How to Get Clients On Board With Your Pricing Model

Hello, friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hairstylist Podcast. In the last episode, we went into a deep dive into session pricing, package pricing, all-inclusive pricing, whatever you wanna call it. And I know that a big fear and complication that comes about when people transition into session pricing is, how do I actually explain this to my clients?

How do I roll it out? How do I make the transition, announce it, h- put it on my website, et cetera, et cetera? So in this episode, we're gonna be talking about how to get your clients on board with your pricing model, and the majority of what we'll be talking about today is going to apply to session pricing, however, could be applied to hourly or whatever other structure that you have in your business. So, if you're ready to get into it, let's go.

What's the tea, friend? My name's Hunter Donia, industry business educator for hairstylists, but my friends just call me Hunty. And I'm Caitlin, the CMO for Team Hunty, here to offer additional perspectives and kick-ass marketing advice. Whether it be growing your clientele, making more money, or automating and streamlining your systems, in the next 20 minutes or so, you'll be hearing realistic, actionable strategies to create a beautiful career for yourself behind the chair.

So, if you're ready to get into it, welcome to the Modern Hairstylist Podcast. Yo, Caitlin. Yo. What's the tea, honey?

I, I don't know. You took me super off guard saying yo. Yo. No tea, all shade.

No tea. Except... All shade? Um...

No tea, all shade. So, today, um, we're gonna be talking about how to actually get your clients on board with your session pricing, or just your pricing model in general. Again, I'm gonna be super biased towards, and, like, be mainly talking about session pricing here. But for hourly pricing, a lot of these same concepts can apply, and then, like, who needs to really get their clients on board with a la carte?

And here's the tea. If you need to get your clients on board with a la carte, and that's, like, a struggle that you have, then maybe you should be switching to session pricing , period. You know what I mean? So, that's something to consider.

Okay, so first off, let me just share with you, I understand rolling out changes like this to your clients can be super scary, and, um, we deal with a whole lot of big, scary shifts in pre-visit pathway. You know, I think that a, a self-proclaimed gift of mine is pushing people out of their comfort zones and getting them to make the big changes that they want to make but are a little bit too scared to do, and giving them the support and the systems to make those changes as well, too. Because here's the thing. If you do this right, and if you set up the structure, then you can roll out anything to your clients, and it will always have a better result on the backend as long as you are prepared and you have everything in place to still provide an excellent customer experience in doing so, and to make things simple and make things make sense, and also make things positive.

But also make sure that you're keeping in mind how your change that you're making is benefiting the client. All too often, we think that we make systems or changes in our business. We think that we're being selfish or that we're only doing it for ourselves, when in reality, there are so many pros to boundaries, systems, changes, whatever it may be, for the client as well, too. And at the end of the day, it's either you continue on with the way that you're doing things and you're miserable, or it doesn't work for your business anymore and you end up having to close the doors and your clients are pissed that way, or your clients, or some of your clients, are pissed about the change that you make, they leave, you make more room for the people that you absolutely love and that they love you, and they get on board and we keep it moving and keep it pushing.

I'd much rather your clients be pissed, because some of your clients, your non-ideal clients be pissed that you're making this type of change versus all of your clients be pissed because you didn't set up your business properly or you didn't make a change because you needed to for your own wellbeing, for your business's wellbeing, and then you have to close your doors. Like, I'd rather the other way around, right? So, I understand that this is scary. You're not alone.

There are so many o- of us as business owners who, you know, we didn't sign up for, to be business owners. We didn't sign up to have to deal with all of this scary shit, but here we are, right? And, and we don't get to be creative and, and build a beautiful life and career for ourselves without having to make these big, scary shifts as CEOs. So, what I want you to do, my friend, is put those big CEO pants on today and take these tips that I'm gonna give you for rolling things out, and definitely use them to, uh, to make this as optimal as for, for you as possible, but also lean into my programs, lean into mentorship to make sure that you're setting up systems and the fundamentals of all of these the right way in the first place so you can roll them out with success and your clients actually getting on board with you.

Here's the number one thing I'm gonna say, and I'm just gonna answer your question, the number one question that you have right off the bat. And I've said it in previous episodes, I said it in my price increase episode, which is, like, one that I did a long time ago, that you can still check out. It's still, uh, relevant to today. My favorite way to roll out changes is through email and video, so sending a video of yourself and then explaining your change or your price increase or whatever it may be.

And the reason why I love doing this is because it takes away the confrontation of an in-person interaction. It takes away your having to remember whether you told this person or that person, because you know for a fact that you sent that shit across the board to every single person, and you can send that same email multiple times if you want to, and you know that everybody had a chance to see it. And what it gives you is it gives you that same feeling of that in-person connection, because they're able to see your face, hear your voice, hear your authenticity when you're explaining how much you appreciate their loyalty. So, you're kind of blending together the, you know, good old, let's just send an email across the board and the in-person explaining to somebody, and you're getting kinda the best of both worlds.

So, I love emailing a video out to the clients, and we teach people how to do it in a really, really clean way in pre-visit pathway that includes, like, slide decks with it so you can, like, actually show people and people have a visual as you're explaining it to make things make more sense and to reduce miscommunication or misconceptions, and it has worked-... uber well for me, in my own business, and for all of our students. Whenever they do this, they have fantastic results in how they roll this out to their people. So, that is how I suggest that you roll something like this out.

And here's what you can do when you roll this out, is you can also list out all of the changes, the entire menu of your pricing, and you can make it so you l- like the same way that you list it out on your, your website, you can say, like, "Formerly known as," right? "This was formerly known as maybe if you get one or more of the following services, root retouch, toner, haircut, balayage," whatever it may be for each of the things that may be included in the package, in that hourly time, whatever it may be. And then you can also lay out more FAQs that peop- that you know people ma- may have. And people not only are gonna be able to get your explanation in the video, but they're also gonna be able to get your explanation on the email or even a landing page that you cr- create and then embed that video onto.

So, that's how I recommend that you roll it out across the board. I'll pause there. I have much more to say. But what do you think, Caitlin?

I completely agree. I did exactly what Hunter was recommending when I changed session pricing and had really good results with it. Um, I think something to just consider as well, you were probably gonna say this anyway, Hunter, but, um, it's really important to not roll something like this out with, like, a, "I'm sorry" attitude. Like, "Sorry that this is...

I'm so sorry to make a change." Like, you can't do that. Like, you have to have utmost confidence and, like, really, like, be excited about it. I really leaned in on that when I rolled out my session pricing.

Like, I was, like, overly excited, and it made everyone else as excited too. Thank you so much for bringing that back because I was going to transition into saying that after I said, "This is a good thing for your clients." So, thank you so much for rolling me back in. That's, that's exactly why I love having you here.

So, um, so yes, 100,000,000%. Human behavior, human psychology will often have you mirror the same emotions and attitude that the other person is exemplifying, right? So, if you're rolling this out and you're like, "I'm really sorry, this is gonna be a weird transition. I know that it's weird.

I know that y- it's gonna be hard to understand," your clients are gonna be thinking the same damn thing because you're setting your own stage. You are setting the stage for clients to be replicating your same energy. Another reason why this video is so amazing, because you don't have to do it on your fir- send it out on your first take. You can make sure that you're showing up with confidence and the right attitude about the change.

And you can show your emotion and put a smile on your face about it and talk about how it is solving problems that you may have had before, right? So, you can even list out the pros of the change when you're either talking about it in person to your clients or in your video rollout that you do. So, you can say, like, "And this is going to be so helpful for you because you're gonna have a predictable price that you can pay whenever you come to see me without having to worry about whether you're getting this service or that service or that service." So, that's a massive pro to a client to have predictable pricing, if that's a pro that you have for whatever pricing model that you're rolling out, such as sessions, right?

"This is going to make you booking online so much less complicated because all you have to choose from is literally one button," right? Another pro. So, making sure that you're listing out the pros and, of course, having a positive, confident attitude when you're speaking to your clients about this is going to allow for them to get on board with you as well. The moment that you show that you are inconfident about it or that you make it seem like it's gonna be this big, massive transition and it's gonna be stressful and make their lives harder or your life harder, that's when somebody's going to give you a negative reaction right off the bat, right?

So, to mitigate those reactions, we want to make sure that we're showing up with the same attitude and positivity that we want our clients to be giving us as well. Thank you, Caitlin. Loved that point. The next thing is to make sure that you've laid things out as clearly as possible without going over the top with your explanation, okay?

And I know this is a hard balance. But normally, if we have set up things properly, and this is where it goes back to the foundations and the fundamentals that you can learn in my programs, if you set things up correctly, then things like this can be very easily clearly laid out. And then you can make it so whenever you roll it out to your clients and whenever you put it in reading materials, onto a service menu, that when clients read it out the first time they see it or the second time, whatever it may be, that it makes sense and it doesn't make it complicated and it doesn't make them turn off. The moment that something is too complicated, that is the moment that you're gonna have issues.

You're gonna have people ro- uh, being like, "Can't I just pay this old price?" Or, uh, or they're gonna be like, "What the hell is going on here? I don't get this. Can you just do my hair," right?

And so, that is why we wanna make sure that we have these session pricing, your hourly pricing, or a la carte, whatever it may be, make absolute sense into client terms, not hairstylist terms, and have multiple ways of making sure that your client can self-identify into each of those boxes, but without going too crazy with, like, paragraphs of information. So, that's another really great way to make sure that you get people on board. And then using verbiage in your pricing and in your titles and descriptions that makes sense to your specific ideal client. Now, here's the tea with this.

What I used to like with session pricing was we... And what I kind of was always like, "Yes, this is what you absolutely should do," was I used to say, like, we should name our packages, like, by these, like, you know, exclusive, really luxury names, right? Which absolutely can still 100% work, especially with Gen Z and Millennial target markets and ideal clients. When it comes to people, and even...

And I don't want it to get too generational because even in older generations than Millennial, they...This can still work, like you making, like, a, like a lux experience package and calling it that. It can still 100% work. It can still 100% make sense.

It just depends on the person that you're speaking to and what their vibe is, what their demographic is, what their experiences have been with salon experiences. If this is somebody who is, like, extremely used to getting their hair done in a salon and they have massive experience with an a la carte menu, naming your packages or naming your pricing structures, whatever you wanna call it, things that still make sense to them, but then having it, let's say, all-inclusive and structuring it in a different way might make more sense and might help you get people more on board. So, for example, I have an amazing person in my program called Pam. Love you, Pam, if you're listening to this, my friend.

And she found that her clients were having a difficult time getting onto- u- understanding her luxury names of her sessions. So, like, some people will call them, like, The Luxe. I call mine The Complete, The Keep Up, that kind of stuff, right? So, what I suggested that she did was she instead call them, like, if, if this is, like, a retouch and a haircut of any sort, let's just call it a retouch and a haircut.

You don't want to do anything that's going to deter from what this a- what this actually includes, so if this isn't a retouch, if this is, like, a, you know, a foil or something like that, then that's what you wanna call it, right? But if you're able to use those terms that your clients already understand, right, and then include them in that title, if that makes more sense for your market, then that's what you wanna do, right? So, making sure that you're taking into consideration your market. And so what ends up happening is, is people think, like, "Oh, session pricing isn't gonna work for me because my market isn't used to this type of pricing structure," when in reality people can get on board with any freaking pricing structure that you have because they don't even understand that you're doing an a la carte menu in the first place.

Like, they're not thinking... We think about that. We think, like, "Yes, this is a la carte." Your client's not fucking thinking about how you're pricing your shit.

They just want things to make sense, right? So, what you wanna do is, is if you wanna change the session pricing and you feel like you have a market that may not understand how it's been normally done, right, like, with, like, calling it, like, The Complete or whatever it may be, just make sure that you're still using verbiage and, again, laying everything out as clearly as possible to match the market that you have and what their current understanding is of everything that you have going on. The next thing we can talk about, so let's say that you roll out your session pricing and you have somebody who's combative about it. What I would do if I were you is I would say, "Listen, I put this in place to make things more simple for you and myself and everybody else," right?

"So, I understand that things might not make sense upfront, and again, you will mitigate this by making sure that this was done right in the first place." But if this does happen, right, what you can say is, is, "You don't even have to worry about, about what you are paying or what you're walking into or what you're booking online. Here is an online booking card and I'm gonna write down everything that you need to know for when you go back online and you book with me, so that way you know exactly what to book and it's literally a click of a buy-in," right? Hand them that online booking card, send them home with it.

Or, if we do automated post-visit emails like we do in, in our membership, then you can send them a post-visit email that has everything that they need to book their next appointment online, right? And of course, making sure that you talk about somebody's budget and understanding what they're gonna be paying for at the beginning of the service prior to getting into it, right? Because then it's like there's no pushback. It's like, "This is going to be the price and it is what it is," right?

Like, "This is what you can expect to pay by the end of this appointment." Now, if you have somebody fighting you back and being like, "I don't really understand what I'm paying for," I would say, "That's understandable," and I would say, "I totally understand where you're coming from. What I can tell you is I've made these prices based upon the experience, the education that I've taken, the demand on my time, and all of the product costs and how m- how much my time costs to be able to charge for this price to get you from A to B," right? That is simply what I would say.

"And so I understand that this may not make as much sense to you, but what I do want you to know is that you will know exactly what you are paying for prior to rendering the service and you will know what your expectations should be for what you will be getting with w- what you will be leaving with on your head at the end of this appointment prior to the rendering of the service as well." And if somebody continues to have an issue with you, they're not an ideal client and they can leave. It's like either you get on board or you don't, and you, my friend, have to be extremely confident in doing that, and you have to be extremely confident about not emotionally discounting or not rolling back on, on the decisions that you've made to make a better life and business for yourself, right? So, a little bit about this also goes into your mindset.

It's like, are you going to allow your clients to run your business for you or are you gonna be the one who runs the business, right, and makes the decisions? And again, I'm gonna say it again, having the systems, making sure the fundamentals and foundations are in place, keeping things extremely clear and simple, and taking all the things that I've talked about into consideration will reduce these negative reactions as much as possible and you won't have to do as much explaining yourself, nor should you really have to do any explaining yourself at all, ever. But we do wanna be understanding of people and their experiences, and so use the verbiage that I just shared with you if you're s- nervous about rolling things out and just make sure that you have the foundation set up correctly from the first place and you will be just fine when you transition people over. Might be a little bit of growing pains, but once you get through them, you'll be so glad that you made the shift.

What's your take, Kaylin? I'll just give a little bit of my own personal experience when I rolled this out. So, um, a lot of the time I think that we get really concerned about our regulars. Like, the whole point of this episode is, like, how our regulars are gonna take this.

So, what I did is very similar to what Hunter is saying. I, um, part of my, like, "roll-out" was, um, I let them know, like, "If you are confused or if you're not sure what category you fall under, just let me know. Reply to this email or tell me in person and I will let you know what you need to book and I'll explain that that's what category you sit in." Or, like, for me, as a, I was a low-maintenance, uh, color specialist, so my clients would bounce between, uh, cer- uh, packages here and there.

So, like-... on these, on these months when you need this done, you're gonna be this package, and then when you wanna get your, like, toner refresh, you're gonna get this package. And I mean, it's, it's a little bit of give and take at first when you do do this, but, like, making sure that your clients understand and don't expect them to just understand. Like, you will have to do a little bit of handholding, I feel like, at the very beginning, but once you are all on the same page, it's just, like, totally smooth sailing afterwards.

Thank you so much for filling in the gaps. Like, yes. I... Literally, before you started talking, I was like, "Oh, yeah, I wanna say that."

Like, so thank you. Yes, Caitlin, 100% yes. Also, when you first roll out changes to your clients, right, don't expect everybody to just be, like, fully on board and to get and understand everything, no matter how clearly that you laid everything out. So a great thing to be is to be h- to have a great customer service brain with this and in a normal circumstance, I'm totally about you having great boundaries and being like, "Girl, no, go to the app and, like, go check out all of the information that I have laid out on here."

In a shift like this, in a sh- in a change and shift like this if you're changing your pricing model, you do wanna give people a little bit more, like, of, of a concierge, on-hand service, right? So when I rolled this out as well, I was very much like, "If you don't understand what this is, then make sure that you let me know and I will be happy to let you know which category you fit into." Another thing that you can do to validate your prices and to make sure that everything makes sense is, like, ask some of your ideal clients before you roll everything out. "Hey, go onto this page."

Test them, "Do you know which package you would fit into?" And if they have no idea, then you know that you have to change things around, right? But if they're like, "Yep, this one works, this one works, this is what I'd be in," then you, you're pretty good to go. So that's what I did.

I validated the fact that I knew that my ideal client would understand where they needed to go and what they fit into, and then, of course, once they, once I rolled it out, I was like, "Please let me know which one you fit into." And I remember because, again, I had the fundamentals foundation set up correctly, I genuinely maybe had, like, one of my clients be like, "Oh, I don't know, like, which one I'm in," right? So I love that. Give people that concierge service while you're in the s- while you're in the shift, if need be.

And make sure to let people know that you're open and, and you're willing to answer those questions whenever they have them. Love it, love it, love it. I think this was a badass episode, biasly, um, and I, and I, again, my friend, support you so much in making this big shift or whatever big shifts and boundaries that you wanna create in your business. And I'm here to support you in helping to make sure that you do them in a professional and beautiful way where you don't feel nervous or anxious about it, and you just have a little bit of natural fear, but you have the confidence from knowing that you did the work with proven strategies that many, many, hundreds of other stylists have already put into place.

So if you are looking to get a little bit more hands-on support, you can go to hunterdonahue.com and check out all that I have to offer, including pre-visit pathway, and if you enjoyed this episode of the Modern Hair Stylist podcast, go ahead and leave a five-star review wherever you're listening to this. I would really, really appreciate it because it helps us reach more people just like you who are looking to revolutionize the industry, and I will check you out on the next episode. Peace out, girl scout.

Bye bye.

End of transcript. © 2023 Hunter Donia LLC.