Tag — resonate pricing
How to Use Muscle Testing for Resonate Price Setting
As a part of my quest for migraine relief, I learned a technique chiropractors and other doctors use called applied kinesiology or muscle testing. This technique taps into your body’s intuitive knowledge to diagnose various problems. Muscle testing helped me determine which foods would trigger my migraines on any given day. A truly skilled practitioner can even determine how much of a given food will trigger a migraine, or how many tablets of a given supplement you might need to take. But even rudimentary skills at this technique can proved helpful in any number of settings.
Lately I’ve been using muscle testing to determine what to charge for the things I’m offering on line. Muscle testing is great for getting around chatty Gremlins and circumnavigating self-sabotaging thoughts. Here’s how to do it in a few easy steps. (You’ll need a friend to help you.)
Write the different prices you are considering for a service on small pieces of paper. Create a whole range of options, from the lowest you’ll go to the highest you could hope for. If possible have whatever you are setting a price for in your line-of-site while you do the muscle test.
First, shake your hands to discharge any tensions or energy you are holding around the price setting process. Ask your friend, the Tester, to do the same.
Extend your non-dominate hand out to one side. Have your Tester press down on your forearm to gauge how much strength you generally have in that arm. (The Tester can put one hand on your opposite shoulder for counter balance, but this may not be necessary.)
Now hold the first price in your other hand. Extend your non-dominate arm again and have your Tester press down on it with the same amount of force. If your arm remains strong, your body is intuitively telling you that is the right price. If it weakens or goes down, it’s the wrong price.
Between each price test, move away from the slips of paper and shake off your hands. (Have the tester do the same.) When you hold each price in your hand, think about the thing you are offering and imagine charging that price to someone.
You can also do this “blind” by folding the pieces of paper in half. It’s interesting to see if you get the same results.
If you get a range of prices with the same strength, you could play within that price range. Maybe you get $35, $40, $50 equally strong. Make $40 you base price, $35 your discount for people who are on your mailing list, and $50 the price you bump up to as the service expands.
For more tips on Resonate pricing, Pam Slim has an excellent round-up here, including posts from Mark Silver of Heart of Business, and Naomi Dunford of Itty Biz.
What techniques to you use to make sure you are setting the “right” price for you? And how do you stick to your guns once you set it? Do tell in the comments below! Thanks for being here.
Ask Magpie Girl: Why do you charge for your work?
Last week I sent out a survey asking my readers what kind of Ecourses they might want from me. I included a “tell me more” option so people could write me little notes — and most of those notes were helpful, encouraging, and affirming. A big “Thank You” to everyone who answered my questions! (It’s not too late if you want to chime in.)
That being said, I did get a couple of comments questioning my decision to charge for my work. I feel these are honest questions, coming out of a place of true frustration. So I want to address them this week at Magpie Girl. This was the most complete query:
“I guess I am a little confused at why exactly I have to pay for knowledge. I am sure there is a good explanation. I just feel like people are trying to take money everywhere. At what price? If the people have come to it. This information is important and with everyone, everywhere raising prices and asking for a buck, shouldn’t those of us who wish to be inspired past looking at the all mighty dollar all the time and to what is really important, doesn’t it seem wrong to have to pay for it? Just saying….”
Here are my answers:
1. The work I do at Magpie Girl and Flock is, in fact, my work. It’s not my hobby, it’s my profession. I’ve been providing soulcare and support to artists and spiritual misfits since 1998. I have a master’s degree and everything. I’m passionate about my work, and it is what I do for a living.Most people who show up at their office received a paycheck. I would like to do the same.
2. It’s not sustainable for me to keep working for free. There is a lot of energy that goes into the work I do. Every blog post takes 1-5 hours to research and write. I spend about 30 hours a week writing content. I think about the work I do here, at Flock, and via email all the time. A lot of mental, emotional, and creative energy goes into the efforts made here. I need to honor that by asking for an equitable exchange of energy from you, my lovely compatriots. Does that mean I’m on an eye-for-an-eye warpath? No! Not at all. I’m just trying to find the right balance of energetic give-and-take so that I can keep doing what I do in the long-range, sustainable future.
3. It’s not wrong to pay for products and service that have value to you. If you are an artist, counselor, freelancer, or small business owner you really must request fair pay for your work if you want to do the work long term. Does that mean you can never offer a student discount, or a free trial, or give an item away as a gift? Of course not. I do it all the time. Too much, probably. But please understand, it’s not a sacred exchange between us if it always only goes one way.
4. There are expenses to be covered. That free cookbook? I had to hire a designer to get that done. Ditto for getting Flock off the ground. And even with this simple blog there are hosting fees and design costs. So far I haven’t made a salary or even covered my expenses. (My husband says, please can we improve this situation. :-)
5. It takes time, effort, and special skills to get this product finished. While the information I dispense is widely available from The Universe, I do the work to get it to you in digestible form. Sure, seeds are available and you could grow your own food — if you had the land, the tools, and the know-how. But if you don’t have those things, you have to buy the apple at the market. The advice, lessons, and general inspiration I offer here is the result of many, many hours of distillation effort. I did not just pluck it out of the sky. It took a lot of work. And it’s the effort, not the universally held knowledge itself, that I am requesting compensation for.
So that’s a little bit about why I am starting to offer both “free” and “fee-based” work. As Magpie Girl under goes her re-vamp, there will still be plenty of free offerings, especially if you are on my mailing list. And I’ll also be offering various levels of training with me–from a few dollars a week for light support, to a more gym-like fee for on-going training and nurture. Don’t worry loves, there will always be a place (and price) for you here at Magpie Girl.
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The Thank You Section: Survey Monkey is really cool, and the basic service is free, for which I thank them. Thanks also to Jen Louden, who mentioned in an interview that she used surveys to match her offerings to her reader’s needs. And thanks to to Mark at The Heart of Business who helped me to tune into my intutition and know when to stick to my pricing guns, and when to give a little. And thank you for being here!
