Chris Brogan has a post today about his price points, after several commenters where surprised by his $22,000 a day consulting rate.
Chris lays out two points very clearly that perfectly to any discussion about pricing.
- Set your price based on the value you provide – Chris is very quick to point out that his consulting clients gain 10 times that amount in money saved on bad advice and new ideas for business expansion
- Create multiple price points for your customers – Versioning your intellectual property is the best way to appeal to the wide range of customers’ interest. You also spread the risk of the IP development over a variety of products. Chris’ versioning consists of:
- Blog and Newsletter – Free
- His books Trust Agents and Social Media 101 – Around $20
- His new Third Tribe online community – $47/month
- Live events where he speaks – $99-$500
- Daily consulting rate – $22,000
And this doesn’t just apply to consultants. I think there is a whole line of thinking that The Creative Class should employ when commercializing their work, whether you make jewelery, make music, or make pictures,
Check out Will Chapman and his company BrickArms. He gets a huge shout-out in the cover story of Wired this month (not online yet). Will makes weaponry for Legos figures and while you can buy individual pieces for around $1, he has weapon bundles as well as special edition pieces that sell for as much as $30. The pinnacle piece is a custom Lego figure named Mr. White (or his media given name “Osama Bin Lego”) that goes for $70.
The natural reaction is to say, “Of course, those are toys. I have seen that before.” But when was the last time you saw an author (not a publisher) launch at five book boxed set and sell out 800 sets in hours.
Give your customers more options.