Pricing Transparency – why it matters!
Are you scaring away potential clients without realizing it? Are you afraid to list your prices because you think it will hurt your inquiries, while as a consumer you always want to see the price yourself? In this episode, I talk about the power of pricing transparency—not just for budget shoppers, but at all price levels. How can sharing even a range help attract the right clients and save you time in the process? What if being more transparent is the real game-changer for your business?
Listen to this new 9-minute episode for practical advice on balancing transparency, filtering leads, and attracting customers who value what you offer—and can afford it.
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View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/
Pricing transparency why it matters. Hey, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. This is something that just keeps coming up again and again and again, not just in the wedding and event industry, but in all businesses. And the more books that I read on this and the more articles that I read and the more things I see in the news about this and the more videos on all the different social platforms. Pricing transparency is a time topic and pricing transparency is a contentious topic. And the reason it’s contentious is because most of you don’t want to display your pricing, but most consumers want to see pricing. And you, when you’re the consumer, you want to see pricing too.
So there’s the dilemma inside your head. Now it’s in my head too. It’s in all of our heads. How do we balance this need for price and transparency and also get the inquiries that we want to get? So one of the most important things that I teach when I’m doing sales training about this, you know, besides the biggest thing, which is you as a consumer are looking for price and therefore don’t be surprised when your customers are looking for price. Right. The most important thing is that at every level, we’re seeing price transparency. Now, this is not just for bargain stuff. This is not just for the cheap stuff.
This is not just for the low end of the pricing spectrum. This is really all across the board. I’ve mentioned this before where my Instagram feed. A lot of stuff comes up about cars because, you know, once you click on something, other things come up and once you watch something, other things come up and car stuff comes up. And I’ve always been a car guy. Many of you know from my books that I sold cars a long, long time ago, was one of the top 50 Chrysler salespeople in the country. But even as a kid, I just loved cars. So I click on car stuff and I watch car videos and then car ads come up and one came up for a Bentley coupe and it was a lease.
And the lease was $2,999 a month. And they’re not afraid to say that. They’re not afraid to show that it’s almost $3,000 a month to lease this car. More than my mortgage, by the way. Right? So that works at the high end. The French Laundry famous restaurant up in Napa, it’s Thomas Keller is the, is the chef there. And it’s famously, it’s six months to a year out to get your reservation and you have to prepay online, which as of this recording is $425 a person unless you have a group of, I think it’s 6 to 10. And then you can have a little private room upstairs and then it’s $600 a person.
And that’s before alcohol, that’s before any add ons. Because it’s like, it’s a price, it’s a price. Fixed menu. But, but there are upgrades. And the most famous one that I’ve seen is the Mac and cheese, which is $160 upgrade. That’s right. That’s not your dinner. That’s how much more it is on top of your 425 or your $600 just for one person to have the Mac and cheese because of shaved Australian white truffles.
Okay. They’re not afraid to say that. And because the people that can afford it, can afford it. I remember years ago you wouldn’t see an ad for a higher priced car that had a price in it. You wouldn’t see a BMW or Mercedes or any of those that had a price in it. But now you do. And here’s a Bentley ad showing up in my feed saying, hey, it’s only $2,999 a month. So it works at any level.
So that’s the first thing to keep in mind. The people that can afford it are not going to be scared off. If you heard the episode that I did with Beth Fox, I had a Gen Z bride who said the quiet part out loud where she ghosted a venue because they asked immediately for a tour. When she just asked for an idea of price and she said there’s three buckets, there’s the price below what they can afford. And she wasn’t interested in that. She wasn’t interested in spending less. They knew what they could spend. There was the range that they can afford and then there was above that that they also weren’t interested in, at least right now.
Now, if they can’t find what they’re looking for within their range, would they go outside of it? That’s possible. But that’s how she looked at it was those three buckets. So don’t assume people are immediately looking for the cheap. An as I’ve said many, many times before, people are buying your results, not your price, not your products and services. So if you’re pushing products and services, yes, somebody cheaper is probably going to win because they can’t perceive a difference. So the reason price transparency matters is you’re getting leads for people that can’t afford you. If you don’t put a price online. And I’ve said this before, it’s in.
Shut up and sell more. It’s in, I think, why are they ghosting me? And probably a couple of my other books where there’s four ways to talk about price. Tell them, don’t tell them. Starting price and range. And starting price is the worst way because you’re anchoring a number down at the bottom and then trying to sell up. Putting full pricing for some people works really well. And for other people, maybe you’re not getting enough leads because they’re getting your price and then they’re going on and comparing you to others without giving you a chance. So there’s the two sides to that.
Yes, it’s full transparency. And if you’re filling your calendar, super ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Not putting a price. You could be missing out on, not could be. You’re almost definitely missing out on inquiries from people who can afford you because they don’t know what you charge. And therefore they could be assuming that your price is higher than it is, lower than it is. Again, both of them could be not interested or just because of a lack of transparency, they’re going to find somebody who’s more transparent. And again, starting price, no good price range is my favorite way.
It’s going to be my favorite way, I think forever, for many, many things. And those things are if there is a range of price and you can have different ranges for different types of the year, different services, et cetera, but almost all of you have a range of pricing, and that is a real range. And therefore you can frame this with those two numbers, the top and the bottom, or better yet, top, bottom and most popular. And what that does is it gives a level of transparency. So they have an idea. And haven’t you ever thought of that? Can you give me an idea what that costs? I don’t need the exact number. Give me an idea. Right.
That’s what people are looking for, is an idea. And price range does that. Without the full transparency, especially in many of your businesses, it’s hard to even figure out the full price. I have some clients that have full price and let’s say a venue, but there’s a price on one page for the price per person. There’s a price on another page for the venue fee for different days of the week and times of the year. There’s another price if you’re adding on the ceremony, and then there’s the service charge, and then there’s the tax so there’s five. Five things that go into that, sometimes six if the bar package is separate from the wedding package. Right.
There’s so many things go into it, it’s technically transparent, but it’s not clear for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. And then I have other people who say, here’s the price per person. This is the minimum number of guests. Take your calculator, you figure it out. Just add on sales tax. People know sales tax. They understand that. They don’t understand service charge, but they understand sales tax.
So price transparency. Why does it matter? Because if you look up anything about, and I hate to say, generationally, you know, Gen Z, Gen Y, whatever, I think just people in general, human nature, people want an idea of price before they reach out. So they’re not wasting their time and they’re not wasting your time. Will your inquiries go down if you have price transparency? Yes. Are most of those people people that shouldn’t have reached out in the first place? Yes, in many cases, if not most cases, yes, that is true. So while it’s scary to get fewer inquiries, even getting fewer inquiries, you probably couldn’t handle them all because you’re probably getting too many inquiries now. And part of the reason is you’re getting inquiries from people that can’t afford you. And they don’t know that because there’s no transparency.
The other side is you might actually get inquiries from people that are bypassing you now because you have price transparency. So there’s all the sides of this. So if I was going to lean into it again, if there is a price range that you can say, a realistic range, and it can be wide. Right. But don’t go from the cheapest thing you have on, you know, a Tuesday out of season to a Saturday, you know, in October. You don’t want to do that. You can say our weekend prices in these months or in season is this. And then we have other prices here in this range or starting at.
Which is out of season, just to show people we do have an option for you, right. It’s not going to be a Saturday in October, but we do have an option for you at a lower price. So why does transparency matter? It matters because you want to get inquiries from the right people, the people that can afford you. You’re not going to scare off the people that can afford you. You’re going to scare off the people that can’t. And that’s an okay thing because it doesn’t waste their time, doesn’t waste your time. Has lets you follow up with the people who inquire, being people who already know about what it costs, and therefore, you’re actually spending your time much more efficiently. So why does price, why does price transparency matter? It matters because we all want it.
So give that to your customers. That’s my suggestion. Thanks for listening.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected] or you can text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
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