Pricing Pressures of Business

Ever wondered how to craft a pricing strategy that doesn't just keep the lights on but actively propels your business forward? Anthony and Jhanilka unpack this very challenge, revealing the ins and outs of setting service fees that reflect value, attract customers, and maintain profitability. We're peeling back the layers on market pressures, sharing personal anecdotes and lessons from our students. Tune in for an honest discussion on the trials and triumphs of establishing a financial framework that works for you, whether you're in the cleaning sector, retail, or any service-driven industry.

Join us as we dissect the viral tale of Tessa's TikTok success, demonstrating the undeniable influence of narrative in today's digital landscape. Our conversation isn't just about recognizing the power of a good story; it's about applying these insights to your business and understanding how a single, well-told experience can open doors to new opportunities. We also address the practical side of entrepreneurship—from the role of discounts and customer service policies to when flexibility can turn a potential conflict into a loyalty-building moment.

In our final thoughts, we offer a candid take on the critical early decisions that shape a new cleaning business, emphasizing the pitfalls of underpricing and the strategic selection of clients. We're here to guide you through these foundational choices, so your business not only survives but thrives. And remember, your voice matters to us. Drop us a line on our YouTube channel and help our community grow by sharing your insights and leaving us a review. Join the conversation, and let's navigate the exciting, complex world of business together.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

What's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the more than a silo so podcast, where we help non-Nafavas create more impact, income and influence. My name is Anthony.

Speaker 2: 0:10

And I'm Jnoka, and thank you guys once again for coming back every Tuesday, listening to us subscribing, letting us know what you like hearing and what you don't. We appreciate it. What are we talking about today?

Speaker 1: 0:19

Today we'll be talking about pricing pressures, of building your business, and we'll give you some tips and some things we've learned over the years, but then also some things our students have taught us over the years about ways of pricing services and business.

Speaker 2: 0:31

And before we jump into that, I actually have my reviews ready For those of you that left them. We appreciate it. I'm gonna read two, because they're pretty short. This one is from Ms Jasmine. It just stretched like that Said love listening to them. And the other one is from Brob1220. Love this podcast and everything the harddogs represent. Keep being great and cheering your growth. So thank you very much, jasmine and Brob1220, for spending time to write us a review. We appreciate that. If you write us a review, we will read it live. Just another way to thank you for tuning in week after week for over two years.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Yeah, man, that's one of the ways that we grow too. I know it might be one of those things that you're like well, we're tired of hearing it. But again, in business, if you don't ask for what you want, you will not get in life. If you don't ask for what you want, you may or may not get it.

Speaker 2: 1:18

So this is why we asked, I was not gonna get fined.

Speaker 1: 1:20

And I remember when I won like five reviews in a couple of days and I just kept asking for it. You know what I got Five reviews in a couple of days, Yep. So we gonna be talking about that how to get up. Maybe you talk a little bit about social proof reviews, but what was the pre-topic for today?

Speaker 2: 1:34

The pre-topic for today, which probably you're either over it. You've seen it. You haven't seen it. I don't know how to pronounce the name. I think her name is Tessa. Could be Tessa, I apologize. This is the woman that said a story about her ex-husband on TikTok. She did 50 TikToks, I think, about 10 minutes each TikTok explaining what happened with their marriage slash divorce, if you will. I personally did not watch it. He personally did not watch it. However, if you're on social media, you've heard about it in some capacity, to the point that I heard it was uploaded to YouTube. My mother tapped in, was up to 3 am tapping and so apparently this story was very captivating and it spread like wildfire.

Speaker 1: 2:15

basically, and you might be saying what the hell does that guy do at your podcast and why the hell would you even care about that? Because it's super interesting of the age digital age that we are in. So 50 parts I am not watching, I didn't even watch the two and a half hour interview of Kat Williams and Shannon Sharp. I didn't even watch that. Oh, yeah, me neither. That's too late, but it shows you the power of content creation and you just sharing your story. So she had 50 parts.

Speaker 2: 2:43

Each part, you said, was about 10 minutes or so, that's what they said, but they were raving about her being such a great storyteller. That's the purpose of it.

Speaker 1: 2:50

So the storytelling part all right, you're great. I don't even know if I don't know her back. I know nothing about this lady. I know nothing about the story.

Speaker 2: 2:57

I don't know what she did.

Speaker 1: 2:58

I don't know the background of her, but the power of someone being able to post 50 parts of her story, 10 minute, five minute segments, whatever it is, and then, people being so in tune and ingrained, it's even become a. We're talking about it here and we need to watch it.

Speaker 2: 3:14

And I think timing is important as well, because she obviously had to realize that it was doing well for her to continue, right, because you don't just post 50 parts for no reason. Right, she's getting her story out. But she obviously realized that people were coming back for more and she kept giving us more and we kept meeting it up. And now I think, part of her story I don't know if she said she wanted to go to London, whatever, but she's on her way to London, in Paris, she's getting some deals in different places, so I don't think that was her intention, but she was just telling literally telling her story that I've seen people say wait a minute, I got a story to tell too. Hey, you do.

Speaker 2: 3:51

You do have a story to tell Now. It may not be as captivating, but we hear to listen.

Speaker 1: 3:56

This realtor said why the F did I get married real till the dish? And he did like a little segment on story see bird and marriage challenges.

Speaker 1: 4:05

He's heard when people looking for houses and stuff like that, he's like yo, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna take what she did and apply it to my own business and you may be like well, that's completely different, it might be different, but he's. He already knows there's people watching this type of stuff. He's riding the wave and he's gonna just like her she so it was working and she shows up again. Last episode we just did Consistency. She was consistent, consistent. Last episode we just did. After recording the entire episode, we uploaded it to our computer and realized the whole thing was blurry.

Speaker 2: 4:35

Now, that was the first time in 120 plus episodes, so I can't even really be upset.

Speaker 1: 4:39

I tried, listen, I tried something new on my camera and it didn't work out. Oh, you did, that's it okay.

Speaker 1: 4:45

I tried to do like the order folks, but the purpose of that was to say that it didn't stop us. We still posted it, we still got the audio and then we still showed up again. We still get to correct what was incorrect last week and hopefully we don't make the same mistake. But some people are just like you know what. I ain't gonna do it. Last episode was blurry. The first episode was birdy. I'm giving up.

Speaker 2: 5:02

No, it was like One view, or this didn't work out.

Speaker 1: 5:05

Sometimes we post things on social media, on YouTube, and it'd be like 15 views. We got like we got like $5,000 subscribers, something to post things on Instagram, yeah, sleep. Well, we got close to $40,000 subscribers and it'd be like five likes. Still gotta show up, we still gotta put the content out there and we still have to keep the business going at the end of the day, cause it's gonna be precious no matter what you do, no matter what you start. So she showed you like listen, if there is someone watching your story, if you learn one thing Keep it up, Keep it up.

Speaker 2: 5:31

So who does the Tepha?

Speaker 1: 5:31

Tisa, whatever it is, whether it's one view or 100,000 views, and I think she had a million or some of the views, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 5:38

I don't know, but it had to be good numbers for her, so congratulations to her. Yes, yes, maybe we will listen. Probably won't ever listen, it's way too long for me.

Speaker 1: 5:46

I might get the sub notes, cause I had to sub notes.

Speaker 2: 5:49

That's how I know some little details. Here and there I got sub notes. I'm not.

Speaker 1: 5:52

I see I'm not the person to get the sub notes of what happened. I want to know the details after what happened to her. So her life has changed due to Her life has changed, so somebody's about a Netflix deal and I was so like they were saying that she should have that.

Speaker 2: 6:05

That was not necessarily given. There was like car companies sweeting her and-. Right now all I know is she's going to Paris in London. That part I got, I've been there.

Speaker 1: 6:12

What does that?

Speaker 2: 6:13

mean, Well, I guess in her story she mentioned it being a dream thing and I think he used to gaslight and say that he was getting tickets to go and stuff like that this ex-husband and so she's gotten a trip there. So that was part of her story, so someplace she wanted to go a dream place.

Speaker 1: 6:27

So, as you guys learn you guys have been here 118 plus episodes you learn about us We'll watch the same thing, and my goal is we get different aspects of the same exact thing.

Speaker 2: 6:37

I look over the charger.

Speaker 1: 6:38

Sorry, oh so we'll be guy, so we'll get different aspects of the same exact thing. So I'll watch the whole 50 series and I'm like, oh, what happened in terms of what transpired after? Whether it's her money, whether it's her following, whether it's this, the takeaways, and she'll just watch it for the entertainment. Entertainment I don't need a takeaway. Yeah, I think I don't need that.

Speaker 2: 6:58

I don't have to have a gain from certain things. Yeah, you have to have a gain from everything, I don't have to have a game of certain things. And we realized that when I'm watching housewives he's like what are you gaining? I'm like I don't need to gain anything. I may be gaining a nice restaurant that I could visit. I'm getting a nice outfit, little things, nothing that's in that important.

Speaker 1: 7:16

Me and Andrei when we did when we did our sub episode. It was like, all right, we're gonna talk about Superbowl, but it's like what? What was the strategy?

Speaker 2: 7:22

behind this.

Speaker 1: 7:24

Yeah, what are we teaching people outside of just who won, who lost? Because they could watch that on their own. They could go to CBS news and and some people are like me- that they just so the good. So the good thing is that you get both aspects of an individual here.

Speaker 2: 7:36

Yeah, they're just gonna sue me.

Speaker 1: 7:37

I'm gonna get the people who are here for a good time and the people who want to be here for a long time. They want to have people that are here for a long time they hear from me because we we talking about the long and aspect as if I don't add into that as well. It's just not my mind 2407.

Speaker 2: 7:50

That's just the difference.

Speaker 1: 7:52

That's the difference.

Speaker 2: 7:52

That's it.

Speaker 1: 7:53

I want to make sure y'all always have takeaways.

Speaker 2: 7:56

They're all gonna take away. I'm just saying maybe this takeaway for this segment was go listen to that.

Speaker 1: 8:01

No, that is not the second consistency is showing up and stuff like that. No matter there's a thousand people, a hundred people, one or a million, just keep showing up, keep posting.

Speaker 2: 8:12

Oh, a good strategy that I've heard. When we'll get into the pricing, you're like I want to know about pricing. Um, is that people always say you know, we are always skeptical, I only have a thousand followers, only have this. And they're like think about if you had a thousand people in the room, that would be a lot of people. 500 people would be a lot of people. So if you think about it like that, you're well on your way.

Speaker 1: 8:32

I did this actually, you know, stay on that for six.

Speaker 1: 8:35

I did this for um the podcast and I said we hit 75,000 75,000 downloads and I looked at the amount of people in different size stadiums, whether it's 10,000, whether it's 20, whether it's 50, whether it's 75, and I was like had to have 75,000 downloads or the amount of people inside his stadiums Absolutely huge. Because the first thing I did, first thing I posted, say all right, next step is 100. I was like, no, sometimes you got to sit and recognize where you are today. Um, how far you've come before you think about that next hundred. So Okay, Pricing what made you come up with this topic? What made you say we're gonna talk about this today? So, pricing, what aspect? All of that? Give me the background of this.

Speaker 2: 9:14

So I know we can do it as a more general, but I probably was talking more about the cleaning business, but we'll mix it up a bit. Um, because, mostly because these are questions that we get there's a lot of questions that come up a lot of times when we speak about the cleaning business. Some of it is just about fear, some of it is simply just knowledge that most people don't know about and they want to know how. You know, how do I do these things. And so I figure we talk about pricing pressures how do you come up with With your prices? It's like the number one question, one of the number one questions that we get, because we get A lot. Maybe there's like a top 10 to 15 that we get, but how do you come up with prices?

Speaker 2: 9:51

That is like something people always ask specifically with the cleaning business, and I would say it will go across if you're doing probably anything Of course, clothing, whatever else that you may be selling, makeup, whatever else maybe out there that you're selling Um, pricing your services for here, yada, yada, uh. But the basic, straightforward answer of that is market research. It's really it, and you're like well, how do I do market research? You simply so I'll use the cleaning business, for example, just typing cleaning businesses in my area, wherever you are, kind of see what they're pricing for different things, so what they price for a one bedroom, one bathroom versus a three bedroom, three bathroom. So you want to just kind of look at several of these companies in your area and come up with an average.

Speaker 2: 10:38

Now, it won't be perfect. You may say, like you know well, this person is charging $500, more 100 I'm over, exaggerating, but you know there's different ranges, but that's why you're coming up with the average. That's where you're doing the legwork of calling, emailing, texting, whatever to get that information. That's the same way if someone is pricing nails or here or here, because they're just starting in the industry, maybe how much did they pay for a haircut back in the day? Like that's how they know, based on market research of things they've done, things that they've paid to know where I should start and work their way up from there, or at least it's a starting point basically. So a lot of times when people ask I'm like that's a small. You know that's a small something that I can give. I don't feel like that's something you should be asking me. I feel like sometimes, cause. I'm like that's so simple. But on the other side I understand if you've never been in the business. Sometimes you're just wondering. You want to know all the things.

Speaker 1: 11:31

So I was how it came up. Yeah, I would. I would add to that by also saying what type of service, what type of market do you want to service? So that's true. When we first started with our digital, our digital products and services, I didn't know it's a price, because there's so there's such a huge range of what you can offer someone, whether it's a five dollar product or a five thousand or a 10,000. I've seen as much as 25, 50, a hundred thousand dollar products or services that people offer. So knowing what type of market you actually want to serve is going to be important, because I know the person that may be willing to spend five, 10, 15, 20 may not be the same person that's willing to spend five, 10, 15, 20,000.

Speaker 1: 12:14

They are completely different, absolutely, or even five to a thousand. They might be different people. So, knowing you know what part of the market you want to service. So when we first started, I would talk about the digital side of things. You want to stay with the cleaning business. Well, yo, what's going on, guys? Did you know we own a seven figure cleaning business and we use that business in order to pay off a hundred and fourteen thousand dollars of debt. We use that business to help us travel more, save more money and eventually become financially free. If any of that sounds good to you, check out cleaning business university, where we teach you how to launch and scale a six now seven figure cleaning business Business, and the best part about it is that you do not have to clean homes yourself. I know that sounds crazy, but check out cleaning business university. We give you more in depth information about that. Check it out and we will see you on the other side.

Speaker 1: 13:00

You can do both Digital side of things, I know. When we first started I just went off of what other people were doing. So when you talk about market research especially for, like, the cleaning business and things like, what are other people in your market charging based off of what services you want to provide so I said, okay, I'm going to start, everybody else started. I did not realize that that might not be ideal because I might need I might, I would need more volume to get to the goals that I want to get to. But then also it was like, okay, if I provide this, this and this, can I charge this or that. So market research is a great place to start. What are your competitors charging? But in your market, what's the average price of what people are charging? And also deciding where you want to, where you want your business to be, ideally for your lifestyle to.

Speaker 2: 13:42

Yeah, and I think that also. I think it was important when you said the market that you want to do, because even when we started on this business we're like the. Our market is probably for a busy mom. Our market is probably for a younger clientele that can just utilize online, feel comfortable giving their car, that type of stuff Not to say that we won't go into an older person's home but that's probably not our target market, right? That's probably not what we want to be doing, spending 20 minutes on the phone just explaining every single thing which I've done multiple times for a sale, but that's not really our market.

Speaker 2: 14:15

But I think you find out necessarily your market when you're in it, especially at the beginning. You just want it all. Right, you want all. You're like I just want to get some money, I want all three may not have a specific target, depending on what you're selling. Obviously, I understand it, depending on what you're selling. But the pricing pressures and the questions that come up around that will continue to talk more about that. But I just wanted to speak that overview of the market research. I'm like all of these companies do it. This is how Amazon finds out okay, we can add an extra $4 because it's getting delivered to their home and so on and so forth. If you ever look at the pricing at Amazon versus a target or something else, it's way more expensive generally. Generally it's more expensive, but it's more convenient, right? You don't have to go to the store. You don't have to go and get it. It can come to you between 10 am and 2 am, 10 pm and 2 am. That people will pay for that convenience.

Speaker 1: 15:08

So there, is a hidden tax of convenience that we don't even think about, that we use every single day. Like your hairdresser is a perfect example of that.

Speaker 2: 15:16

Yeah coming to me, having to come to me.

Speaker 1: 15:18

If I can sit in my house and you do my hair, I'm going to Like when we were in New York, our barber used to come to our house and it was super convenient. I don't have to send a shop on a Saturday, I don't have to be there for five, six hours. I can sit here in my room. I can sit here in my home. I can watch my TV, I can eat my dinner I wasn't eating my dinner but people will pay that hidden tax, hidden tax for convenience, whether you know it or not. So are you making it more convenient for your clients, for your customers, to get your services? Are you offering more than a competitor? So when you're doing your market research, deciding okay, I know that some clients don't want to talk to me on the phone have the ability to book me online, pay me online. That's a hidden tax of convenience that people will happily pay for knowing that you will be able to provide the service that they are wanting. So those are some things that I would also add to that.

Speaker 2: 16:06

So, along the lines with pricing, I think that we also get stuck and this is speaking from experience, this is speaking with our students- so about you here, right quick, how much more do they charge?

Speaker 1: 16:18

You know how much more they charge versus being at home, versus in the store.

Speaker 2: 16:22

Her travel fee. I think it's gone up, so I think it's about an additional 100 to come here versus going to the salon.

Speaker 1: 16:31

So can you break I actually want to get the timing on that so you drive into the salon you drive home, that would be a total of an hour for me. So that's an hour of you driving to the salon, you driving home, and then you're probably. Are you more comfortable in your own house? Home, yeah, absolutely, you could get up. You go to your own bathroom. So you're paying for that convenience fee, no more. You're paying for your time. You got your time back, yeah, so you got about an hour back of your day.

Speaker 2: 16:56

So let's say you're in the way that they have to do it is she drives way further actually to get to me from where she lives.

Speaker 1: 17:02

So let's not say too much, just in case she want to raise her prices on you.

Speaker 2: 17:06

But I mean, people raise prices. I either got to pay it or I say no. That's kind of convenience fee.

Speaker 1: 17:10

Those are things that you have to think about as well as like you're getting, like the convenience is also you getting your time back. Anything convenient is more money Instacart. Instacart is a perfect example of I have a yearly fee and they tell you how much time you're saving by not going up the grocery aisles. Why not asking questions? Why not leaving your house? You got to get the car. You got to put it in a car. You got to drive home. So these are the hidden taxes and luxuries that people will happily pay for for your products and services. You just got to be comfortable putting it out there.

Speaker 2: 17:37

So another thing that comes up that I see with our students is people get like so stuck on the pricing part. They're like well people and so easily swayed right. So they're like some clients have said that I'm too expensive to show you my price and I'm like you just got in the business a week ago Like anybody is going to say your price is too low. It can be $70 for a clean Someone's going to complain that that's too high regardless. So I think, with that pricing pressure, being able to stick by your pricing as you know, I've done my research, I have all these other things behind as to why I'm priced this way and can you explain that to someone as well, if needed, right.

Speaker 2: 18:17

So for us, when it comes to clients and our cleaning business owners, we tell them you know. If you need to, you can say you know, we background check everyone, we make sure that they're paid fairly. We have a guarantee, if there's an issue, that we will come back out. So kind of explaining why you may be priced a bit higher than others. Now some people may say, well, you're still too high and move on. Being able to accept that is important as well. But standing by your price. I think is just as important in not being able to easily sway. Now you can change pricing at any point, but I find that we as students and new entrepreneurs just get so stuck on that and it's like there's no reason to Like. You have to test it, you have to see how it's going to work out for your market, for your clientele, so on and so forth.

Speaker 1: 19:00

I remember, with the digital side of things, this guy was like can you lower your prices? Your price is too high. I responded to his email. Actually, I'm raising the price as we speak and you got to be OK with that. Like you said, you got to stick by your prices.

Speaker 1: 19:12

And be clientless and for you. You know what you're offering, you know what you're not offering, you know who you're for versus who you're not for. Somebody responds to you saying, telling you to lower your prices. I don't need your services, I don't need you to dictate how I'm running my business, because if you were running your business, I'm not going to tell you to lower your prices. Your prices are too high, absolutely not. I'm just going to say you know what you may not be for me and I'm going to go to the next direction. I'm going to go to the next you know offer of that service.

Speaker 2: 19:40

And it's always I mean, I think, when I think of the digital side and even just in the cleaning business always feels like the audacity of people to tell me what my price should be of what I feel is worth, what is not. Like he said, I won't tell anybody that I just won't purchase, and that's fine, Unless you ask my feedback, maybe. But other than that, just moving along, there's no reason to be like, oh, you can't charge that Because someone else will pay for it. And that's another reason why I'm saying don't be so quick to sway when someone says, oh, it's too high, Because there is someone else that will pay those prices and be OK with it. We spoke about that in a podcast that I think when we met with Terry Egeomas I can say her name and she just reminded us that everybody ain't broke, and I think about that all the time. Everybody's pricing and levels are completely different. But one thing I wanted to talk about was with pricing.

Speaker 1: 20:32

Everybody ain't broke.

Speaker 2: 20:33

Everybody ain't broke. It's like I should write that somewhere. One thing I want to talk about is pricing is about giving discounts. I find that's something else that is hard to swallow. Now I am not one, if you've heard me speak before. I'm not a discount person in general, Like I don't like giving discounts in general, but sometimes there's a need for it, just like the stores they give discounts all the time when they're trying to get rid of inventory whatever, so on and so forth.

Speaker 1: 21:01

Why don't you believe in discounts?

Speaker 2: 21:06

I don't believe in discounts completely. It's just I feel like sometimes it diminishes what how people think of your quality of service. And that could just be me comparing it to maybe high end stuff, because I'm like, when I think about Gucci, louis and all them, they don't do discounts. But I have other stores that I love, like Target and Skins, and they do discounts. Yeah, but the the the perk of doing a discount is the amount of quantity that's coming in right. So now you're getting people flooding the gates, so you're going to make more money anyway. So I think that's that's something that I had to learn throughout that eventually you will still make the money. You're feeling like, no, I'm discounting $100 or I'm discounting this amount is too much. But if you're getting, if you're used to getting three people, now you're getting 10, you're making more money by doing the discount, so why not?

Speaker 1: 21:59

So that's something to think about. I would say the other side of it is that then you start to program your buyers to only wait for discounts. Yeah Well, if you do it frequently. If you do it, if you do it too frequently, you start to train your buyers to only book your services when you have a discount going on.

Speaker 1: 22:12

So, we know the end of the year Thanksgiving, black Friday, cyber Monday, christmas, hanukkah, kwanzaa, whatever those are going to be your hot time. So your revenue is probably going to go through the roof. But then you've probably discounted yourself out to January. February it's probably going to be slower in your business. So we recognize that, especially in our cleaning business, that January is going to be a little bit slower because a lot of people already spent what their disposable discretionary income is going to be at the end of the year. You know buying all these discounted products and services. So you have to decide if you're going to try to compete during that time or if you're going to wait till the new year to kind of run it up, where you're going to discount your products and services. So number one trade. You do it too often. You start training your buyers to only wait for discounts and then the other side of business you kind of might water down or dilute your actual product.

Speaker 2: 23:02

Offer a product, whatever it is. Oh, I'm just going to wait till the discount, like fashion Nova, oh, but that's what they're known for. So that's the thing, like, do you that's what you want, If you?

Speaker 1: 23:10

ask what you want to be known for. That's OK, it goes back to your market research. Do you want to be the fashion Nova of your industry, where you are fast fashion?

Speaker 2: 23:16

Just, it is what it is. How is it?

Speaker 1: 23:18

Look, I got to. This is why you got to have the stats and you got to have the products lineup for this. There was someone that said they put out a new product.

Speaker 2: 23:27

Oh, it was like like Kimmy has done that, and they put out a new product and it's like dude, he's going to put it out.

Speaker 1: 23:31

People buy it. They don't buy it. We put it on the shelf, we take it on the shelf, we discount it, we don't discount it, like we don't keep going, and this is how they're able to Billion dollar industries Billion dollar industries.

Speaker 1: 23:41

They're able to put out so many products, so many services so quickly because they have they have the ability to do so. But do you want to be the fashion Nova, where you always, always have to be creating something new, like this, like this other podcast I was listening to, he puts out he's like I'm recording 30 episodes this week and I was like 30 episodes, like that doesn't even give your audience time to consume the last episode. Do you just want to be the person that's always put it out there? Do you want a person that kind of lets people take it in?

Speaker 2: 24:07

To you. But that's a lot, that's a lot of talking. First of all, along the same lines I know I just said, like being able to stand by your pricing. Another part of it is, throughout your business is being flexible with your pricing. I think, especially at the beginning, you're a bit more flexible Now when I say, if someone says your pricing you just is too high and you just change it, I wouldn't do that per se, but you can give a discount Right. So if you give a $30 discount, are they willing to still come and board? If you have to give a $70 discount, that's a little. You know that to me that's a little different. That's a bit more than flexibility. You're completely bending at this point.

Speaker 2: 24:45

So I think that you can be flexible with pricing, especially at the beginning, especially if you're in a service-based business where you're trying to make sure that you get reviews and those types of things. You're like I'm willing to do these things and we tell our students that you get the average. You go $20, $25 below market and you're good to go, because people you know probably utilize you more than you get your reviews. You can go from there. So there is a line of standing by your prices. And then there's another line of being flexible and those things can kind of blur at times. But I think, just being mindful in the moment, like I said, I think $70 to $100 off is not flexible. That's completely just giving away your business and completely, you know, because you want to make money too. So you have to be mindful of that. But a $30 may not be so bad.

Speaker 1: 25:32

So and it's earlier on when you're testing out your pricing structure that allows you to see what sticks with your customers more Like are you getting more customers at the $250?, are you getting more customers at the 220 or getting more customers at the 240 range? So this allows you to kind of be more flexible so that you could say this time, this date, I'm doing this discount, I know I get more customers here and you can kind of play. You know you got more wiggle room, especially when you start like, all right, doesn't work today, I can go ahead and adjust it tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 26:00

Right and something that we forgot to speak about when we spoke about market research is, at least for the business, or if you're speaking to people, you can sometimes ask them.

Speaker 2: 26:08

I think it's important sometimes ask them, you know, just for our own good to know, like, how much were you willing to pay or how much would you like to pay, just so that we have a sense. You know, maybe you are eventually you find out, maybe I am 200 more than most of the market, and then I have to check again my market research or generally the clients that were targeting in this area. Yeah, what was your budget in this specific city or area they're wanting this price into? Maybe we don't target in there anymore. So that, I would say, is all part of market research outside of you just doing your ghouls and yelp and frigging that out. But if you're on the phone with these people, you can simply just ask what their budget was to get a sense of it. If it was $50 off or was it $150 off from what you were, think what your prices are and what they are thinking.

Speaker 1: 26:53

So if you want to do some extra credit, take a screenshot of your phone or, if you're driving in the car, take a screenshot of your dashboard. Tag us on Instagram, let us know you are tapping in so that we can repost you and show you some love too.

Speaker 2: 27:06

You can tag us at more than a side hustle podcast or at the heartchamon. We have two ways that you can tap in with us.

Speaker 1: 27:12

We appreciate it. Thank you, and then with that, if there is some wiggle room in between, you might be able to meet their prices. Maybe, if they're closed, if you guys are 150 dollars, off.

Speaker 2: 27:19

There's no wiggle room. There's no wiggle room.

Speaker 1: 27:21

There's a couple of dollars You're like oh, I was looking to spend $25 less or 50. You might meet them at the $25 mark and they'll be like All right, cool, that's fine. So that's another way to kind of overcome that pricing objection is just finding out where their budget is.

Speaker 2: 27:35

Along the same lines of pricing. Sometimes you know we realize that things aren't worth the fight, right? Some things are not worth it and I know that's not something that I can completely tell you. This is worth it, this is not. I think it's more of you find that out in your business. You have this feeling as you're going through it. You kind of talk through with other people and you get an understanding of what's worth it and what's not. So sometimes people are saying, well, you know, I think I would need 10 or $20 off because you guys didn't do this. Okay, maybe it's okay, maybe it's sure we'll take it off. Right, it's not worth me going back and forth with the client that just paid $450. It may not be right, um, but then sometimes it is worth it, right?

Speaker 2: 28:21

We've we've had a case where someone we realize our that the person had a pet and we do charge a fee for a pet. So we called and said, hey, we're going to have to charge a pet fee, uh, before we come out to the home and they completely got rude and nasty and so we're like, okay, we won't be able to do this clean, um, and she went on to do a bad review. We never stepped foot in her house, upset that we wouldn't clean her house because of the um, the pet fee, and it was more than that. At that point, right After we spoke to you and heard the things you were saying, it was like, okay, we probably shouldn't be in this person's home. Uh, but sometimes it's just, it's not worth the fight, and you had a story about that.

Speaker 1: 29:00

It wasn't yeah, I'll get to that, I know the story tomorrow. And it wasn't even about the pet fee. It was about the person denying the fact that they had a pet and not wanting to pay based on that. So it was like listen, we already know, you already said it. You kind of slipped and said it this is what we charged and we would have got them. We saw it. We may be more lenient.

Speaker 1: 29:19

Yeah, like we're still at that, we already know before we got there what type of person you are. So it was kind of like let's take a step back, you know, and it was like, oh, they went in the loose $400 for a 25 out of pet fee. No, it wasn't even about that.

Speaker 2: 29:29

It was 15 hours actually 15 hours at the time it was about the pet fees more.

Speaker 1: 29:33

alone in the lines of you are not a a true, full person. So alone those same lines of sometimes it's okay to let things go, sometimes it's okay to bend, it's sometimes okay to fold a little bit, but you have to be okay with that. That kind of goes to this story about um I don't know if it was what a burger or.

Speaker 2: 29:49

Burger King on McDonald's, whatever it was.

Speaker 1: 29:51

One, excuse me. So anyway, this guy, huh Cold you had. It definitely was a little at the spot, that cold Disgusting. I don't want to go spit it in the middle of the show.

Speaker 2: 30:02

Okay, that's disgusting. All right, let's go. I apologize, guys.

Speaker 1: 30:05

So so, uh, this guy who was, who was a huge traveler, he used to stop at, let's say, work what a burger. Every single time he traveled, you know, four or five times a week for, let's say, 20 years. I mean that's a lot of water burger. Anyway, one day he gets a new um, he gets to a register and he orders the same meal. And the person like, yeah, it's going to be like 25 cents for the pickle. And he was like, well, I've never paid for the pickle before as like well as a policy, and maybe the person wasn't charging you before, but I'm gonna have to charge you now.

Speaker 1: 30:39

So he said, okay, he ends up writing a letter to the CEO of whatever franchise it was, and he explained to them that I've been a customer of yours for 20 years, same airport, four or five times a week. You guys could see my transactions and I've spent Probably thousands, of thousands of dollars. What you guys? At this point I won't be returning to your restaurant because of this 25 cent pickle. The CEO recognized that the guy was a huge traveler. He actually went to the location and get a gave a presentation on give the customer the pickle, because at the end of the day it's not worth losing a twenty five thousand dollar customer over a 25 cent pickle.

Speaker 1: 31:17

So that's when you have to recognize that it's not worth the battle and you may be able to get more in the long term versus trying to beat the person over the head in a short term.

Speaker 2: 31:26

You just, you just don't know in those scenarios, like the person was doing their job right. It's kind of like McDonald with the sauce. I mean you're like you ain't paying for the sauce you should get me when they started charging.

Speaker 2: 31:37

It's like you may pay for this. The person was following the job that they were told. But sometimes we can be flexible, right, so that I think that's the point of the story sometimes we could be flexible in that moment. Did he know that this client, you know, probably has been going there a lot, probably not, and was like, oh, I'm gonna just follow my rules, but that just go back to, it's not worth the fight sometimes. So so give the person the pickle pause. Give the person the pickle. What's the pause about that?

Speaker 1: 32:02

Yo.

Speaker 2: 32:04

I mean, the cut-up pickle maybe won't be a yo. Something else that we've noticed is like our students getting stuck on things. So at this point We've been in the business going to be seven years come November so we've had thousands of students go by. We've had students, our students, hitting 13 plus dollars, million dollars in revenue. They're in 42 plus states. They're sharing so much. There's a lot more information out there than when we first started and I think that with the pricing and decisions with business, sometimes too much information gets people stuck as well.

Speaker 2: 32:38

And for example, I'm gonna get you smart and get you stuck and just the overload of information is out there. You start to think about things that you're not even there yet or you maybe never consider, which can be a good thing, like Okay, you don't know what you don't know, but sometimes I feel it holds us back. For example, something that comes up with our community is like a Square-feet price pricing versus like a standard pricing, meaning do you charge the home based on the size, based on square footage, or do you just do a standard pricing versus based on the amount of bedrooms and bathrooms that they have? That gets students kind of going and I'm like I think back up to when we were doing this independently, with just us two, and not to say that everybody has followed this because you have the information now. We have a whole community on this now and I'm like you just have to figure it out.

Speaker 2: 33:26

You got to figure out what works for you. There is not gonna be a right or wrong way Starting out until you do it and you're like this isn't working, I'm losing out, let me add this, or this is price too high, let me lower this. You got to just do it, and I think that's important with pricing or entrepreneurship in the business in general, when people are getting into this, trust yourself. With things Like I find that people aren't trusting themselves to make certain decisions. We're talking about prices. I'm gonna stick to that, but may certain certain decisions when it comes to business.

Speaker 1: 33:59

Yeah, with that one Like. We hear it all the time. Most of the time their first, our students first cleaning, they always come back and say I should have Charged more. Number one this initiative charge more because the person was just so gun-hole on the price, probably because you Undercut yourself, because you were nervous about getting your first client, mm-hmm. The other reason people come back and say I should have charged more is because it was probably more work for their cleaner than what they had Expected. Right so they underpriced themselves because they was just so gun-hole to get that first customer. But it don't not only hurts them, it also hurts their cleaner as well.

Speaker 1: 34:28

And then you learn. You let the cleaner know, you let the team know, you let whoever's you know working with you know that, all right, we learned. I take your feedback. I probably should have charged this. Now I know I can be a little bit more confident when I'm talking to someone over the phone based on my experience, that, okay, I charge this the first time, I'm going to charge this the second time. Yeah, go in and you make that adjustment and learn the square footage versus the standard, versus the like, all that stuff. Yes, it's fantastic to understand, but it's even more important for you to know just go out, try it and then come back and adjust as you see fit, because it won't be right the first time.

Speaker 2: 35:02

I guarantee the first first three or five, who knows a couple things you do will not go as planned.

Speaker 1: 35:07

They won't be perfect and you might, even if they are, even if they do go well and there's no issues, you might come back and say you know what I could have done this better or this could have changed, or this pressure instruction might need to Be adjusted. So I would always say it doesn't have to be perfect, but as long as you get it done, that's better than not doing anything.

Speaker 2: 35:23

Yeah, you live and you learn through the experiences. You live and you learn and you decide what I need to add on, what I need to Take on. Do I want to do laundry? Do I want to scrub walls, like all these things that I understand people try to get up Front, but I think part of the business and growing and knowing your business is that I'm not gonna get everything right at the beginning and that's okay. I'll just change it for next time. That's the worst that can happen. I price too low one time, I'll raise the price next time and keep raising it until it makes sense, so on and so forth, lowering until it makes sense. So and I the biggest thing I say to my students all the time is pricing can be changed in seconds, literally seconds. With the system that we use, it can take seconds to change it.

Speaker 2: 36:03

So we know it's your first, most people, not everyone. We know it's most people first business and they're you want to get it all right, but you won't. I'm here to tell you you won't and that's totally okay, and Pricing can fluctuate with markets. You know who you're trying to target, the areas that you're in, the type of Customer or clientele that you want. Maybe you're like I just want to get customers in, so I'm really gonna be on the lower side, and that's okay too. Maybe I want to focus on additional services, not really just residential, and that's okay too. But this, you know, the podcast and things that we share is really to help you through some things, but ultimately it's your business and you make those decisions.

Speaker 1: 36:44

Yeah, even with cleaning busy university. If you guys want to start and scale a remote cleaning business without having to clean houses, check out cleaning busy university. If any of this resonated with you. We have 100 thousands of students. They've done over 13 million dollars. And if you want to start something outside You're not a five this would might be ideal for you.

Speaker 2: 37:01

Mm-hmm, but then also with that.

Speaker 1: 37:03

We've entertained the pricing structure on that numerous times. Yeah, multiple conversations. Oh I'm talking about. We have a conversation today on what the new price structure for the new thing is gonna be in this. It will always be. It will always be changing based on the market, based on the time, based on a recession, based on the pandemic, based on your mood, based on your coaches.

Speaker 2: 37:20

Listen, groceries going up, oil is going up every time we change it. We look inside news happening like news gonna happen.

Speaker 1: 37:26

So be, don't be afraid to. Just you know price things and just try them and adjust. I just try it based on you know where you are today, but then also don't think about it just today. Think about where you want to be tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 37:35

So and the money that you want to make for me. I we didn't really get into that, but that kind of you reverse engineer that as well, like what am I looking to make, how much I'm looking away to make from each clean or from each product that I sell, or whatever the case may be, after my marketing and all the expenses? That's just as important.

Speaker 1: 37:52

So let me give you guys this example that I always give on my, your webbies, my my webby.

Speaker 2: 37:59

What is a webby babe?

Speaker 1: 38:00

webinar, so 10. If you want to make $10,000, you could charge 200. You could charge 40 people $250 right for the month. Right for the month, okay or you could charge a hundred people a hundred dollars. Now, with a service like cleaning, would you rather have a hundred clients at a hundred dollars or 40 clients at 250 dollars? Who do you think is going to give you more headaches?

Speaker 2: 38:32

Surprise, it's gonna be the people that you're charging a hundred dollars. That's gonna give you more headaches.

Speaker 1: 38:37

I'm telling you right now you have to figure out, you know what's a good medium for yourself in your business. Because I'd rather have 250 clients, I'd rather have 40 clients paying 250 dollars than a hundred clients at a hundred dollars. Because clients, more headaches, those are more emails, those are more touch points, those are more.

Speaker 1: 38:53

Reservations, those are more this is a lot more room for mistakes there, a lot more room for error. Things are getting missed. Versus me focusing on those 40 clients at the 250 dollar mark, there is less I got. I got less than I got to focus on. I got to just focus on those people Getting them in, getting them out, making sure they're happy. So do you want 40 clients at 250 or 100 at a hundred dollars? Both of them are gonna give you $10,000. You got decide how you want to get there.

Speaker 2: 39:18

So hope you got something from this podcast is we want to make sure you have takeaways, but these are just some of the pricing pressures that we see that we face when speaking to students, with speaking to people, when you guys jump on IG lies or webinars or YouTube's and have questions for us. But once again, thank you for tapping in week after week. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube. We have some big goals on growing that this year. I mean every year, but we want to continue to really grow it and see where it can go.

Speaker 1: 39:47

So thank you for tuning in again if you watch this episode to the end. Comments Comment I finished. Comment I finished on the YouTube to let me know and we can respond to your comments there. So we'll see you guys next time. Take care, peace.

Speaker 2: 40:10

Thank you for tapping in with us again. As you know, we always ask if you guys can, please, please, go ahead and leave us five star review. Go ahead and write something. If you're enjoying what we speak about, if you listen to us week to week, please be sure to let us know that helps us to continue to grow and for other people to listen to our show as well.

Speaker 1: 40:27

We appreciate it.