What does ‘right’ [as in ‘Price Yourself Right’] mean?

We live in a greed culture and I have observed that most people instantly see ‘right’ as charging more when ‘right’ might mean you need to lower your prices and sell increased volume, improve your marketing effort, increase your sales appeal.

‘Right’ might also mean improve your quality, find your competitive advantage, enhance your best features, improve your sales spiel, add value to your existing product or service, sell your benefits. Alternatively, ‘right’ might mean increasing your price by becoming more exclusive, more authentic, adding creativity … but pricing yourself right isn’t always just about asking for more.

The ‘right’ price is a thought construction based on both hard figures and emotion (what feels right). The ‘right’ price is determined by your customers, your competitors and you. What is the ‘right’ price falls somewhere in the middle of the Venn diagram where these 7 factors converge:

1) What the customer is willing and able to pay

2) Availability of the product or service in the marketplace – is there an abundance or scarcity?

3) Economic and political environment – are there restraints in your industry or other barriers that affect price elasticity?

4) The costs of production and being in business

5) Marketplace and competitor prices

6) Your own bottomline beliefs on how much profit you need to make it worth your while staying in business

7) Your vision – here’s when you think in term of possibilities.

This is summary - if you want more details please refer to the book .

©2007 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com