The mistakes I made when I started out, and how to avoid it!

Here my story on how I screwed up and how to avoid making the same mistake

When I started out with my first clothing label, I had terrible difficulties asking for the sale…. And the worst thing was:

Telling people the price.

Yes, telling people the amount of money I wanted for this item......

It was my first year in business and I was selling a lot of my work to retailers that I had in my network. Once a week I visited them and showed my collection…. So they could make an order. Normally I would wait until the last second to tell them the price so they, I figured, already loved an item so much they would want it anyway.

Then I would mumble the price and leave them to their thinking, while I started to pack up my things... (Just writing this makes me cringe...)

It was far from professional and it also made me look very insecure… As a result I lost orders.

And I lost money. 

Lots of money.....

So what happened:

I felt like I was stealing from them…. Like I was a fraud not asking a fair amount of money but something I had just made up seconds before.

It came from a good place, I was trying to be honest, well behaved and actually I didn’t want to offend or disturb people.

But I was not doing myself a favor.

Actually I was harming my business!

Here are 3 reasons why you should avoid pricing down or feeling uneasy about your prices.

You will create a lesser product the next time, because now you know you are not getting paid enough for it to spend hours laboring over it. Yes, it sounds idiotic but very true. How much time would you spend on creating something that will make you $10? Honestly?

If you price down, you are going to compete with other parties you don’;t want to compete with…. Without you knowing it. Pricing low is competitive and it has never helped any business. At one point you cannot go lower and you will have priced yourself out of business.

Best reason! Your work takes time to create and you want people to love and to value it. If you price it low, people won;’t value it as much. A higher price will give people the message that there is great value… and there is…

So when it comes down to actually making an offer… tell your clients or customers what you actually want for it… without hesitation. 

Take time to work it into your sales pitch, never hesitate about the amount you want for it and never bring it up at the end in a hurry.

And never make your way to the door as you do this, like I did!

You know your work is worth it... ask for it.