#211: How Do I Know What to Charge?

Welcome back to another edition of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina Onativia, here to get you excited about your online marketing and putting your expertise out there in a different way. And I’m here to give you that push to hopefully give you some knowledge and insight to make you feel just a bit more confident to go out there in a bigger way.

Today, we’re continuing our series about the biggest questions we get in terms, of course, creation. And last week we talked about how do you know if it’s the right time to put out a course? Because let’s be honest, it never feels like the right time. So I walk through some of the criteria to help. And if you’re ready to take the leap into course creation or.

Last week I walked into some criteria to help figure that out. Last week, I walked through some criteria to help you figure out if it’s the right time and whether you’re ready to take the leap now or you wan to continue to listen to this podcast and get inspired. I want you to go out there in a bigger way.

Today is a continuation of that biggest course creation question series, and we’re going to talk about how do I know what to charge? This is such a great question. I get all the time and there’s an art and there’s a science to this. And not one concrete answer. However, there is a formula that I like to use, and we’re going to talk about those different pieces today.

And if there’s something you like to see in the series, by the way, let me know. Send me a line on LinkedIn or Instagram or Hello at course Creation Boutique. And if you want to work with us so you don’t have to second guess yourself or fumble through your course creation and marketing. Check out our Done for You services where we walk through not only your pricing, your outlines, your scripts, your marketing toolkit.

And by the way, this episode is brought to us by our Done for You services. If you want some hand-holding as part of your course creation and your marketing, think about joining us for Done for You and we’ll walk you through the exact steps to get your course done and to get your founding cohort formed. Okay, so from how are you gonna record this to should I have a in-person or live aspect of my course?

How much access are they going to have to you? How will you market all this is rolled up into our done for you services go to course creation boutique Ecom slash course to learn more about our done for you services and book a call and we can talk about what’s possible for your course. All right before we dive in.

I’ve been sharing my tennis journey a little bit with you guys and how I’ve been taking semi-pro bit lessons with my friend Aurelia. And now we’re doing this clinic once a week. And the other night I was running for a ball. It was going to the net and felt this twinge in my calf muscle. I fall to the ground and I grab it and I’m just writhing in pain and there might have been tears.

Guys. I’m not proud, but it really, really hurt. So I either pulled my calf muscle or I just had a really bad cramp. And I got home and I could barely walk. And I see my trainer the next day. Amber I’ve talked about her before in this podcast. She does not mince words. She does not mess around. And she was frustrated with me, rightfully so, because I didn’t take care of myself.

 

She asked me, Did you warm up? And I said, I did warm up. And she dissected the warm up and quickly I discovered, okay, I didn’t do the proper warm up. I didn’t stretch. And there was sincerity and care and love behind her getting mad because I didn’t take care of myself. I didn’t do the proper steps. I’m a beginner tennis player and I need to be able to walk through the proper steps in order to play.

So my calf gave me an early warning and I didn’t listen. So I decided to go for a sports time massage. I’ve got this great misuse and I signed up for the relaxation massage. It’s a kind of type of massage, right? Because I want some relaxation after all have gone through with my calf muscle. So I’m telling her about my injury, and she’s bending me like a pretzel.

Okay? Every single body part is being bent in ways that guys, I am not used to. It was a lot of pain. And then she was working out my calf muscle and working out the not and it was not relaxing. It was the opposite of relaxing. It was semi painful. I was giggling the whole time. I was giggling.

She was giggling. It was a giggle fest because I was in so much pain now I wanted the relaxation. She gave me the stretching what I really needed and reminds me of marketers. Usted Marketers. People come to us all the time and they say, I want this, but we know they need Y right? We have to tell them they’re going to get what they want, but then we have to give them what they need.

So relaxation was not what I needed. I needed recovery. I needed real stretching. So as marketers, we are here to give a transformation. And this is what my missus gave me. She gave me a transformation, not the one I wanted or not the way I wanted. But she delivered on the promise. So the roller is my new best friend.

It’s on my desk right now because I use it everywhere. So the message today is recovery. Don’t just jump into your of course, created or jump into your marketing and sprint to the debt like I did without warming up. Use some thought starters, right? Really warm yourself up in terms of your course creation and your marketing and get those course creation muscles going before you make any explosive movements.

Hopefully you guys are taking care of yourselves too. And I’m hoping by this series of the biggest course creation questions, you’re learning that you can take the leap into course creation. You can take the leap into online marketing, put a program out there, whatever it looks like. So today’s question is how do I know what to charge? How do I know what my people will pay?

And let’s talk through a few elements that we like to use whenever we brainstorm that with a client or a student. So today’s question is how do I know what to charge? How do I know what they’ll pay? And I’ve talked about pricing strategies before on this podcast. I talked about pricing way back in episode 35, a link to it in the show notes.

And I talked about how I want to make sure you’re charging for what you’re worth. Go back and listen to that one. That’s a good one. And in 108, I talked about some of our selling strategies and in 108i talk about where you go wrong in terms of some selling strategies. So I’ll link to both of those in the show notes.

Those are good ones to listen to. If you want to get more knowledge and experience and insight into the whole pricing for your course aspect. Okay. Let’s talk about those elements. First and foremost, you want to think about your promise, right? What I was saying a few minutes ago, what do you bring to the table in terms of your course?

What’s the value of the transformation that you bringing for your students or your clients? And this can vary, right? So you can teach somebody how to Hula-Hoop or are you teaching a course about how to manage diabetes? That promise is very different on the spectrum, right? How it will change your life, Very different. So for example, courses about making money a lot of times charge more because the argument is I’m going to generate revenue for you, you’re going to make your money back and then some.

So think about your own course. Are you promising revenue? Are you promising better health? Are you promising a change in lifestyle? Are you promising improved parenting? Right. There’s a lot of parenting courses out there. Are you promising upskilling where someone is improving their skill set potentially to make more money or just to find a new passion? So depending on the promise, your price point will be tied to that promise.

So the loftier, the promise, and the more game changing and life changing the promise, we tend to charge more. It’s just bottom line. So these hobby courses, like I mentioned, hula hooping, you’ll charge less, right? Or you’ll do a membership if you I know there’s passionate hula hoop out there, so you want to think about the transformation you provide and the value that is baked into it.

So that’s number one in terms of your pricing. Number two, you want to think about what kind of course you’re going to create. So when we’re putting out the conversion copywriting playbook, Megan O’Leary and I asked ourselves, is this self-paced or are we going to record it together or do we want to do it live? Do you want to do a hybrid?

So what is this now? We decided we want to do it live because we were doing it for the first time and second we thought it’d be fun to do it together. And then three, in my opinion, there’s nothing like a live cohort owing to that episode I did about going live and why I think it’s so awesome.

And O’Leary and I, we went back and forth about the pricing and the format, and one of the reasons we charge 397 initially is because we were going live and also we were offering these live critiques. So we thought that was kind of premium. We wanted to keep it a 30 day tight course, so we thought, hey, 397 felt good, so about $100 a week, but we want to price it.

So it felt a little more affordable. Under 500, somebody could take it for themselves. Also affordable for corporations and organizations that wanted to send multiple team members to it. So we felt that 397 was kind of the sweet spot in terms of getting people into the course or agreeing to have different team members. So by the way, we also just offered the conversion copywriting playbook as a down sell for $97.

Now I want to talk a little bit about the strategy behind this, because it shifted because the format shifted, we weren’t going live. We’re offering the recordings. There would be no live critiques, there would be no interaction with Megan and I. So for a week we opened it up at 97 just for the recordings. So we felt for a week we could open up for that format.

So again, we weren’t going live, we weren’t offering access to us, we weren’t giving live critiques because to me, one of the biggest aspects, one of the biggest premium values of that course was hearing from both O’Leary and I about your campaigns, about your content. Like that was a huge value. So we down sold it for $97 just for a week.

So that’s something to think about too. If you start off and you record a course or you do it in one format like maybe you teach it live over one day and then you release it, you might want to cut the price a little bit. Yeah, it depends, right? So let’s talk through these other elements to help you figure that out.

On to the third element, what will the market bear? Okay. What are your competitors doing? What else is out there in terms of what your course promises? So, for example, if there’s a lot of free stuff that’s curated that might weaken the price point for your course. So if it’s a really big niche and there’s not a lot out there, that’s good, that’s premium for you in terms of your course, I want you to do some competitive analysis and some research.

And we went through this, by the way, a couple of months ago with a diabetes course. So I mentioned that upfront in this podcast. We did a competitive analysis because as you can imagine, there are a lot of different kinds of diabetes courses out there and you could get something on Udemy for 40 bucks. But the course we were working on was more of a lifestyle, a natural lifestyle course and more of a signature and well-rounded and bringing a lot to the table.

So to me it charged more even though in the market there were these 40, 50, $70 courses that were just maybe one hit about diabetes. So we did our research. We decided we were doing a different kind of course. So going back to element to a different kind of format, and that’s why we ended up charging a little bit more.

You always want to see what the market will bear. You do not want to put out a 997 course about a promise that everybody else is charging $97 for. So you want to be aware of what else is out there. And then a fourth piece to consider in terms of your pricing strategy is your bonuses, because sometimes your bonuses can be worth more than the course to your student.

I love to tell the story about how one of my mentors, Pam Hendrickson, who I worked with at Tony Robbins, would do these incredible handouts for her courses and she would do these fast action manuals or workbooks, and people would come up to us and tell us, Hate the course is great, don’t get me wrong, but I just bought this for the PDFs because Pam does such a great job explaining and breaking everything down.

I can literally take the PDFs and apply what she’s teaching me immediately. So they would just buy for these workbooks, which is great. Sometimes I see course creators put out a one day program like, say, in a workshop or a half day workshop with the course, and I’ll hear people say, You know, the course is great. I just wanted that workshop.

I just wanted that one on one time so it was worth it for me to spend 500 bucks to get that one on one time in person or via the virtual workshop. Don’t discount your bonuses because they can be a huge player in the value of your course. All right. So let’s review in terms of your pricing strategy.

One, it’s your promise and what you’re putting out there in terms of your transformation. Two, it’s your format going live. How much access do they have to you, etc.. Three, you’re into your market analysis and figure out what else is out there. And then four, you’re going to look at your bonuses and see how you can sweeten the pot in terms of adding more value.

Hopefully this was helpful for you. Our second question and our biggest course Creation Questions series. If you want our help, we’re done for you. Walking you through every aspect. Of course, creation and marketing go to course Creation bootcamp slash course. Next week we’re going to have a special guest. We’re going to break into our series. But don’t worry.

We’ll be back with more questions to bring on a friend who’s going to teach us about charisma. Something we all need until next week. Go create, be you and be brilliant and get it done.