076 Revisiting My Rule About Pricing from an Intersectional Lens
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In this thought-provoking episode, join me, the Numbers Witch, as I delve into the intersectionality of pricing in my bookkeeping business. Addressing inquiries about my pricing structure through the lens of gender, I offer insight into my rule of setting rates and explore the empowerment in choosing higher rates despite societal discomfort. Ultimately, I encourage listeners to reclaim their worth and financial power by embracing higher rates.
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00:00:01
Hi there. Welcome to money. Through ease, this is your host, Regan Bashara. I'm the founder of all ease accounting, and this podcast is all about money and finances, especially as it relates to business and entrepreneurship in the United States. And I want to come on.
00:00:20
Today and talk about pricing and a little bit of a revamp of the pricing chats that we've had before on the podcast. Couple weeks ago, you heard from Sara Fins, who is a guest and she was talking about pricing your.
00:00:37
Offer for profit.
00:00:38
But.
00:00:39
I've also done a podcast episode on my Rule for pricing, so maybe you already know what that rule is, but it's essentially this. If you're going to be mean to yourself, you're going to feel shame you're going to feel guilt, you're going to beat yourself up no matter which number you pick for your price.
00:01:00
For your offer, if you're going to feel shame, guilt, and beat yourself up either way, low number high number, you might as well pick the high number. Why? Because it costs money to survive in this world.
00:01:12
And you might as well make more ******* money, right? So that is essentially my role for pricing.
00:01:18
And for the.
00:01:18
Past.
00:01:19
Couple of weeks I think I've been exploring more of this rule for myself. Kind of like turning it over and seeing like, where did I come up with this and how does this play out? Is there anything that I'm missing or anything that I'm I'm not seeing?
00:01:38
In this rule.
00:01:39
That could be, like, harmful or something that is coming from me, speaking from a place of privilege, which I hold as a white woman in the United States. I've been trying to consider, like, is there something that I'm missing or something else that I need to clarify or say or add to this rule?
00:02:01
But I really don't think there is. And if you think there is, if there's something coming up for you whenever I say that I want to hear from you, you can get on my e-mail list at my website, alleaseaccounting.com.
00:02:15
And reply to any e-mail that you see from me. My subscriptions emails go out, you know every week really. And so whenever you see an e-mail from me, you can reply to it and it comes directly to my inbox. I'm the only one that sees it. So if something has come up for you when I've been talking about pricing, when I've been talking about my rule for pricing, I would love to hear from you.
00:02:35
Oh.
00:02:36
Because if there's something that I'm not seeing, I want to know right if there's something that is maybe harmful or inaccurate or not coming from a place of, like, an intersectional kind of lens, I need to know. I want to know, and I encourage you to reach out to me so that we can have that conversation together. But I don't think that.
00:02:41
Harm.
00:02:57
This is coming from like it's. I don't think that it's a privilege take and once again I could be wrong, but let me explain to you what my thoughts are about this rule. So I'll tell you first where this rule kind of came from.
00:03:09
I am a business owner. I own a virtual bookkeeping firm. It just turned 2 years old because I started my business in May of 2022. So I just passed my two year Mark. By the way, I want to celebrate with you that I've made $100,000 in my business.
00:03:30
Gross. So far in two years, which I think is just.
00:03:34
******* incredible, to be quite honest with you, I'm very proud of that fact.
00:03:39
I think that that was not an easy thing to do for me. It has been a struggle, but I'm really amazed and in awe of myself and I want to celebrate that with you. But I've been in my business for two years and when you're in business, nobody is making up the rules for you, right? You have to make up the rules yourself.
00:04:00
Sorry, I had to stop for a second to sneeze. I would just rather stop the recording and then sneeze and then not have to edit that out later. OK, so I've been in business for two years. When you're in business for yourself, you get to set your prices and there are certain industries that are regulated.
00:04:19
For like what price you can set.
00:04:22
For instance, if you are in the healthcare services field, insurance companies like will only pay so much for healthcare services, right? Like you can't say that an annual doctor's visit is going to cost $1000 and then insurance is, you know, someone claims that on that on their insurance and bills that to their insurance the insurance is not going to just be like.
00:04:43
OK, here's a.
00:04:44
Check for $1000 right? Like they have their standards.
00:04:48
Even in my field I am a paid tax preparer. I keep my paid tax preparer status with the IRS. I do my continuing education every year even though I don't prepare taxes well. I do prepare like payroll tax returns, so I keep it for that and also to kind of stay on the up and up. I want to know what kind of changes are happening.
00:05:09
With tax returns, because the work that I do for my clients informs their tax returns, it goes on their information returns.
00:05:18
And so I keep that up and there are certain regulations and rules that the IRS has set for tax preparers on how much we can charge people to prepare returns. So there are regulations for that for some of the kind of services I provide for some people in certain industries, it is like.
00:05:38
A legal thing it is.
00:05:40
You know there is some sort of authority or agency that is monitoring what you set your prices at and they can come in and say.
00:05:50
You can't do.
00:05:50
That right? So but aside from that, if there are services or products that you sell that aren't like regulated in some way?
00:06:00
You can just pick a ******* number. Like, if there's not a regulation for.
00:06:06
That means you can pick the number and this is where we get into the fact that we are in a capitalist economy, meaning that there is not as much regulation for like most things in the market for most products and services in the market. Now we are largely a service based economy, there's.
00:06:25
Very few like products that people make and sell anymore, that's like made here. And I know I'm talking to my small business people. So of course you make your products if you are a product based business and you sell that. But other than that there's not.
00:06:44
Most stuff gets made overseas nowadays or gets manufactured or mined, or there are resources that come from other places, so it's not like coming from here. It's not being made here. And so where was I going with that thought? Honestly, that was a tangent.
00:07:05
We are in a service based economy and capitalism says that like there should not be.
00:07:11
Any oversight, body or regulatory regulatory body? There should not be any regulations for the way people do business and the way corporations do business, not just people like there should be corporations set up and there should not be any regulations on those corporations. I feel like most of us would agree that that's not a good *******.
00:07:31
Idea that capitalism in.
00:07:32
General is just not a good idea.
00:07:34
But that's kind of how we're operating right now.
00:07:37
Yes, there are a lot of regulatory bodies for most industries in the United States don't have the exact like numbers on that. But if you think.
00:07:45
About it like.
00:07:46
Food. Those have regulatory bodies, even like products like just things that you buy in the store. Uh, medication. You know, clothing like there's certain. And then of course, like the regulation of like, labor in the United.
00:08:05
It's like you have to pay people a certain minimum wage unless they're like a server in the restaurant or it's even legal to pay disabled people lower than the minimum wage, which is ****** **. And so like, even labor and service in this country is regulated. So we're not completely under 100%.
00:08:26
Where you market capitalism?
00:08:28
But for the most part, the regulations that do exist aren't enough to serve us to, like, protect us. Like the fact that the minimum wage federally is $7.25 an hour is abysmal, because that is not a living wage. You know, the healthcare industry we all know.
00:08:48
Have stories, personal stories, stories that we've heard from other people about the healthcare industry.
00:08:53
How, like people are getting sick and then they literally can't get ******* help. Like there's so much red tape to get through. So even though there are regulatory bodies, we still live under largely like a free market economy. And that means that you do have the agency to choose your own prices with some limitations. But for the most part.
00:09:14
Most people that own businesses can just ******* pick a number and nobody is going to come in and say you can't do that.
00:09:22
So if that's.
00:09:23
The case then that just means that you can just pick a number, so then it comes down to when you're considering what to set the number at for your prices. It comes down to how you think and feel about that number.
00:09:38
And it is not true that it matters what other people think. Because here's why, like, there's so many ******* people, there's millions of people in the United States alone. So if your market is your local area or nationally or internationally, there's so many people that are available to purchase your product.
00:09:58
To engage with your services.
00:10:02
So there are so many people it it is just not true that if you pick a number that there's nobody out there that would pay that price.
00:10:10
There is somebody out there that would pay that price that actually wants what you have to offer that needs it and it's ready to like write the check or swipe the.
00:10:20
Card.
00:10:21
So if that's also true, if it's true that we can just pick a number and that there's somebody out there that wants to pay you that amount of money for your product or your services.
00:10:31
Then it doesn't matter what number you pick, and it only comes down to how you think and feel about that number.
00:10:37
And I'm walking you through this right now because this has been my thought process for coming up with this pricing rule. And here's what gets in the way. Typically, especially if you are someone who lives in a marginalized identity or a marginalized body, if you are not a man, if you are not white, if you are disabled.
00:10:58
In any way, if you are impoverished or ever have been impoverished.
00:11:03
UM, you know, if your gender your sexuality is in some way marginalized by the larger systems at play, then you probably, I would bet money I would bet all of my services and the cost of them that you have some internalized socialization.
00:11:24
That holds you back from picking the number you actually want to pick the number that you think is the actual value of what you're providing. If you live in a marginalized identity.
00:11:35
If you're not a cess head straight white man, you know who's able bodied. Uhm.
00:11:42
You probably have some socialization about why.
00:11:46
You're not good.
00:11:46
Enough or you don't have enough qualifications or the the thing that you're offering the product or the service doesn't actually have that much value.
00:11:56
And your internalized socialization is what gets in the way.
00:12:01
Of you picking the number that you actually want to pick that you think is an alignment and sustainable with your offers value. So if all of that's true and it really comes down to what you think and the fact that we all have internalized socialization that holds us back, that makes us think that we're not good enough.
00:12:20
Then the pricing.
00:12:24
You might as well pick the higher number.
00:12:26
If you're stuck between two values, 2 numbers, let's say $50 and $100.
00:12:32
If $50, you're.
00:12:33
Like.
00:12:34
That's too low. I'm going to lose money. I won't make a profit if I sell the thing.
00:12:39
For $50.
00:12:41
Or if you think about pricing the thing at $100 and you're like no one's ever going to pay that price, people are going to get mad and tell me that it's not worth that much. It's not valued at that much.
00:12:55
Money. If you're stuck between those two numbers and you're feeling ****** either way and you have your reasons not to pick either number.
00:13:04
You might as well just pick the higher number because.
00:13:08
We need to make more money to, to survive, to thrive, to be comfortable, to be safe and secure and happy in our lives.
00:13:16
And picking the lower number.
00:13:19
Is probably not going to get you there faster. It's probably not.
00:13:22
Going.
00:13:22
To create that security and that stability and sustainability in your business and in your life because.
00:13:31
It's just less money, right? You're just going to end up having to sell more to.
00:13:37
Make up for that loss to make up the same profit, and if you pick the higher number, all you have to contend with is your own discomfort. Because we've already established that.
00:13:50
If you're selling a widget for $100, then you are.
00:13:56
There's already people out there that want what you have to offer and are willing to pay $100. We've already established that as a fact. That is the case, that somebody out there wants to buy that thing, and they're willing to pay $100 for it.
00:14:10
Right.
00:14:12
And so if that's the case, then you kind of have nothing to worry about except for your own thoughts, except for your own limiting beliefs and your own internalized socialization about why you shouldn't choose that number. And so that's why my rule about pricing is what it is. If you're between 2 numbers.
00:14:33
And you've got a higher number and a lower number, and you're ******** on yourself. Either way, you're beating yourself up. You have your excuses of why nobody.
00:14:40
Would buy about.
00:14:41
Why you can't sell a widget for either of?
00:14:44
If it's just the same thing, either way, you might as well pick the higher number. OK, so that comes down to, of course, our internalized socialization, but.
00:14:56
There is there are external factors that come into this right, because if you are somebody that's in a marginalized identity or marginalized body.
00:15:04
Yep.
00:15:06
Other people's opinions about you may shape whether or not they decide to buy from you, right?
00:15:12
If you like, OK, so I'll use myself as an example. I have a lot of free ****. If you're listening to this podcast, this is a free thing that anybody can listen to. Anybody with access to the Internet can listen to this podcast, and you probably already know how much value and resources this podcast alone contains.
00:15:32
I have expert guests on here to talk to you about their specific fields, giving you resources and advice and tips and things to do to get you where you.
00:15:41
Want to be in your business?
00:15:43
I myself get on here and talk exactly about what I do, giving you step by step instructions on how to do it. I have YouTube videos. Again, all you need is an Internet, Internet access, YouTube videos walking you through step by step tutorials for my bookkeeping methods and especially in using QuickBooks Online.
00:16:04
Nobody can say that I have anything that is priced too high because ioffer so many resources and things that are available to anybody. And if you recall, if you've been with me for long enough or if you've listened far enough back.
00:16:25
If you've listened far enough back on the podcast, you already know that 2023, my kind of theme of the year was over delivery. It was to create a body of work that was completely free and resourceful and valuable to anybody.
00:16:44
With Internet access.
00:16:46
That was the whole thing for me in 2023 and I think I ******* succeeded on that y'all, I don't think anybody can say that I haven't.
00:16:54
Over delivered. And so it's just funny to me that I do in fact get comments online that are like ohh QuickBooks Online are training on QuickBooks Online costs this much. By the way. All it costs, it costs $497.00 I don't get keep my pricing either that is accessible and available.
00:17:15
To anybody that is interested in it, like you can go find that out. And so that's why I'm saying it here. It's $497.
00:17:24
I have mine the gap enrollment now which has a price on it that you can go look at. It also has a ******* payment plan option. Now you can split up the payment for your enrollment in mind.
00:17:35
The gap.
00:17:36
To up to 12 months and and then all of my other services and things that I do.
00:17:42
For people in between are at all different price points.
00:17:45
So it's really.
00:17:46
******* funny to me that I get comments.
00:17:50
From people that are like that cost too much. Oh, I can't afford that. You should really have resources and offers that are accessible and more available to more people.
00:18:00
*****, are you ******* new here? Were you born yesterday? Because I ******* do. OK, so. And I don't. I don't want to give these folks that are making these asinine comments any more energy than they ******* deserve, which is 0, but.
00:18:16
I'm using this as an example to talk about pricing and socialization because it's really ******* important y'all that we have this conversation because there are people out here saying this **** and they're saying it to me because I'm a ******* woman. I guaran ******* to you. They don't go on to some man who is a CPA or an account or an accountant or a bookkeeper.
00:18:36
Whoever the ****, I guarantee you, they don't go on those guys videos and talk about their ******* pricing. I guarantee ******* to you. I will eat my ******* jeans if that's incorrect.
00:18:47
So don't come at me with that ship because the only reason people are saying that to me is because of who I am as a person, which is ****** **. And that's why I say **** that. I'm still going to over deliver and give people free resources and information and ******* help them out no matter how much money they have. It doesn't ******* matter to me how much money they.
00:19:07
Have I'm going to help you.
00:19:09
But don't ******* come on here and lie to me because you're only lying to yourself, *****.
00:19:16
Oh.
00:19:17
Alright anyways, bring it back in.
00:19:21
That's why we got to talk about this pricing thing y'all, because those ******* people that want to ***** and whine in my comments don't ******* matter to me. They don't want my ******* help because they're saying that **** in my comments when it's not the ******* truth and they haven't taken the time to.
00:19:34
Figure it out.
00:19:36
So they don't deserve my time or energy, but it's really important to have this.
00:19:40
Conversation because those people exist and they're going to do what they're going to ******* do. So let them do what they're going to do, boost my engagement bits.
00:19:48
The rest of you. This is why it doesn't ******* matter what number you pick. And so if you're going to be mean to yourself and there's going to be people out there questioning your prices anyways, especially if you exist in a marginalized body, then **** it. Pick the higher ******* number, all right?
00:20:07
I think I'm gonna.
00:20:07
Get off my soapbox for today.
00:20:11
I'm so sorry that I've been like yelling for the past, like 5 minutes.
00:20:17
Anyways.
00:20:18
I just want to come on and talk.
00:20:19
About that because.
00:20:22
After examining my rule about pricing 2C like OK, is there something I'm missing here? Is there something that I'm not seeing? Am I approaching this from an intersection hole standpoint? Is this in line with my personal values with my business values? Is this still kind of an alignment?
00:20:41
You just ******* yes, *****. OK, so.
00:20:45
Pick the higher.
00:20:45
Number and I said what I ******* said.
00:20:49
That's gonna be all from me today. I hope that you found something valuable.
00:20:55
In this episode.
00:20:57
It was especially valuable to me to just ******* get on here and rant and cussing. Also, I'm so sorry if they're like.
00:21:05
Children present. Maybe you don't listen to my podcast whenever there's people who get offended by that sort of thing around, that's just maybe not the best idea.
00:21:15
Anyways, get on my e-mail list if you've got thoughts about this, you want to argue about it, I welcome that. Get on the e-mail list, send me an e-mail. I want to also let you know that mine the gap enrollment is open and it has been, but like the content is available now, so when you get enrolled, you get to choose.
00:21:35
Payment plan at this point, so if price was something holding.
00:21:38
Back just know that payment plans are an option and also if price is ever an issue for you if you are ever thinking to yourself man, I really wish that I could afford what Regan is offering. ******* contact me, please. I don't want anything to stand in the way of you getting the resources and the help that you need.
00:21:59
Like, let's ******* talk about it and not in a way that I'm going to, like, convince you to, like, put a second mortgage on your house so you can ******* afford my services. That's not what's that's not what is gonna happen. OK, but let's have a conversation about it, because I want you to get the support that you need.
00:22:17
And if you think that I'm the person to give that support to you, then let's ******* work. Well, we can find a way for to work together, OK? And like I said, I have so many options available for people at all price levels because when you start a business, usually you're starting a business with $0.00 nowadays.
00:22:35
None of y'all listening probably have ******* like, trust funds and ****. And if you do, that's great. But I bet money that, like most of you, don't have, you're not just like independently wealthy and that's.
00:22:47
Mine, but I don't want that to stand in the way of you starting a business because I believe that business ownership, that entrepreneurship is the way that we can create wealth and security and flexibility and financial freedom for ourselves.
00:23:07
So I'm not going to be the.
00:23:08
One to stand in the way of that.
00:23:10
So get on my e-mail list. You can visit my link tree which will be in the show notes and the link tree has a bunch of different stuff on it for you to check out. Besides this podcast. Like I said, I've got free shirt on YouTube that are like quick tutorials. We have the monthly community subscription.
00:23:29
$7.00 a month you can join up there on my link tree. So 7 bucks a month. Come on, come on.
00:23:37
OK. Come join us inside the community.
00:23:41
We're doing a bunch of ****. If there's something you want to learn about, you can request that. And I'm more than happy to respond to requests for tutorials and information. And even if you want to see something and you don't want to join the community, let me know what it is, because if I can make content about it, that's not only helpful to you, but helpful to other people, then I'll ******* do it.
00:24:00
OK, so hit me up, hit up the community, check out my other **** on the e-mail list, but I really want to encourage all to.
00:24:10
Uh, examine your own thoughts about your pricing and examine your own thoughts about money, because that is literally the only thing holding you back. So sorry.
00:24:21
That's very rude, but it's true.
00:24:24
It doesn't matter what other people think, it doesn't matter which number you pick. What matters is how you think and feel about it, because if you pick a number that's just simply outrageous and you don't ******* like that number. If you pick the higher number and you feel terrible about it anyways, chances are you're probably not going to go *******.
00:24:43
Make the offer.
00:24:44
And sell it either so.
00:24:45
Like you gotta work on that.
00:24:47
Too, but pick the higher number because we're all in this to make more ******* money. OK, that's going to be all that I have for you today. Thanks so much for listening. Check out the show notes to get in contact with me and hope everybody has an amazing.
00:25:00
Rest of your week.