3 Mistakes in pricing your fitness services and how to avoid them
“Fitness and wellness services are a luxury. Being a luxury service for our clients can be a blessing and a curse. The sooner we wrap our brains around the fact that we are going to be the first budget line item to get cut when they have to tighten their belt the better.”
-Ericka Thomas
Transcript
Ep 207 Pricing value:
How to price your classes, private sessions and workshops to attract clients
Knowing the value of what you offer and how to price it in the fitness industry is probably the most challenging thing to figure out as a fitness professional. And that’s today’s Work IN. We are pulling back the curtain on how to price fitness services to attract clients AND so that you can avoid the 3 most common mistakes fit pros make: Under pricing, over pricing and NOT pricing their services. I’ve made them all. So this is gonna be fun!
3 Mistakes in pricing fitness services and how to avoid them
Mistake 1: Underpricing
1 Under-pricing Let’s be honest, people judge a book by its cover. And your prices are part of your cover. Just like your bio your prices say something to your potential clients. The saying”you get what you pay for is deeply ingrained in many of us. And fitness and wellness services are a luxury. Being a luxury service for our clients can be a blessing and a curse. The sooner we wrap our brains around the fact that we are going to be the first budget line item to get cut when they have to tighten their belt the better. This is the #1 mistake fit pros make because it not only hurts our own business, it can hurt our industry by undercutting our colleagues. Underpricing comes from a place of fear and a lack of confidence in ourselves and our clients. Ultimately, it tells people that you don’t trust them to make a spending decision and you have no faith in what you offer… It’s really hard to correct by just raising your prices. It feels random to customers. Best thing to do is to avoid it in the first place.
How to avoid this mistake: First, do your research on what others charge in your area for similar services. Understand what the going rate is, so you’ll know what people expect in your area. Next decide what you need, what’s your minimum) to be paid in order to make this worth your time. Then do the math on how many people have to sign up, are they paying per class or per session or per month. If you like what you see great. If not rework the numbers.
Underpricing is difficult because it’s very hard to raise your prices later and course correct. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re being undercompensated there are several ways to approach it.
As an IC you can ask for a raise. (gasp!) That's right, you don’t have to just accept what employers want to pay you. You can negotiate. Here’s how: Ask for a meeting to discuss compensation. Come prepared with industry numbers for what you do, figure out if you want to be paid a flat rate or per person. and then request the higher end of what you want. Be brave. Worst case is that they say no. But if you never ask you’ll never know.And then you have a choice you can stay or you can keep your eyes open for the next opportunity if nothing else you will have educated your employer.
The key to NOT underpricing is knowing your value and the value you bring to your students/clients/employers. What is the value to your clients? This takes some time to work through. When you're new in the fitness industry there may be a little imposter syndrome. It can come from lack of experience, lack of training or lack of faith in what you know.
It might feel safer to underprice your classes. No matter what, you have to feel comfortable accepting the amount of money you are asking for. But there are smart ways to do that that will both give you the experience you’re looking for and confidence you need to build trust with your new students. One of those ways is the beta launch and another is the value add. We are going to go deeper into the beta testing next week. But for now it’s like offering a trial run at a lower pricepoint in exchange for feedback from the students. (energy exchange) The value add is what you do when you feel like your price is too high. This is the included bonuses. A private session with you, your favorite smoothie recipe, a book club.
All of this is going to be an experiment for new fit pros to figure out what really works for the. And what you feel comfortable with.
Mistake 2: Overpricing
THis is a less common mistake because most female trainers are stuck in the guilt of having to ask for compensation at all but it does happen. It’s easy to avoid in 2 ways. One is the same as for underpricing and that is to simply do your market research. The other is to know who your clientele is and market to the correct audience. Secretly,there is no overpricing, there's only misdirected marketing.
The Work IN here is that no matter what dollar sign value that you put on your services, you want to be 100% behind it. No secretly cringing when you tell people what you charge. No hiding your prices. No apologizing for them or dropping them to try to make the sale. THis is money mindset and we want to be able to stand behind what we do, what we offer and what we charge. No one knows the value of what you do unless they’re told. The only person who really knows all that you’ve put into your work is you.
Money is an energy exchange. Energetically, not believing in your pricing can block your success. If you don’t believe you can get 3 4 5 figures no one else will either.
How to fix it: If you’re struggling with pricing your value, make a list.
List all of your education, degrees, certification, experience and then write down all the value of those things to you. Do the honest math (like in underpricing) around what you want to receive. Per hour, per session, per workshop, per retreat. How do the numbers make you feel? Make sure they match the energy your willing to exchange. The next step is a little harder. It’s called sleuthing and I learned about it from an online coaching program through Hey Marvelous when I first turned my in person training into an online business. Sleuthing is interviewing as many of your ideal clients as you can find about the classes/training/workshops/retreats that you want to offer and then ask them about it. ALL about it. Including what they would pay. You can draw on current clients or students who have been to your beta launch. Jump on a phone call, write up a survey and send out a link or meet up for a coffee. THis doesn’t have to be cold calling. We can start with our friends. But it’s important to keep in mind the demographic you are looking for. SO if your friends don’t fit that description you might need to step out of your comfort zone. The information and insight you will gain will be invaluable and may help you narrow down your focus.
Mistake 3: NOT pricing at all
This is the free fall that most of us can get caught by at some point in the beginning of our fit pro journey. This is offering too much of your time, energy, skills, for free or in exchange for “experience” and “exposure” because that’s bullshit.The mistake here is not in doing free things, it’s in not understanding the energy exchange Look, we all want to do good in the world and it’s ok to work for free. But as fit pro it’s foolish to work for nothing. So the money mindset work around offering free things is that nothing is free. We need a reason behind offering what we do for free and at the very least that reason is to build the know, like, and trust factor, grow a community and we do that by collecting email addresses. This is how you let people know who you are, where you are and how they can continue to work with you.
Now the free thing should highlight who you are and also be the minimum effective dose of you. So a 1 hour class once a week, a 30 minute strategy call, the first class that new students come to, maybe 7 days free. All that depends on what it is that you do, how you offer your services.
Now all of this advice is for new independent contractor fit pros out in the wild. If you are an IC and have been hired by a fitness facility then there will be a contract that will govern some of this including most likely a non compete clause of some kind. Again this is another type of energy exchange. You work for a facility and the expectation is that you don’t have to market yourself. You don’t have the overhead outside of your personal continuing education and a strong understanding of the value you are providing.
We don’t get a lot of guidance when it comes to pricing our classes or knowing how to negotiate our own compensation.
Thanks for listening!
Are you a fit pro in the wild looking for ways to grow a burnout proof career? Being a solopreneur doesn’t mean you have to go it alone. Head over to
savagegracecoaching.com/theworkin you’ll find all the show notes for this and other episodes plus lots of free resources.including link to book a 30 min strategy call with me. And of course I’d be ever so grateful if you would take a moment to like and subscribe to this podcast wherever you’re listening.
Until next time, stop working out and start working in
Hey there!
I’m your host Ericka Thomas. I'm a health coach and trauma informed yoga professional bringing real world resilience and healing to main street USA.
I offer trauma release + yoga + wellness education for groups and individuals…regular people like you.
Book a call to learn how I can help.