Listen on Apple Podcasts / Spotify 

0:00  
Hey there, and welcome back to the podcast is it JESSICA RODRIGUEZ, your course expert here at MemberVault. And I wanted to take some time today to talk a little bit about pricing your course.

Because I know that there are a lot of misconceptions, there's a lot of internal dialog, there is a lot of just questions that come up when it comes to effectively pricing your course. And it makes sense when you think about it. Because if you're looking at different offerings within your own industry, and just doing some initial research on what's out there, you probably have seen that pricing ranges wildly, right, depending on that person and their expertise in their audience. There's just so many different factors that are at play at any given time, which is why we want to make sure that we're doing what's right for your course and your business.

Now, before we get into these five things, here's what we're not gonna do. Okay?

Number one is crowdsource your pricing. So this is when you go into a Facebook community, whether it's your own, whether it's somebody else's, if you went into the the member vault group, and you say, Here's my course idea, here's what I'm thinking, how much would you pay for this, or here's some ideas on pricing, would you pay this. And the reason why, even though that's so well, intention, like I get it, I get the thought process of doing this. But I want you to understand a different element of this is that anyone who is answering number one, they may not be your ideal person, it doesn't mean they're actually going to buy your course. So it's not going to be as relevant for them to want to spend that kind of money if it's not a result or a transformation, or an experience that they are looking to have for themselves. So let's say for example, if you asked me how much I would pay, in order to learn how to golf, I would start thinking, I probably pay a little bit of some money, like I throw it there, but more just so I can like surprise, my husband be like, Hey, look who learned how to golf, I would just want to do it for funny reasons, like, just because that's how I am. But I wouldn't pay a lot for it, because it's not really a desire for me.

However, if you had somebody else who wanted to seriously learn how to golf, and wanted to start getting a tournament and different things like that, and wants a lifestyle around that, and to get outside in a different way, they're gonna pay a lot more than I would pay. So this is where if you're crowdsourcing, you have no idea who these people are, as far as if they're their ideal audience that they actually have that need. And if they don't, they're going to price it way lower. Whereas somebody who absolutely has that need at once it solved immediately is going to price it higher. So this is only going to lead to more confusion, we all already come with our own money mindset things that we're working through, right. So we don't want to add to that by now crowdsourcing pricing, when there are so many factors that would come into play at that that just won't make sense for your offer will actually leave you more confused. This can happen a lot too. I see when friends that are also in business are like, there's no way you can like sell it for that price, you need to triple it, you need to 10 exit, and I see that with clients that come in, I'm

3:35  
like, hold on, Can we pause for a second? Because I know they also mean well, and they know your expertise. But would they have bought that if they didn't know you for that price? Right? Would they have bought that? If they had zero experience with you? Would they have bought that if they had no need for it? Right? Like, there's so many questions. So this is why those ways just do not work.

The other one that I see a lot is asking your audience what they would pay. So before I was talking about more crowdsourcing, typically in communities that are not full of your audience, and you're not quite sure where everyone's coming from, they may or may not be ideal. Well, then you go, well, that's okay. Because I asked my actual audience, so whether you did market research, and they filled it out on a forum, or you run your own private community, free group, any of that, and they answered it there. It was, in emails in a survey any of that, like your direct audience who should have this problem that they want to be solved is telling you the pricing. The issue with that is the fact that everyone can say they're gonna buy something, or everyone will say they'll pay a certain amount until it's time to actually take out the card includes myself, I could easily say, oh, yeah, I would totally buy that.

And maybe in that moment, I will, but the minute it, you say, Okay, now put your money where your mouth is, here's the payment link, all of a sudden, it's like everyone disappeared, what just happened. And that's what can happen when you ask your audience.

So instead, we want to really go into what factors matter when it comes to pricing and pricing your course specifically, so that you don't let these things dictate your course price. Because it's not going to ultimately get you to where you want to be.

So let's go ahead and move on to what you can do instead. So number one is when you're thinking of pricing your course, I want you to consider your course type. Now I'm going to tell you a couple, like I said, there's going to be five different ways. So this is one of those things where you can mix and match, depending on what it is that I'm talking about, and what is resonating with you. Okay, so just know that I'm not saying every single one of these are hard and fast rules, but they're going to give you good information, or an amount of good information that allows you to decide from.

So number one is knowing that course type. Now, when we teach our own clients within clients to courses, as far as the type, of course that they're creating, we show them four different types. And the reason why is because these types play different roles within your business and are priced accordingly. So the first one is going to be your intro course. So this is an intro course that essentially Prime's people to work with you, it gives them a taste of what it is that you do. So this could be really good. Let's say if you have a one on one offering right now, that pretty much is customized to everybody, you take them through a pretty large transformation of getting to point A and point B. And you start thinking, you know, what do I start everybody with? What are the exercises, or the certain trainings and things like that, that I go through with everybody over and over again, at the very beginning, that can start to be your intro course. So this is just think of it as a small fraction of the puzzle, but it is one towards the beginning of it, okay, because we don't want your intro course to be on a topic that is so far advanced that they would need to go through other things before they even got to it.

7:25  
So your intro is things that are on the front end, these are smaller courses, these are bite sized courses, these are things that are easy for people to consume, get a result, and then most likely are going to go okay, now I'm ready for the next step. And they can elevate up your value ladder with whatever other offerings you have. So generally, if this is an intro course, and again, this is why I'm saying more general industry standard is going to be $200 or less. So again, it's solving one small problem, it's usually towards the beginning of the full transformation you could possibly provide for somebody, and it's at a lower price point, they get to know more about you your style, what it is that you do. The second type is going to be your deep dive course. So this is where it is still focused on one key topic. But it's much more in depth. There are a lot of pieces to it, it can't just be a short course, where maybe there are four modules or four videos, it's like oh, no, we have to really go into this because there's a lot of moving pieces. So for example, I'll give you one for my business, I have an intro course, that is just about pre selling your course. And it's designed to pre sell your course within a 14 day span. Because if you learn to pre sell, which we'll talk about in a different episode here, if you learn to pre sell, you validate it with straight up sales, then you go create the course for the people who have purchased and then you launch it from there. So that it's only one piece of the puzzle. It's literally telling you how to pre sell a course, we're not talking about live launching and funnels and you know, like all of the other stuff that can come with courses. It's just this one early stage right to validate that that course idea is going to be the right fit. If we flip over to a deep dive course, then I start thinking of things like 90 days to influential so that is a program that goes all into organic visibility. Now visibility is a huge topic, right? This is not something that can just be done in like four videos or anything like that. I need to talk about things like your social pitching for podcasts, blogs, collaborations, like all of these, your messaging, all of that kind of stuff. That is a whole thing in itself. So in that case, it goes more under the deep dive. So if you're thinking of your intro course, this is less than 5% of what it is that you teach. Your deep dive is probably five to 10 percent of your overall right it's a much deeper dive into one specific topic that gets one result for your audience. So if you're looking at that now we're in like the 200 to $500 range for that course. Because this is, again, it's not a small little piece of the puzzle, it's a much more in depth on one thing, I used to have a course about list building, that was a deep dive, because list building, again, has lots of different factors, right, as far as the tools that you're using your actual opt in how you're growing the audience, see how that has a lot more pieces of the puzzle. But when we think about the overall of everything I do in business between creating your offers and traffic, and this and that, list building is just a piece of it. Okay, so this starts allowing you to see those different price points. From there, we have your signature course. So this is where a majority of the work that you do goes into this offer. So this is where you have those specialized frameworks, this is where you have the whole A to Z process that takes people to a bigger transformation. So now we're talking about 50% Plus, of what it is that you do, starts to go into a signature course. Now, these are usually your $500.

Plus, honestly, I would say in this market, it's typically more of 1000 plus at this point, but it goes back and forth as far as industry standards with the signature. And then the final one is your next level course. So this is the complete opposite of the intro, where they actually have to go through something first. And then this is your graduation type, of course. So as long as they have been through another course, first, they can go into this one, and it's going to be your next level. And that can vary wildly on pricing. So I usually leave that as a varies, versus the others.

So this is just giving you a very general, rough outline as far as your course type, and how that pricing affects it. So if you're doing an intro course, and you're trying to charge five grand for it, it's like, what are we doing in that intro? Right? Like what's happening? I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's, it's definitely out of the norm. So this is where you're starting to see, okay,

12:20  
maybe that is more of a signature offer. Because of that price point, right? It's got to be in that different range, in order to make sense.

And then from there, I'm always looking at number two is where does this course fit into your business model? So we have different types of courses that you can leverage, and you can utilize. But this depends on your business model as a whole. So this is why you will see, there's people and we saw this a lot within probably the last two years, where they have their intro courses are working like a self liquidating offer, which is a different topic here. But it is that 27 $37 digital course or product that you can purchase. And then there's usually an option upsell. And then from there, that works in their business because they have higher ticket offers on the back end that sell. So that small offer fits in their business where it can help to completely liquidate their ad spend or help to liquidate their ad spend. It starts to create that buying relationship. And then they know that their actual moneymaker is the bigger offers on the back end. Some people they're like, no, no, I'm not doing that doesn't that doesn't fit right for my business, well, then they need a larger type, of course, at a higher price point to match their income roles.

So this is why you want to consider where course fits into your whole business model. You're not just creating a low ticket cost or a low ticket product, because everyone else is doing it. It's like oh, no, it's strategically leading into the other products that I have within my business. If you don't have higher levels, in your business and different price points, you don't have a value ladder, then you're not doing that yet, unless you just want to start with something small for a different reason. So see where how it fits in your business makes a big difference. If you are not bringing in enough people to have a lower ticket offer. And you have big financial goals. That's that's not the offer we need yet, right? We're not there yet. We need to create some financial stability with some other things first.

The third thing to consider is the transformation that that course provides your audience. So what is that transformation actually worth to them? How much have they spent trying to get that transformation for themselves already? So whether it was in time it was in money, it was an energy? What does that look like? for them, because the higher level of transformation that you get to your audience, and that's incredibly worth it for them, like, it's something they absolutely have to have, it's something that they have been struggling with, and this can solve that for them, then that's going to make a difference in your pricing, because this kind of just goes back to business 101 of supply and demand type of thing, where if you are supplying a high transfer, formative course, that people need, and it is solving a problem they absolutely have to have right now, well, then that's going to be at a much different price point than something that is seen as more of a commodity type, of course, okay. And sometimes I get a little hesitant to say that because I never want people to think that, Oh, my thing just helps to, you know, allow people to explore a hobby or, you know, have a fun activity. So it's not a super high transformation type, of course, so I shouldn't bother.

Oh, absolutely, you should people like me love to learn new skills, and new hobbies and things like that, like, you want to have fun, you just know that you're not going to probably price, the course that's about teaching you how to knit so that you can relax and you can, you know, just create something new for yourself, that's not going to be a $5,000 course, you know, because that transformation that is being sold right now is a fun hobby activity, where if you're tying that to something much bigger than it's going to change the price point. Okay, so that's not to say there isn't room for you, please don't take it as that

16:42  
it's that your pricing is going to correlate with the level of transformation. So this is where just taking other people's advice doesn't doesn't work, right, because you need to look at the transformation that your offer actually provides in your course. And then from there, really asking yourself, How much is it worth for them to solve that? How much and a great exercise I'm just going to add in here is think about everything that they've bought, before they get to you write all of that down, do estimated pricing on it. So if we were using let's say relationships, and you're offering something about healthy relationships, or let's let's do marriage, specifically, if somebody is really struggling in marriage, what are all the things that they spend on to either try to fix it, or to try to avoid it.

So I always use examples of like, whether it's the cost of therapy that they've been trying to do, whether it is the shopping and going out and drinking that they're doing in order to avoid being home like this is really knowing your person and what it is that's happening, because you can start to see how much it is going to save them in order to now have this solution. So you can play around with that. It's not always financial, sometimes it is more from an energetic standpoint, right? It's heavy, those type of things and you're listing those out. So really think about that, what your transformation, because, yes, you can absolutely put any price tag on it, but is it going to be worth it for your audience at that price.

And number four, I totally just rolled into point three, but we're gonna say it again, let's just use this as a nice little reminder, is how is your audience losing time and or money without your course? So just like I mentioned the exercise that I'll typically do, and see, you know, what is actually happening? And where are they spending their time and money, whether it is Google, whether it is and I use therapy as an example, like there's all different things that they are doing in order to try to alleviate and or hide from this issue that's happening.

A lot of times I will have a price that I believe like, Okay, that sounds good for my course. Then I do that exercise. And I go, Oh, hold on, right. So sometimes it's a good litmus test to put alongside whatever current price you're thinking, and thinking about the bigger picture of that and what you're actually providing people. I also like that assignment just for the fact that you can use a lot of that for your sales pages, your emails, things like that. And when people read it, they're like, how does she know? That's what I'm doing? Right? Like, if you listen right now, and let's say there was a struggle in your marriage, or there was this disconnect. And then I started talking about, you know, shopping or, you know, going out to the bar or restaurant with friends and all this because you're avoiding being at home and you're like, How did she know that? It's like, really, it's just because I talked to a lot of people and I listened to you know what it is that they're doing, but you're able to see that with your own audience, right?

And then you can utilize that in your promotional content and being able to share that with them and they start to see that hey, she sees me as the actual person I am, who was navigating this and then the final piece to consider are here with your pricing is if your course includes any features or bonuses that would affect the pricing.

So for example, if you are coming into my signature offering, which is clients to courses, if you are coming into that it's a higher ticket, because there is access to me. So there is a Facebook group, there are a monthly q&a sessions there are, you know, like, there's different things that are available there. So that definitely increases the price, because you are getting direct access to me and those type of things were other offers that I have, it is completely passive. So that's going to be a fraction of the cost for the sole reason is that I'm not there, right, so I can keep selling it.

But I don't have to give any time, you know, within a month and things like that. But you can still get a transformation. So I'm aware that, okay, they get a transformation, this piece of the puzzle, it is worth this amount. This is how much they've been spending on different things, or time that's been wasted trying to, you know, patchwork things and all of that. And then when I look at the bonuses, I'm like, Oh, those bonuses are actually, you know, they're super helpful and super valuable as far as different workbooks or mini training and stuff like that. But there's no time with me, which as soon as time with me comes in, that's now going to increase the cost, right? That is going to affect that pricing. So when you're looking at yours as well,

21:35  
are there any certain bonuses or features that are happening, that are going to need to be taken into account with that pricing? Because you're going to want to know this in advance, the last thing we want to do is put courses out there that bring, you know levels of resentment, or just like you're not feeling right about it. So I want you to really keep all of this in mind what pricing.

I know it's a lot, right? Like we went over five different things. But my intention is that it gives you some things to think about right and to think about it differently. And to think about it in relation to your specific business, your specific course and what it is that your audience truly needs and responds to and taking that into account as you are pricing.

And if you have any questions, by all means, feel free to pop in to the MemberVault collaborative group. I absolutely love the engagement there. And everybody's just everyone just supportive. Right. And I think that's a huge testament to Mike and Erin and what it is that them and the entire MemberVault team has created.

But if I can help you in any way, feel free to go ahead and tag me within the Facebook group.

And then if you want to find me over on the internet, I can be found at Freedom driven success. My main place to hang out is Instagram. Absolutely love it. And we have a ton of resources and goodies and just straightforward trainings within blogs and all of that over at Freedomdrivensuccess.com

So thank you for hanging out with me today and I will talk to you soon.