Written By: Joanna Sapir
One of the most important factors in your wellness business success is how you price and package your services.
When you price your services incorrectly, you can find yourself:
- Struggling to earn a sustainable income
- Working too many hours to make the income you need or want
- Hustling all the time to book sessions – because you need that income
As the business owner, it’s your job to learn how to price and package your services so that your business income provides the salary you want, the time off needed to have a balanced life, and the support you need to run your business.
When I work with wellness practitioners, there are three common pricing mistakes that I see them make over and over again — mistakes that keep them from having a profitable and sustainable business.
Let’s dive in!
Common Pricing Mistake #1: Pricing Based on What Other Practitioners are Charging
When you look at what other people in your industry are charging, you aren’t seeing many of the factors they may be factoring into their price, such as:
- What their business expenses are
- What kind of personal income they need
- How much they pay in taxes
- How many hours they work
- How profitable their business is
Any (or all) of these factors may be different for your business, so you really can’t use someone else’s prices to decide what you should charge.
Furthermore, you have no idea how those other practitioners are actually doing financially. In my experience, many businesses that may appear “successful” on the outside are not actually financially strong or sustainable.
I’ve seen countless practitioners try to price their services solely based on what others are charging, and it sends them into a vicious cycle:
Their business starts growing to the point where they’re booked full, working all week seeing clients… and they’re still not making enough money!
So to make more money, they book more and more sessions to the point where:
- They don’t have time for exercise, self-care, rest, and relaxation
- They don’t feel like they have enough time to spend with their kids, their partners, their friends and family
- They feel chained to their business, because if they stop booking sessions, their income stops
- “I don’t have time..” and “I’m so busy” become their daily mantras
And before they know it, they aren’t enjoying their business anymore.
The Fix: Calculate How Much You Should Charge
Instead of looking at other people’s prices, your pricing needs to be based on several unique-to-you factors:
- Your businesses expenses
- Your personal financial needs (i.e. your salary)
- The lifestyle you’re seeking to live
- How much time you want to be working in your business
- Your tax situation
- Whether you have (or plan to have) employees
- Your profit goals
Once you gather this information, total these business expenses to determine what your business needs to make each month.
Then, divide that by the number of client-facing hours you want to be working. This will give you the price you need to charge per client-facing hour to cover your expenses and salary.
I’ve got a free pricing calculator that makes this easy. Check it out!
Common Pricing Mistake #2: Pricing Based on What You Think People “Can Afford”
We need to unpack this one.
First of all, if the people you are focused on serving legitimately can’t afford your services – like, you actually know their income and it’s at or below the living wage for your area – then you don’t have a viable business with that market. Period.
But I find that usually practitioners just worry that their prospective clients won’t be able to afford their services at the prices they know they should be charging.
It’s a fear that turns into a belief. It’s not the truth.
The truth is that how someone spends their money, regardless of how little or how much they have, is a reflection of their values.
Think about how much you spend on groceries each month. I spend about $1000 a month, and I never really thought much about that until I saw someone else’s budget. They had the same number of people in their household but spent only $400 a month.
At first that blew me away. They spend so much less than I do! What are they buying?
But as I thought more about it, I wasn’t surprised at all.
You see, I very intentionally buy high-quality foods, and they cost more.
How I choose to spend my money is a reflection of my values. And for the person that is spending $400, they are choosing to spend their money on other things that they value more.
Their statement that “I can’t afford that” is a reflection of them and their values, not of your service or your prices.
The point is this: What people are willing to spend their money on – or not spend their money on – is not a reflection of how much money they have, but what they value.
People spend money on things they “can’t afford” all the time. I know – even I do it! And on the flip side, many of us don’t spend money on things we should.
So if you are afraid to raise your rates and are pricing your services based on what you think your market “can afford” or “will pay,” it’s a mistake.
The Fix: Focus on Profitability
When you set prices for your services, your pricing needs to be based on profitability, factoring in the details I discussed earlier:
- Your businesses expenses
- Your personal financial needs (i.e. your salary)
- The lifestyle you’re seeking to live
- How much time you want to be working in your business
- Your tax situation
- Whether you have (or plan to have) employees
- Your profit goals
By accounting for each of these factors when pricing and packaging your services, you:
- Attract long-term clients who value your services and the benefits they receive
- Can stop constantly hustling to try and get new clients
- Help your clients solve their problems at the root and reach their long-term goals
Solving your clients’ problems at the root is the dream of every wellness practitioner, and leads us to common pricing mistake #3, offering your services by the hour or session.
Common Pricing Mistake #3: Offering Services By The Hour or Session
I know that you are really good at your craft. You’re experienced, highly skilled, and you want to help your clients.
But have you structured your services to do that?
If you’re selling your services by the hour or by the session, then the answer is no.
It may seem like “everyone else” in your field does it that way.
But here’s the truth:
It’s not the way the most successful practitioners and coaches do it, and it won’t work if you truly want to help your clients make transformations in their health or their lives.
I learned this from one of the first clients at my fitness business. Greg came in for personal training; his goals were to look good and lose a little fat around his midsection.
He bought a pack of 10 personal training sessions, because that’s the kind of thing I offered at the time.
But, as I’m sure many of you have experienced, he didn’t show up regularly. And then, right as he was getting close to completing his 10-session pack and would hopefully re-up, he started complaining that he wasn’t seeing results.
This wasn’t at all surprising to me: he wasn’t working out consistently and he had made no changes in his lifestyle or nutrition — he wasn’t doing what he needed to do to see results.
But in Greg’s head, he expected to see results no matter how frequently or infrequently he came to the gym or what he did outside of the gym.
So I had an unhappy client who hadn’t reached his goal and therefore didn’t buy a new pack of sessions…
In this example, the problem was actually my fault.
Instead of selling him a pack of sessions, I should have designed and sold him a program that would provide the results he was looking for.
A program for Greg would have included:
- 6 months of working out twice a week
- Recovery work to do at home
- A nutrition plan
- Sleep tracking
If Greg had followed this program, he would have seen the results he was looking for — and when he completed the 6 month program and achieved his goals, it would be a no-brainer for him to continue the training.
Greg’s story shows that the per session and hourly models are not set up to provide your clients the results they’re looking for.
The Fix: Design Results-Oriented Service Packages
So what’s the right way to package and price your services? Designing a program that truly helps your clients achieve their goal.
Instead of thinking in terms of sessions, sell them the results and solutions to their problems!
Think of what your clients need in order to achieve their goals then design your service packages with that in mind.
There are multiple benefits of a results-oriented approach:
- Happier clients and more fulfillment for you as a practitioner: Your clients will be happier and when they see the progress they have made they will continue to use your services.
- Consistent income: income predictability, and sustainability. You’ll have sustainable sales and a consistent income for your business.
- Easier schedules and less “hustling.” Without results-oriented programs, you have days where you’re slammed, and days where you’re twiddling your thumbs. And if a client cancels a session, you’re out that income.
So how do you create and price results-oriented programs?
The Client Champion Formula
Designing your services to help your clients truly meet their goals, and then pricing those services properly, is one of the three action steps of something I call The Client Champion Formula.
The Client Champion Formula is the business framework I have created for wellness practitioners to build a predictable income.
When you implement the Client Champion Formula in your business, you:
- Attract long-term clients who value your services and the benefits they receive from your programs
- Don’t have to constantly hustle new clients
- Help your clients solve their problems at the root and reach their long-term goals.
The awesome part about it is that it’s not only better for you as the business owner – because you make more money, have sustainable sales, and a predictable and consistent income – but it serves your clients better too.
The Client Champion Formula is both an assessment and an instructional tool. You can use it to see where your strengths in your business are and where the gaps are – so you can see exactly what to work on in your business to make it more profitable and sustainable.
Strategic Pricing Can Transform Your Business And Create Consistent, Predictable Income
How you sell your services and set your prices is a pivotal factor for the success of your business. Wellness practitioners need to stop basing their prices on market perception and competitor prices, stop selling by the session, and instead create strategically priced packages that help their clients achieve their goals.
In my Business (R)Evolution Academy I have helped countless wellness practitioners switch to this pricing model and transform their wellness practice into a fulfilling, profitable, and sustainable business.
Visit https://joannasapir.com/ to learn how I can help you transform your business with step-by-step guidance and proven business systems and strategies.
Joanna Sapir is a business strategist for holistic practitioners, particularly those that integrate multiple modalities. Joanna’s special ability is in helping practitioners set up repeatable systems and processes in their businesses to serve their clients more powerfully, enroll committed long-term clients, and create steady income and cash flow.
She has been a teacher and trainer for more than twenty years, from the classroom to the gym floor and now to wellness practices across the world.
Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she is a mother of two, a USA Masters National Champion in Olympic-style Weightlifting, and the host of the Business Revolution for Practitioners podcast. Learn more at http://joannasapir.com
