Latest / Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney / How much would you pay to see santa?

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How much would you pay to see santa? · Wedding Pros who are ready to grow - with Becca Pountney

• 0:00
  Becca: I wanna ask you a question.
• 0:01
  Would you pay 350 pounds for your family to go and see Santa?
• 0:05
  To be honest, it doesn't really matter whether you answered yes
• 0:08
  or no to that question because 60,000 other people said yes.
• 0:13
  I'm gonna talk more about that and why it matters and why it should impact
• 0:16
  your money mindset in today's episode.
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  I'm Becca Pountney, wedding business marketing expert, speaker and blogger,
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  and you are listening to The Wedding Pros who are Ready to Grow podcast.
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  I'm here to share with you actionable tips, strategies, and real life
• 0:31
  examples to help you take your wedding business to the next level.
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  If you are an ambitious wedding business owner that wants to take your passion
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  and use it to build a profitable, sustainable business doing what you
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  love, then you're in the right place.
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  Let's get going with today's episode.
• 0:48
  Way back in March this year, I made a decision.
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  That decision was that I was gonna invest a crazy amount of money to take my
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  family to go and see Santa at Lapland uk.
• 0:59
  I'd heard some amazing things about it.
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  I talked to my friends about it, who'd been, and I'm realizing my children are
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  getting older, and if I don't make the memories now, it's never gonna happen.
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  So I did it.
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  I went, I joined the.
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  And I booked.
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  I'm so glad I did.
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  It was the most incredible experience when we visited last week, and I
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  was lucky to get a ticket because those tickets sold out in March.
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  Yes, you heard that right?
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  Tickets to go and see Santa sold out entirely.
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  In March there were 60,000 people in the queue.
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  Now, whether or not you would've paid that amount of money to see Santa
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  is kind of irrelevant because what it has done is it's done wonders
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  for my money mindset, and that's why I wanna talk to you about it.
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  After I booked those tickets, I kind of felt a little bit sick.
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  Was it really worth spending that amount of money, 350 pounds to
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  take my family to go and see Santa?
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  Would it live up to expectations or was it gonna be a massive ripoff?
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  Well, I can tell you that it definitely was worth the money.
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  It was the most incredible day out, and I made memories that I will never forget.
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  I'm glad I saved that money, and I'm glad I was able to.
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  But what amazed me more was being there on the day and looking around
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  and realizing how many other families had been willing to spend that much
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  money to take their children to see Santa that is sold out across the year.
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  There must have been a hundred people in my group, and that was
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  only for a half an hour slot.
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  They were running them every half an hour through the day from November,
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  right through to Christmas Day.
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  So I'm sure they're making a fair amount of money from their.
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  But the point was that if other people were willing to spend that much money
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  to see Santa why wouldn't people be willing to pay me for what I do?
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  And that's the same for you as well.
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  So many of us are held back by our money mindset and our beliefs
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  around money and what we would or wouldn't spend our money on that we
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  lose sight of the bigger picture.
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  And that is not everyone is the.
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  As us.
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  So in today's episode, I wanna talk to you a little bit about money
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  and about pricing your services.
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  I wanna challenge you to think about why you charge, what you charge and whether or
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  not you should be putting your money up.
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  So let's get started.
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  The first thing I wanna ask you is how are you actually going
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  about setting your prices?
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  How did you decide on the prices that you charge in the first place?
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  I'm gonna ask you some quite personal questions.
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  So have a think about the answers to these in your own.
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  So first of all, when you look at your business, are you making a profit?
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  Are you making any money or are you spending all of the money on running
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  your business and the ingredients or the materials that you need to make?
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  Are you basically working for free?
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  If you're not making a profit in your business yet you are working,
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  then there's a problem with your pricing because you're not charging
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  enough to make that money back.
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  We're not in a position where we can run our businesses at a loss.
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  We're not big corporations.
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  Ultimately, if you don't charge, you are not getting paid.
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  I know it's hard looking at your numbers, but numbers are
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  fundamental to running a business.
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  So you need to sit down and look at the figures on paper.
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  What are you charging?
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  Are you making enough money?
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  How much money do you want to be making in your business?
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  And is it possible to get there with the price that you're charging right now?
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  Or are you basically working for free?
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  If the numbers don't add up, then that's probably a good sign that you
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  need to put the price of your services.
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  Up.
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  Don't be afraid to do it.
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  The next question I wanna ask you is, are you valuing your
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  time in your calculations, or are you basically working for free?
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  I've met so many wedding business owners who feel like they're turning a profit,
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  which is great in their business.
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  But then when I ask them about the amount of.
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  Hours they're spending and we work out how much money they're making per hour.
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  Sometimes when we have those conversations, we've realized they're not
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  actually making hardly any money at all, and they'd actually be better off going,
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  getting a job and being paid minimum wage, which isn't what any of us want.
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  So if you're not accounting for your time and you're not valuing your
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  time, when you work out your pricing, then again something needs to shift.
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  You only have so many hours in the week.
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  Your time and your creativity are valuable, and that's
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  what people are paying for.
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  So make sure you're valuing.
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  Time and not giving yourself away for free and basically working for nothing.
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  The third thing to consider is whether you are just pricing yourself based
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  off of what other people are charging.
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  Now, quite often this is what we do.
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  We start our business and we go and look at what our competitors are charging, and
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  then we just charge in the same region.
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  Now, I think this is quite funny because actually.
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  Why are we doing that?
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  Why do they know what to charge and we don't.
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  So we are looking at what they do and basing on what they charge, but
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  they might have just been looking at what someone else was doing it
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  and basing on what they charge.
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  So we're putting all of our trust in whoever came up with that original number
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  whenever it was, and whatever they did.
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  So we're actually just basing it on nothing.
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  You're much better to ignore in part what's going on around you and just
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  work out the value that you can bring to the table, the cost of the materials,
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  and work out whether or not your.
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  Is right.
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  If you're just trying to compare yourself to everyone else or trying
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  to do the worst thing you can do, which is undercut everyone else, then
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  that's not really a great strategy.
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  If you always just try and be the cheapest and come in lower than
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  everyone else, some reason we think that that's gonna give us more business,
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  but actually it can be detrimental.
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  Ultimately, you're never gonna be able to be the cheapest, and if you are always
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  the cheapest, you're gonna run yourself ragged and you're not gonna make a profit.
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  So that is not a good pricing strategy to come in lower.
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  Also, people are savvy and they know that paying the cheapest price doesn't mean
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  that they're gonna get the best quality.
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  Sometimes they'll discount you because they think that you're too cheap.
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  Now, why won't we ever be the cheapest?
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  I'm gonna tell you a story about something I did a couple of years ago.
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  So a couple of years ago I went undercover, although my cover got blown
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  fairly quickly, so it didn't work as well as I wanted it to in a Facebook
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  group, uh, quite a long way away from where I live, where bride and grooms
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  are, and where wedding supplies are.
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  And I posted in there to ask if anyone would be willing to take
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  photos for me for 500 pounds.
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  And then in the chat I was trying to go lower and lower and lower
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  to find out how low someone would be willing to do my photographs.
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  Turned out someone else would've agreed to do them for free for experience.
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  So if you are trying to be cheapest, that's a ridiculous way to be because
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  someone will always be cheaper than you, and unless you wanna give
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  your services away for free, then being the cheapest isn't an option.
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  So instead, why don't you put your prices up and become more exclusive rather than
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  trying to be the cheapest in your area?
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  People will pay for quality, just like I paid to go to Lapland.
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  The next question I wanna ask you is, are you basing your prices based
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  on what you would personally pay and on your own economic circumstances?
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  Now, it's really hard for us to break out of this habit because, well, we are
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  living in our own heads every day, and we think, well, we wouldn't pay that much.
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  So why would anyone else, well, I want you to break away from that thought, right?
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  Because it may be that you wouldn't pay 350 pounds, just
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  take your family to see Santa.
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  That doesn't mean no one would pay that.
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  I mean, if I decided to set up my own Santa's grotto today and start thinking
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  about pricing, my head probably would think, no one's gonna pay 350 pounds.
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  I'll price it at a fiver.
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  But ultimately some people won't even pay a fiver.
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  And actually I'm missing out on the other 345 pounds if I'd have
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  done it as well as they did.
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  So if we are just pricing based on what we think we would
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  pay, then we're missing out.
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  It's like when it comes to fashion or handbags, some people will pay
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  800 pounds, a thousand pounds, 10,000 pounds for a handbag, whereas it might
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  be that you just prefer to buy your handbag from new look for a tenor, and
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  that's as much as you're willing to.
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  The same goes for holidays.
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  Think about the last holiday you went on and how much that cost you as a family.
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  Now some families will have a holiday budget of a couple of hundred
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  pounds each year and go camping.
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  Other families will go to Disney World every year and spend 10,000 pounds,
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  and other families will do even more and spend 20,000, 30,000, 50,000.
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  The sky's the limit if they get a private jet.
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  So you see, you can't just base your pricing based on what you would do because
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  there will be people out there who have more money and are willing to spend
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  more on your product and your service.
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  Now I've asked you some difficult questions.
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  I want to challenge you to change your thinking around this subject.
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  If you charge more, you can provide a better service.
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  I'm gonna say that again.
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  If you charge more, you can provide a better service.
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  Why was Lapland UK so good and so worth the money?
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  It's because they charged so much.
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  They had enough money to make it incredible.
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  They must have spent a huge amount of money on the set, on making snow on
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  the trees, on the ice rink, on the 400 amazing staff that they had running it.
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  And they wouldn't have been able to give such a great experience if they'd
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  have only charged five pound a ticket.
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  It's a limited market.
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  They can only get so many people in.
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  No one wants to go and see Santa in July, so they have to make it work for them.
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  And if they wanna give that incredible experience, then they have to
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  charge in a way that means they can provide that incredible experience.
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  And they absolutely did.
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  It's the same for you.
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  If you keep working for cheap, you're gonna have to do way more
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  work and lots more jobs in order to bring in the same amount of money.
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  Whereas if you put your prices up, you can spend more time and
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  attention on the customers you have because you have less of them.
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  You can give them an incredible customer experience.
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  You can be there for them.
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  Each step of the way.
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  You can give more of your time, and you are less stressed.
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  If you can charge more, you are able to give a much better customer experience.
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  If you're sat there thinking, I can't raise my prices, I'm worried about
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  charging higher, I don't think I'm worth it, then I wanna say to you,
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  that's imposter syndrome talking.
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  It's that voice in your head telling you you're not worth
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  it, or you absolutely are.
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  You're great at what you do, and you should be charging for it.
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  So if you are worrying about that, then the way to counteract it is
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  to go above and beyond for your clients if you're charging a premium.
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  Then just give them a premium service.
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  Go above and beyond for your clients, which you probably do anyway, but if you
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  go above and beyond for them, they won't even worry about how much they're paying.
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  Now imagine when I went to Lapland UK that I got there and it was naff.
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  Do you think I'd be shouting about how great it was or how much value I saw
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  even though I spent all that money?
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  No, I probably wouldn't.
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  But they blew me away so much that I could see where my money had gone.
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  The customer experience was next level, and I will never experience anything
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  else like that with my children.
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  It was so, so good.
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  So I didn't worry about the amount of money I'd spent because
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  they gave me a premium service.
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  And you can do the same for your clients too.
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  Go above and beyond for them.
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  Give them incredible customer service and make sure everything
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  they do is at a premium.
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  So much of what we charge comes down to confidence.
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  So there's one final exercise I want you to do.
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  I want you to have a look around in your industry, in whatever it is
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  that you do, and find people who are charging infinitely more than you are.
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  Take a look at what they're doing and ask yourself, what is it about
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  them that makes them better than me?
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  That makes them be able to charge that amount of.
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  Because I guarantee in a lot of instances, they probably are no better than you.
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  They've just got the confidence to charge that worth.
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  Perhaps they've started building a network.
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  Well, you absolutely can do that too.
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  Perhaps their imagery is next level.
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  Well, guess what?
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  You could also do that too.
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  If you look around and look at what the people who are charging a premium are
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  doing and then compare yourself to them, you'll realize that so much of it is
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  about confidence rather than ability.
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  So as we enter today's episode, I wanna challenge you to think about this.
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  What is it that's stopping you raising your prices?
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  Why aren't you charging what you're worth?
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  And is there something you could do about it today to make that happen?
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  You could do it incrementally.
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  You don't have to whack up your prices overnight, and you can give
• 12:41
  customers warning that it's coming.
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  Tell them, I'm gonna be upping my prices in the new year.
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  If you book me before then, then I'm gonna honor your rates.
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  But as of the 1st of January, my price is going to.
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  This, be bold, be confident, and remember you are worth it.
• 12:56
  I'll see you next week.