Today I want to talk to you about the psychology of pricing.
Specifically the psychology of selling products for PREMIUM prices.
I love this subject so much. And I want to open with a question for you:
Do you struggle with selling things at more "premium" prices?
Do you feel like you’re asking too high a price, or that you or your products aren’t worth it, or that no one will ever pay that much, or that people will be mad at you for charging that much?
This is all common. Most people struggle with it.
It all stems from your deep, unconscious, hard-wired money beliefs – largely from how your parents dealt with money while you were growing up.
Unfortunately most people by default are raised to believe money is the root of evil, that only rich snobby elitists have money, that premium products are an extravagant waste that only suckers buy, that anyone who sells premium products is a scammer, that money is a scarce resource and anyone who’s not struggling with money is a rich out-of-touch jerk.
And when you try to sell things for premium prices, all this programming comes bubbling up – and acts as resistance, telling you to stop.
This might sound odd, but the first thing you need to realize and accept is: most people WILL react this way to your premium prices and they absolutely won’t pay them!
But they’ll also react that way to your NON-premium prices.
Most people simply think anything being sold to them at any price is a scam… or it costs too much… or "you can find it for free on YouTube"… or whatever excuse their subconscious money beliefs create.
The world we operate in – selling products online – is a world where 1%-3% conversion rates are the holy grail. Those numbers are the North Star for all marketers.
Meaning if you had 100 people in front of you, and you pitched all of them at once, you’re KILLING it if only 1 person buys from you.
This is how it works for the most successful marketers… the ones you hear about absolutely crushing it. They’re doing it on 1%-3% conversion rates – or, to put it another way, 97%-99% rejection rates.
And these are the conversion rates you can expect at pretty much ANY price point. $29 to $4999 to more.
So with that said… let’s go through the mindset of the 1%-3% who buy at higher price points.
(The following is true for lower price points too, but I want to focus on the big wins.)
I told you about Ning Li yesterday and the coaching he’s offering to rewire deeply-embedded childhood money beliefs. For this example, I’m actually going to use his old copy coaching offer I also mentioned yesterday – which was a $6k initial investment and $3k/mo every month after.
To 99% of people, that’s just a silly amount of money.
Like "go on reddit to complain about how it’s way too much and how ridiculous must any sucker be who pays for this and you can learn it all on YouTube for free you silly morons" kind of money.
They can’t fathom someone paying that much for coaching – or that the coaching could ever provide $6k of value.
And again, that’s fine.
Because the remaining 1% is "all in" on learning copy – whether it’s to become a high-paid freelancer or to build out their own business. And that 1% is all you need.
They already know how much they’ll make if they write amazing copy – six or seven figures per year easily if they really get it dialed in.
And most likely, they’ve already gone through all that "free" content on YouTube – not to mention invested in a few courses (like CopyHour).
And they’ve likely already put some time in to write copy and actually put out offers.
But… their results are so-so.
They’re finding themselves stuck below the income they know they can be achieving – with no clear path to break out of their plateau & move up.
So they know they need one-on-one feedback – they need coaching.
(Remember if this doesn’t seem like how YOU think: this group is the small 1%-3% who are "all-in" on copy – they know they can achieve six, seven, or even eight figure results… and don’t have the time or energy to waste trying to "figure it out themselves". Failure isn’t an option and they need results NOW.
*97%-99% of people simply don’t think this way – they’re more than happy to spend all their time and energy trolling free YouTube videos and panicking every night before bed because they can’t figure it out and the clock is ticking.
Their money beliefs, specifically that money is scarce and they can’t risk investing in themselves in case it doesn’t work and they’ve lost all the money, hold them back from investing in more help that could rapidly propel them forward.
You need to ignore these people when selling things unfortunately. You’ll want to help them, but they can’t be helped until they’re actively looking for that help.
And, unfortunately, that may describe you too. But it can be fixed. We’ll come back to that.)*
Now remember that the 1% are completely bought in for the idea of making six or seven figures from writing copy. They know it’s possible for them.
So they come across Ning’s old copy coaching offer that starts at $6k for two months and $3k for every month after… and in their minds, instead of seeing the $6k and screaming "scam!", they immediately compare it to how much they could be making.
They also look into Ning and see that he’s the real deal… copy chief at a very successful & very visible company, tons of testimonials & success stories, lots of supporting content to demonstrate he knows his stuff, $50mm sold, etc etc etc.
And he has the results they want.
And he has experience coaching.
And the $6k price is actually attractive to them. They know they can make six or seven figures per year with copy. So if they pay more for coaching, most likely they’ll be getting higher level coaching – and will make more. If the price were lower, they wouldn’t trust it as much to actually get them those six & seven figure results they’re after.
They don’t want to waste their time. They’ve already wasted their time plenty. They just want the best and to be done with it.
So paying $6k to break through plateaus that will allow them to make six and seven figures per year? Duh. It’s a no brainer. In fact it’s a stupidly good deal.
Now it’s not an immediate "yes I’ll pay it right now" but, if a better coaching offer doesn’t come along, there’s a good chance they’ll buy.
So let’s pause here so I can ask you a question.
How much of this type of thinking is totally foreign to you?
- How much did you feel your body tensing up thinking about these prices?
- How much did your internal resistance start screaming when I described the mindset of the 1%-3% of your leads who want to buy?
-
Did you read everything I wrote and think, "Nah it doesn’t ACTUALLY work this way"?
Then you have massively limiting hard-wired money beliefs – likely from how you were raised as a child. And I can almost guarantee those money beliefs are holding you back in multiple ways.
I can say that confidently because I’ve been selling things for a long time. I hang around a lot of other people who have been selling things for a long time. I’ve worked with countless entrepreneurs and new copywriters looking to improve their copy and businesses. And I can confidently tell you: this is how your CUSTOMERS (the ones who actually BUY stuff) think.
Those limiting money beliefs keep you from feeling comfortable and worthy of charging (and accepting) high prices.They’re making it 10x-100x harder to sell things to other people since you don’t think other people actually want to buy things – or that your products/services could provide that much value.
And they’re going to make your life in business (and in general) absolute hell until you clear them. Trust me, I know from experience.
Like I mentioned yesterday, Ning (who is one of the most talented and successful copywriters I know – selling over $50mm since finishing CopyHour 8 years ago) is stepping away from copy coaching and going "all-in" on coaching to reset deep-seated money beliefs.This is because during his copy coaching days, he found nearly everyone’s actual copy mechanics were fine. If you go through a course like CopyHour, you’ve got all the tools you need.
What he found instead was that 90% of people’s struggles came from their limiting money beliefs.
Feeling deep resistance to selling things period.
He’s doing a webinar today at 2:30pm PST about rewiring those money beliefs.
It’s free – but there will be a pitch at the end for the coaching.
I’ll tell you right now: the coaching is actually cheaper than his copy coaching that was $6k initially and $3k/mo after.
The price for his coaching to rewire your money beliefs is $2997 for 8 weeks. After 8 weeks, it’s done – no recurring fees.
The idea is simple: if you’re serious about making six or seven figures annually with your copy (whether as a freelancer or in your own business), and anything I’ve written over the last few days has resonated with you, then this training will be worth 100x your investment over your lifetime – or, more likely, the next few years alone. You’ll get the entrance fee back within a month of actually applying what he teaches.
But even if you’re not ready for that kind of investment… go to the webinar. It’s free training and it’s going to be some of his best material to really sell you on this. (Watch the replays if you can’t make it.)
You’d be silly not to take advantage of that.
>>> Sign up here for Ning’s free training to rewire your money beliefs
With all that said…
There’s actually one other piece of pricing psychology I didn’t have room to talk about today that I really want to get into.
This is one that I used to struggle with big time… and that nearly every copywriter I work with struggles with… that I have to beg people to try out. They resist it so, so, so hard at first. But when they try it, their sales shoot up almost exponentially.
We’ll talk about that tomorrow.
— Derek