Something had to change.
In 2021, I practiced doing the opposite.
I knew that in order to get comfortable with pricing £20k for projects; I had to do the opposite of what I’d always done.
I remember hopping on a call with an enquiry where she was giving all of the green flags prior..
Except we hadn’t had a transparent conversation about money.
↓
At the time; I was still using budget brackets on my form and I’m pretty sure she ticked the highest one (lol)
I thought ^ this was being transparent about money early in the process.
I thought because I asked them how much they wanted to spend as the first step, that I had nailed the transparency piece.
I was wrong.
The budget brackets are kinda useless.
The client will either pretend to have a high budget to flex their ego to get on the call with you…
or they tick the lowest one hoping to snag a deal, or usually don’t have a clue so it’s a random click…. have you noticed?
↓
So anyway, we were on the call and the client was telling me alllll about her product and how many skus there were going to be… (lots of skus) and listed all of the bricks and mortar stores they would be in.
PERFECT!
I knew with every bone of my body this was a high-value project, worthy of a number that made sense.
And I was done with charging 2k for packaging design. I knew I had to do the opposite.
↓
So I sent the proposal.
I priced higher than I normally would’ve felt comfortable to at the time.
I was beyond uncomfortable with this number.
I practiced doing the opposite.
I went hard at £20k thereabouts – pulling on the value that I’d uncovered in the call.
I leaned on the size of the goal and the problem like value-based pricing dictates.
But I was ghosted.
It might not have been the price point – it might have been something I said. 👀
But either way, yet again, I knew something had to change.
↓
I’d made the first step by pitching higher than I normally would.
I also removed the brackets from my form.
I then got to work on making sure that every single outward representation of Our Kind made absolute sense for a 20k price tag.
Because positioning and resonance matters.
I also worked on the money stuff and also worked on respecting my time energy and expertise so that asking for a transaction and expecting nothing less was the only way.
I did the opposite of what I’d always done – which was play small.
I knew to attract big, I had to embody big and play in the big arena.
All in, or don’t bother.
↓
I worked on re-engineering every piece of the Our Kind experience in order to warrant a luxury brand experience.
One by one I broke down the old process that we’ve all been taught, and created a new system that worked.
And it worked so damn well.
My first proposal (hesitant to even call it that) was £500 and it comfortably helped me book a 12k project.
I believe in starting small and building tolerance.
Because although something had to change – I had to change with it too.
↓
If you’ve been in my sphere for a while; you know the rest.
I created my own enquiry system built on adding a high-touch experience to the bit before the project is even booked.
I created a super-pre-qualification work flow that works harder to vet a client than budget brackets ever could.
And I deeply understood my kind of client in ways I had never before; so I could deliver offers that made exact sense for them in their position.
