Do you have a business or a hobby/Off topic/Business

[Guest guest]

Recently I've been caught out and called an idiot by the pricing of some of my

products. I fell into an old trap, one that many of us make. I priced my

products way too low. A lot of us do it, too many in fact. We don't take into

consideration that our time and our knowledge, some of that knowledge cost us a

lot of money to begin with, they are worth money as well.

 

We may make our products, figure out how much it cost us to make it and then

MAYBE we'll add a little on top of that to make a profit. Is that enough? No.

How much time did it take you to MAKE it? An hour? Twenty minutes? What is your

time worth? Are you working for free? As a good friend of mine said, are you in

business or are you just playing around with an expensive hobby?

 

Hobbies are fun. They might make you a little money in the short term, but if

you don't calculate in the price of your time, the cost of lables, the cost of

the containers, the price of packaging even the time and petrol it takes to get

you to the post office, they you are driving yourself out of business.

 

Just recently I ran into a beader. She makes some lovely jewelry and I bought

some. Would have been a fool not too, her earrings were four dollars and her

necklace was $15.00. She had a complete gift set with beads, findings, wire and

instructions that she had written out and printed out in a pretty plastic box...

cost? $6.50. I told her she was an idiot (yes the famous Queen's diplomacy

coming to the fore again). Her reply sent a shudder down my spine, it's the same

one I've used and the same one I've heard from a lot of people " well... I bought

this stuff a long time ago and as long as I get enough money to buy more, I'm

happy. "

 

She explained that she started this in the hospital when she didn't have

anything better to do, hadn't planned on selling the stuff as a living. She was

proud to have come up from a dollar a pair of earrings to four. I explained that

she was going to find herself unable to continue for much longer. She makes nice

jewelry, people are willing to pay for her stuff and she needs to raise her

prices. She's worried that because she finds it easy to make them, that anyone

can make it and therefore she's worried about losing the current business she

has.

 

Sound familiar? I know it does to me. I can make jewelry. I sometimes do. But

I'm more than happy to spend money on someone elses creations so I don't have

to. Besides, she makes prettier things than I do.

 

I get caught int the trap myself. Anyone can make candles. Anyone can make bath

salts. Anyone can make kitty carpets. Anyone can make Woobeys (although not as

nice as mine! ROFLMAO!). Anyone can make soap. Anyone can make a website. Anyone

can make lables.

 

Sure. Anyone can. However they don't. I know that if I have it, I'm willing to

PAY someone to do my website. I'm willing to PAY someone to make my soaps and my

face cream. I'm willing to PAY someone to make lovely jewelry for me. I don't

have time to make it all and let's face it. Web work is downright B-O-R-I-N-G! I

would be more than happy to pay someone who finds that kind of stuff fun.

 

So. My advice is to take a look at your products. Ask yourself, is this a

business or a hobby? If it's a hobby and you're happy with your products and you

don't mind if you go out of business... GREAT! However, if you need it to make

money with, to support your family, to pay your bills, then take a serious look

at your prices and make sure that they take into account the cost of those phone

call, the heating of your office space, the cost of buying lables, the tape that

you buy in, those pens you use to write down your orders, and make sure it's

reflected in your prices.

 

Also remember undercutting your competitors (if that is your goal) is not only

expensive to you, but it's likely to backfire. Just take a look at the Airline

Business. How many times can YOU afford to declare bankruptcy? You have the

federal government willing to pull YOUR kiester out of the fire?

 

So. Are you in business or not and do your prices reflect it?

 

Cheers!

Kathleen Petrides

The PurrfinickyQueen

http://www.fatcatcandleco.com

Candles, Kitty Carpets, articles, practically everything but the Hairball!

 

 

[Guest guest]

This message hits home. I have started my own business and dh feels that I

don't charge enough. I am trying to build up a customer base and slowly I will

increase my prices as the customer base increases. My friend that runs the

store tells me that folks will pay almost anything for the productsI make but I

want to be fair and reasonable. Kathy dba Kat's Aromatic Kreations

 

-

Kathleen Petrides

oils

10/3/2004 8:43:29 PM

Do you have a business or a hobby/Off topic/Business

 

 

Recently I've been caught out and called an idiot by the pricing of some of my

products. I fell into an old trap, one that many of us make. I priced my

products way too low. A lot of us do it, too many in fact. We don't take into

consideration that our time and our knowledge, some of that knowledge cost us a

lot of money to begin with, they are worth money as well.

 

We may make our products, figure out how much it cost us to make it and then

MAYBE we'll add a little on top of that to make a profit. Is that enough? No.

How much time did it take you to MAKE it? An hour? Twenty minutes? What is your

time worth? Are you working for free? As a good friend of mine said, are you in

business or are you just playing around with an expensive hobby?

 

Hobbies are fun. They might make you a little money in the short term, but if

you don't calculate in the price of your time, the cost of lables, the cost of

the containers, the price of packaging even the time and petrol it takes to get

you to the post office, they you are driving yourself out of business.

 

Just recently I ran into a beader. She makes some lovely jewelry and I bought

some. Would have been a fool not too, her earrings were four dollars and her

necklace was $15.00. She had a complete gift set with beads, findings, wire and

instructions that she had written out and printed out in a pretty plastic box...

cost? $6.50. I told her she was an idiot (yes the famous Queen's diplomacy

coming to the fore again). Her reply sent a shudder down my spine, it's the same

one I've used and the same one I've heard from a lot of people " well... I bought

this stuff a long time ago and as long as I get enough money to buy more, I'm

happy. "

 

She explained that she started this in the hospital when she didn't have

anything better to do, hadn't planned on selling the stuff as a living. She was

proud to have come up from a dollar a pair of earrings to four. I explained that

she was going to find herself unable to continue for much longer. She makes nice

jewelry, people are willing to pay for her stuff and she needs to raise her

prices. She's worried that because she finds it easy to make them, that anyone

can make it and therefore she's worried about losing the current business she

has.

 

Sound familiar? I know it does to me. I can make jewelry. I sometimes do. But

I'm more than happy to spend money on someone elses creations so I don't have

to. Besides, she makes prettier things than I do.

 

I get caught int the trap myself. Anyone can make candles. Anyone can make bath

salts. Anyone can make kitty carpets. Anyone can make Woobeys (although not as

nice as mine! ROFLMAO!). Anyone can make soap. Anyone can make a website. Anyone

can make lables.

 

Sure. Anyone can. However they don't. I know that if I have it, I'm willing to

PAY someone to do my website. I'm willing to PAY someone to make my soaps and my

face cream. I'm willing to PAY someone to make lovely jewelry for me. I don't

have time to make it all and let's face it. Web work is downright B-O-R-I-N-G! I

would be more than happy to pay someone who finds that kind of stuff fun.

 

So. My advice is to take a look at your products. Ask yourself, is this a

business or a hobby? If it's a hobby and you're happy with your products and you

don't mind if you go out of business... GREAT! However, if you need it to make

money with, to support your family, to pay your bills, then take a serious look

at your prices and make sure that they take into account the cost of those phone

call, the heating of your office space, the cost of buying lables, the tape that

you buy in, those pens you use to write down your orders, and make sure it's

reflected in your prices.

 

Also remember undercutting your competitors (if that is your goal) is not only

expensive to you, but it's likely to backfire. Just take a look at the Airline

Business. How many times can YOU afford to declare bankruptcy? You have the

federal government willing to pull YOUR kiester out of the fire?

 

So. Are you in business or not and do your prices reflect it?

 

Cheers!

Kathleen Petrides

The PurrfinickyQueen

http://www.fatcatcandleco.com

Candles, Kitty Carpets, articles, practically everything but the Hairball!

 

 

[Guest guest]

" slowly I will increase my prices as the customer base increases. "

 

Bad move. Customers HATE seing prices go up. Imean they just hate it. How

many times have you found something you love only to watch the prices go up

and then switch to something less costly. You make the prices you want to

charge NOW. Inevitably prices go up, but if you start out at the price you

need to charge NOW, then it won't be so often. You can secure customer

loyalty better by having a higher price that changes less seldom, than a

lower price that needs to be adjusted more often.

 

Oh and by the way. You will find that men fall into this trap less often

than women do. Women just don't seem to have that confidence in themselves

and their wares that men do. Stereotypical comment but one that seems to

fit. Women KILL their businessess by not having the brass cajones that men

do. We make up for it other ways, but when it comes to confidence in our

own skills, knowledge, products, women have to visit the blacksmith and get

some solid gold cajones made to hang on the wall to remind ourselves that

we (and our products) are worth it.

 

 

Cheers!

Kathleen Petrides

The PurrfinickyQueen

http://www.fatcatcandleco.com

Candles, Kitty Carpets, articles, practically everything but the Hairball!

[Guest guest]

Dear Kathleen,

Thank you for the reminder about pricing our products too low. For

years I have been making aged and concentrated herbal infused oils that are

used by the drop like eos as you well know but trying to price them has been

a nightmare. I have looked at as many web sites as I can as well as catalogs

over the past 7 or 8 years and I have found no one else making anything like

what I make at its concentration. I wrote a paper and gave a class at the

NAHA Spring Conference hoping to find others making infused oils so that I

could talk with them. However, I found that most infused oils only set for

under 6 to 3 weeks and that they in no way compared to the strenght of what

I was making so I was back to ground zero again. I finally said that I would

price them below the eos and at a fair and equitible price considering that

many of these herbal oils have set for several years to enhance their

strenght and smell. I still find it hard to price these oils and recently I

was asked again to consider lowering some of my prices. I was torn between

the decision of having to lower my concentration from strong to weak or to

keep it at the stronger level. I chose the stronger level because of my

committeement to quality. I told that lady that I was selling to (wholesale)

that she would have to just charge more. As a result of this she bought less

but found out that people were actually buying her higher priced herbal oils

and she was surprised. She has since made another order and not questioned

my prices. So I am glad that I have stood my ground. I agree with you that

it is hard to price many of our products. It took my over 14 1/2 years to

develop an American made rose oil with a smell and I am not going to give

that away since an ounce of rose eo is selling for well over $200.00

wholesale and even higher. You are also right that we have to pay ourselves

and give ourselves credit for the knowledge and hard work that we put into

making our products.

Thank you, again for your wake-up call to remind us to be fair and

equitible with ourselves when we are pricing our products.

May you and yours have a happy, harmonious, joyous, busy, healthy,

abundant and prosperous week!

Love,

Rhavda

Scents of Success (http://www.scentsofsuccess.com)

Texas Grown Amercian Made Rose Oil Products

Rose, Helichrysum, Melissa, Oak Moss, & Many Others

 

 

>Recently I've been caught out and called an idiot by the pricing of some of

my products. I fell into an old trap, one that many of us make. I priced my

products way too low. A lot of us do it, too many in fact. We don't take

into consideration that our time and our knowledge, some of that knowledge

cost us a lot of money to begin with, they are worth money as well.

>

>We may make our products, figure out how much it cost us to make it and

then MAYBE we'll add a little on top of that to make a profit. Is that

enough? No. How much time did it take you to MAKE it? An hour? Twenty

minutes? What is your time worth? Are you working for free? As a good friend

of mine said, are you in business or are you just playing around with an

expensive hobby?

>

>Hobbies are fun. They might make you a little money in the short term, but

if you don't calculate in the price of your time, the cost of lables, the

cost of the containers, the price of packaging even the time and petrol it

takes to get you to the post office, they you are driving yourself out of

business.

>