One of the questions I’m most frequently asked by people struggling with sales success is: how do you have confidence in your price? The question often splinters off into more questions:

Should I match my competitors?
How do I handle push back?
What if I price myself out of the market?
What if there’s one person or business undercutting my price?

The question came to me on the OWN IT network, and the audience wanting the answer were primarily freelancers who often underprice themselves while struggling to provide their services and pay their bills. But setting a price is key to any person selling anything, from freelancer to small business to corporate sales representative. Price is something that so many people struggle with because they don’t know how to frame and justify their price.

Why Price Matters So Much

When you undersell your product or service, you put obstacles in your own way and make it impossible for you to deliver the way you should. If you’re underselling, you won’t be able to pay the people who work for you what they’re worth, so you’ll get a lower quality. If you undersell, you’ll have to take on more jobs to make up for the revenue you lost. When you’re a solopreneur this is critical, because taking on more work stretches you too thin and means that you won’t be able to deliver excellence to every customer.

How You Fix the Problem

There is only one way to fix your practice of underselling, and that is to stop doing it. I know it isn’t that simple. The reality is that pricing conversations often feel like confrontation, and most of us don’t deal well with those. There is also a mass of self-worth mixed in. In order to get past it, you must commit to doing it – selling yourself at the higher price – no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. You must commit to having uncomfortable conversations about price with your customer.

It will only happen if you prepare for it and force yourself to follow through with it no matter how awful it makes you feel. You must be able to articulate why it costs what it does. You must explain to your client that without the price you set, you will be unable to provide the level of service and quality they need and deserve. Explain that, with passion, and they’ll value you more because of your higher price. I promise you, it will get easier, and it will make your client value you more.

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Photo credit: Your Own Worst Enemy via photopin (license).