Why good businesses stay stuck at the wrong price point

Good businesses stay stuck at the wrong price point because their brand identity hasn’t kept up with their expertise. When your brand identity still reflects year one of your business, it sends a price signal that caps what customers feel comfortable paying, regardless of how good your work actually is.

If you were an employee you’d get a pay rise most years, to acknowledge your increasing skills and contribution through experience in your role. 

It’s not necessarily easy, but you write your list of what you achieved, how your work resulted in xyz, and how you’d like an X% pay rise to keep you working there (said with a more pragmatic turn of phrase hopefully).

The pay rise is often given because of the time and money put into training you.

Because the alternative (hiring someone else) is harder and more expensive than saying ‘yes’.

The problem is that when you run your own business there are more factors at play.

You can tell your customer all the reasons why you’re now worth more, however it’s just as easy for them to click over to your competitor who is undercutting you.

So how are you going to ensure you get your pay rise most years (to at least account for inflation and rising costs)?

Well, it takes more than writing a list of ‘why you’re worth it’.

Customers have less at stake than employers.

That’s why it’s a more emotional decision than spending a year’s salary on a safe relationship.

Three things customers need to align before they say yes

1. They want to read what ‘they say’ about your business or product.
2. Customers want to hear from you directly what ‘you say’ about solving their problem.
3. When customers independently go through your website/socials/marketing, they need to ‘see’ that it all lines up as a match. 

This is where your original brand identity holds you back…

because that affordable logo and haphazardly evolving font selection and colour palette is telling lies about your quality.

When the look and feel of your business (your brand identity) matches the high praise of past customers and your sales pitch, it’s a much easier yes from new customers too.

How do we magically make your brand identity look as convincing as your testimonials?

Just like discovering how magic tricks work in a magic book of instructions, professional brand identities start with a strategic process. 

By process, I mean a repeatable set of tasks that leads to brand design that is the final link in the pay rise chain.

It starts with understanding your business at a deeper level, why you do what you, what drives you to persist through the hard times. Then we look at your audience, where are they when they find you? 

Are they looking for a quick solution or a genuine connection? 

Are they long time followers of your work or did they click on an ad in the middle of the night? 

Intelligent listening here is vital to truly understanding your strengths as a business, and your audience’s needs, wants, desires.

Next we look at the industry at large. Is everyone in a pricing battle to the bottom? Then here is your chance to stand apart as the premium option. 

Is everyone charging in the thousands? Perhaps you have a mini version that you can sell more of. 

This is brand positioning; where you are in relation to the competitors, AND in relation to the customer’s current state.

Only THEN can we look at brand identity design that truly fits your particular business vision and market position. 

This research and strategy is how we make informed decisions about colour, type, imagery, photography style, tone of voice for copy, decoration, spacing (and the list goes on). 

And this also is how we reduce the risk of rebranding in the wrong direction. 

You want your brand designer to thrive on discovering patterns, opportunities, and audience insights AS WELL AS being a magician in Adobe Illustrator.

As one of my past clients said,

“It’s so good to be working with someone who is focussed on getting it right, rather than being right” -Sonja Mahs, Heart Sense Psychology

My goal is always the same as yours: grow your business toward your vision in the most efficient way possible (using strategic design).

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