The Power of Value-Based Pricing for Small Businesses with Sheila Hansen

Being a small business owner isn’t easy. But there's one simple trick that could make all the difference: value-based pricing

That's right, Sheila Hansen—our guest in this episode—dives into why shifting from traditional hourly rates to a value-based approach can revolutionize your business. We discuss how understanding and communicating the value you bring changes everything. 

Sheila, a CPA, coach, and CFO, emphasizes understanding what clients truly value. It’s not just about the deliverables; it’s about the speed, outcomes, process ease, and the potential revenue increase a small business can provide.

This episode is packed with insights to help you rethink your pricing strategy. Tune in and hear all the ways value-based pricing can boost your small business!

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

• Understanding and delivering customer value over time-based pricing
• Experimenting with pricing based on customer feedback and perceived value
• Offering tiered pricing options to customers and communicating the value effectively

Other Mentioned Links & Resources

Get to know more about Sheila Hansen:
https://www.hansenllc.net

Learn More About Treefrog’s Small Business Marketing Resources & Services:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com

Receive 50% Off Your First Year of HoneyBook:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/honeybook-coupon-code

Book a Strategic Marketing Coaching:
https://treefrogmarketing.com/marketing-consulting-small-businesses

Join the Priority Pursuit Podcast Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/179106264013426

Follow or DM Treefrog Marketing on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefroggers

Follow or DM Kelly Rice on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefrogkelly

Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:58 About Sheila Hansen
• 7:42 Enthusiastic discussion about value-based pricing for businesses
• 12:01 Focus on client value, tailor services, win-win
• 14:45 Listening to customer needs fosters valuable communication
• 17:31 Different photography outcomes, customer satisfaction, effective communication
• 19:17 Determining the right price is highly subjective
• 22:29 Continuing feedback and adjustment essential for success
• 28:28 Focused on specific services, skyrocketed profitability
• 30:25 Focusing on core areas leads to profitability
• 34:32 Valuable marketing strategy, expertise, implementation without cost
• 39:42 Offering tiered options educates clients and highlights value
• 41:51 Connect with Sheila Hansen

Transcript

Sheila Hansen  [00:00:00]:
I think we tangle up self worth with our pricing and what we're doing or how we're serving. And so that can make it really hard because it's us putting ourselves out there. And if we can separate who we are as individuals, what we have to offer this world separate from what our business is doing and the success of our business, I think it makes it slightly easier for us to charge more.

Victoria Rayburn [00:00:28]:
Hey there. You're listening to Priority Pursuit podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners and leaders define, maintain, and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love. I'm your host, Victoria Rayburn, and I'm going to start this episode with a hard truth you probably need to hear. You could and arguably should be charging more. And in case you don't believe me, I am thrilled to have Sheila Hansen on the show to break down the power and importance of value based pricing. Sheila is a CPA certified coach and your business cheerleader. Since 2016, she has owned her own accounting firm and has helped small businesses understand their money by supporting other female business owners. And being a business owner herself, she has seen firsthand the challenges and struggles that we as women face when it comes to finances.

Victoria Rayburn [00:01:26]:
Seeing the need for women to have a safe place to talk about their money, she not only supports them by managing the financial data, but uncovering the mindset hurdles holding them back from their goals. Sheila is on a mission to help female business owners feel confident about their money and build wealth without burnout. Sheila, I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am for this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Sheila Hansen  [00:01:53]:
I am so excited to be here, and this is a really important topic that we all need to hear, including myself. So I'm glad to be here and having this conversation with you.

Victoria Rayburn [00:02:03]:
Oh, yes. Yeah. Don't you just love when you, like, teach what you also need to hear? I feel like that's how it works oh, so often. But Sheila. Okay, that was a very, very brief introduction of all you do and all the many ways that you serve small businesses. So before we dive in, would you mind just introducing yourself, your business? And then also, I would love to know why you became a CPA and fractional CFO specifically for female business owners. I would just want everybody to hear more of your story.

Sheila Hansen  [00:02:31]:
Yeah. So really, the whole journey to becoming a business owner was from looking for that balance between motherhood and a career. Right? So it goes back my history. I knew from the time I was a junior in high school that I wanted to be a CPA and go into accounting. I got my degree, worked my way up at a public accounting firm, and then I was pregnant with my oldest kiddo, and it was that, okay, we've got a misalignment here. How are we going to fix this? And so then I got a job at a manufacturing company for about 18 months after I had him. And that was the job, right? It was not the career, it was just the job that you clock in, clock out. But I realized there were parts of public accounting that I missed, specifically the relationships that I had with previous clients and really getting to be their trusted partner, getting to know them, helping them work towards their very specific goals.

Sheila Hansen  [00:03:38]:
So that is how I then decided to start my own firm. It was like, I can still do this, but I can do it on my terms and provide the specific services that I want to provide and work with the clients that I want to provide, rather than having somebody else dictate who it is you work on and how you serve them. And so my background in the accounting firm that I worked at was on tax, on the tax side. So naturally, I started my business preparing tax returns. But then I got to that point that it was like, okay, that solves the problem for like four months of the year of revenue, but what are we going to do the rest of the year to pay the bills? And so that is where kind of this journey, honestly, for the value based pricing started without me realizing it was happening. And it was just listening to clients on, okay, they got their tax returns. We're having that conversation once a year, but what else are they needing? What else are they wanting? What conversations are we having over and over and over again with the same type of client. And so as I began to listen to them, I could start creating some solutions of what it was they needed to help support their small business.

Sheila Hansen  [00:04:51]:
So I eventually shifted. I had started with preparing some just individual returns. I eventually shifted and said, no, I want to work with the small business owner. Right? Nothing wrong with an individual who has a w two job that they need their taxes prepared. But there were more conversations I could have with those small business owners. And then that rolled into, we need financials, bookkeeping, payroll, all of the standard accounting. And then the more that I had conversations, the more I realized there are these mindset hurdles, right? The beliefs that we grow up in, whether that be within our household, where we hear about the money, or external cultural mindset that we just hear money, how powers assigned to it or the definition of it, all of that and so those beliefs were coming up into the conversation. So then it became more than I can tell you.

Sheila Hansen  [00:05:54]:
Set this money aside or create this cash reserve for your business, but there's a reason it's not happening. Why is that? So that led me to dig into the mindset side of things and get certified as a coach. So not only can we talk about the tactical how to, we can talk about the mindset that comes up in those decisions. And so then, yeah, now I work mostly with female business owners just because that is who I am, that's who I relate to. That is, we're going to talk about, you know, some very specific things related to females today on why we're not charging what we could be charging. And so it just became around that conversation I could focus and narrow in on who it was I wanted to speak to and how I wanted to go about speaking to them. So that is now I mostly provide a monthly package that includes the coaching, that includes the financials. So we are having those conversations.

Sheila Hansen  [00:06:57]:
I'm involved in your business and know what's going on, so we can keep making progress to whatever your unique goals are, because your definition of success is unique to you. And so that is where we want to make sure that we're having the conversation that is geared towards getting you to that version of success, rather than whatever external metrics might come in on when we first set goals. And so, yeah, we're supporting them on a monthly basis. And I still do some tax prep as part of that. There's a lot of tax planning conversations, but I have kind of stepped away from a lot of the tax prep and now just gotten into that financial conversation discussion.

Victoria Rayburn [00:07:42]:
That's so good. And, I mean, I think it's always really cool to hear how businesses come about, especially when, like, every next step is an answer to a need. Like, it's another answer to your ideal clients problem. And, yeah, you just keep moving, so. Oh, so, so cool, cool. Okay, so, Sheila, we obviously have a lot to discuss today, but before we can, you know, convince everybody that they need to be charging more, I do just want to ask, what is value based pricing? And, y'all, just as a heads up, my daughter is with a sitter in the other room. If you hear a baby crying at any point, that is what that is. So, I'm so sorry, but, yep, this is, you know, small business life.

Victoria Rayburn [00:08:26]:
Sometimes the baby is in the next room with a sicken, crying a little bit, and she's in good hands.

Sheila Hansen  [00:08:31]:
So, anyway, yeah, and that's all. What is a value based practice? Yeah. That also plays into why I serve females too. Right? I have kiddos, they're often home with me, so I don't want to have to worry about if one pops in, what the other person, my client is going to think. And so. Yeah, totally. But value based pricing is really just thinking about how you set your prices, basing it off of your customers and how they perceive the value of your product. If we think back, like really high level, everybody has different needs.

Sheila Hansen  [00:09:11]:
They value different things at different degrees for different reasons and at different times. Right. So it is really about setting our pricing, setting our offers to whatever is specific to our client that is going to be most valuable to them and pricing accordingly.

Victoria Rayburn [00:09:30]:
Yes. Okay. So thank you so much for making that just really clear from the get go. Now, again, we're just going to make one more thing really clear, even if it might be, it's a little bit obvious, but what everybody thoroughly understands, like what are the benefits of adopting a value based pricing model for small businesses? I think so many of us, you know, it's like hour by hour, this is exactly what micro product costs to produce. And so this is what I charge. But value based, obviously is a different, I mean, it's just a different pricing model. Yeah. So what are the benefits?

Sheila Hansen  [00:10:01]:
Yeah. So when you get into business, or let's talk about real quick, the opposite of that is we're used to, especially if you were an employee somewhere, time, money, right. Hourly billing or a set price for a particular item, that is kind of how we're raised or we grow up, right. That belief is what's instilled. And so, so natural for new business owners to set based on that, right. I made x amount in a year. I worked 40 hours a week. I need to charge this to be able to make that.

Sheila Hansen  [00:10:38]:
But there's so much more to it than that. And we can also get hung up in the deliverable. Right. So whether that's five images from a photo shoot, 20 images from a photo shoot, we can think of it that way. And what we get hung up there is we lose a lot of the value when we're pricing that way. Because one, our customer doesn't necessarily care how long it takes us. That doesn't, that doesn't change their outcome if it takes us less or more time. And so if we're charging hourly, we're actually doing our customers a disservice because we're going to make, it's like opposite values.

Sheila Hansen  [00:11:22]:
Right. We're going to, we're going to want it to take longer. They're going to want it to take shorter. And so there's not a mutual benefit to both parties. And so when we look at value based pricing, the benefit, the biggest benefit is it helps our business determine our priority and where we should be focusing our time, our energy, where we should be putting, like building our offers around to be able to make the biggest impact. So kind of that whole concept, we can do anything, right? We are amazing women. We are powerhouses. We can do anything, but we can't do everything.

Sheila Hansen  [00:12:01]:
And so we have to have an area that we can focus in on. And so if we focus on what is valuable to the client and tailor our specific processes and services around what's valuable to them, now it creates this win win for both of us. And so, like, the, one of the best examples I can give you on where value based pricing, you would already know and see it is a bottle of water. Right? There's a price of, for a bottle of water. When you're at the airport, at a gas station, at the grocery store. I mean, you can think of all the different places that you can buy, buy a bottle of water. And depending on who the customer is, the location they're at, the situation of, whether it's like a really freezing cold day or a really hot day, the situation and the timing all is going to impact how much somebody would be willing to pay for that bottle of water. That's the best example.

Sheila Hansen  [00:13:04]:
Why are our services not also thought of in that way?

Victoria Rayburn [00:13:09]:
That's so good. And also, I just want to say, I love your use of the word priority there, you know, on the priority pursuit podcast. That absolutely makes sense. And you have to know what your priority is, what your client's priority is. That's. Man. Okay. Love that explanation.

Victoria Rayburn [00:13:24]:
And those examples, somebody is listening and they're thinking like, okay, hmm, all right, I see the point. That makes sense to me. How can small businesses determine the value they provide to their customers in order to set pricing accordingly? Because I think that that's what holds a lot of people up. Because again, like you said, you're used to being an employee, and so you do the math, then you think, okay, this is what we need to do. And then also on that note, too, I want to ask, what role does market research and competitor analysis play in determining what to charge?

Sheila Hansen  [00:13:56]:
Yeah. There's so much here in kind of the mindset that goes with it. And then the, you know, tactical how to. Right. So if we think about where would we start. A lot of this is going to be that conversation, whether it be marketing research or just listening to your current clients that you already have, asking them. I think we get so hung up being afraid to ask them and not feel like the expert already that we miss out on so much opportunity they can provide us. And so it can be simply asking for feedback after you delivered something or if your offer is something that ends, making sure you check in with them on what was valuable to them.

Sheila Hansen  [00:14:45]:
Can they rank various things? And then two, it's just listening to the conversation, especially if you have, you know, discovery calls or client inquiries. What are you constantly hearing from people? The one area that I discounted myself so much for because I wasn't in my customer shoes, I was in my own shoes. The one thing I hear over and over again is people can't get in touch with their CPA, right. Something as simple as communication is so valuable to them. And so if I wasn't open to listening to that, if I didn't have those conversations with potential clients, I would miss out on the fact that when my clients reach out to me, they get responses within two days or, you know, an out of office that tells them very specifically when I will be back and responding to emails, or that we have regular monthly conversations where they can get all of their questions answered and they know exactly next month when we're going to be talking. And it's not this, I'm going to call, leave a message. Maybe they reply, maybe they don't. So it really is just starting to ask the questions to your customers or potential customers and finding out what they feel valuable, find valuable, and then not overlooking what we think are those simple things.

Sheila Hansen  [00:16:09]:
So really, if we start, the basics are speed or time to deliver their results or their transformation, helping to increase the outcome or their result. So if we think of, there's a difference between, the best example I can give on this one is there is a difference between family photo portraits and branding sessions, right. There's a different value to the customer because, one, we're capturing the memory of the kid at that age, right. But we're not going out and necessarily using that to help build our business or bring in revenue. It's just a picture we're hanging up on the wall that's important, but not going to help generate revenue. So the outcome for that potential client is, you know, capped, whereas brand session, we're now using those images to portray something to our customers. It's going to be on our website, it's going to be in our marketing, the value of that increases because that increases the potential, you know, the quality of those images. What you're portraying in those images matters and will change the outcome of that potential customer's business depending on how and when they use those images.

Sheila Hansen  [00:17:31]:
So two images, one family photo, a brand session photography, those can produce different potential outcomes for the customer. So looking at those, how do we increase, whether it's additional revenue for them, reducing their expenses, the ease of the process, are they reaching out to you and getting the information that they need to make a decision quickly and easily? Or is it like pulling teeth to get, you know, there are certain industries we know where hearing back from somebody that you inquire from about their services can be delayed and slow, and that is less valuable than somebody who provides all of the information. Maybe if you are booked out, you're letting your potential client know, and they can make the informed decision of whether they're waiting or nothing. So the ease of the whole process, the types of communication and how you communicate, is it by email? Is it by slack? Is it voxer? Is it phone calls, texts? So depending on your audience, different people are going to value different things. And so we think of it as going through and looking at all of the levers that we could potentially pull within our offer or in our business that will help produce a different value to the client or potential client. But a lot of it is really just asking for their input that's so good.

Victoria Rayburn [00:19:02]:
I mean, really great examples. And I guess, Sheila, from a math standpoint, let's say, okay, they ask the questions, they pull the right levers, you know, they do everything you just told them to do, but then, like, how? How do they determine what to charge?

Sheila Hansen  [00:19:17]:
Yeah, so this is the famous question. And so much mindset comes into this, right? We are looking for what is the right price? What's the price of this? And there really isn't a right price. It's just experiment. So that is where some of it is just going to come down to treating it as such and kind of figuring out what is that .1 of the questions that I think is super valuable in this is you can even ask your potential client, or this could come up if you have, like, reoccurring work. If I were to change your package or your offer and I were to charge you, let's just throw out $1,000 more, what would make it worth it for that price? And so that is helping you then put that dollar amount to different things that they would find valuable or not valuable. If that means they're getting to the results two times faster, then they'll let you know that. Or if that means they're having additional communication, or that there is something else that's helping them make that decision, but we can really ask them. But other than that, there are different pricing options and structures.

Sheila Hansen  [00:20:43]:
But overall, knowing there's not a right price and it's just an experiment to.

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Victoria Rayburn [00:22:11]:
So good. Okay, well, on that note of experiment, how much experimenting would you recommend people do? Like they put it on their website, they list a price, and then let's say, you know, no businesses coming in, do you recommend they change the price, or what does the experimentation process look like?

Sheila Hansen  [00:22:29]:
Yeah, I think it really just goes back to continuing to get feedback on that. If really nobody's inquiring about a price that you have on there, trying to get some feedback as to why or doing an experiment with a different number. See, if people start inquiring then, and then it really comes down to listening to the conversations that you're having and continuing to adjust. And no, this kind of goes along with the whole concept of creating a niche or niching. Right. It's never an end destination. You don't just arrive at a final ideal customer or it's continuing to adapt and adjust and figure out what that those characteristics are right. And giving ourselves permission to try something else if it's not right.

Sheila Hansen  [00:23:19]:
So I think that's the same with our pricing. You know, one, from the internal perspective, we do need to know our numbers enough to know what it does take as far as running our business and the inputs that are involved in an offer so that we are nothing, you know, going backwards or underwater on certain things. So we do need to know that when we're coming up with our pricing. But then it, yeah, it's just treating it as that experiment of what's gaining traction and what's not.

Victoria Rayburn [00:23:54]:
Well, I love that, you know, we officially have, like, permission from a CPA to do some experimenting and also that there isn't just one right number. So thank you for that. Because, I mean, again, I think people just always think that, like, oh, like, eventually I'm going to figure, well, there, like, there is one right number. Like, I just need to figure out what that one right number is and business will flow steadily, and I'll be able to buy the five bedroom house that I want. And, like, eventually every. All the stars will come in an alignment if I can just figure out what the number is supposed to be.

Sheila Hansen  [00:24:25]:
Right. And I would argue that the number, it's really an alignment of who it is you're serving. Right. Because that number can work depending on who it is you're trying to serve. So if we think of it, there's people charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for something that other people are charging $1,000 for. Why is that? It's because they're serving a different customer. The value to that customer is different. So we just have to make sure we're matching and from a marketing perspective, that we are communicating that value and attracting the person that would see that value at the time that they're needing it.

Victoria Rayburn [00:25:04]:
Oh, man. Okay. That was so good. Like, put that on a, quote, graphic or something. That was. Thank you so much. Okay, so, Sheila, that was all super practical advice. Thank you so much for explaining the ways, you know, we can increase the values of our value, of our offers and also, you know, experimenting to figure out what to charge.

Victoria Rayburn [00:25:22]:
You've already touched on this a little bit, but I really want to dive deeper into the mindset portion of this. And she, like, and you work with small business owning women day in and day out. So I want to ask you, why do you think so many small businesses, but especially, especially women, struggle to charge with their worth.

Sheila Hansen  [00:25:43]:
Yeah. So I first, when everyone, whenever somebody brings up this idea of worth, the message I want to preach is that you are worthy simply because you were born, period. There is no level of anything that you do or don't do that will change your worth. Right. Like it was a given to you at birth. You are worthy. And so I think that is a really loaded question. There's so much into it, but I think that feeds into it.

Sheila Hansen  [00:26:12]:
We tangle up self worth with our pricing and what we're doing or how we're serving. And so that can make it really hard, because it's us putting ourselves out there. And if we can separate who we are as individuals, what we have to offer this world, separate from what our business is doing and the success of our business, I think it makes it easier, slightly easier for us to charge more. And then I think it just comes back to a lot of the things that probably, if we're in therapy, we're going to therapy for. I have been on this healing journey for a couple years now, and so a lot of this comes up in, you know, for generations, we were raised, or have been raised, especially women, to put the needs of others before themselves and to not have the voice and confidence to, you know, ask for what they need or that their desires are too much. And so I think that also comes into this whole conversation of how much we charge and how we go about charging about it. So, yeah, that's kind of a loaded question. But I do want to preach that you are worthy simply because.

Sheila Hansen  [00:27:31]:
And your package or your offer can be priced differently based on who you serve and how you go about doing it.

Victoria Rayburn [00:27:41]:
Absolutely. And, I mean, oh, there are so many aspects of owning a small business. Your advice is great for so many aspects of running a small business, because, I mean, whether it comes to followers or what you're charging, like, it's so easy to make that part of your worth when it is entirely separate.

Sheila Hansen  [00:28:00]:
It's just a data point. It's just a number. Don't give it more power than that.

Victoria Rayburn [00:28:05]:
Oh, yes. Oh, man. We're 28 minutes in, and, man, Sheila, you just have all kinds of wisdom to drop for us today. Thank you so much. So, out of curiosity, because, again, you're working with small businesses day in and day out, just like we are. Can you share some examples of how value based pricing has helped small businesses increase their profitability?

Sheila Hansen  [00:28:28]:
Yeah. So going back to that whole idea of it gives us an area to focus on in our priorities. One particular client that I worked with, it's been so awesome to see her transformation, because when we first started working together, she wanted to offer all of the services to all the people. It was generally based around marketing or social media, and then she wanted to be able to offer this and that and that all related to it. But then what ended up happening is she wasn't an expert in all of those, so then she was trying to hire, and so it gave her a hard time for her to focus on how do we really increase the value? Sure, we're the one stop shop for these people, but I can they be getting better service for each one of these things somewhere else? Does it make sense for them to come to us for all of these things? And so when she started focusing on, okay, what service is most valuable, what specific skills and tools and expertise do I have that I can provide, that those potential clients or customers, we really got to dig into creating offers and packages around a very specific thing. And so then what could happen from that is, the profitability of her business early on was probably negative, to be honest. And over time, as we peeled these pieces off, she was reducing her expenses in the contractors that she was using to try to serve all these different areas and really honing in. And because she was only focusing then on one or two areas and providing one or two offers in those areas, it just skyrocketed her profitability and the time that it took to run her business.

Sheila Hansen  [00:30:25]:
Because when she had all of the clients to manage, all of the contractors to manage, so much of her time was spent just managing the business and not actually providing value to any of the customers. So when we could scale that back for her and give her a couple areas to really focus on, her profitability has skyrocketed because of that. And I can speak from my own experience, same thing when I was trying to serve all of the different types of clients in all of the different ways. You just feel like you're getting pulled in all of these directions and that you're not really making a lot of progress. And that leads to burnout so quickly. And so then what happens when we start to hone in on who it is and how specifically we work with them now it becomes so much easier to run our business because we can anticipate what those conversations are going to be before they end up happening. We know we're in our clients minds. We know exactly what the next step that we're going to be solving, and we've already done it once or twice for somebody else.

Sheila Hansen  [00:31:36]:
And so it makes it so much easier for us to go about doing it for the next client that comes along. Not that it's not tailored, especially if we're in creative industries. Totally get it. But that system or that process in place, we're not recreating the wheel every time that we start a new project or a new client.

Victoria Rayburn [00:31:55]:
I really appreciate that, like, the emphasis on niching down. I think that, you know, we're so often we are told, you know, like, the average millionaire has at least seven different streams of revenue. And I understand, like, there, I think, you know, I mean, well, okay, you're the CPA. You can tell me. I get not great at math. But, you know, while there is some wisdom in that, I think personally, like, a mistake a lot of people make is that, like, they try to get all seven of those up and running at once. And so going back to your client, it's like there are a lot of things happening and just too many hands and too many fires to put out, and nothing is really honed in. So it's not like seven streams of revenue.

Victoria Rayburn [00:32:37]:
It's just like seven streams of chaos.

Sheila Hansen  [00:32:40]:
Yes. And that may be true, right. To get to that millionaire level, that you are diversified, that you have different revenue streams, but they're not building all of them at once. They're building one to become a well oiled machine. They know exactly what they're offering, how they're offering it. They're bringing in the team that can then keep it going if it doesn't, you know, if it requires you right now, and then they move on to the next thing, they're not trying to do it all at once.

Victoria Rayburn [00:33:07]:
So, good. So, Sheila, if somebody listening right now is feeling, you know, particularly convicted by all of this, and like, oh, shoot, I really need to hone in niche down. Like, what advice do you have for them or where should they get started?

Sheila Hansen  [00:33:21]:
Yeah. So I think it's taking a look at your offer and how you service your clients right now and determining, okay, what are the, what are the reoccurring things that we can build other things around and then what are those levers that we can pull? So I have a 1 hour strategy call. Right. That's available to anyone. It's out there. That's one offer that I provide, but it's priced a little bit higher than what somebody would be paying, you know, if I break it out to how I service somebody in a monthly package, but that offer is available, and so I put it out there and I try it and then I look at, okay, that solves one particular problem. How would I take that and help them solve a more complicated problem or give them a lot of ways to think about the value is to think about the strategy behind whatever it is you offer. How do we find more of that? Because the strategy is going to be more valuable to them than that ongoing, let's call it maintenance.

Sheila Hansen  [00:34:32]:
So if we think about it, their marketing strategy is going to be more valuable coming up with that plan. That's probably the tools and the resources they don't have or that they can't hire a VA or somebody else to come in and do for them. They need that expertise. But then it's possible they take the strategy and they can implement that with other tools or resources that they have available, whether it's a scheduling tool or somebody else creating the graphics or if you have a template. There's so many ways that we can then go execute that marketing plan without having somebody else at that higher price. But your value is helping them see that big picture and the value they're created. So same thing when it comes to finances, right? How do we look at the big picture of what we're trying to do? And then it's not in the value of me posting their transactions to quickbooks that they're continuing to hire me for. It's that helping analyze and evaluating that data and making the decisions that's important to them.

Sheila Hansen  [00:35:38]:
So it really is taking a look at your business and figuring out where are those points, those biggest pain points that you can provide the most impact for, and then shifting kind of your business model and your systems and strategies around that, and then filling in the gaps where you can still take advantage of things, but really looking at your own priorities and goals as well. Right? Is it that I want to get my hours down, I want this business to run in less hours a week of my time and energy? Or is it that I'm building this to grow, to be able to sell to somebody else? All of that is going to impact the structure that we go about things. But really it's identifying what are those levers that we need to be able to pull or adjust in our offers?

Victoria Rayburn [00:36:33]:
Oh, so good. Okay. So, Sheila, I think that you have probably several listeners, at least, on just the importance of value based pricing. They're going to look at their businesses, they're going to look at what they're charging, but then I think a lot of them are going to run into the. Oh, shoot. Like, I have to start, you know, communicating that my prices are changing or my prices are raising. So do you have any advice on how they should communicate that, especially for those who have repeat customers?

Sheila Hansen  [00:37:05]:
Yeah. So I think the biggest thing, and this is going back to the idea of being able to put ourselves in our customers shoes, we think about, as the business owner, the deliverables that we're giving them, right? It's a meeting, ten social media posts. It's this report, it's that conversation. But we need to be able to step back and see what is the problem and what is it in their eyes that they are seeking and looking for as far as the results or the outcome. And so the more that we can shift our wording and our communication to that, how do we want them to feel what is the result that they're seeking? The more we can communicate it in those terms, the more they're going to assign a value to it. Right. Because using photography as an example, 100 images could either be really valuable or not valuable at all. It could overwhelm the client to get 100 pictures that they have to go through and try and figure out how to use.

Sheila Hansen  [00:38:16]:
Or it could be like, oh yeah, now I have this variety I can use. But if it's 100 headshots of one person all looking very similar, like, that's not as valuable as narrowing it down to five really good ones that also give you different angles and portray a different message. So it's really looking at how do we communicate the problem we're solving to our clients. Another example would be if we think about like a website, what we might be selling is a website with five pages. Main homepage sales page, contact page about a services page. That might be what we're providing, but that's not what the customer is seeking. They're seeking a way to draw in ideal clusters customers. They're seeking a way to portray who it is they serve, how they serve them.

Sheila Hansen  [00:39:14]:
Get that person to buy in. Right? That's the transformation they're looking for. So how do we switch it into communicating that we're providing a website with five pages too. We help you bring in ideal clients through the copy on your website kind of thing. So communicating and justifying prices. And then there's different strategies. I like to, when it comes to pricing and there's a whole different sales methods. Right.

Sheila Hansen  [00:39:42]:
Not always my expertise, but one of them that I have found very valuable and gone well with my clients is giving them options of tiers, right? So one, they know that you're the expertise and this comes in handy when it is reoccurring customers and you're offering a new option to them. They know you're the expertise, and if you know them well enough, you're going to present options to them that make sense. Right. We're not just throwing options out there to give them lots of choices. We're giving ones that truly make sense for them. But if we give them two to three options, then we're shifting their decision from a yes or no question to which one of these. So it's not am I continuing to work with Treefrog marketing? It's how am I continuing to work with them? Am I going to choose this tier? This tier, this tier. And so then again, it's highlighting and educating them on what it is they're getting in each one.

Sheila Hansen  [00:40:45]:
But in terms of the problem that's being solved, right, this one is higher price because it gets you to the result faster. This one is going to keep maintaining where you're at, but your results might not grow from where you're at right now. So kind of communicating it that way and shifting that decision of yes or no to which one.

Victoria Rayburn [00:41:11]:
Oh, options are. Options are great. I mean, I've never thought about it that way. Oh, goodness, Sheila, this has been so good. And y'all, I send everybody, we interview a list of questions, and I kind of went all over the map there, Sheila, and you handled all of that so well. We just very much bounced around, which is truly a testament to the wisdom you bring to this topic and also just the heart you have for small business owners, especially women. Sheila, I know that we could, like, talk about this and so many other things for such a long time, but I know that people are going to want to continue to hear from you. So I want to ask, where can people find you, connect with you, find your podcast, and learn even more about how you serve and educate small businesses.

Sheila Hansen  [00:42:00]:
Yeah. So the best place to start would be my website, hansonllc.net, and you can find the links to everything else from there. But I do send out a weekly email that has, you know, tactical stuff, but also journal prompts and the mindset stuff to go along with it so you can sign up for the weekly email. I also started a podcast this year, profitable women. So you can find that on all your favorite podcast players. There's a weekly episode that drops on Thursdays. They are short ten to 20 minutes for the most part, unless I have a guest on so much like this podcast, you can pop it in your ear during a walk or whatnot get some good takeaways and then I spend most of my time on either Instagram or LinkedIn.

Victoria Rayburn [00:42:48]:
Yes, and we will include links to all of these resources, all the places you can connect with Sheila in the show notes again, Sheila, thank you so much for coming on the show today and for all the, all the wisdom that you shared with us. Well, we have a lot of marketing conversations on our show. We don't talk about the financial side nearly often enough because it is not our area of expertise. You know, we have a CPA exactly for that. But it's been so great to have you. And y'all, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Priority pursuit. If you enjoyed this episode, we hope you'll take a moment to share it with your small business friends and that you'll join us next week for even more marketing boundary and priority driven tactics you can use to build a life and small business that you love.