5 signs you’re undercharging
Anna Stubbs • March 16, 2023
Are you undercharging for your services? It can be hard to tell, particularly if you’re in a niche industry or you’re a contractor. Costs have been rising, so it may be time to rethink your own pricing.
Here are five signs that you might be undercharging:
- Nobody ever questions your quotes - Do all your new clients accept your quotes or charges without asking any questions, requesting a breakdown or wanting a discount? It’s possible they’re delighted to be getting such a great deal.
- You run off your feet but you can’t afford to get help - When you’re working yourself to the bone, but there’s not enough money left over to employ someone to help you, your prices are too low – or something else needs to change.
- Your prices have been the same for two years or more - In most industries, prices increase just slightly each year. Leave your prices flat for too long and you’re not keeping up with the market; make sure you review your fees annually.
- You’re overbooked - When business is booming and there’s no room for new clients, it’s time to raise your prices.
- Clients don’t treat you as well as they should
- When clients think they’re paying peanuts, they’ll often take you for granted. They don’t see your time as valuable, so they feel free to mess you around.
What should you be charging?
Finding your pricing sweet spot could take a little time. You’ll need to do some research, maybe ask around a little, and find out where your competitors are pitching their rates. We can help too – if we have clients in similar industries we might be able to give you some indication of typical fees, so give us a call or drop us a note. We’d love to hear from you.
No one can deny that to grow your business, you must attract new potential customers (or leads). It’s how you generate these leads that’s important though. STEP is a lead generation acronym to help you generate quality leads without pointlessly blowing your marketing budget: S = Strategy T = Target E = Efficiency P = Process
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are essential to measure the performance of your business in order to grow your numbers. Of course, the measures themselves are pointless unless there’s reflection and discussion to ensure they’re met. Here’s a simple and effective way to link KPIs to a reporting and accountability framework. Firstly, make sure there is ONE leader for each of the departments in your business: Director, Leadership, Product / Service Development, Operations, Marketing, Sales, Finance, HR, and Admin / IT. One person can lead more than one department, but two people can’t lead one department. You can also contract out departments to avoid needing a large head count of team memebrs (finance, marketing and IT can be outsourced relatively easily). Be clear on who reports to who . One person can only manage 5 or so people effectively. Consider establishing teams with team leaders to enable you to achieve a ratio under 6 to 1. Set up regular department meetings . This may be the CEO with each of the other department heads, the Operations Leader with the Operations team (if less than 5 in the Operations team) or with the Operations Team Leaders (if more than 5 in the Operations team).
One of the simplest ways to grow your bottom line is to tighten your belt and spend less.