Wanna Experiment With Anti-Oppressive Sales Approaches?
This is an ENORMOUS TOPIC with so many facets to it. Today I’ll be touching on pay what you can afford, solidarity rates and non-punitive payment plans.
Ok so. Capitalism says: If you offer any kind of tiered pricing system, everyone will take the lowest rate to get the best value for themselves.
This is not my experience AT ALL. (And yes, there's loads of context to that- I could write a whole thing on how I think these conditions have come to be, and I probably will soon!)
When I run workshops where there are no limits to how many people could attend, I have a price that I believe is a fair market rate in the current context (often something like £39), and an unlimited use "pay what you can afford" option that can be anything from £1.
The majority of people pay the full price. (Does that surprise you at all?)
Around a quarter of people pay another amount, ranging from £1 to £30- quite an even spread of numbers within that.
The difficulty isn't trying to stop people from taking advantage of a lower price they don't need- it's trying to reassure them that it's ok to take a lower price they do need.
In group work where there is a limit to how many people can reasonably participate, I tend to either offer a set number of pay what you can afford spaces, OR I do a (no need to explain) solidarity rate.
In my recent Study Group launch, I asked people who are paying the full price to pay in full up front if they are able to.
More than half the people paying the standard price paid in full up front.
I didn't give any bonuses or special treatment for this, and I deffo didn't offer a discount for it, because this is just the same as inflating the price for installments, which happens in such an off the charts manner in the industries many of us work in.
10%, 15%, 20% mark ups are often seen on 12 month payment plans and whilst I've seen some attempts to justify this by citing default rates or associated admin costs, I have been convinced by none of it.
Some (by no means all of) my thoughts on this.
Sometimes people will default on payment agreements. Sometimes this will be by some degree of choice. Sometimes it will be due to an unforeseen change of circumstances where making the payments would put them in financial distress. This is further complicated when the thing being sold is promising to improve their financial situation.
If *lots* of people are defaulting on payment plans and ghosting, could it be that something in the sales process has given people unrealistic expectations of the outcomes they would experience?
If defaults on payment plans are viewed as part of the cost of doing business (as I think they are), why is it that people with the least access to money should pay an inflated price to cover any of our costs associated with pursuing those payments? What if we just factored it in across the total price at all levels?
There are loads of facets of anti-oppressive business I support clients with, for example…
pricing structure (all the practicalities, all the worries and feelings, how to talk about and create psychological safety around it)
selling our wares without fake urgency and scarcity (we can’t just stop doing anything, what do we replace it with?)
embedding regular feedback rhythms to refresh client consent and prevent inequitable power dynamics from emerging (this also builds client loyalty and supports your reputation)
shaping (and following through on) cultural guidelines for the spaces we are responsible for
If you have specific topics you'd like me to cover here, please drop me an email, hey@kerijarvis.com and I'll see what I can do.
And if you'd like some support building more equity into your own business, you might like to book a one off session with me, or chat about some longer term work.