Should You Publish Your Prices?

Your web site is up, your services and products page is finished. So, do you publish your prices along with it? If you do, won’t that scare people away? If you don’t, won’t people think you’re hiding something? It’s a lose-lose situation, it would seem. So, do your clients need to see your prices or not?
Safety first.
When someone is looking to hire you, in their heart of hearts, they’ve already made a decision. There is a yes or no that has already sprung to life because our inner truth compass is just that certain. The problem comes in when the mind gets involved. Because following one’s heart-knowing involves surrendering control, the ego gets touchy about it. “Uh, are you sure about this?” your client’s ego asks.
Unless your clients are all spiritually-enlightened souls, chances are their egos will need some soothing, and the price isn’t going to do it. Well, not the price all by its lonesome.
The question I often hear is “Should I publish my prices?” – perhaps because money is such a hot topic. But, the truth is, the price only makes sense in context. “Balloon: $27,390” seems absurd, until you realize it’s an Aerostar S66A Turnkey Ride System- a hot-air balloon with all the trimmings by Paul Stumpf.
Price or no price, people will be slow on the uptake. Unless you give them more. If you just have two or three bullet points and a short paragraph, whether you have the price or not is irrelevant. You’re just not giving enough information to answer all the questions churning in the mind of your potential client.
That $27,000 Aerostar is going to raise a lot of questions before someone buys. It may be true that your services and products don’t cost $27,000, and yet if you’re asking any significant price at all, their egos are going to need some answers before they’ll let the heart take control.
So, publish prices or not?
You thought it was a simple question, and it is. But the answer takes a little bit more work than you had thought.But, never fear! It’s worth it. The little bit of extra work will mean extra safety, and extra safety means extra responses. So, what’s the extra? Let’s find out.
Keys to Publishing Your Price.
Get help coming up with questions: Use friends, colleagues and trusted clients. Tell them the three-sentence version of your offer. “It’s a class about finding work when you’ve been unemployed; it’s a day-long workshop; I’m thinking of charging $200 for it.”
Then, tell them to come up with all the questions they might have about it. Don’t ask them for answers. Don’t ask for what they want to see in the workshop. Just the questions that they want to ask you before they say “yes.” Push ’em to give you some outlandish questions – the ones they’re embarrassed to ask. “Should I wear a suit? Do I need to bring a resume? Does it matter if I was fired for bad conduct?”
Now, answer those questions on your web page. If they have the questions, then believe me, your prospective clients have those questions, as well. And they’ll be looking for the answers. Including the price.
And yes, include the price.
At this point, after answering all of their other questions, it definitely will cause more suspicion on the reader’s part if you leave out the price. They’ll be wondering: “They’ve told me everything but the price … is there some catch?” They won’t want to call you or e-mail for fear of getting caught in a hypey, hard-sell attack.
Your price is your price. It’s okay to present it. If it’s the right price, you’ve answered their other questions, and if it’s really the right thing for them, they’ll pay you happily. If it’s not the right thing, whether you show the price or not, they won’t buy, and they shouldn’t.
Publishing prices is somewhat of a no-brainer – you want to publish your prices. But you also need to answer as many of their other questions as possible, or they’ll walk away – not because of the price, but because their egos don’t yet feel safe enough to trust the heart.
This article was written by Mark Silver for Corporate Logo Magazine. Reprinted with permission. 
Mark Silver is the author of “Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line.” He has helped hundreds of small-business owners around the globe succeed in business without lousing their hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online at www.heartofbusiness.com.