5 Ways To Successfully Raise Your Prices & Keep Your Clients
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“Knowing what to do is one thing, doing it with confidence is a whole other”
Have you been stressing about raising your prices?
I've got a risqué topic that is going to show you how to successfully raise your prices
Keep reading and you’ll walk away with knowing my 5 touchpoints of successfully communicating change.
You'll feel confident in raising your prices to the level you not only deserve but that your business requires and how to confidently communicate it with your clients
P.S I have something very exciting in the works and I am spilling the beans… The Build Your Business Bootcamp is coming up in just a few short weeks in January! The Build Your Business Bootcamp is a 5-day FREE challenge to help you attract clients you love, set boundaries, get organized and set your prices properly. I will be personally guiding you through all the good stuff. You in? Join the FREE challenge Facebook group RIGHT HERE. (Don’t be like me and say you’ll do it later, cause you’ll forget, so go ahead and request to join right now.) I won’t be opening the group until mid-January but this will ensure you’re in when we start. This is gonna be SO good!
I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the greatest communicator (thanks ADHD). I’ve had my fair share of awkward conversations and misunderstandings.
Although I can laugh about it with my partner, when misunderstandings happen in my business, it’s not such a funny situation.
I’ve spent the past 20 years learning from my own mistakes to discover the best way to communicate change with your clients. And trust me, it’s not as uncomfortable as you might think it is.
For many of us in the beauty industry, one of the biggest changes we have is price increases and even the thought of communicating a price increase to a client can keep us from actually raising our prices. (Sound familiar?)
We’re so nervous about how the conversation will play out that we create the “spiderweb of what ifs”, trying to map out every possible response and reaction. We want to have control over how the conversation will play out and letting go of that control is really scary.
So instead of just taking a deep breath and having the conversation, we overprepare and end up making big assumptions.
If you’re ready to confidently communicate change, keep reading as we dive into…
The 5 Touchpoints of Communicating Change
Although we’re mainly going to be focusing on a price increase, these touchpoints can be used for a schedule change, a move, a new policy implementation, or really any change in your business.
You’ve figured out your prices. You know what you should charge and what’s fair. Now, you have to figure out how to tell your clients. Eek!
In marketing, they used to say that you have to see something 7 times before you take action and back in the day, that was a pretty straightforward thing to do, (think billboard, magazine ad, newspapers, radio, TV commercials). With our modern age of technology and social media, people consume so much information each day that it’s probably closer to 40 times before someone will take action.
It’s important to remember that when you communicate something to your client you’re going to have to communicate it multiple times. Once is not going to cut it.
Touchpoint #1: Write an Email
Hopefully, you’re collecting and storing your clients’ emails in a protected system. This will make it easy to send out an email blast to all your clients letting them know about the price increase.
Now you don’t have to write an email, you could write a letter and send it in the mail or you could even call all your clients. The key point here is you’re communicating it to them somewhere off of social media.
If you’re anything like me, you know that inboxes can become pretty messy places. Remember that your clients might not even see your email. But that’s okay! This is just the first of many touchpoints.
PRO TIP: Don’t write your email as if you’re talking to a group of people, write the email as though you’re talking to one person. This will make the email more personable to read and make a bigger impact on your client.
Touchpoint #2: Post on Social Media
A big problem that I see is when service providers ONLY post on social media (particularly when it’s a story.)
This stat comes from several years ago (so I can only imagine that it’s a lower number now): less than 7% of your following ever sees your posts.
You can definitely post on social media, but if this is the only place you’re posting, you’re gonna have to do it a bunch of times. That’s why it’s important to not only post on social media.
On Instagram alone, you could post a story, create a reel, share a feed post and even go live to communicate the change. It’s important to connect with them outside of the salon beforehand, whenever possible.
Touchpoint #3: Have a Sign in Your Space
Make sure that it’s visible to your clients. Hang it on your mirror, put it on your table, make sure that when your client sits down they’ll be able to see it.
Be aware, this touchpoint on its own is not enough.
I had a nail appointment once and the technician had a sign and I didn’t even see it until nearly the end of the appointment because we were so deep in conversation.
The nice thing about having a sign is that it makes for a good conversation starter and makes the next touchpoint so much easier.
Touchpoint #4: Face-to-Face Conversation
This is the step that everyone wants to avoid, at all costs. But it truly is the most important touchpoint of them all.
If you want to only do one touchpoint to communicate change, it’s this one.
We want to control the conversation, it makes us so uncomfortable to not know how someone will react or respond to something. We try to prepare by creating a complete speech to cover all the bases, all without even letting our clients respond first.
Instead of keeping a level head and communicating with confidence, we end up coming across as aggressive and demanding (ya know, all the things we didn’t want to come across as).
The best way to start this conversation? Sit down during the consultation part or the beginning of the appointment and reference that sign you put up in touchpoint #3:
“Hey *gestures to sign*, I don’t know if you saw this, or if you got my email or if you saw on social media, but did you hear about my new prices?”
And then let them answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
This way you’re not assuming that they’re seen anything and you’re not trying to guess what they’re going to say.
If they respond ‘yes’, you can move forward and say, “awesome, if you have any questions let me know”, and that’s all.
Oftentimes we feel like we have to over-explain or justify our changes.
And if they say ‘no’ you can tell them: “okay, no problem, that’s why I wanna have this conversation with you. Just so you know, effective DATE my prices will be increasing to ______”.
This helps you to guide them to the conversation that you want to have while still being in control.
When you do it this way and you use the templates it’ll make it so much easier.
Touchpoint #5: Remind Them at the Checkout
While they are paying, at the end of their appointment, you can remind them:
“Hey, I just want to remind you, I know we had a quick chat about it, but as of DATE my prices are going up. I want to remind you now so that it’s not a shock at the next appointment. I want to thank you so much for being such a valued client of mine and I can’t wait to see you next time.”
This takes away any guesswork of “did they see the sign?”, “did they read the email?”, “did they even hear me when I told them”.
Because you’ve completed the 5 touchpoints of communication.
Now, I want to be clear, I’m not saying that you owe this to your clients, we all know that the gas station and grocery stores will raise their prices without telling anyone. But the gas station doesn’t have that personal level of service-based business that we do.
I guarantee that if you do it this way you’ll not only feel better about it, but it will also be easier, less stressful and anxiety-inducing and you’ll build stronger relationships with your clients.
The important thing is using all 5 of them together. It takes practice and confidence and practice to have the confidence. Knowing what to do is one thing, doing it with confidence is an entirely different thing.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this and that this post has helped you out with the touchpoints of communicating change with your clients. I love going over this stuff and teaching you those business tips that you don’t get in school.
I want to help make you fall back in love with what you once loved so much and are maybe feeling a little out of love with right now.
Get all the premade templates for communicating your price increase here in my FREE mini-series.
If you’re currently working on raising your prices, shoot me a DM over on Instagram @dawnbradleyhair and let me know, I’d love to do a happy dance for ya.
Let’s be besties?
