Justifying your pricing as a brand new wedding planner or stylist is something that most newbies struggle with. Below are a few tips that might help you to manage this a little easier.
Break down everything that is included in your pricing
For example, if you’re offering a wedding coordination service for say $/£2, 000 which requires you to be at the wedding for 10 hours on the day, a bride is automatically going to think she is paying you $/£200 an hour which to her may seem ridiculous.
Here’s what she’s missing – all the time that you’re going to spend working on her wedding beforehand. Plus all the costs you have for actually running a business. What this $/£2000 doesn’t show is the 20 hours+ you’ll spend calling all her vendors, putting together a detailed timeline and the consultations you’ll need to have on-site beforehand.
Then, of course, there’s your expenses for actually running a business – insurance, accounting, admin, marketing – the list goes on. It always pays to show your bride in writing exactly what your service will entail.
List everything out in detail! Include hours if you need to. For example, if you’ll spend 3 hours on the timeline, 5 hours at consultations, 5 hours for contacting and confirming vendor details etc. outline this all in your quote.
Make it clear to your client that there’s far more that goes into the wedding than just what happens on the day.
Remember your time is valuable
In the corporate world you’d never come across a company working on a project for free. Would you ask your accountant if they were willing to negotiate on their fee?
Do you think they would? Or what if you asked them to put in a few extra hours for free? Of course they wouldn’t. So why should we as planners or stylists work any differently.
Our prices are what they are because that is the genuine cost of being in business and making a profit. If you don’t value your time then your clients won’t either. And you’ll never get ahead and grow your business.
Every single minute you spend working on a clients wedding needs to be accounted for. If you need to take records of the hours you spend on a clients wedding and put it into your invoices then do it.
Did you know accountants charge out their time in 6 minute increments?
I’d encourage you to keep a record of the time you spend on each wedding day. That way moving foward you can make sure that your pricing is a true reflection on the time you put into each wedding.
Don’t compare yourself to your competitors
There is always going to be other businesses starting out in the industry offering the same services you do for next to nothing. Period.
There are a few key things to point out here. Nearly always they crash and burn within the first year of business. Or secondly they start to hate what they do because they know they aren’t making any profit. Sometimes it might actually be costing them to keep their wedding business running.
I know brides compare businesses on price and no matter how much you sell yourself and your expertise a bride will always have a price at the back of their mind. To overcome this you need to compare your service to what your competitors are offering.
Take price out of it and look at exactly what they’re offering for their next to nothing pricing.
Are they going to have the skills you have to put together an 8 page extremely comprehensive detailed timeline?
Are they going to put together 3D floor plans and an impressive styling proposal? Most likely they won’t because they simply don’t have the skills or expertise.
Show your couple an example of your work and make them understand that you’re serious about what you do. And that you have the knowledge and skills to execute the most amazing wedding. One that will quite literally wow their guests.
Be upfront with your pricing
There’s always going to be time wasters and clients on very tight budgets. If this isn’t your target market then try and avoid having these people even submit an enquiry in the first place.
When I first started out I was getting a lot enquiries but only about 15-20% actually fitted in with my target market. The rest wanted a wedding far cheaper than what I could do it for. I did a couple of things to get rid of these enquiries. Firstly I put my starting from price on my website.
Secondly, every single new enquiry I received I responded with a services brochure which further outlined my pricing in more detail.
This helped get rid of the time wasters. I didn’t have to spend my precious time responding to them or answering their questions.
I hope this helps you to be confident when it comes to talking about pricing. Remember as part of our courses we have a full module on pricing to help you set prices that will get you the clients you want.
You might also enjoy this video on How to Run a Profitable Wedding Business >>>
