How To Raise Your Rates, Improve Your Work/Life Balance, And Increase Your Profit Margins

Brian Hood (0:00)

This is the 6 Figure Home Studio Podcast, Episode 76

SPEAKER_2 (0:04)

Whoa-oh-oh You're listening to the 6 Figure Home Studio Podcast, the number one resource for running a profitable home recording studio.

Brian Hood (0:20)

Welcome back to another episode of the 6 Figure Home Studio Podcast. I am your host, Brian Hood. I am here with my bald and beautiful co-host with a really dumb hat on right now that you can't see, but I can, so I'm laughing and you can't laugh at him, but I can. Chris Graham. Chris, how are you doing today, buddy?

Chris Graham (0:35)

I'm good. This is the hat I wore on our Yosemite trip. I climbed a mountain with you with this hat.

Brian Hood (0:40)

That's true. This hat and I go way back.

Chris Graham (0:42)

Yeah. My wife bought it for 25 cents at an Indian market in Quito, Ecuador.

Brian Hood (0:46)

That's nice. I remember you mentioning it in the podcast in the past.

Chris Graham (0:49)

What are we talking about today, Brian?

Brian Hood (0:51)

Chris, we are talking about something that you recently went through in your studio, in something that I've been telling you to do for like as long as I've known you.

Chris Graham (0:59)

Yeah.

Brian Hood (1:00)

What is that thing?

Chris Graham (1:02)

Raising your rates.

Brian Hood (1:04)

Raising your rates.

Chris Graham (1:05)

Raising your rates. Here's a funny thing. We have a business podcast for recording studios.

This is probably a topic we should have covered already.

Brian Hood (1:15)

Yeah, seriously.

Chris Graham (1:16)

You know why we didn't cover it?

Brian Hood (1:17)

Why's that?

Chris Graham (1:18)

Because then I would have had to raise my rates and I didn't want to.

Brian Hood (1:21)

Yeah, that's true.

Chris Graham (1:22)

Because I was terrified of doing it.

Brian Hood (1:23)

Yeah, so let's actually talk about raising rates. And honestly, the first thing that comes to your mind, if you are in the position where you've probably thought about raising your rates, or maybe you've tried and you, quote, failed, or you think you failed, or maybe you just can't make yourself do it, and it's probably because of one of these fears associated with raising your rates. And just so you guys know, before we even get into this topic today, this is one of our most perfectly outlined episodes we've ever done, I have to say.

Chris Graham (1:49)

Beautiful.

Brian Hood (1:49)

We built an amazing outline for this episode. And for the past, probably since before I left for my honeymoon, we haven't had a really meticulously outlined podcast episode. So today, we're going to hopefully stay on topic and hit all the points we need to hit today without missing anything. So let's talk about the fears that are associated with potentially raising your rates.

And I know that anytime I've ever raised rates in my past, and I know that you've went through this recently yourself, when you think about raising your rates, usually there is a fear attached to that.

And we're not going to try to solve those fears for you right now. We're going to kind of bring them up because we know they're in your head right now. But I think as we get further into this episode, you're going to start to see that each one of these fears are unfounded to a degree.

As long as you're following along with some of the other things we talk about, these fears right here will not be a major issue when it comes to raising your rates. So what's the first fear on our list today, Chris, that keeps people from raising their rates?

Chris Graham (2:40)

The first fear ultimately is FOMO. It's that you'll lose clients as a result of raising your rates, and then you're going to miss out on opportunities. And there's three main opportunities you could miss out on here. One, obviously, is money. Oh, I raised my rates, this band couldn't afford me, they didn't hire me, then I lost out on a project.

The second fear is I'm going to miss out working with a client that I love working with.

It's totally a bummer to out-price yourself, and then that your favorite client that you love collaborating with making music can no longer afford you. And the third is this idea of an anchor client. If you have an opportunity to work with a client that solidifies your brand, someone that you can be like, you know, I did work with that one band that you've heard of.

Brian Hood (3:27)

Please don't say it like that ever. We will come find you and we'll kick you in the face.