You want bigger deals at the price you want. You know your price is too low. You also know what happens in your head the moment you think about raising it: what if they walk?

So the price stays. Or worse, it drops a little with every deal, because the buyer asked and the quarter is tight.

I talked this through with JaVanka McGee on Vision Pros Live (May 2025). JaVanka runs her own business and asked the question so many founders are asking right now: how do you charge more without losing clients? Listen to the full conversation: Unlock Business Growth with Value-Based Pricing, on Vision Pros Live

Lowering the price is the trap

The instinct says: lower the price, win more deals. On the show I called it what it is, a race where "you're competing in a downward spiral." And if you win that race? "If you win that you are toast." No margin, no profit, no room to hire the salesperson you need. A bitter kind of win.

🐬 The opposite move is also a trap when you do it alone. "If you just increase your price by 25% without increasing pricing power and value well then they just go away."

The way out is pricing power. "Pricing power means you can charge 25% more for your current offer and your clients say happily, yes." Not grudgingly. Happily. They say thank you.

Where pricing power comes from: two levers

You create more value in one of two ways.

Lever 1: take something away from them. Less cost. Less friction in their workflow. Fewer people needed to get the result. Fewer tasks on their desk. Every item you remove is value the buyer can feel on Monday morning.

Picture a report your client's team builds by hand, four hours every Friday. If your offer makes it disappear, that's four hours a week they stop paying for. Your price now sits next to that number.

Lever 2: make yourself hard to miss. Stickiness. The test is simple: would they miss you if you were gone tomorrow?

🐯 I used my own house as the example. Three kids, all watching Netflix. If Netflix raised the price by 25%, I'd pay. "I would pay five times more." Because while they watch, I can read a book. JaVanka said the same thing: they've raised her price at least five times and she still doesn't know exactly what she pays.

Netflix earned it, one detail at a time. "They obsess about what are people doing?" Which thumbnails people click, which colors, one face or three, five words or two. They keep watching, keep noticing, keep improving. Then the price can rise and the customers stay.

The question that makes price secondary

One of my kids asked me if he could pay ten dollars a month to play more chess on his iPad. I said yes immediately.

Why so fast? Because I ran one question in my head. What's coming for him in the next 18 to 24 months? He'll need to think a few steps ahead, in math, in a debate with friends, on a mountain bike before he jumps. Does this chess game get him ready for that? Yes. So the price didn't matter.

Your buyer runs the same question. Here's how I put it on the show: "think about what's coming for your clients in 12 months, 18 months, 24 months and how can your service or product help them be ready for what's coming?"

A founder buying a CRM or a new website isn't really asking whether it costs $2,000 or $5,000. "They're thinking does it help me solve what I need to solve?" When they feel you see what's coming for them, and that your offer is built to get them ready, then "this thing is designed to make me ready for that then price is secondary."

🌴 Here's the fresh start. You stop defending a number and start describing their next 24 months better than anyone else can. That's what the expert in the room sounds like.

Bring it into the sales conversation

Pricing power isn't only built in the product. It shows up, or doesn't, on the call.

If you name the price before the buyer has named what the problem costs them, your number stands alone. It looks big. The deal shrinks or slips.

If the buyer has already said out loud what doing nothing costs, and what's coming for them in the next 18 months, your price lands next to their own numbers. 🐬 Now you're in control of the conversation, and the price is the easy part.

Do this before your next price increase

1. List what you take away. Cost, friction, people, tasks. Pick one to remove more of this quarter.
2. Run the miss test. Ask three clients what they'd miss most if you stopped tomorrow. Build more of that.
3. Write their next 24 months. What's coming for your ideal client, and how your offer gets them ready.
4. Put that in your sales call. Let the buyer name the cost of doing nothing before you name the price.
5. Then raise the price. 25% on your current offer. Listen for who says thank you.

🐯 And keep the pipeline full while you do it. On the show I said it plainly: "The main risk is a dry pipeline." Higher prices and a full pipeline together are what buy you the evenings back.

🌴 That's Sprintlife. Bigger deals at the price you set, clients who say thank you, and time for the people at your dinner table.

Listen to the full conversation with JaVanka: Vision Pros Live with Simon Severino

Grab the free tools and join the Sprint Club: https://www.strategysprints.com

Ready to accelerate now? Book a Discovery Call: https://calendly.com/strategysprint/discovery-call

Happy hunting.
Simon & The Sprinters 🐬⚡️🐆