"Will My Clients Leave?" The Price Increase Question Every Beauty Business Owner Is Scared to Answer

IMPORTANT UPDATE

*Please note that some of the stats from Fresha will be incorrect as their surcharge fees have changed since the time of recording.

Fresha have changed their fees from

In-person 

Previously: 2.29% + $0.20 per transaction (plus additional $0.10 tap to pay authorisation) 

TO NOW: 1.29% + $0.26 per transaction (plus additional $0.10 tap to pay authorisation).

Online

Previously: 2.29% + $0.20 per transaction 

TO NOW: 1.59% + $0.28 per transaction

"Will all my clients leave?"

That is the exact question I see business owners ask in Facebook groups every single week. And it is the exact reason most of them never raise their prices, even when their business is barely breaking even or running at a loss.
In this solo episode, I am giving you the real strategy I have used with over 400 business owners to confidently raise prices without losing the clients who actually matter.

→ How to calculate your break-even hourly rate and find out if you are actually undercharging
→ Why your real costs are rising 20 to 30% even when inflation says 3%
→ The new EFTPOS surcharge law coming this October and what it means for your profit
→ A real breakdown of payment provider fees that could cost you over $8,000 a year in the wrong choice
→ Why hitting $75K in revenue means you legally need a 10% price increase
→ The services that almost never make money in this industry, and what to do instead
→ Why copying your competitor's prices is quietly destroying the whole industry's profit margins
→ The exact way to tell your clients about a price increase without sounding apologetic
→ Why losing a client after a price increase is usually a sign you are doing it right

This is the reality check I think a lot of you need right now, especially heading into end of financial year. If you have been putting off this decision out of fear, this episode is your sign to stop waiting.

Purchase the Profitable Pricing Calculator here 👉  https://beautyindustryleaders.com.au/profitable-pricing-calculator

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→ https://www.instagram.com/sammykennedycoach/
→ https://www.instagram.com/beautyindustryleaders/
→ https://beautyindustryleaders.com.au/

I want to empower women in the beauty industry to create an impact, build an empire, and leave their legacy!

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If you have any questions about the episode, or have a burning question you’d like me to answer on the show, or if you’d like to join our movement of ambitious beauty leaders, connect with me and the rest of our incredible community on Instagram:
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And it is scary, right? If I put my prices up, will all my clients leave? If all my clients leave, then I don't have any money and then I won't have a business. But the way that I also think about it is if you are barely breaking even, or even worse, your business is running at a loss and you delay putting prices up because you're scared that your clients might leave, you may not even have a business to run six to 12 months from now. When it comes to looking at, okay, when do I do a price increase? How much do I do it by? What does it look like when you go to implement that so you don't lose all the clients? That's exactly what I'm going to talk to you about today because I know it is scary, but it's something that every single business owner needs to face. And there are ways that you can go about it that actually don't make you lose all your clients. And I've seen this happen time and time again with the 400 plus business owners that I've helped with profitable pricing strategy. So I'm going to give you insider tips. I'm going to talk some strategy and give you some real life examples so you can actually go and confidently raise your prices without feeling like you're going to ruin your business. Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Beauty Industry Leaders Podcast. I'm your host, Sammy Kennedy. Now, before we dive into today's topic, which is going to be very valuable for you right now as we head into the end of financial year, I have one small favor to ask of you. If you've found value in the content that we've been putting out, you've loved listening to the guests we've had on, or you've learned something that's helped you grow your business, can I please ask that you hit subscribe on whatever platform you're currently streaming your podcast episodes on? This not only helps support the growth of the show and being able to get better guests on for you, but it also makes sure that you don't miss out on the content when it drops live on Monday morning. It's simple, it's free, and it makes the world of a difference. Thank you so much for your support. We've also just reached over 25,000 downloads, which is insane. So if you want to be on the journey to reaching 100,000 downloads, I'd love to see you there. Now, I want to talk to you about something that I cannot stop seeing no matter where I look on Facebook. And I think it's really relevant to not only the beauty industry, but every single business right now. In Facebook forums, in different groups, I've been seeing these posts talking about is anyone else quiet? Should I be putting my prices up? What if I lose all my clients? Should we be selling our businesses? Like the budget came out and everyone freaked out. And then we've been dealing with all the other crap, you know, COVID, the war, the fuel prices, the budget. Like we just don't get a break anymore. But one thing that I think is really important is to understand how you can actually continue to run your business throughout these hard times. And it is scary, right? If I put my prices up, will all my clients leave? If all my clients leave, then I don't have any money and then I won't have a business. But the way that I also think about it is if you are barely breaking even, or even worse, your business is running at a loss and you delay putting prices up because you're scared that your clients might leave, you may not even have a business to run six to 12 months from now. And so when it comes to looking at, okay, when do I do a price increase? How much do I do it by? What does it look like when you go to implement that so you don't lose all the clients? That's exactly what I'm going to talk to you about today because I know it is scary, but it's something that every single business owner needs to face. And there are ways that you can go about it that actually don't make you lose all your clients. And I've seen this happen time and time again with the 400 plus business owners that I've helped with profitable pricing strategy. So I'm going to give you insider tips. I'm going to talk some strategy and give you some real life examples so you can actually go and confidently raise your prices without feeling like you're going to ruin your business. So, first things first, how do you know when it's time to do a price increase? I think that's a really common question that a lot of people don't even have an answer to. When you have your expenses are costing more than the money you're making, then obviously a price increase may be needed. But on the other hand, it might be you need a higher volume of clientele. And so it's really important to understand like how much does it cost me to actually run my business and how much profit do I want to make. And then with those two numbers added together, what is the target that I'm working towards? So what you do is you look at your break-even costs, and then usually you want to add on your tax, your GST, then a profit margin as well within that. And you've got this big figure, which is probably gonna feel a little bit like how the heck do I actually achieve that? You take that big figure and you divide it by how many working weeks you're gonna have in the year. And then if you want to go further, you divide that by how many serviceable hours you have to offer. Now, within that, your serviceable hours might have you and a couple other employees, and it might be a hundred, but not every single hour is always gonna be booked. And so this is why I like to do the 80-20 rule, which I spoke about in a previous episode. If you haven't heard about this before, please go back and have a listen because it will really help give you some clarity on how this is a valuable strategy to implement in your business. Now, if you look at a hundred of those hours and we apply the 80% rule, we would be basing all our targets off 80 hours per week, right? And so all of a sudden you've been able to go, okay, this is how much it actually costs me to run my business. This is how much I want to make in profit. I've factored in my taxes and GST. And then I've actually divvied it up over how many weeks we operate in the year and then how many serviceable hours we have per week. And this helps ensure that, okay, if that number that you need to make per hour is actually higher than the prices of your services, that's like the easiest way for you to figure out, okay, am I making enough money or not? I've had clients in the past who have an hourly break-even rate of around $120. And then when I look at what they're actually charging on average for most of their services per hour, it sits at 80. And so no wonder why it feels like they can never actually get ahead because the amount that they need to cover all their costs is actually a lot higher than the amount that they're currently charging. And so this is just like the simplest way for you to know am I undercharging? Am I breaking even? Or am I potentially making more than what my breakeven costs are, which means you're making a profit. Now, another thing that I want you to ask yourself is how much have my expenses actually increased? Because sometimes you'll look at the annual inflation rate and it might say 3%. But if you look individually at different areas in your business, it's increased by a lot more than that. So I'll give you an example. Let's say you have your commercial rent and every year it goes up by 5%. You need to be adding at least 5% to your prices to be able to sustain that. Now, super last year, that went from 11.5 to 12% for all employees. And if you're paying things like commissions, incentives, anytime that you add that dollar amount onto your employees, you also have to pay super on top of that. Now, the national minimum wage has just increased 6%. So if you look at all these different things and you go, oh yeah, I'll just increase it by $5 or $10, it's not always going to be enough to actually cover it. And although the inflation rate may look like across the board it's like 3% or 5%, when you actually look at the individual costs you are paying in your business and how much they've increased by, you probably be shocked to learn that they are 20 to 30% sometimes. And unless you're keeping on top of these and you're tracking them, which I do recommend to do on a quarterly basis, sometimes you wait until it's tax time and then you get your tax statement from your accountant and you're wondering like, why did we just break even or why are we running at a loss or why did we barely make any profit? And it's because it's too late. And so being on top of these price changes, being able to actually take action on it as soon as it happens, rather than going, oh, I'll wait until this date. Like, the longer you wait, the further you push out the opportunity to actually make a profit. And so it doesn't really serve anyone. Yes, you're gonna have some clients who may not always be the happiest about it. But if you look at the world and everything that's going on around, like people aren't stupid. They know fuel has gone up, they know groceries have gone up. It's the same thing with business. Now, another thing that I think is really important to mention, I did a post recently and it went semi-viral. It was about the F POS surcharge fees. Now, from the 1st of October 2026, business owners won't be able to pass on those surcharge fees to their customers. So previously there was a bit of a situation where business owners were either adding like a flat rate onto whatever F-Post transactions there were, or they were able to pass on the surcharge fees to their consumers. Or if they wanted to, they could do like a 50-50 split, or they could cover it themselves. So there's a lot of different options out there. Now, moving into the 1st of October, business owners won't be able to pass those charges on to the consumer. So this means that depending on which booking system you're using or which F POS merchant you're using, you will be having to front the cost for these fees. Now, it might not sound like much because they're all like little one and two percents, but it definitely does add up over time. So I've got my phone out, I decided to run some numbers and I used an example so you could actually see the difference in the dollar amounts rather than just reading out a bunch of percentages and dollar amounts that probably don't make sense to you. I worked out these examples based on an average transaction of $200 with 50 clients per week having this service, which would mean the annual revenue would be $480,000. Here's what the different payment providers could cost based on the amounts that they're currently charging as of today. Zella is $6,720 a year. Tyro is $7,068 a year. Square for your in-person transactions is $7,680 per year. Timely is $9,120 per year. Fresher in person would be $11,712 per year. And then fresher online would be $13,872 per year. So the difference between the cheapest and the most expensive option is $686.50 every month or $8,238 per year. And that's just based on 50 clients per week. It's the same clients, it's the same services, and it's the same revenue, but such a difference in the amount of money that you actually get to keep given what transaction fees you're paying with your merchant. So if you haven't already done some research or had these conversations with the merchant that you're using, I highly recommend that you do. Now, the reason why you're gonna see higher fees from people like Timely or Fresher is because they are white labeling the ability to charge these fees to you through someone like Stripe. So you kind of can't get a better rate with them than directly at the banks, which is why I encourage you to actually ask them, what are you gonna do with the fees? Is there a more competitive rate that you can give me? And then if not, go and get someone who has a lower cost option for you. I think it's really important that you actually do take action on this sooner rather than later, because when everything switches over, it just becomes money that disappears without you barely noticing. All these little one to two percents, they don't make a big difference at the time of the transaction, but when you add them all up over a year, it is potentially thousands of dollars that you're losing and one simple thing that you can go and change, which is your FPOS provider. Now, there are a couple things that I want to go a bit deeper into this with you because not many people are actually talking about it. One of them being is if you are taking deposits or booking fees, which I highly encourage because if you don't take them, then you can open yourself up to being liable with cancellations and no shows. So I'm not saying don't do deposits or booking fees, but what I am saying is be really mindful of how these can add up. I actually have a comparison chart, which I'm gonna put up here for you to have a look at. And this shows you the difference between if you're just paying a once-off transaction or if you're taking 50% as a deposit and then 50% on the day. Now, if you're using someone like Timely or Square or Fresher, this can potentially increase because when you pay the online transactions, you are paying a percentage amount plus a dollar amount per transaction. Whereas when you're using someone like Combank, you're just paying a flat rate percentage. So, for example, if I'm using Timely, I'm looking at 1.75% plus 30 cents per transaction. Now, when you have two transactions, that will be a total of 60 cents plus the 1.75% of the dollar amount that will be going to transaction fees. So based on the same stats, a $200 service, 50 clients per week, and $480,000 of annual revenue. If you were doing a one payment with Square, it would be $7.7K. But if you did a 50-50 deposit, you'd pay 9.1k in transaction fees. With timely, it would be 9.1k with the one payment and then 9.8K with the 50-50 deposit, and then fresh are, which is literally the worst, it's 11.7K for one-time payments or 13.4K for your 50-50 deposit. So coming back to the deposits, if you have your booking system and you take online deposits because you're messaging people on Instagram, do that through your booking system if it's going to create more convenience in terms of the client experience and you actually getting that deposit paid. But in terms of you paying in person, I would recommend going and getting an FPOS machine or working with a merchant that can get you a lower rate. Because even though it's not the most convenient having different FPOS machines and things like that, like if I said to you, do you want an extra $5,000 or $10,000 in your pocket in profit at the end of every year, you'd be stupid to say no. Now, once again, if you think about like your rent is 5% and then your FPOS surcharge fees are another like 1 to 2%, then it's like your prices, they need to go up. And if you've registered for GST this year, then you're looking at a minimum 10% increase to actually ensure that you can cover that in your costs. I've had a few conversations with clients who have come to me and maybe they didn't realize that they actually needed to register for GST, or they have registered for GST, but they've been too scared to do a price increase. By you hitting over $75,000 in annual revenue in Australia, that requires you to register for goods and services tax, which is 10%. As soon as that happens, you need to increase your prices by 10%. It's not something that you sleep on. It's not something that you go, oh yeah, I'll do it later. Because every single day that you are offering your services without doing that increase, you're effectively losing 10%. And if you're not already making profit on your services or you're unsure of how much profit there is, giving 10% away or losing 10%, it's it's not gonna put you in a good financial position. Now, in terms of looking at doing a price increase, like there's gonna be telltale signs. Number one, like I said before, is when your expenses are higher than the amount of money you're bringing in. If the cost of your products have gone up, wages have gone up, you've been reinvesting into training and upskilling, and your pricing doesn't have enough profit within it to support the investments that you're making, then you need to either increase your prices to ensure that you've got a profit margin in there. And then when you know you've got that profit margin as well, then increase the volume. But sometimes people go, Oh, I'm just gonna increase the volume. And if there's no profit in that pricing structure to begin with, it just means you're so busy and you're burning out and there's nothing left, no matter what you do. So if you've never gone and done an audit of your numbers or you don't know how to actually have a pricing strategy that ensures you have profit in it, you can pay yourself, you can reinvest back into the business. I'm gonna drop the link to the profitable pricing calculator in the show notes so you can get a demo of how this tool works. And if you feel like it's something that would benefit you, you can go ahead and purchase it and make sure you do your pricing strategy before the end of financial year. So as soon as 1st of July 2026 comes through, you can go and implement your new prices. I recommend a minimum of 30% profit margin. There's a lot of services out there that are not making that. And sometimes I've even had clients who are running at a 10 to 20% loss. Now, if these services are running at a loss, you've either got to cut them out altogether or you've got to decrease the cost of product or increase the price of the service. There are some services in the beauty industry that just don't generate much of a profit at all. Waxing is one of them. Nails is definitely one that struggles a lot more. Eyelash extensions very rarely is profitable when you look at the time that it takes to provide that service and the wages and the costs. Like you've got to ensure that your timing is also efficient. Like if you've decreased your product cost, you've increased your prices and you're still barely making a profit, then the last thing that you need to do is decrease the amount of time that it takes you to provide a service. Because if one service takes you three hours and you're charging $120, I can guarantee you you're not making any money on that. But if you're able to do that service in an hour and $120, then obviously there's going to be more margin within that. Now, I know people sit there and they're like, but I can't charge more and I won't be able to. Like, I I get it. I've I've seen that happen over and over again. And one last thing that I want to mention before I move on to the next part is that if you have services that you don't enjoy doing that drain you of all your time and energy and they're not making money, don't be afraid to get rid of them. Every time that I see clients with menus of 50 to 100 services, I get really overwhelmed. And I'm a business coach, but when you look at a customer who's seeing all these different options, they're not going to make a decision because A, they see too many options, so it sends them to a state of overwhelm. But then also they don't actually know what you're an expert at because you're offering so many different things. And so really honing in the services that you love doing, the services that make the most profit and the services that clients actually have a demand for, that's gonna be your winning business model. Stop trying to go and learn a hundred different services and add them all to your menu and get excited by like, okay, we're offering this and we're offering this and we're offering this. If you are relying on that as a strategy to get new clients, I hate to tell you now, but that's not gonna solve your problems. The thing that is actually gonna solve your problems is learning lead generation and direct response marketing. Those are the two skills that you need to invest in if you're wanting to get more clients into your business. Not adding more services because the more services you add, and then you expect every single one of your other clients to buy that, it puts pressure on them and it might not actually be what they want. So just something to keep in mind: like sometimes having a more refined service menu will work to your favor than being a one-stop shop. Now, I will say that if you are a one-stop shop and you offer a bit of everything, it is better to have different experts who specifically specialize in one area. So, for example, you've got a cosmetic tattoo artist, you have someone who specializes in eyelash extensions, you have someone who specializes in skin. But when you've got one person that you're expecting to do absolutely everything, that's when And brands really struggle because the marketing messaging, the ideal clients all change. The amount of SOPs and protocols that you have to have to be across all of those treatments, it creates a huge sense of overwhelm, not only for the business, but the staff and the clients. So sometimes if you feel like you're trying to do it all, like this is permission that you don't need to do it all, you can refine it down, focus on your marketing, build up clientele, and then look at okay, what services are complementary to what our most popular thing is. Because that is how you're going to build a thriving business, not by trying to do more, add more, and then get really stressed out. When you do profitable pricing, sometimes you'll find that you've been severely undercharging for services. And I think this is not uncommon in the beauty industry because most people came up with their pricing strategy by looking at whatever the business down the road is charging and then slightly undercutting. If they thought they were more experienced, then they would maybe charge a little bit higher. But most of the time it's just copying what everyone else is doing. And the long-term impact of that is is Sammy opens up a salon and then Sally does. And then you look at Sally copying Sammy's prices and then going $5 under. And then Amy opens one up. And then Amy looks at Sally's prices and charges $5 cheaper. And so what happens is instead of the industry progressing with their pricing, they actually go backwards. And so the median price point of a service is actually severely undervalued, which is why we're having these bloodbaths with people just racing to the bottom with discounts. And instead of focusing on having an incredible client experience, focusing on investing in skills, in product, in equipment that's going to help your business grow, that's going to help your customers get a better result. Instead of focusing on how do I actually make this the best, most valuable service for my customers, most people are going, okay, I just got to get numbers through and it's all about the prices. But the thing is, people don't always want the cheapest thing on the market. In fact, it will attract nightmare clients. It will be the people who never want to pay a deposit, that don't want to show up to their appointments on time, who aren't fully committed to ongoing treatments because they don't have the money to begin with. And so you're better off letting those clients go and focusing on who is actually invested in their own journey, whether it's coming back for regular appointments, getting a certain result, working through a more personalized, bespoke experience rather than a copy and paste. Like there's so many different ways that you can go about this. And when I look at the best businesses, it is the ones who focus on all the one percenters. They look at their branding strategy, their marketing, their client experience, their pricing, their value ads, their upsells, their retail. They're looking at, okay, how did the team consistently implement the treatment protocols? How do they actually create this entire booming business that has value and status that people are willing to pay a premium price point for? Like you can't just go and jack your prices up, double the amount tomorrow, and then not make any improvements. And this is where showcasing behind the scenes of you training your team up, investments that you make into education, new equipment, like everything that you do in your business needs to essentially relate back to how is it going to benefit your customer. And when it comes to introducing a price increase, like, do you have to tell your customers? You actually don't. Like so many people think, oh, I need to let all my customers know and I need to make a big deal about it on social media. I think it's only the beauty industry that do that. And I believe that is because it's a lot of women who have insecurities, who don't feel confident. And then because they don't value their worth and their expertise, they feel like they have to justify to everyone else. But when do you see other businesses in different industries doing that? Like very rarely. If you go on to an online clothing store, like the price you see on the day is the price that you're going to pay for that. If you walk into an accounting firm and you do business with them, like you get the bill, you pay it. Like that's the cost of doing business and being a consumer of a business. I think it's really important that you understand like what is the value that you're offering. And value, like I said before, is all those little touch points in that client experience so that when they see the price point, they can actually go, yes, that was worth it. But if you are saying, hey, I'm going to charge a premium price point or I'm going to increase my prices, but your business is getting worse, you're not getting your clients' results, you're going backwards in your customer service, like the clients don't feel like they are actually valued or that they're getting a result or they're feeling like they're comfortable with you, or all the other things that they look for when they come to booking a service. Like, of course, they're not going to want to pay and they'll leave. Now, coming back to what do you do when you want to increase your prices? Well, you just pick a date. Mostly for you to know to go into your booking system and update all your prices, but pick that date and make it something that, okay, I'm going to commit. That is when I'm increasing my prices by. I think a lot of people go, oh, I need to wait like X amount of days, or I need to make sure that like the next 10 appointments that have been booked in, like, I have those prices. And I'm sure that obviously it's nice to give those clients that courtesy that look, the prices are going to change, but it's not something that needs to go on your social media. And here's why. When you put your prices and doing this, hey, unfortunately, due to the rising cost of living, we've got to put our prices up, like it doesn't sound exciting. And it also sounds like you're putting the cost onto your customer, and they just build more resentment towards you. Now, take it from this mindset of like, okay, who are all our customers who come on a regular basis? We're gonna have a conversation with them in person. We're gonna thank you for their support in the business and the milestones that you've been hitting, as well as here's what we've actually been doing to improve the business. We've been taking on customer feedback, we've been investing in training, we've brought in this new skincare range, we've been hiring new staff, we've got a better client waiting room. Like, I don't know what it is that you're doing, but I want you to create a list of all the things that you've been doing in the last 12 months to improve your business and the client experience. List all of them out and make it directly relate to how this benefits the customer. Because when you lead with here's all the value that we've been doing, here's all the benefits that it gives you. And as a result, there will be a small increase from this date. People are like, oh, you know what? I'm I'm okay with paying that. That's great. Thank you. Like if you highlight the benefit and what's in it for them, and then you let them know this is what's happening to accommodate for this, it's a completely different perception versus the whole, unfortunately, due to the rising cost of living, we're gonna be putting our prices up. Like you can expect, like it doesn't sound great. Like people are selfish. They want to know what's in it for them. How does this help me? Like, why should I keep paying? And when they can justify that and they can see the value in it, nine times out of ten, they're gonna be happy to pay. Now, if you do lose any clients, which might I add, over the 400 business owners that I've done this with, very rarely has anything gone wrong. Like, I've had people cry to me on the phone because they're so scared that clients are gonna leave them, but they don't. If any clients leave, it's always the nightmare ones. And I think something worth mentioning here is like the clients that start with you in your business will not always stay with you until the end. And if you're thinking, but I want them to, like, they know everything about me. Like, I totally get it. However, I want you to think back to primary school. Who were your friends in primary school? Who did you hang out with? And like now that you're an adult, are you still in touch with everyone? Do you still hang out with them? Maybe there's one or two, maybe there's no one. And the reason being is like as you grow in life, one of two things will usually happen. You either grow together or you grow apart. And as your skill set, as your knowledge, as your experience, as your business starts to evolve, not every single customer is going to always grow with you. Maybe it's not within their budget, maybe it's not what they're willing to invest in, maybe they have a change in priorities for a period of time. And that is okay. Because every single time that you let go of something that isn't serving you, something better will come along. Because it's that letting go of the things that aren't meant to be and creating space for the things that are meant to. And so every single time I've thought, okay, what am I losing here? Sometimes like holding on does more damage than letting go. And every single time I've let go of something that I was just like, oh, maybe it wasn't a client that I really, really felt in alignment with. And I like, I was starting to build a bit of resentment. When you let go and you move on, like your dream customers will start to come in. But if you try and hold everyone and everything at the same time, the person that it's going to impact the most is you. And you're going to feel so drained because you're trying to people please for people who may not be ready to accept or respect the growth that you've had on your journey and the stage of life and business that you're in. So just recapping on what we've spoken about today. Should you do a price increase? Absolutely. It's not a, oh, I'll wait for it later and I'm scared to lose my clients and we'll see how the year plays out. It's a look at your numbers, figure out how much it actually costs to run your business. I'll drop the breakeven cost calculator in the show notes as well. This is a free resource that will help you understand exactly how much it costs you to run your business. So please make sure you download that and get clear if you can sometime this week, like I'm gonna set you this task, do this this week because before you know it, it will be the end of financial year and there'll be a million other things on your mind and you won't get it done. So break-even cost calculator, figure out exactly how much it costs you to run your business. Now, once you have that number, the big number of the annual cost, you want to divide that by how many weeks in the year your business operates. So if you close for two weeks, then it's 50 weeks. So 52 weeks are the year, take the two weeks, that equals 50 weeks. And then from that 50 weeks, I want you to divide that number by how many hours on average you would work per week. And remember the total capacity, we want to get 80% of that. So whatever that number is times by 0.8. And then that number that we break it down to, that is your target for your break-even cost. Now, if your hourly rate that you need to break even is more than what you're currently charging for the majority of your services, you're probably not making a profit. And so this is where getting something like the profitable pricing calculator, which has like video trainings, it has a pricing tool, like it's really simple for you to actually follow and get all the tips and tricks on how to price your services so you know how much profit you're making. It also allows you to factor in the FPOS surcharges as well, might I add, which is a really cool feature. But like make sure you go through and do your profitable pricing strategy. If you cannot, for the life of you, get it done by the first of July 2026, it's never too late to do it. Like, there's no rule that you have to do it on the first of July. Like, if you can't, for some reason, get your act together in time because you've got a million other things going on, like I totally get it. But still do it and implement it as soon as possible. So you want to do your price increase. Now, in terms of how do you actually deliver that price increase to your customers, I would just have a conversation with them and let them know that like these are the things that we've been working on. And from your next appointment or if there's a specific date, this new pricing will come into effect. You don't need to put it on your social media. If you want to, you could send it out as an email to your current clientele using the strategy that I spoke about with speaking about all the benefits and all the things that they can expect from your business, how it's actually supporting them, what's in it for them. I think the secret to having a really positive response with your price increase is like how do you actually make it something that not only you, but also your customers would get excited about? Because when you can look at it from that lens, instead of it being a doom and gloom and I'm gonna lose all my clients, it's like we are investing. This is where we're heading. You are a part of this, and I want you to enjoy this with me. Like, here's how it's gonna benefit you. Like, it's so much more exciting and empowering. And it's the same thing with this podcast studio. Like at the start of this episode, I asked you if you could please take 10 seconds out of your day to subscribe. Like, we have invested thousands of dollars into the studio. We invest thousands a month into the production, and it's just like the one thing that we ask is that you support us. You know, we are doing the absolute best we can for you. And the one thing that you can do back for us is subscribe to the show. Now, obviously, the show is free. You don't even have to pay for the show. How good is that? But when it comes to your services, like you having the confidence and belief in the value that you're providing through having premium branding, a great marketing strategy, really investing in the 1% is in your customer experience, nailing your treatment protocols, your systems and processes so everything is consistent across the board. It is going to put you in the top 1%. And I believe that you are capable of this. It just takes time. You don't have to do all of this today. You don't have to do it tomorrow. I find that the best businesses will look at one small thing that they can improve each week. And when that becomes habit, they build in something else. And what I'm gonna get at this is like profit is not a bad thing. Most people think, oh, more money causes more problems, and rich people are greedy. But like profit will allow you to reinvest into your business. It will allow you to attract higher quality staff and not only attract them but also retain them for the long term. You'll be able to invest in better products, equipment. You'll also be able to pay yourself a wage and super. Like if you want to go to the A-Bier Awards or you want to fly for some holiday or team incentive or training, I don't know, whatever it is that you value, maybe it's just having a week off and having enough profit that you could pay yourself and spend time with your family or go on a holiday. Like profit is not a bad thing. Profit is the lifeline of our businesses. And so without it, we just become employees. Even worse than employees. We don't even get paid if we don't have profit because we're just trying to inject money and barely survive. So I want you to create a plan for what you're going to do when it comes to your pricing strategy and how you're going to price your services for the new financial year. If this was a bit of a reality check and something that you know you needed to hear, or some other business owner that you're friends with needs to hear as well, please send this episode to them so that they can also be prepared ahead of the end of financial year. Thank you so much for your time today and tuning into today's episode. I will catch you for the next one. Have an amazing week. Bye.