Show notes
In this episode, CEO of Practice Freedom U, Jamey Schrier, talks about pricing your services appropriately. Today, Jamey talks about the guilt surrounding pricing, accessibility and luxury, and the 3X model. How should we express the outcomes of our services? Hear about job security, pricing according to the market, and get Jamey's advice to his younger self, all on today's episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast. Key Takeaways "You don't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong." "We need to charge appropriately for not what we do but benefits that we provide." "Always get paid for R&D." "People will pay for your results." "I would've gotten help from an outside source sooner." More about Jamey Schrier Jamey Schrier, P.T., is a best-selling author, business coach, speaker, and CEO of Practice Freedom U, a business training and coaching company. Jamey has helped hundreds of private practice owners Treat Less, Earn More, and live a life of prosperity and fun. Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Pricing, Money, Quality, Experience, Value, Business, Resources: FREE GIFT: PT Practice Quiz. To learn more, follow Jamey at: Website: www.practicefreedomu.com. LinkedIn: Jamey Schrier. Instagram: @jameyschrierpfu. Facebook: Jamey Schrier. Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website: https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927 Read the Full Transcript here: Unknown Speaker 0:02 Hey, Jamie, welcome back to the podcast, one of my most frequent guests, and I love you for coming on. It's so great. I love seeing you. If only your wife would were here, that would make it so much better. Unknown Speaker 0:14 Well, thank you so much, Karen. And she couldn't be here. But I think she's having fun with her friends, because it's around the holidays. And that's what she does. Unknown Speaker 0:23 Oh, wow. Next time she's coming on. So let's see, last time we saw each other was that PPS in Colorado? And you had you did a pre con there, right? What was that pre con about just kind of tell the audience in case you do it again, we can get some you know, Unknown Speaker 0:44 it's it's one of my it's one of my best pre cons. It's one of my best workshops, it's five steps to additional five figures. And what I do is just grab, like, a few key areas in every business needs these. So for this one, we did a lot of foundational stuff around vision and values. We then went into messaging like, actually, how do you communicate what you do we always complain, no one understands what we do. Chad went into a whole thing on you know, how to develop your message and how to put this message everywhere. So people actually understand what you do. And let's see, we did delegation. Who not you. So to get that stuff off your plate that we all hate doing. You and I are talking about behind the scenes, video editing, it's, we all have things that we hate doing, you hire someone else. And we did some other things around development of systems. So it was four hours, and it was awesome. And it went like just like that. Unknown Speaker 1:52 I'm sure it did. Well, it sounds great. And if you do it again, hopefully at PPS people you'll get I know you had like a sellout crowd, right? Unknown Speaker 2:02 Well, yeah, I mean, we had it sold out in like a few days. And I thought that we're going to expand it, because we had plenty of room but there was some mix up or whatever. So I'm hoping I can get back there next year and literally do the same talk. I think we could probably get 150 people in there without without a problem. Because it was it was great. I got people still reaching out to me saying, oh my god, I did what you said I, I tweaked my my ad and all of a sudden people reached out to me, they want to work for me. Amazing. There's no secrets, but there's definitely some certain principles that can can always help us. Right, right. Unknown Speaker 2:38 Absolutely. And so today we're gonna talk about pricing our services. So this is a question I get a lot, I'm sure it's something you get a lot. And I have a feeling it's what a lot of people struggle with is how do I price my services appropriately? So what is your best advice? Let's just start with that. So how do we how do we properly price our services? And before we even start, I'll also say, I think a lot of physical therapists, maybe you may disagree, are uncomfortable around this conversation of pricing. Because Unknown Speaker 3:19 therapists are uncomfortable around the conversation of money. Right? Unknown Speaker 3:23 Right. So let's start. Let's start. Let's start with that. So what do you say to those people who are like, Oh, I don't know, I feel bad. I feel bad charging people for what I do. How many times have you heard that? Unknown Speaker 3:37 A lot. I heard today, I had three conversations. One too, with clients, current clients and one with someone that was interested in our program. And they all brought up the same word guilt. Guilt is a word I hear so often. And it's the guilt of whatever making money, the guilt of what I should be charging the guilt of, you know, I feel like it should be in with my team and working all the time with them. Or, you know, it's just this idea of this guilt is a motion that isn't a rational emotion. Right. It's an irrational emotion. And that kind of leads us to making some decisions that aren't beneficial for anyone. So, you know, when people say, you know, I, I feel bad about charging and, you know, my, my response back is, you know, what, specifically do you feel bad about? And that's when they kind of stop and it's more of, well, why don't really know, like, they don't know why they feel bad. It's almost like a default mechanism. Right? It's just, it's if you say you feel bad, it's, I kind of refer to it almost like I feel bad. So I'm a good person. Like if I feel bad about charging people, I'm a good person. Now you and I would do a reframe on that. If I don't to charge you, then you don't get to experience my services in a way that you get to pay and feel the value of what I deliver, like that reframe all of a sudden changes the whole relationship. But we don't look at it from that way, a lot of times, I mean, obviously, if we really wanted to become multimillionaires, we probably wouldn't have gone into physical therapy. So we would be, you know, right down the street from in Wall Street. So, you know, many of us do have this idea that helping people and doing good in the world somehow means we shouldn't make money or can't make money. I mean, there's some deep money blocks that that are going on there. And I think that's what interferes, when we try to determine how much do we charge for our services? Unknown Speaker 5:50 Mm hmm. Yeah. 100%. And, you know, I think early on in my career, I had those feelings of like, wow, I don't know, I don't feel right about this. And then, and then you realize you have that mind shift of like, well, wait a second. If I am not charging appropriately, to keep my doors open, then I'm doing a disservice to my community, because I can't reach the people I need to reach. Unknown Speaker 6:20 Yeah, I mean, I say this all the time. It's, you don't, you don't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong, we are the strong, the business owner is the strong, we're the one that's taking this risk. We're the ones that is, you know, trying to create this vision is something that we want to do and help other people. And yet, we're the ones that work more hours than anybody in our business. Typically, if you add up the hours, you work by what you pay yourself, you're making less than your therapists that you're that you're paying. And you're stressed out, it affects your relationships at home, it's like you give your best to the people that you work with. And you give whatever energy is leftover to the people that you love and that are at home. Right, the whole model screwed up. And it has a lot to do with kind of kind of going back to either our childhoods or what schools kind of teaching us or whatever our influences are, that is screwing us up when we go into this business of physical therapy. Unknown Speaker 7:24 Right, right. Because, for me, what was the biggest aha moment or a change in mindset, if you will, is going from being a physical therapist who happens to own a business, to being a business owner, who happens to be a physical therapist. So once you're in that business owner mindset, you need to keep your doors open, you need to know what you need to make to turn a profit to gosh, I mean, at least pay your bills, right. But you should want to pay your bills and turn a profit. So you know, when it so let's talk about when it comes to pricing. Is there a formula? Is there something that people can look at or can plug and play? That gives them a better idea on what they can charge? Unknown Speaker 8:18 Yes. So I like to share a little story with you. Um, New York has some beautiful hotels, right? What's What's the nicest hotel you know, of in New York? What's the peninsula? Unknown Speaker 8:33 Peninsula, you're like, I don't know. flippin insula. Unknown Speaker 8:36 I don't know. Okay, the peninsula. Pretty Unknown Speaker 8:38 nice place, right? Right charges. Who knows how much per night but it's not. It's not like 150 bucks. And then there's the opposite end of the peninsula, there's probably, you know, maybe a red roof or something floating around there, maybe a small little Fairfield inn or whatever the case is. Right now, the peninsula probably does pretty well. And I know the Red Roof Inn, they do pretty well as it also. So these are two hotels. These hotels have to make a decision about what is your avatar? What are you about? What do you stand for? And if the peninsula thinks that they're trying to be a red roof in and do some of the things that the Red Roof Inn does, then you as someone that loves peninsula will be turned off. And of course, if the Red Roof Inn starts charging $20 for water in the room, which I imagined the peninsula will do minimum, then you're going to turn off that ideal client. So it is not about what you charge, you first have to answer the question, Who is the audience you're trying to track? And even before you answer that, you have to go in too, what are you about? Where do you put yourself from the peninsula, the high end, Four Seasons Hotel even higher, and the Red Roof Inn, because it isn't bad and isn't good. They're just very different in how they identify their avatar, and how they deliver deliver services and how they market and how they deliver the experience of the Avatar, they both have an avatar, and they both do financially very well. That's where we have to begin, we have to begin with identifying well are we going to be more of a place that might be, hey, we're a little bit more of a volume business, we accept insurance, we're only getting paid 50 bucks a pop, we got to see three people an hour, we do pretty good service, the beds are clean, the pillows work, you know, we keep the place clean, we keep the lights nice, but it is it's like you're going to stay the night and it does the job. Versus Are you going to be a high end boutique, high touch kind of place, you're going to do things that most places don't, you're gonna get that call, the person is going to have your cell number they're going to reach out to it's just a different experience. Each of those places has to charge a different amount they have to write this is really an exercise on clarity. This is an exercise on you looking in the mirror and saying what is this place about? And you have to be honest, because if you're like, well, we deliver the greatest care in New York and where the best work, okay, then that means you have to align your business to demonstrate that don't say you're the greatest, and you got a leak in the ceiling. Your carpet hasn't been changed in 20 years. Right? You know, you got some water fountains sitting outside. One of my one of my clients, he's in Brooklyn, he, you know, we did this exercise years ago, and I said, Lou, what are you about, and he goes on Equinox, I go, um, hi. And he does PT he does ot he does, you know, a little bit of rehab stuff. And by golly, you walk into his place, it is high. And that is his whole way of doing things from the towels he gives in the bottle of water in the art, everything is for that person that appreciates that. And yes, many of his non insurance prices reflect that. So that's, that's where you have to start, you have to determine where you are on that spectrum, let's say make it easy. Let's just say it's one to five. All right, the wine is solid, nice. Probably a little more volume ish, lower price, the high end Peninsula, that's where you have to start. Unknown Speaker 13:06 Yeah. And that's when I sort of started my business, I sort of coined the phrase like a concierge practice, because I patterned my business after a high end concierge is like at the peninsula, or at the Four Seasons, or at the, I don't know, the Andaz or something like that, right, these very high end, hotel chains that go above and beyond, you know, they go the extra mile. And so that's how I created my practice and what my practice is, you know, we're all about excellence in every sense of the word. Unknown Speaker 13:47 And if you said that to me, and I'm like, Oh, my God, that's great. I love that because I'm status, right? Yeah. When someone tells me the peninsula, it's not because the beds are really that much better. They probably are. But it's not because of that. Let's face it, Seth Godin talks about this all the time, it's connecting with status on a certain status. Now, if you said, I'm the greatest, and you told me you charge $75 a visit, I wouldn't go to you, right? Because that's not enough. I need to be connected with the best, right? Let's face it, the best usually has the biggest price tag. That's why Mercedes, that's why BMW are a different level than some of the other car companies, right. That's what people expect, even if they pay a lower amount, because they started bringing their prices down to fit a different type of it still has that element of oh, I drive a Mercedes. Unknown Speaker 14:43 Right. And I think it also comes down to you know, you're looking at that word luxury. Right. So I and I often wonder, I do I think physical therapy is a luxury item. I don't I mean it Well, it could be, but I do think physical therapy should be accessible to everyone. But why can't you be accessible and be luxury at the same time? Unknown Speaker 15:11 Well, that's interesting. So you're going to start now moving towards a little bit of the heartstrings that you and I have talked about many, many times. This is where people get into trouble, right? I'm working with a client right now. And he's coming out of a really bad situation for the last couple of…
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