’t you say?
I know that sometimes you can’t give accurate costs as a service provider, but you can give day rates, you can give ‘from £xxxx’ type indications as to what it might cost to work with you. And in doing so, so long as you have communicated the value of what you do and offer, you have already separated the wheat from the chaff.
If you have a product, especially one that might normally be seen as a luxury or higher end product, like jewellery, original art, bespoke items, and you don’t put the price prominently when you are promoting it, again, you run the very strong risk of people assuming it’s very expensive or not for them.
Trying to use lack of pricing as a deliberate ploy so that people have to get in touch with you and you can try to build rapport with them is also likely to backfire. No one likes to have to ask for a cost and risk the embarrassment of then declining because the price is too high.
My coaching package cost is £600 at the moment – I am happy for you to know that because it does neither of us any good to keep that from you. Be honest, if you didn’t know that and I kept it from you, would you ever ask? Might you even have assumed it would be more?
It’s much better for you too, to only engage with potential customers and clients who know roughly what your services cost and are already happy with that.
And if the reason why you want to leave the price off is because you are worried that people will think it’s too much or that they will think your product or service isn’t worth it, ask yourself, is that true? What’s the story you are telling yourself about what other people think and what you believe about your worth?
So! Your task should you wish to do so, is to look at all the places that you currently talk about your products and services and notice how often the price and a direct route to buying is missing. Then think about why that might be (assumptions you are making, stories you are telling yourself) and commit to always being upfront about prices from now on, and go all out to make it as easy as possible for people to buy from you!