I hear it all the time: “I want to raise my prices, but I don’t want to lose customers.” The idea is that if you increase your prices, nobody will buy what you’re selling. And sure enough, most businesses have seen sales slow down when they increase their prices. But here’s the thing: raising prices isn’t just something that happens once—it’s an ongoing process! If you start charging more today and then stop tomorrow, then next week your customers will be used to paying more for your product or service. And so on…
Raising The Prices of Your Dog Training Services
If you’re not raising your prices, then you’re losing money. You may have been taught to believe that the only way to grow your business is by increasing your value and adding more services or products. While this is true, it’s also important to realize that as time goes on, the value of a dollar adjusts. You should always strive for continual growth in all areas of your business—not just with how much value you provide but also with how much money people are willing to pay for it! But it’s not as simple as some might have you believe. It’s not always beneficial to just “raise your price” because of the multitude of factors that are at play.
Why You Can’t Just “Raise Your Prices”
You can’t just raise your prices. As a dog trainer, you have a very unique skill set. No other trainer can precisely replicate the way you go about training dogs and interacting with clients. But most trainers forget to articulate the uniqueness they bring to a dog owners dog training journey. They assume they need to base their prices on what other trainers around them are pricing at, but to me, that’s like pricing apples and oranges the same price because they are both fruit.
To effectively raise your prices, you’ll need to address a few other aspects of your business too. You’ll need to intentionally create you marketing message, level up your client experience, and/or build out your systems to streamline sales—and that’s not easy! You’re going to have to put in some serious time and effort into figuring out how this will work for your business. You need a plan for what exactly you want to offer clients that they can’t get anywhere else; then make sure it’s something people actually want (i.e., not just what YOU think would be cool).
There’s a better way to raise prices.
There’s a better way to raise prices. Instead of just raising your prices, you can increase the value you’re offering at the same time. Here are some ideas for doing that:
- Evolve your dog training package into a dog training program with specific goals in mind. When you productize your services, it makes them more tangible to the potential client. They aren’t buying “time with you” and instead buying a solution to their problem.
- Offer a discount for a limited time. This can be as simple as offering 20% off for the first week or month after your new price goes into effect. It gives clients an incentive to buy right away rather than waiting until later on when they might forget about it (or find another option).
- Put a sales system in place. I know we don’t like to think about sales, but it is a crucial piece to being able to help more families and their dogs. There is a science to sales and if it means you get to help more people and their dogs by implementing a proven sales process, then its a win-win. Look at sales as simply a conversation with someone that needs help and you two are deciding whether what you have to offer would be beneficial to them and their situation.
- Know how you’re going to generate leads that need your services. All too often trainers are reliant on referrals for their business. Should they want to move or if the referrals stop, then business stops. We should be putting in place a strategy to generate leads for your services and if you don’t know what to do each day to generate potential clients, then you shouldn’t be raising prices yet. You need to be able to generate your own demand instead of relying on referrals or word of mouth which come from the kindness of others – something that’s totally out of your control.
The bottom line is that raising prices is not as simple as it sounds. There are many factors to consider and you must do more than just raise your prices if you want to build for sustainable growth.
Suggestions for You
- Want to take a deep dive into where your business stands with my team? Our business strategist is currently accepting applications for Game Plan calls. A complimentary call where, together, we take a look at what’s preventing you from hitting your goals. You can apply for this call here.
- Grab our $7 book, “The Modern Dog Trainer’s Guide to 10K Months” to get a comprehensive picture of what it takes to get to six figures within integrity to who you are as a person and trainer.
