How Tradies Can Charge More Without Losing Clients

As business owners we’re making bets every day.

We gamble our hard-earned money on things like labour, materials, rent, marketing…

With the hopes of getting a higher pay out.

Sometimes we lose, but sometimes we win (and win BIG).

But there’s a difference between gambling in business and gambling in a casino.

In a casino, the odds are stacked against you.

With skill, you can improve, sure, but you’ll never really win.

In business, however, with enough skill you can become the house.

And part of this is knowing how to increase prices WITHOUT losing all your work.

But many business owners never learn this skill.

You see, most aren’t competing on price OR value.

In fact, they’re not actually competing on anything at all.

Let me explain…

Their pricing strategy typically goes something like this:

 1.   Look at the marketplace

 2.   See what everyone else offers

 3.   Go slightly below to remain ‘competitive’

 4.   Provide the same service with a ‘little more’

 5.  End up with a value proposition of ‘more for less’

But the big dirty secret no one likes to talk about?

These competitors they’re copying are dead broke.

Over time as more people enter the market and keep offering ‘a little more for a little less’.

Eventually we reach a point where no one can provide any more for any less.

So owners are left making just enough at the end of the month to keep going.

The bottom 10-20% get washed out by the market or lose the will to fight.

Then fresh business owners enter with no idea and repeat the process.

And around and around we go.

But the goal in business isn’t to stay above water, it’s to make BIG money.

So I’ll reveal exactly how our clients are currently charging 10%, 20%, even 30% higher than their competitors without losing out on jobs and contracts.

Are you ready?

Okay here we go…

‘Make people an offer so good they feel stupid saying no’

This is how…

The reason people buy anything is to get a good deal.

They believe what they’re getting (VALUE) is worth more than what they’re giving in exchange for it (PRICE).

In other words, price is what you pay, value is what you get.

The moment value dips below what they’re paying, they’ll stop buying from you.

So this price discrepancy is what you need to avoid at all costs.

Now, the simplest way to increase the gap between price to value is by lowering the price.

It’s also, however, most of the time the wrong decision to make.

Lowering price is a one-way road to destruction.

You can only go down to $0, but you can go infinitely high in the other direction.

So unless you have a revolutionary way of decreasing your costs to 1/10th compared to your competition, don’t compete on price.

There is no strategic benefit to being the second cheapest in the marketplace, but there is for being the most expensive.

So the goal of a good offer is to get more people to say yes at a higher price by increasing your value to price discrepancy.

In other words, raise your price only after you have sufficiently increased your value.

This way, they still get a great deal (think buying $100,000 of value for $10,000).

Here’s what I mean…

See the difference?

Would it be reasonable to think that a good number of high-quality customers would be happy to pay 10-20% more for Electrician B?

(enough to 2x or even 3x bottom line profits)

Speaking directly from experience, the honest answer is yes.

The key is to simply raise the VALUE clients receive when they pay you more.

And COMMUNICATE THAT VALUE through your front-end marketing and sales.

It’s the difference between this…

And this...

Or this...

Versus this...

Or this...

And this...

Start by asking yourself:

‘How can we better our service?’

‘What do we do that’s different?’

‘How can we better help our clients?’

‘How can we better communicate what we do?’

In the hopes of answering one simple question…

Why should I pick YOU.

Because price will always have an impact in the overall buying decision.

But it’s only ONE factor.

Most people don’t want the cheap, ‘lowest priced’ option.

What they want is value for money.

But the reason most contractors get stuck with their pricing is because the gap between value and price is damn near identical to everyone else around them.

i.e. they’re asking their clients to pay MORE for the same service…

If all products are ‘equal’, then the cheapest is the most valuable by default.

And if you have nothing better to offer than price, then that’s the only thing your clients will fixate on.
 
So here’s what you need to do instead.

(1)   Increase the perceived value of your business/service
(2)   Decrease the decision risk of hiring you over anyone else

This is the only equation that matters.

Improve your service.

Take away the risk from choosing you.

Update your marketing and sales to better communicate this.

Customers will believe your service is worth more, and the decision to hire you will be easier.

Which will allow you to increase your prices.

And you’ll attract the best clients who are the easiest to satisfy.

You’ll multiply your margin because you have money to invest in systems to create efficiency, smart people, improved customer experience, and scale your business.

And most importantly of all, you’ll keep watching the number in your personal bank account go up, month after month, even with reinvesting in your business.