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Student & Web Questions

Lesson 25 from: The Art of Selling What You Make

Tara McMullin

Student & Web Questions

Lesson 25 from: The Art of Selling What You Make

Tara McMullin

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Lesson Info

25. Student & Web Questions

Next Lesson: Today's Goals

Lesson Info

Student & Web Questions

If you so say when we're doing the math part I am wildly underpricing one product line maybe not my entire line but there's a there's a one little group that I'm just like you that needs some work people kind of understand it in that certain price bracket that it's in do I do I just change it and move on or do I make it not apologizing for it right by any means but saying like hey, we're growing but what like keeping it value driven I guess my question is like if if a jump needs to be made for like I'm need to cover this or it's just like no I you you need evaluate it this price does it does there have to be like a conversation and kind of explanation around it okay great question thank you s o the first part of that is is a jump in price doesn't make sense is that is the product valued like in general forget the old price but would there be a segment of customers that values it at the new price doesn't make sense okay great so I think you could go either way I am all for just you know...

remember back when I mentioned doing that flash consulting with people in telling eighty eight point two percent of them to double their price and how do you double your prices? You go into your shop on your change to the price and if it doesn't work out, you go back the next week or the next month, right? And you change it back like no one, no one is sitting there watching the price is on your website, just the same way no one is sitting there with their credit cards out, waiting for you to put a new product out. Sometimes they are very, very rarely, and they're definitely not watching your prices, so you can just talk totally, go ahead and change those prices without having a conversation. Ah lot of people, however, like to use this as an opportunity to gu sales before a price change. Andi is sort of like a thank you for being a loyal customer. Exactly what you said our business is growing. We realized that there is a problem with this price, and I need to raise it to x dollar out. You've got until monday at noon to get an order in for this product at the old price. After that, the product's going up to the new price and that's where it's going to be so that that's another way to do it, and you might get a flurry of orders and sure, that might be a little frustrating that, you know, you don't want to do that if you're losing money on the item, but if it's just that you're not making enough or that, you know you need to get it in line with other products in your collection, then I would say that would be a great way to get a nice little influx of cash, a little flurry of interest, because a lot of times when people add one thing to their card, of course they had more than one thing to their cart. So yes, so you could totally you could do it either way. I love you both ways, but just as you said, do not apologize. There is nothing I hate more. Well, I wouldn't say that, but there are a few things I hate more than an apologetic marketing message. When you apologize for soft, it does not attract the right kind of energy to your business. And if that's the tracks, any kind of energy to your business at all, so don't apologize. You can either make an announcement and give people a reason to buy right now. Or you could just go in and quietly do what you need to do to the price. So I didn't really give you an answer other than say whatever you want. No I like the idea of because I think that that gives them the chance and gives him the opportunity but it also positions me is like oh wow she you know like she is up leveling and I want to come along with her but I also want to get a really good deal real quick you know that's often thank you yeah no problem I often joke that I want teo you know go to a craft show by all the stuff that I want and then go around and tell everyone they need to raise their prices no I totally get that star I have one question I do so much work at the same time that's different genres whatever like a lot of them at the same time so how do I know how much each piece costs and labor because they yes because I do so many of them and then like I go eat dinner bob la luz try get really in the zone sometimes like I don't know how long it takes all of the sudden I'm like oh it's this time yeah you know what? Yeah you need a stopwatch there's probably stopwatch on your phone I need to time it yeah you just need to time it it's that simple I know it seems a little micro managing at first but you do it a couple times and then you really never have to do it again so it's totally worth the energy that you put into actually timing what each product takes you to make and of course if you're batch ing ifyou're doing boom boom boom boom boom you know one step on ten pieces and then going back and doing step two on ten pieces you khun you know you can time the batch and then divide it by ten so that you're getting you know that per piece time and yeah so there's but I would highly recommend you just time it yeah sasha well I remember earlier the day had a question about something in the night resurfaced in our conversation so earlier on the day it was like it felt like there were two questions that were a little bit contradictory and one was um basically going in the direction of set value for your product or service that feels like for lack of what you want to charge and then there was see what customers customers are paying for a similar product or service but not wanting tio just go with mass or charge less than you really need to be charging in order to make a good living so I sort of felt confused by that because what where do you go on balance and then in the our conversation it was like well okay I could make some phone calls or emails and hunt down what these personal programs cost with authors and it's not public but in a certain sense what does it matter? Because it's not public anyway no one knows and they're different people so is it really going to tell me anything more than what I'll just find out by experimentation are well you would get the answer a lot faster on to me time is money isn't always money, but most of the time it is on I like getting answers fast and cutting to the chase sin and the kind of experimentation that you're talking about a one on one program so experimenting in terms of the one on one program and figuring out what the product it is actually going to look like what the failure potential failure points might be all that stuff that's really good it's really difficult to experiment with price in that situation because it's kind of slow going you have a very small sample set and by researching other people's offerings are essentially widening your sir sample set dramatically on dh you know, I think a lot of times in that way it's about not leaving money on the table you might find out that two thousand dollars for that program is actually pennies and you need to be charging much more than that or that you could be charging much more than that and that there's a certain kind of customer that x suspects to pay that price the other thing to remember is don't you don't think that just because people are coming to you now that that's the only programme like that they've ever taken they might have taken another one on one personal growth program or done some other kind of one on one coaching and so you might you know, if you come at them with a price that's dramatically different than what they've paid before, they're going to have that those questions the confusion be uncomfortable and then they're not going to buy oh, so I think about it like that, yeah, but so there is I hear where you're seeing the contradiction a little bit, but I think it is both understanding the market, understanding the value and making a decision that make sense to you, especially for a service provider and I think that's when we had really when that that particular question our answer had come up was speaking about service providers where you don't have materials overhead and what you do have labor materials and overhead don't factor so much into the business. You know, you and I are running extremely low overhead businesses on it's, almost pointless to even think about the overhead a lot of times, so you do get to make a lot of on the fly decisions about pricing and so therefore I I like to have as much research as possible is what the market expects for something like that dd creed says if you're selling jewelry and the main pieces or price two between two hundred and three hundred fifty dollars, and your brand is based on a theme, how do you fit in a lower price point? Gateway piece? This goes back to what we're talking about the gateway, the up sell and the aspirational it seems like maybe they have that aspirational price point on lee. Um, yes, great. So kind of creating a wider product spread, allowing more people to come into the business through the through the idea of the gateway peace love the way you're thinking. So depending on, you know specifically what your product is, or specifically the type of jewelry and the materials that go into it, I would start kind of playing both with two things in order to develop more of a gateway more of an accessible product, one would be materials are you using a material like eighteen carat gold when you could be using sterling? At that price point, you want to be using eighteen, but are you using sterling? And you could be using broads or brass, you know? So could you switch up the medal or switch up the material in general to create a product that is on your theme that fits in with the purpose and position of your business? But allows more people in the door allows them to have a taste of that much more accessible product. The other thing that you could do would be thinking of design. So you know, for example, linnaeus pieces have a lot of an extremely intricate design, but she also showed us the stud earrings yesterday that seem to not have nearly as much intricacy and them, they're still ah lot of laser cutting in there, but the piece was pretty simple in and of itself. And so if you could take your design and think of perhaps something again still really fits, your theme fits completely into the collection, but remove some of the design features and maybe offers a more simple shape or more simple design. You could create something that fits in at a lower price point that makes but still makes sense in terms of how you arrived at that price and the value in terms of the rest of the line. So I would think specifically about those two things materials and design as a way to create a more gateway piece, perhaps if you have any final words or so the top three things to take away from today because today was jampacked theo yeah, we're doing a lot of work. Congratulations, everyone. Yeah, so I think let's see if I could come up with three takeaways one set a goal? No, what you're working towards what you're working towards always have that goal and break it down into manageable chunks that lead teo action plans settle, break it down to a manageable chunks that lead to action plans to run the numbers if you've not run the numbers on your pricing formulas, if you've not broken it down piece by piece, minute by minute you are losing out. You're losing an opportunity you're moving out on money, you're just you're losing run the numbers and three focus on val you know what the value of your your work is in the market? No, what the value of your work is to your customer price for the market. You want to be in price for the value you want to be offering, not the value that you know you've been a afraid of whole along andan let me give you a fourth bonus takeaway start talking more about money start talking more about price the way that we're going to get through all of this is by sharing information sharing experiences on dh just, you know, urging each other on in this constant battle against money, yeah, talk to each other, talk to each other, the chat room is a great place to do that.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

The Art of Earning.pdf

bonus material with enrollment

The Art of Selling What You Make.pdf
Indie Craft Show Guide_v12.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Ramona W
 

I came in on the rebroadcast. Tara is so AMAZING!!! She made me realize that I could take my product out of the box on how we think about selling our products into awesome creative ways to get my product out into the world. I purchased this course to refer back to in the uplifting style of selling that Tara brings to life. Tara is uplifting, energetic, optimistic giving you confidence in yourself and your product. Well worth the purchase!

a Creativelive Student
 

I loved this workshop. It gave me so many good actionable things to do to move my business forward. This is the 2nd course I've taken from Tara Gentile, and I highly recommend anything from her. She knows her stuff, and pushes you to build a community around your business to make it a sustainable and meaningful business. I also met a lot of wonderful ladies who are on similar journeys. I highly, HIGHLY recommend this course!

a Creativelive Student
 

Amazing workshop! Such a mass of useful information and ideas. I will be implementing them for the next year probably. It was wonderful that it was specifically geared towards selling what you make, not a lot else like this out there. I loved the format with the five entrepreneurs who asked specific questions and then were helped individually by Tara. She helped them to tailor an approach that fit exactly their business needs. Now I just have to get organized and start making it happen!

Student Work

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