For most people in the fitness industry, the thought of raising their rates is stressful.
The stress we feel comes from fear. We fear that people will leave us in mass. That our sources of potential new members and clients will completely dry up. That all of this will cause us more financial problems and more stress.
This is what we feel, but it never works out that way.
We are in business and we are providing a very valuable service. In business, we must cover our costs and make a profit, or we will eventually go out of business.
Our fears should not dictate and control our business decisions.
Just the opposite approach, acting in the face of the fear (getting out of the comfort zone) is where we grow and in turn, grow our businesses.
I once decided to charge twice the amount the average trainer charged in my area. Twice the amount!
I was full of apprehension and fear. I acted anyway despite the fear and it turned out, 18 months later, this was one of the best business decisions I ever made.
I previously wrote on this topic giving you the exact steps to follow for this process. If you haven’t had a chance to do the work you can catch up here, Step 1 for raising your rates, and Step 2 for raising your rates. It is very important to do this work as you will see. For now, just go on faith.
Here are your next tasks for raising your rates, part 3.
- Make a list of all the programs and memberships you offer and what the investment is for your customers.
- Identify the last time you had a price increase for each of the programs above and how much that increase was as a percentage.
- For each program identify if you are above or below the competition’s price for each program. (Use your notes from Part 2.)
- List the investment you think each program is worth to your ideal customers, without bringing your pricing bias into your thinking.
Remember to put all of this in a permanent record. Electronic or handwritten doesn’t matter. Having a hard copy you can refer to is critical.
That’s it for right now. I know this is a lot of hard work. In fact, it’s work most people won’t do. The results, and the thinking process you go through, is worth a fortune to you as you will see.
Only the successful discipline themselves to do what is necessary.
