Pricing As A Leverage Point
The process of interacting with your customers can be complicated – depending on the nature of your business. The up-side is that there may be points of contact or times in your interaction when you can boost your revenue. We call these “leverage points” because they can be used to take an existing relationship and leveraged for profits.
Let’s look at one…
Pricing can be an interesting point of leverage. Now, this can depend on what you are offering and the type of business you run. If you are selling candy or bubble gum, you may not have many options this way. But, if you do any kind of consulting or even in many service industries, you have some leeway here. There are a few things you can do with your pricing.
You can increase it. This is one of my favourite ways to make more money. Just charge more. Now, your price has to be justified and backed by your service, but it has been my experience that if you charge more (and support it), you can change your clientelle into people who are happy with what you are doing. You may be able to specialize your service or offer guarantees that appeal to yoru customers. Many business people are under the (false) impression that they will get more business by charging less. All they are doing in this case is selling themselves on the cheap. People are happy to pay for quality and you may find that the people who are happy to pay more give you less grief. And if they complain as much as the cheaper people, at least you are getting paid for it 
My position is that if you offer a good service, charge accordingly. And if you aren’t getting enough business, then look at how to improve your marketing. Don’t cut your price. You just haven’t found the customers with deeper pockets yet.
You may be able to offer your service with different service levels – good/better/best and cause your service to appeal to a broader range of users. Can you take your base product or service and add to it and sell it at a higher price? Offer a couple different levels and see what the response is from your clients. You might find that your customers expect more – and are happy to pay for it.
You may be able to offer specialized pricing or package of services to appeal to a certain niche. This may be a demographic or even a specific location or group of people depending on your service. You may or may not be charging more, but the fact that you offer something directly to that group of people will appeal to them and make them feel special. As though you are the only service for “them”.
It never hurts to review your pricing and look at how you can change it to appeal to a different audience.
