🎧 In this episode, we dive into a hot topic that many speakers, trainers, and coaches grapple with: Should you put prices on your website?
Of course, there are many pros and cons of displaying prices, so we unpack various strategies that can help you make the best decision for your business.
Whether you’re leaning towards transparency or prefer to keep things under wraps, the key is to make a decision that aligns with your business model and audience expectations. So grab your favorite beverage, tune in, and let’s figure out together if listing prices is the right move for you!
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Quality Over Quantity: One of the most compelling arguments for listing prices is that it can significantly improve the quality of your leads. By providing clear pricing information, you allow potential clients to self-select based on their budget and needs. This means fewer inquiries from individuals who may not be able to afford your services, ultimately saving you time and energy.
Understanding Your Audience: The decision to list prices isn't just about your preferences; it's also about understanding your audience. Different demographics have varying expectations. Tailoring your pricing strategy to fit the needs and preferences of your target audience can enhance trust and engagement.
Flexibility is Key: There’s no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to pricing. Offering different prices for corporate clients versus individuals or nonprofits can help you attract a wider range of clients. Also, depending on the nature of your offerings, you might choose to list prices for some services while keeping others more flexible. For example, if you offer a straightforward product, like a $10 guide, it makes sense to list that price. However, for more complex services that require a conversation, you might opt for a range or an "inquire for pricing" approach. This flexibility allows you to cater to different client needs while still providing essential information.
Use Forms and Automation: Instead of relying solely on discovery calls, consider using forms or chatbots to gather information from potential clients. This can help you provide tailored pricing information without the need for a direct conversation.
Transparency Builds Trust: Being upfront about your prices can foster trust with potential clients. If you provide context and value alongside your pricing, it can enhance their willingness to engage with you.
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Evaluate Your Offerings: Determine if your services are clear and transactional enough to warrant listing prices on your website. If you have standard packages, consider displaying their prices.
Utilize Forms and Automation: Implement application forms or chatbots on your website to gather information from potential clients before scheduling a call. This can help qualify leads and provide them with a price range based on their responses.
Create Informative Content: Create videos or educational content that explains your services and pricing structure, especially if you decide to list prices. This can help build trust and prime potential clients for the sale.
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Lisa: I'm Lisa.
Brea: I'm Brea.
Lisa: Today's conversation is about, should you list prices on your website as a speaker, trainer, or coach, Bria? What say you?
Brea: This is a question that people ask all the time, isn't it? And honestly, I see pros and cons for both. Normally, I'm pretty opinionated, but this is one where I feel like it could go either way. What about you?
Lisa: I say yes, which is a controversial take, but I can be convinced otherwise possibly, but certainly I understand why there are opinions on both sides and there are definitely strategies on both sides. So you want to break them down?
Brea: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I'm surprised that you think that it's controversial to post prices. Is that what I heard you say?
Lisa: Yes. Oh, especially in the professional speaker world. Really? It feels like religion that you
do not post your prices, that you get people on a call because you reveal it on the call. Interesting. Yeah.
Brea: Yeah. Okay. I mean, I don't have prices on my website, but I have had prices on my website before and I will have prices on my website in the future. Like it's not a, it's just kind of, you know, my website right now is not great. Let's be honest. Um, the cobbler whose kids don't have shoes, you know, it's like the market, whose website hasn't been updated in years. Um, Let's talk about why.
Lisa: There are legitimate reasons why people do not list prices on their website. I do have prices listed on mine and I do like that idea, but let's go from the other side first. Why do people decide or opt to not list them for services?
Brea: Scarcity mindset comes to mind immediately. I think people are afraid that they'll lose the deal or they'll lose the opportunity, right, if they don't have the opportunity to sell or they can't, you know, communicate value or whatever. I think that might be one.
Lisa: Absolutely. I'll say that absolutely happened. I would get a lot of leads where people would be like, Oh, tell me about your workshops. Tell me about your speech. And then when I did, they would be like, Oh, I had $300 to budget. Oh, I had $700. And they were never going to be able to afford that service they were asking me about in the first place. So it created a lot of work. And not like those people weren’t great. They just didn't work at a company. Our market wasn't aligned.
The day I started listing prices, now this was probably eight years ago, but when I started listing prices, I got way fewer lead forms. So many less than I received before. my lead quality went up a ton.
Yeah, you might get fewer leads. But we've all done this before. You can shop online for a blazer. And if I see a blazer and it says that the blazer jacket, I'm not talking about a Chevy, but the jacket says it costs $5,500, I might be like, I don't wear those very often. I'm not in that market. It doesn't mean that's not worth that to somebody. It's just not my market. We're not a great fit for each other. And you just kind of scroll on by and move on so that you're not spending hours considering each other.
Brea: Yeah, so that sounds like a pro for why you would list your prices on your website is to help your website visitor to decide, is this in my budget? Is this aligned with what I'm looking for before you have that conversation and invest that time?
Lisa: Well, it could be a con in that person who wasn't a good fit for that. They might be a good fit for something else. So if your website isn't clear enough to give them a different path, like, Hey, if this is too high for your budget, here are other options. You could lose that person entirely where maybe you could be of service to them. So that would be a con. If you don't have the conversation laid out in a way that's consumable for them. Cause you could just say, boom, that leads gone forever. And maybe you could have had a relationship just in a different capacity.
Brea: Yeah, I think if you're someone who has very clear offerings, you've got two or three signature offers, those are the things that you just do over and over and over again, then it's easy. Put those on your website, put the prices, and let people say yes or no. If you're someone who is like me and I like to customize things, I like to create things from scratch, really yummy experience. I want to talk to you. I want to figure out what are your challenges, what are your goals, and I have to have that conversation. And I love the conversation, so most of the time I'm willing to invest that time because if we're not a good fit, I probably know someone who is, and I would love to refer you to them. or maybe connect you with a different type of resource. That is fun for me too. So if I have the time, I'd love to have that conversation just to hear more about what you're looking for and go from there. So do you have something that's out of the box that people can just pull off the shelf, look at the price tag and say, yes, no. Then if you do, then do that. And if you don't have that, then get on a call.
Lisa: Right. Right. I do think that is a valid conversation. If you have very different kinds of buyers, some more experienced than others, you could send them to an education piece. But yeah, there's some of that. And then also there are upsells that sometimes they do on the calls like Hey, if you want to buy a book for every participant, it could look like this or where the budget categories are. Like if they're spending money on books versus speaker, they may need to move around what it looks like on the invoice and how it gets priced. So some of those things do warrant a live call together. So I do understand from that perspective why they may not want to list.
Brea: Yeah, and a lot of those reasons are also reasons why prices are not on my website right now. So I fully support all of that. And you could get a lot of that information or have that conversation in air quotes. Can you hear my air quotes? The conversation. via an application, a form of some kind. You can ask those types of questions without actually spending your time on a call. So I think that's a step that a lot of coaches may not consider, you know, because like you said, we hear it all the time. You have to get on a call, you know, do a free discovery call or whatever, you know. But you can use an application or a form to gather a lot of information before you decide whether or not you want to invest your time in a call. And those forms can even be automated. I mean, Lisa, you're the automation queen. You know, depending on how they answer it, you could set it up to where they receive an automated proposal or a sales sheet or something that says, hey, based on your answers, this is what we recommend and this is how much it costs and are you interested? There's so many ways that you could go beyond the typical list your prices or have a discovery call. It's not black or white. There are more options.
Lisa: Yes. I used to have that set up. I had it quite sophisticated because I would ask them things like, for if it's a, is this a CliftonStrengths event? If yes, if they answered yes, then another question comes in. Top five, full 34, or you already have your own. And based on their answer, and one of the ones is like, tell me the difference between top five and full 34. I don't know which one I'm open to hearing. If they clicked that, I would send them some education on what those are. So that's just an example. But now, JotForm and others. Now there are so many chatbots that you can program with answers. I think people are becoming more open to typing things like that instead of a contact form. And you can program it to know quite a lot. So you could go in an in-between instead of just a, do you list or do you not list prices on your website? You could say, well, should you list your prices on your website? Maybe you decide no, but then you put a chatbot and Have it return a range, depending, and as they answer questions about, it depends, full 34, top five, et cetera, is coaching included? Then it could give them back even things like a price range. Hey, a typical client pays X for what you've described, and then go from there.
Brea: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I also have done this. I've heard of other coaches kind of living in that middle ground that you're describing and actually putting those prices on your website. So maybe it's not a sticker price for a specific item, but you can say something like, this package starts at X number of dollars and it at least gives people an idea of, okay, I'm looking at $, $$, $$$, or $$$$. like where Where are we, you know, in the expense range? Because if a package starts at five grand and they were looking for 500, we're way off, right? Like, I'm not going to buy a blazer for $5,000 if I'm looking for something that's $500.
Lisa: Yes, but also let's get to what I think is another reality that is just more nuanced. No one's going to like nuance, right? Because you just want the quick internet answer. Um, people, if they've been able to get to know you over time in whatever way, they've already seen you speak, they've met you at an event before, they've watched your YouTube channel, whatever thing that makes them feel really comfortable with you, that is really different from just going to someone's website cold because the relationship with you and the trust or lack of trust that hasn't been built yet, those can, I think, really affect whether prices would make sense or not. Both, whether you should list them or whether someone would be open to a bigger price. after a conversation. So there's all kinds of stuff they could be anchored in when they show up and they're looking for a price. They used to call them tire kickers in sales. They're just running around looking for 20 prices just to get an idea of what a thing should cost. There are definitely people who might be doing that, but it's probably more nuanced now. They're probably following somebody around on social for a while or some other channels. And then when it's time, they're like, oh, I know who to go to.
Brea: Yep. And you know, as a consumer, I've kicked a lot of tires, okay? I love finding a good deal and making sure that I'm shopping around to get the best price, to get the best value, to get the best deal. As a business owner, I most of the time don't want to work with people who are just looking for the lowest price, right? Like, I don't want to just show up and do a one-off workshop for a team that's not really excited to be learning about CliftonStrengths, you know, or to be discovering their own strengths or the strengths of their colleagues. I don't enjoy that. And so, part of the strategy of not including my prices on my website is to let the people who are just looking for the lowest price for a one-off workshop that they just have to do because their their manager said, hey, go out there and find somebody to do this for us. That's not my ideal customer. So I'm just letting them self-select away, you know? Yeah.
Lisa: Yeah, that's a good one. I think it would definitely be a vote for listing prices on your website. If you have some products or services that are a little more transactional and clear, and the packages are really clear, like even if you're a career coach and you always sell a five session package, this is what it looks like. You might have a video descriptor breaking it down for people, but you could totally put those prices out there if it's just very clear and packaged up.
Brea: Yep. And you know, the way that I when I have had prices on my website, Lisa, it's been for for those reasons. It's been here's my full 34 debrief. It includes the code and it includes this and it includes that. And like, that's a very easy. out of the box, put a price tag on that, you know, people can pick it off of the shelf. That makes sense to me. Like if I'm doing a public workshop where one person can buy a seat, then a hundred percent be like, Hey, one seat costs this much and click here to buy, you know? Yeah.
Lisa: Yeah. That would be silly to not list prices in that case. Right. Yeah. And I think the higher ticket and the bigger, and more complex the engagement could be, the more it would lean you toward not listing prices because there could be all kinds of things. And without the conversation, it would be difficult to scope that out.
Brea: Yeah, definitely.
Lisa: Yeah. I mean, we have reasons to do it and reasons not to do it. And actually, I think our decisions have reflected our business model. My favorite kind of customer over the years was the retreat or the team summit kickoff, one giant meeting that they have once a year. And it is more of a one-off. So they only need to know factors. It would be like, here's how much it costs for the facilitation fee. Here's how much it costs for travel. Here's how much the assessments cost. And that is something that I can make formulaic that they could figure out on their own from coming to the website. And it is more transactional. And what you're describing is more relational, long term, and a little more complex and does warrant a call.
Brea: Yeah. I think there's an element of trust as well. I think if someone doesn't know you and they just come to your website, that's the first time that they are seeing you. You're going to put a price tag out there. Make sure you have a video of you. Give them a reason to fall in love with you. You know, show them some of your work. Show them your personality. Make sure that your website is communicating things that help them understand why that price tag is what it is. If you're not going to do that in a call, you can do that on your website, but you don't want to just put a price tag out there and let it hang by itself. You want to make sure your website is communicating the things that you would communicate on a call, just in a different way.
Lisa: Yeah, I think that's a good litmus test. If you find yourself on calls saying the same thing over and over and over and over, then make a video saying the thing so that when they come to your call, they're way more prepared. And you've said, be sure to watch this video before coming to the call. And there, there's a process there. So I think that is a good one that can save a lot of time and make the actual conversation much, much richer. And then you have the price tag kind of conversation as well. So for example, I have a handful of $10 activity guides. I'm not going to make a video for $10. It's $10. It's a thoughtless $10, right? But then I also have sold $300,000 proposals, and those warrant a conversation, obviously, and a relationship. So those are going to have more. That makes total sense. And if somebody's asking me about a $10 guide, I mean, look, you've got to be able to just spend $10, that's not going to be a high touch item. On the higher ones, then if somebody wants a range, and because some people do, they come in and they say, just give me some idea before we spend a lot of time together. Because that is if it's a cold prospect, and it's inbound, sometimes that is people's perspective.
Brea: Yep. And I think that $10 whatever you're selling on your website, that's a great example of a way to build trust, right? Before they're ready to get on a call, they're investing that time with you. Maybe they aren't ready. It feels too far down the road. You don't get married on the first date, you know? Like that's a way for them to get to know you too. So it doesn't have to be a video. It doesn't have to be free. It could be something that's paid and we have other episodes that talk about that too. Also keeping in mind who your ideal client is, you know, the Gen Z's, Millennials, we want prices. We want clear expectations. We want lots of information. Especially Gen Zs, like it's uncomfortable for them to pick up a phone and call someone and have a conversation. You know, like they didn't grow up with that the same way that we did. And so starting with a Zoom call or a call feels very, very far from where they are and the way that they shop. So remembering, you know, who is it that you're reaching out to and creating a process that fits them is just as important as making sure that you're comfortable with your process as well.
Lisa: I think that's hugely important. And I'll end with a slice of audience. So you're talking who your audience is in terms of generation. If I talk about who the audience is in terms of role, If I say, for example, you're a meeting planner and you come to my site and I listed prices on my website. Let's say you listed a speech of $4,000. Meeting planners who see $10,000 and $50,000 speakers all the time, they might actually get concerned that that's too low. And meanwhile, we have speakers, trainers, coaches who are like, I don't want to put it out there. It's going to be too high. It'll scare people away. It can also scare people away if it's too low. So know who your audience is and what kind of buyer they are and what kind of prices they've been exposed to. And of course, you get to know it more over time. And you learn who your audience is more over time as well. And if you just don't know, like, I don't know, it could be corporate, it could be a meeting planner, maybe a bureau is looking for some other people to take on and they walk by your website and you have your price listed at $4,000 and they say, eh, too low. And they scoot right on by. So I just think I'll end with that part because people are usually concerned about listing prices because they don't want to scare people away being too high, but the opposite can also be true and is often true. So that would be a vote to be cautious of listing prices and potentially doing a range. if you don't know your audiences.
Brea: Yeah, I love that. Maybe you charge different prices depending on the audience. Maybe you have a nonprofit price and a corporate price or if someone's paying out of pocket for themselves as an individual versus they're paying with a corporate expense account. There are lots of reasons why you might want to have some flexibility in your prices so you don't want to list them because you want to have a call to figure out kind of where they're coming from and how to best price to them.
Lisa: Okay, I have one more. I said it was my last thought. But I have one final thought. Oh, no. I have one more final thought, which is this is for back to my original vote of putting prices on your website. And this is a primary reason I list prices on my website. People do not have an attention span. And they don't want to work hard for the relationship. And I think that willingness to work hard early on is lower before you've built a relationship with each other. So if you won't tell them any information about you, they might just move on and look for somebody who will give them more information upfront and not try to hide it or put them into a sales funnel because they feel it as a technique. So I'm just going to throw that out there as a final reason you might consider actually listing your prices or at minimum a range.
Brea: Yeah, that transparency builds trust quickly, right? The fact that you can be upfront about what your prices are and what you offer feels authentic and good to people. Did we actually come to any kind of conclusion or did we just say, here's a bunch of thoughts?
Lisa: I think it's here's a bunch of thoughts but we did give them a lot of thoughts to consider and I think they'll find themselves somewhere on the continuum and at least we're giving them some of the decision criteria so that they can feel good about the choice they make.
Brea: Yeah, I would love to hear from the listeners in the next Lead Through Strengths podcast meetup. Come on, join me and other listeners to discuss, do you list your prices on your website? If so, why? If not, why not? I'd love to talk about that. So head to brearoper.com/leadthroughstrengths and you can get the invite for our next meetup.
Lisa: That sounds great. And for tools for coaches, that's my membership where I give people access to all of my tools behind the scenes, anything they've ever seen on my website, structures, et cetera. So if you want to take any of the, um, wording and, uh, maybe the forms that lead people through the pricing decisions, the logistics and the conversations that happen that lead people through pricing, et cetera. If you are a member and you're listening, then holler at me and I'll make sure you have access to those as templates. So you're not starting from scratch. Awesome. All right.
Well, I guess our call to action is, should you list your prices? Maybe, maybe not, but make sure you've had that consideration and you're deciding to do it or not do it based on some of the factors that we threw out in this episode.
Brea: I love it. Use your agency, you know, make a good decision. And also remember, you can always change your mind. Just try it, see what happens and then adjust accordingly.
Lisa: It's words on a website. All you do is go into a text editor and change it. It's such an easy thing that we overlook. We make a big deal about it, but you can just turn it on, turn it off.
Brea: And the answer can be both. I think that's also what we're saying is for some things, list your price. Absolutely. No question. If it's $10, put the price on there, let people buy it. Like you don't need to have a conversation.
And on the same website, you can have other offerings where it says, inquire for more information, or call for a custom quote, or packages start at this, or typically people invest this dollar amount to this dollar amount. I mean, it doesn't have to be a yes or no for your entire website. You can decide per offering or per page or whatever you want to do. You've got the power. It's getting kind of hectic.
Lisa: Is that the same song?
Brea: I have no idea.
Lisa: I think that's a little thing in the background. It's getting kind of hectic, but I don't know. We'll have to look it up and see. Is it one song or two songs?
“Remember, hard work doesn’t have to feel hard. Aligned with your strengths, it actually feels easy, energizing, and fun!”
MEET YOUR CO-HOSTS
BREA ROPER
Communication | Woo | Activator | Futuristic | Connectedness
If you need a Strengths Hype Girl, for yourself or your team, connect with Brea at brearoper.com. She’s ready to deliver an inspirational keynote, empowering training, or transformational workshop. If you’re looking for an expert guide to support your internal Strengths efforts, reach out today!
LISA CUMMINGS
Strategic | Maximizer | Positivity | Individualization | Woo
To work with Lisa, check out her resources for independent coaches, trainers, and speakers. Get business tools and strategy support with her Tools for Coaches membership.
The Fine Print: This podcast is not sanctioned or endorsed by Gallup in any way. Opinions, views and interpretations of CliftonStrengths© are solely the beliefs of Lisa Cummings and Brea Roper.