Do you ever lie in bed worrying about your pricing?
Pretty sure every MSP owner (and small business owner, for that matter) has found themselves tossing and turning at night, wondering, 'Can I get away with putting my prices up?'
Well, for me, the simple answer to that question is always yes.
Because, while you may worry about your competitors undercutting you, your goal should actually be to become the most expensive MSP in your market.
Now, before you click away telling everyone that that Paul Green bloke who does MSP marketing is crazy, hear me out.
I totally get that pricing is a hugely emotive subject.
But the reality is that the marketplace is not as price sensitive as you think it is.
For the very best clients, price is a factor, but not the factor.
If you are the right MSP for a prospect, and the package is right, the product is right and the people are right, they are not going to pick someone else just because your price was a bit more than they were expecting to pay.
They will stretch to upgrade, and they will pay the higher price.
Suffice to say that one of the benefits of being the most expensive MSP in your area is that you will only attract the very best clients.
Believe me, you do not want the kind of clients that haggle over every single penny. Those are not good clients.
Because, while they might fill an immediate cash flow hole right now, long-term you want to be able to sell them additional services without having to deal with penny-pinching.
So, how can you practically go about putting up your prices?
Watch: Paul explains how to put up prices for both new and existing clients
New clients
Every single time you bring on board a new client, I want you to try nudging up the price a little.
For example, if you successfully sell to someone at £30 or $30 per user per month today, next time, put the price up to £32.
You should be constantly nudging up the price, and eventually, what will happen is the market will tell you when you’ve gone too far.
In other words, you'll find the ceiling (for the time being).
It's that simple.
The way you can do both this and ‘nudge up’ prices for each new client is by having a ‘pricing calculator’ on your website. You can of course manually adjust a pricing calculator, so each time you sign a new client, you make sure it shows the next prospect the new ‘nudged up’ amount.
Existing clients
I appreciate this one feels harder to implement than a pricing strategy for new clients.
But I believe your existing clients should absolutely have to go through a price increase at least once a year.
You should never be scared of putting your prices up, so long as you do it in a reasonable way.
Of course you can't just jack up your prices $10 or £10 'willy nilly'. They won't accept that.
But they will accept a measured programme of annual price increases, because it's you keeping in line with inflation.
Think your clients are really too sensitive for an overt price increase?
Well, there is actually a secret price increase strategy you can use with them (shh).
It's where you sell them an additional service, and you put an extra bunch of margin on that service.
So, let's say you sell dark web monitoring at £10 or $10 per user per month.
You can covertly increase your prices by putting it up to £15 or $15 per client per month, adding in some extra margin.
That's the way to achieve a price increase with your existing clients, without them even knowing you've done it.
Email me anytime at hello@paulgreensmspmarketing.com , or join 1,800+ other MSPs in my MSP Marketing Facebook group today for some fellow MSP-owner comradery. .
