42 I The Profitable Pricing Formula: How to Set Myofunctional Therapy Prices That Will Actually Pay Your Bills

In this episode of the Myo Life Podcast, Carmen unpacks the Profitable Pricing Formula — a step-by-step way to set prices that align with your goals, attract the right clients, and actually pay your bills. She shares common mistakes myofunctional therapists make, her personal experiences with pricing, and how to find your 'happy price' that sits between resentment and belief. This episode is equal parts mindset, math, and motivation for anyone ready to charge with confidence.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Mayo Life Podcast

Speaker 1 1:11

Hey , I'm Carmen and welcome to Mayo Life . That's short for my outrageous life , which is exactly the kind of life I get to live since I found the courage to ditch dental hygiene and build a life I'm bonkers about as a Mayo functional therapist and entrepreneur . Here you will find all the things Mayo business and how to build a life that you , too , are bonkers about . I'm very happy you're here . Shall we dive in .

Speaker 2 1:43

Well , hello , friend , and welcome back to the Mayo Life Podcast . I'm really glad that you're here . We have a great topic today , because we're talking about pricing . Nobody loves this topic . Actually , maybe a lot of people love this topic because pricing is the one thing that I get a lot of questions about .

Speaker 2 2:06

Okay , so if you have ever found yourself second guessing what to charge , trust me , you are not alone on this . And I will be honest when I first started out , I did what other people were doing and I googled . Look , you know , I looked high and low to see if there was some magic number that was an acceptable amount to charge . Spoiler alert there isn't , and all I did was waste a bunch of time . And the other thing that I did was borrow people's money , mindset , drama and their fears as if it were my own . So when somebody is saying like , oh hey , this is the going rate and you can't charge more than this , that's actually not fact . So today we're going to talk about the profitable pricing formula . That's a mouthful . Today we're going to talk about the profitable pricing formula . That's a mouthful , which I think is a much better way to set prices .

Speaker 2 2:59

It's important that you set your prices , that you are aligned with that , feel aligned with your business and your goals , attracting the right clients , and you want to pay your bills . You're not trying to create create a hobby , or at least most of us , especially if you want to ditch hygiene , or not trying to create a hobby . So why does pricing feel so hard ? In service-based businesses like myofunctional therapy , there is no simple cost of goods formula . Okay , so you're not getting a pair of jeans at wholesale and then marking them up and having that margin . Okay so you are selling your time and your energy and your expertise , and so that's what makes it really hard to pin down a number . Also , add in the fact that many women underestimate the value of their time . This is like the perfect recipe for resentment , perfect recipe for burnout and also probably a perfect recipe for going bankrupt . Okay , so you don't want to make that mistake so real quick , before we get into the fun writing stuff . So if you're watching this on YouTube , I've got my blank paper behind me , so we're going to be doing some writing stuff . Blank paper behind me , so we're going to be doing some writing stuff .

Speaker 2 4:20

I first want to talk about the biggest pricing mistakes that I'm seeing therapists make . Okay , not all of them , but these are some big ones . So crowdsourcing prices If you have been with me for any amount of time , you know that there is not a going rate . Okay , there is not a mayor of my old town that hands out the official number . When you do this , you are outsourcing so many things , one of those being your confidence . You're outsourcing what is best for your business , what you need to run a profitable business . You're outsourcing that to somebody else . So this is not like looking in the employment section of dental hygiene you know in your town and saying , oh , I see , dental hygienists are making from $45 to $55 an hour . This is not that same thing and we'll talk more about this as we go through . So crowdsourcing prices is a biggie that I see Charging by the hour . Again , this

Biggest Pricing Mistakes Therapists Make

Speaker 2 5:18

is , I think , a terrible way to set your prices .

Speaker 2 5:22

A lot of people will consider something to be an hourly rate , like in hygiene . You say you would earn $50 an hour , but what about when you are putting kits together ? And what about when you are corresponding with providers ? And what about when you're answering emails and doing like the back of the house stuff or creating value for potential customers ? All of that stuff . Like you as a hygienist earning $50 an hour , you weren't having to do all of that stuff . So when you add that up and consider what your time is worth , there really isn't an hourly rate that I feel is acceptable . Building a business with one-off appointments so we'll talk about that and then racing to the bottom .

Speaker 2 6:13

So many , many , many therapists I see like they're just wanting to undercut somebody else's prices . Okay , the minute you start doing this , you have already lost . That is a red ocean fight . One thing I teach inside the Ditch Hygiene Academy is about the blue ocean strategy , which is a marketing concept that I learned in grad school , and the Red Ocean is just like heavy competition , like everybody's going for the jugular . I mean , it's like swimming in shark infested waters and somebody has a wound .

Speaker 2 6:48

Okay , you are not Walmart . You don't want to be corn . You don't want to be wheat . You don't want to be corn . You don't want to be wheat . You don't want to be a commodity . Okay , you don't want to go to the cheapest , the highest bidder for the cheapest price . You're offering a transformation that does not come out of the discount aisle , okay . So those are just four big pricing mistakes that I see or that I coach on a lot , okay , are just four big pricing mistakes that I see or that I coach on a lot ? Okay . So we are going to let me get my pen . We're going to go through the steps of the profitable pricing formula , okay .

Speaker 2 7:28

So this is really how I kind of flipped the script on pricing . So the first thing that I guess I better give it a title . If there ever is a time that makes me feel like I'm back in kindergarten , it's right now . Hopefully you can see that Looks like it's too tiny , okay . So the first thing that you're going to do is calculate your costs . So this is going to be direct costs , your indirect costs , direct costs , your indirect costs , your personal costs . So this is going to just kind of give you that number that you're working with . Okay , ultimately , it comes

The Profitable Pricing Formula Steps

Speaker 2 8:26

down to what you need to earn , okay . So once you know what these direct costs and indirect costs and your personal expenses are , I mean , in my software and in my my program , the my own money , you , I have software where you go through all of this stuff , so it literally spits out a number that tells me what I need to earn , and so for a lot of therapists . They are undercharging by hundreds and thousands of dollars annually when they really look at what they need to earn .

Speaker 2 9:17

Okay , so , once you know what you need to earn . So , for example , I can look at my money dashboard here I'm just going to pop on over to a different computer screen and currently , in my situation now , remember , everybody's story is going to be different but I can look at my dashboard and I can see that I need to earn $10,941.18 every month and that's going to pay me . That's going to pay . So it's going to pay my personal expenses . It's going to pay all of my business expenses , all of the expenses here , like for my house and my mortgage and all of that stuff , um , and my taxes , business expenses , all of those things . Okay , so I know that for me , this currently and this changes depending on um , my business , uh , my , my money goals 941.18 . It's a whole lot easier for me to set up my pricing based on this number , um , rather than just having no idea .

Speaker 2 10:32

Okay , so from there you're going to going to decide your offer . Now I would say know your who . I know this episode isn't about that , but if you know your who , who your easy peasy , dreamy customer is that's when you figure out your offer . Okay , that's when you can do your marketing and all of that stuff to sell your offer . So when I stopped trying to be everything to everybody and I simplified into a core package , not only did it make sense for my business , but my clients understood what I was selling . Okay .

Speaker 2 11:36

Now , one thing I will say is when I say one core package , I do have a six month and I do have a year long option for therapy , but that . So we have a six month , a 12 month , but these are two very different scenarios . Often , most , most clients will fall into just my six-month . I have some people who are complicated humans , they're complicated cases and they'll fall into a 12-month . They get one or the other offer . I do have situations sometimes where I offer somebody a spot to work with me for six months and they say , well , but I want to work with you for a year . So sometimes people will bring that back to the table and say , hey , I want to work with you for a year . Is that an option ? But I won't sell that as an option , so you won't see me tell Jane oh well , you could do six months or a year I always own . Hey , here's what I think is the best for you , okay .

Speaker 2 12:43

So when you decide your offer , that's going to help you set your pricing , okay . So step three is to find your happy price . Okay , so now you might be confused and saying or thinking well , don't you decide that with your offer , isn't that your pricing ? So your offer is just kind of your package , and I think we talk about that later here in my notes . But so for my situation , this is six months or 12 months , so this is kind of like the experience , and then we're going to put a price to it .

Speaker 2 14:40

Okay , so I call happy pricing where you're going to be happy , that's anything . So it's got to be above your resentment level and it has to be below your I'm going to vomit when I say this out loud level . Okay , so this is going to be different for everybody . And this goes back to why there is no mayor of my old town and why you shouldn't ask , because your situation is going to be completely different . Okay , um , maybe my resentment price might be , you know , $200 an hour and my uh , oh gosh , I'm going to vomit price , you know , might be $600 an hour . Okay , so you , you have to find your happy price and it's going to sit somewhere in between , okay , whatever that is . But to get there , um , I think you have to do , um , do the do the mile math or the profit math , okay . So here's how we do this . You know what you need to make to live and pay your bill . So that was this month , this number , okay .

Speaker 2 16:02

So those are my personal expenses , that's my business expenses , that's money that goes into my retirement , that's money that goes into my Roth , that's money that goes into my healthcare , all of that stuff . That's that's postage . So when I talk about those direct and indirect and personal costs , those are all the things . So , if I go look at my um , my um , money , my , my own money dashboard , so personal expenses , so that's things like mortgage utilities , home repairs , groceries , all of those things . And then I have business expenses . So this is everything associated for my website

Clients Buy Outcomes, Not Hours

Speaker 2 16:46

health insurance , internet , cell phone , kit supplies , postage , gosh , 17 hats , office supplies , web hosting , domain renewals . I pay for Canva , I pay for Vimeo , manychat , marketing supplies , business insurance , of course , gosh , what else ? Marketing , entertainment , chatgpt , all of those things . So all of those things are going to come into play . That's what is into this . Okay .

Speaker 2 17:20

So when I am planning , or when I have a student who's planning their exit from hygiene , they have to know how much money that they're going to need . Okay , how many clients and how much time that they have . Because that's how you have , say , you have spots for five clients per week , and the thing that's nice about myofunctional therapy is , in my programs you're going to learn . You never see somebody weekly , so you actually have more time than you think . You're never going to actually be fully booked , work with five clients a week .

Speaker 2 18:30

Your pricing is going to be different than somebody who needs 6,000 per month and they have time to work with 12 clients , okay . So that's why this is individual and that's why you can't crowdsource . That's why you can't ask Susie Q . I mean I could talk to somebody and say , hey , what are your prices ? And , for example , I remember one of my students in the past . She only needed to participate financially in a small portion of the household bills . Okay , I pay all of those bills currently . So that is different . So her prices would be different than my prices . Okay , so when you're coming up with your pricing , you're going to figure out your costs . Know what you need to earn . Like I said , knowing your who is going to help you decide your offer , you're going to find your happy price , so above your resentment level and below your vomiting level , and then you're going to do some mile math , you're going to crunch some numbers . Okay , so one of my biggest lessons I think I can , I think I can put my pen away One of my biggest lessons is that clients don't buy hours , you guys , they buy outcomes .

Speaker 2 19:53

I will never forget the first time that I charged $5,000 for a package . I thought for sure that the client was going to laugh me out of the room and instead she was like yeah , where do I sign ? She said yes , instantly . That was the easiest package that I had ever sold . And here's the kicker she showed up . She did the work . She had the best results of any client that year . She sent me a lot of business because she just really believed in the work that she was doing , and the thing that I learned is that her transformation started with the transaction . Super important .

Speaker 2 20:36

So let's talk about some practical strategies for sustainable pricing for your business . Okay , these are just some ideas and things that I learned the hard way . Okay , ask me how I know all this stuff Cause I've made all the mistakes . So , and yeah , sell one-off , don't sell one-off appointments . So I talked about that up here as one of the mistakes that therapists were making is to build a business on one-offs .

Speaker 2 21:07

That is hard to build consistency for your business , okay . An example that I always use is if I tell my massage therapist that I want to get a massage on Fridays and say she charges a hundred dollars , and she assumes that there's , you know , 52 weeks in a year , so she's assuming that she's going to earn $5,200 off of me that year , but the reality is is that I very rarely will actually follow through and get that massage every Friday because something else is going to come up , okay , whether I don't want to pay for it , whether I don't want to make time for it , all of those things . So if said massage therapist was planning on paying her mortgage with the $5,200 that I was going to pay her that year for massages , she might be living in a tent under the bridge . Okay , you can't build consistent revenue in your business when you're selling one-offs , okay . The reason that I feel so strongly about this is how do you know that you have money to hire an assistant ? How do you know that you have money to hire an associate ? How do you know that you have money to run an ad , all of those things ? If you are just kind of willy-nilly , flying by the seat of your pants praying that somebody makes another appointment , you can't grow your business , you can't scale , you can't have consistent revenue and feel confident that money is going to be there .

Speaker 2 22:45

Some of my colleagues have said that the reason that they do one-offs is because that's kind of like their payment plan and again I see where they're coming from plan , and again I see where they're coming from . But if you put somebody on a payment plan like I do , like they accept a package and they do a payment plan , they have a contract , they are obligated by law to pay for that . So if you just do one-off , then they can just fall by the wayside and there's no repercussions to them . So you don't want to do that either . The other thing that I can tell you is , after serving thousands of clients , there is a large number of people who pay for therapy and never actually finish it . So if you think about them being those one-off appointments , you're doing so much hard work to educate them and bring them in and bring them , you know , do a free assessment and do their exam and plan their therapy and do all of that , and they don't complete therapy and maybe you get paid for a couple sessions . It's a terrible business model , okay .

Speaker 2 23:56

Another

Practical Strategies for Sustainable Pricing

Speaker 2 23:57

strategy that I think is very wonderful and that is to create a package , an experience . Okay . So I call this your UME , or your unique myofunctional experience , and this is this is everything , okay . So up here , when I'm talking about decide your offer Okay . So up here , when I'm talking about decide your offer , that's , you know how many sessions , how long is it going to be ? That's your email support or your video support , or all of those things . That's the whole container .

Speaker 2 24:29

So when you do that , that's going to help you to craft something that I call a one sheet . So , rather than when somebody reaches out to me and they say , what are your , you know how much is myofunctional therapy , I have created a one sheet which really outlines the bigger picture experience . Okay , I don't say , hey , I'm , I'm $5,000 . Here you go , because then if somebody's , if it's like they're calling around checking on the price of a crown , we're not comparing the same thing , so somebody can't compare my experience with Susie's $100 a session Okay , so I think , creation of a one sheet or a welcome guide or something like that I do that so that you're not awkwardly just blurting out numbers . This frames my prices , the process , all of that stuff in a bigger picture . Okay , so they can't compare apples to apples .

Speaker 2 25:36

And then , quite often , for you to sustain your business , for you to earn this , oftentimes you need to raise your prices . Oftentimes , when you're just first starting out I coach on this and a lot of people have prices that will never sustain their business and then , oftentimes , when demand is high , when I was booking clients too fast , I raised my rates . Okay , same offer , same process , same everything , just a higher price , more belief . Okay , people still said yes , that's kind of where I found that I settled on my $5,000 a year . People were just saying yes , too much and I thought , whoa , I want to work with fewer clients at a higher price point , all right . So here's what I want you to remember Stop crowdsourcing . Okay , stop charging like you're still in hygiene . Remember , you want to be out of hygiene . Decide your offer , do the math and then find your happy price Package .

Speaker 2 26:44

The transformation , not just hours , not an hourly wage . And , most of all , believe . If you do not believe in your prices , then everything's going to go to hell in a handbasket . Your clients are not going to believe in that as well . So if you're still sitting there wondering like I don't know , this isn't coming to me , then I think you need to hop into a program , whether that's the Ditch Hygiene Academy , whether it's the Myo Business Accelerator the biggest difference between the two of these I answered this question the other day .

Speaker 2 27:19

The myo business accelerator is really for somebody whose business is set up . They're earning they're just not earning much or they're not earning a lot consistently . Somebody who has had their myofunctional therapy training but they're really not doing anything . They don't have any of the business stuff set up , they don't have their prices set up , they don't know who their ideal customer is none of that stuff . Then definitely you would be best supported in the Ditch Hygiene Academy . Okay , that's a lot , my friend . I hope you got something out of that about finding your happy pricing , because I think this is super important in the sustainability of your business . So that is all I have for you today , my friend . Until next time , go build a life that you are bonkers about , and I will be back soon with some more myofunctional business goodness .