Early bird discounts are bad for business

We’ve decided that we’re no longer offering an early bird discount for our upcoming events including our Planning and Writing mini-retreat in the UK and the Writing Retreat in Spain. That’s because we believe that early bird discounts can be bad for business!!

If you’re not familiar with the term, an early bird discount is something that’s available at a reduced price if booked or bought in advance of an event or product launch. It’s a great way to encourage people to book early, see if there’s a demand, and it’s a good scarcity tactic for your marketing.

So you might be asking… Why are we doing this?

Here’s the thing. If you always offer early bird discounts for your programmes and products, how much do you value the full price? And ultimately your worth?

Are you always seeing the value as the lower price rather than the value that you know it will ultimately give your clients?

And if people are always expecting to pay an early bird discount will they ever respect your full price?

Sure, it’s a great way to encourage early bookers, but it isn’t the only way.

This is how we’ve done it

This year, when I decided to collaborate with my friend Sheryl Andrews, and run events in the UK as well as Spain, we started to think about what our clients get from our events.

What makes our events different is that we cap numbers at 8 people at each event. This means that we can give our clients huge value, everyone gets individual attention, and they go away with a clear personalised strategy for their books. There is scarcity here, because we’re only running a couple of events each year and as numbers are limited, our clients need to get in fast!

Two for the price of one!

Also, because we’re running the events together, you’re getting the collective value of both of our skills – me with years of experience of writing and publishing multiple books, and Sheryl with her expertise in selling, marketing and managing your critic.

Added bonuses

It’s all too easy to give your clients added bonuses as added value, and forget to value it yourself.

That’s why we remembered that we’re not just offering the events. For everyone who books, we include pre and post-event support with online programmes and individual calls. This is something we did anyway, so it made perfect sense to value it as part of the package.

Loyalty and bundle discounts

For those people who want to attend multiple events, we offer a bundle http://healthsavy.com/product/paxil/ price, as we’d love them to continue their author’s journey with us and thank them for their business.

We also have decided to offer loyalty discounts. For example, all of my clients get preferential prices for the events. They can save money to join us in Spain, attend any of the UK events, and current clients will get free access to the 10,000 Word Summer Challenge this August.

Fast action bonuses and flash sales

Another thing that we do is offer bonuses when people book. I’ll occasionally do this when running webinars when I’m promoting something. For example, I often offer a fast action bonus of a free 30 minute mentoring call for the first few people who book onto a programme or event. This is a good way of encouraging people to book quickly, and this only costs you your time. And actually this is a really great way of connecting with your clients.

You also might want to do the occasional flash sale, like I did for my birthday earlier this month. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional discount, as long as it doesn’t become a long term strategy in your business.

When you look at what you’re offering, do you really need to have early bird discounts?

If you continue to discount everything that you do, then you won’t be able to make a profit. Even if money isn’t your driver, remember that if you don’t make sufficient income or have enough clients, then you won’t be able to do what you wanted to do when you started out in business!

Sure, having a way to encourage people to work with you is important, but I do believe that early bird discounts can be bad for business if you’re doing them for the wrong reason. They do work when you value your full price and when you simply want to improve cashflow. But remember it does impact your profit.

Bonuses, flash sales, and value added content are worth more in the long term. Know what your time and experience is worth and the value of what you have to offer.

The process of writing a book teaches you to value all that you know, and price yourself accordingly.

Having a published book will allow others to see the value of what you have to offer and the wisdom that you can share with them. So this is another reason for doing rather than dreaming!

What do you think?

Are early bird discounts bad for your business? Please leave your comments below.