If you have been following me for even a little while, you will have probably heard me say that what you charge is irrelevant even if you are in a highly competitive area. What I realize is that many people don’t hear the rest of what I say and therefore aren’t getting the full picture.

Although, I’m using hypnobirthing as my example, this approach applies to any and all serviced based professionals operating in a competitive marketplace.

As more people hear about hypnobirthing and celebrities share their positive birth stories and experiences, the more of a viable business opportunity hypnobirthing appears to be. And to a certain extent it is true, the more demand there is for classes the more people need to be teaching these invaluable life skills. However, what is also true is the more commoditized the market becomes.

What do I mean?

If you’re a teacher who has started working with families in the last 12 – 18 months and your one of four teachers within a two mile radius you are at a disadvantage if you don’t understand how to differentiate yourself from the pack.  So, if you are looking to fill classes by relying on word of mouth, your particular brand of hypnobirthing, flyers, posters and the odd fb ad you are onto a losing game.

Why?

Because there are three other instructors within your area all doing exactly the same thing, but who potentially have the advantage of time and results on their side. Word of mouth will always be your most powerful form of advertising, but in order to get to the stage where your clients do the majority of your marketing for you, you need to attract them in the first place. Here are the three most common mistakes people are making:

• They price themselves at exactly the same rate as their competitors.
  • By adopting this strategy what you’re saying to yourself is that I’m not hoping to grow the market share, but dilute what is there and hope I attract some customers, because they’ll stumble across my website. You’re saying – I’m the same as them!

• Price themselves higher than their competitors without offering any clear point of difference.
  • Although they may understand the principle of higher prices consciously and subconsciously alludes to more value for clients. If the practitioner is unable to demonstrate where or what the value is, without the track record or any evidence of what paying for more gets you this pricing strategy will turn people off.

• Undercutting the competition.

• Huge mistake…why?

I refer to point two. Whether we like it or not people place more value on the things they have to pay for than the things they don’t or the things that are significantly cheaper. They believe in the cliché you pay for what you get. So by pricing yourself lower than your competitors the message you’re sending out is I’m not as good as they are and might be a bit desperate to get your business.

So how can you avoid these traps?

Get your P.O.M out!

What’s a P.O.M I hear you ask?

Your P.O.M is leverage. Or the permission you grant yourself to do what the hell you like in your business because you have these three things nailed. That allow you to move beyond commoditization. Stop working far too many hours for not enough money, as you create a business that attracts an abundance of ideal clients who ARE prepared to pay for your services.

Let me break it down for you.

Personality: your personality is your strongest asset and showing people who you are and the type of teaching/healing/support they will get when they work with you is SUPER important. What I see a huge amount of is a lack mentality. People being fearful if they give ‘too much of themselves away’ they will turn people off. NEWSFLASH you want to turn non-ideal clients off, because they will drain your time, energy and will never be your best advocate. In life you don’t like everyone and not everyone like’s you, it’s the same in business. However, the more true you can be to yourself in your blogs, vlogs and on your website copy the more of ‘your’ people will relate to you.

Opportunity: where’s the opportunity for your business to stand out from the rest of the crowd in your area. I often work with clients who are multi-passionate and multi-skilled. But sell all of their packages and offering separately, which can be hugely overwhelming for potential new clients. One simple way to create a point of difference that separates you from everyone else, is to offer services that incorporate two or more of your skill sets. Enabling you to create a unique service and one that your ideal client is crying out for. This approach also enables you to demonstrate why your services are more expensive than your competitors.

Message: this is closely tied into the Personality and Opportunity. You need to be able to articulate WHY and HOW your service meets your potential client’s needs in an emotive way that moves them. On the Baby Business School course, I talk a lot about understanding what keeps your specific client up at night. Being able to communicate this in your clients words is hugely important when it comes to connecting with your client’s needs. But taking that one step further is to tie that in with your personal message that doesn’t sound like everyone else. IE I want to empower women through birth. Really?? Show me a birth worker who doesn’t want to do that. You have to give more in your message and you need to be consistently sharing this on social media, while networking, blogging, vlogging, everywhere.

It’s when you have these 3 elements nailed you are then in the position to charge in line with the services you offer and the audience you want to attract. Rather than being dictated to by people who are NOT paying your bills.

I will be guiding my new Mindset and Marketing masterminders through this process in detail when we start work in a couple of weeks. If this sounds like the type of help and assistance you need to take your business to the next level please feel free to book a complimentary call here to see if you would be a great fit for the program.