Help with pricing needed
My husband and I are chess coaches, specializing in teaching children. We recently started a new buisness (Your Chess Coach) and are building a website where we plan to sell lessons designed to help parents teach a very young child. The lesson will be a write up that should enable them to read the lesson plan and apply it without any additional help. If they need a little assistance here and there I will of course provide support through emails for no additional charge.
Since I have been going through the steps of teaching my 4-year-old, as well as his class at school, I thought there may be others who would like some instruction on how to start down this path.
The first lesson will be free. This will get the parent started and let them know what to expect from the upcoming lessons.
I am a little stuck as I do not know what to charge for the subsequent lessons. We have our private lesson pricing down as well as our group lesson, but this is so different. How much would someone pay to learn how to teach their 4-year-old how to play chess? Since I have always gotten tremendous advice and help from my LI pals I thought I would consult you. So if you could help me out that would be appreciated.
Please make these assumptions when answering the question:
You are a parent with a young child (4-7 years old)
You know how to play and would like to teach your child, but do not know how
You followed my first lesson and had success with it and therefore want to purchase another
The lesson will take you 1-2 weeks to go through with your child
You are paying for the next lesson, Lesson 2
Try to answer the question before you read any other opinions, so that you are not influenced by other answers. I really appreciate your help on this! We should be ready to launch our site this week and I want to get this sorted out.
Thank you so much!
Laura
Clarification added June 15, 2008:
Lessons will be emailed to the client after they pay through paypal. It will be a Word document about the same length as the first lesson (maybe 800 words). It should take the parent 1-2 weeks to complete (assuming 2-3 sessions a week).
Clarification added June 15, 2008:
I do not know how many lessons there will be total, but let us assume that there will be 10 lessons available. The idea is to teach the parent to teach the child, so probably after 10 lessons they will be able to take it from there. The format will be text only, perhaps with diagrams if needed.
Good Answers (17)
Philip S.
Business Coach at Minutecoach Business Coaching | PAYG business coaching
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Hi Laura,
In answering this I'm completely ignoring qualification of the answer, and a load of conditionals. You'll know what those are and can apply them; you want some 'feels right' numbers, right?
Assuming the usual e-book quality one sees (PC fonts, rubbish typography and layout, sparky 'hi there!' language, good content or no, clipped to the fridge with a magnet) = £ 2.50
Wishing for something better (creative, high quality typography and layout, non - marketing driven, an intelligent conversation rather than pushy conversion, printed on nice paper and clipped in a folder on the shelf) = £ 5.20.
The cheap one will do the rounds through the parents at the school playground, the only thing going round the playground with the second will be the recommendation.
I would suggest you ignore the copy protection issue other than at the download site where you use e-junkie and serial numbers. Your lesson will be printed and photocopied, scanned and emailed by 'liberators' if you overprice. You would be far, far better to make the copy very highly personalised, so there is disincentive to pass it on because of enhanced ownership.
You do this by having a non-threatening 'lesson-club' application form up front that collects some data (child's name, sex, age, favorite color, etc.) and then posts through an XLST stylesheet to generate a word document download. Best program to help you do this is EZxslt.
When Laura gets her copy, all titled up, with tips/asides " Laura, if you are finding it hard to remember how the knight moves, remember, it always ends up on the opposite color it starts from..." and with "Laura, Guess What?!" in place of "Did you know?" ..."Judit Polgar won the ____ when she was only eight years older than you!"...
Well, Mum, Guess What? Philip wants his own copy, thank you very much.
Price more than this and there needs to be family justification.
Perceived value - concentrate on that because that's where your risk is; the chess content is already in safe hands.
Philip
Links:
Clarification added June 15, 2008:
By the way, I know you say these are for the parents. That's the bit I've chosen to ignore. My observation is that come the 5th year, children are voraciously consuming any written word from cereal packets to my emails if the computer is on.
Clarification added June 16, 2008:
Sorry, transposition error: '...XLST stylesheet...' should be '...XSLT stylesheet...'
Jacques J.J. S.
3J web CSS HTML Wordpress SEO
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- How many lessons are there going to be?;
- How do the lessons look like (eg. per piece a separate lesson);
- Lessons are emailed - as text or in pdf?
- Is there an online Flash demonstration per lesson?
- When how do lessons become available?
- Do I have to purchase a course (being x lessons), or is it on a per lesson basis?;
Clarification added June 15, 2008:
* When and how do lessons become available?
Why not make it like a membership fee. I do not know your business, but if I wanted to enroll my child in cheerleading or baseball I pay a fee and then uniforms and other expenses for that season or time period. If you really want your child to learn chess successfully and need a lesson planner than you could have an annual fee, semi-annual fee and a quarterly fee. Depending on how fast your client determines to go, they can get as many "lessons" in as they choose during the time period they paid for.
Holly W.
Social Media Marketing | Online Marketing
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How much would a parent pay to have their child learn to play an instrument? Or to play a sport of some kind? I think the pricing should be similar.
Chuck Z.
Program Manager at Tempur-Pedic 11k Connections
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Laura,
What an interesting Idea. I have 6 year old twin daughters and they joined the chess club and lean chess after school on Thursdays. So this is a topic I find quite interesting. To join the chess club cost $150 per child. Now with that having been said you have a private lesson cost and I assume you have found the correct price point there. Lessons that you would provide on line will be significantly south of that for a couple reasons: The parent will do the teaching and once the lesson is written you never have to write it again, except for future improvements in your curriculum.
So you need to find a price point that is not so high the people will not purchase it and not so low that people will not take your seriously.
I would suggest that the pricing be on a sliding scale, the more you purchase the cheaper it gets to encourage people to pay more up front.
I would not send them out as word documents but perhaps as PDFs with a link to adobe for those that don't have a viewer. I would also protect you intellectual property with a copyright.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you would like to try and promote this on Link_USA I think it is a great idea.
Links:
Hey Laura,
This is interesting as a question and tough to answer but I figured I would give it a go.
I think the price hugely depends on the level of service and professionalism. If I was a parent to a 4-7 year old and I wanted to teach my child how to play chess not as a hobby but as a professional, I would be willing to pay several hundred dollars ($300-$500) for a good coach and if it was even higher scale one on one training, then more like $1000-$2000 depending on the level of training.
Now, on the other hand if it was more casual and just for fun and I felt it was really just teaching the basics and my child would enjoy learning for fun, I would expect more like $30-$50 per lesson.
To me the price directly relates to the level of service and professionalism of the coaching and if it is on a high scale level or more casual and fun based.
I hope this helps. Just a few thoughts.
Best
Robert
Hi Laura,
I'm not sure what the ideal price point is, but something you may want to consider is offering the 2nd or 3rd lesson free (instead of the first). That way, they've already made the committment to pay for the first one (or two) and hopefully will be less likely to opt out after one lesson. I hope this helps. Good luck!
Sally
Sally
Jim P.
Entrepreneur and Business Consultant at Personius & Co
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Hi Laura,
Great Question.
I am not sure you are using the right business model. Your core business is personal coaching and lessons. Your pricing model there is probably hourly-based and similar to other lesson plans like tutoring and musical instruments. You probably have a high retention rate because the time is "scheduled" and parents are committed.
However, your Internet lessons probably don't follow the same business model. IMHO, you are now selling e-books. As such, I recommend a few things to consider. 1. Don't give away a free lesson. 2. Give free looks only at the table of contents and maybe the first paragraph of each lesson. 3. Sell the whole book at once at a fair price for a quality book.
Here's my basic thinking. The first lesson is the most valuable because it gauges the child's interest and the parent's ability to teach. A large percentage of parents will never get through a 1-2 week lesson, even with the best of intentions (lessons should be 1 hour at most, given kids' attention spans at that age and parents' ability to find time). Let's assume you have a 50% attrition rate at each lesson. That means for every 100 who start your program, only 12.5 will be there at Lesson 4. With hectic schedules, the easiest thing for a parent to defer/blow off is a home chess tutorial. So the best answer might be to cut the lessons down to size, package them in one book, and sell the whole book as a complete plan online. That way, parents can go at their own pace and feel like they are not getting nickled and dimed or feel they need to make a cost-benefit decision with every lesson. Finally, the best benefit is that you open your potential customer base to grandparents and others who are interested in buying the whole series as a gift to the child/parent.
As an alternative (and probably much more expensive one), if you are committed to lesson by lesson sales, you might want to consider tutorial lessons online over the Internet rather than a downloaded book. This way, kids can log in and run the tutorials, teaching themselves, without the parents having to buy, download, print, and read large Word docs. The graphics and programming will be a lot more expensive, but the retention/completion rate will probably be a lot higher.
Good luck!
Jim Personius
CHIMPP Promotional Experts
Links:
I'm afraid I don't know what to tell you. My wife does Spanish lessons and you stated you have one on one pricing and group lessons down. I even asked my wife and she's not sure either.
You could consider pricing as a one lump deal. 10 lessons for $_____
Kevin H.
Web Business Consultant since 1998
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Wow, that is such a niche market. Who plays chess so competitively and wishes their child to as well? I know they are out there! I just don't know who they are. So the key is, who are they...
I imagine they are children of the people with IQs in the top 5%, maybe 10%. Scientists, theorists, philosophers, PHDs. Computer programmers. Lawyers. Executives. Oh! And why limit it to children? You can take off the cartoon Knight and market it to adults. [I know you said nothing about cartoons...]
And guess what people in that category have... Right! Money! And a certain consideration for prestige and quality. They would rather pay $100 to you than $25 to "Joe's Chess Shack".
Eventually you may make the actual lesson on the web. That computer-lesson wizard guy on tv may be a good business model.
But how much should you charge? That all depends on the quality of your product. Now, let me get down to the honest answer: I could be a billionaire and have my kid in the chess club, and I would not buy this product for more than $1.00 per lesson.
Why? Because I could buy your book for $19.95, or I could hire you for $1000. Or we could sign up for your family group lessons. Or I could sign up for your chess club and get weekly lessons as part of your chess club. Or I could be a member of your online chess society which includes lessons, and play people around the world. Or I could sign up for your teleclass. Or I could sign up for your multimedia cd lessons. You have a lot to offer, but deciding on the exact way to provide that value is the key.
Good Luck!
Linda F.
Mental Health,Disabilities and Health Services Coordinator
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Hi Laura,
You've received some good advice, Jacques' right, I think you should consider a bit more than just word document lessons. As Juan pointed out, people will be inclined to share. Two lessons about the average psyche: First, if you undervalue your service, others will also. It should be in line with a going rate for other activities. Second, a per lesson deal will make parents make parents less inclined to sign up thinking of the hassle of having to go through payment again when they're ready for the next lesson and when you'll get around to sending it. I'd go with a monthly fee after the first lesson.
I've spent years working with youth and families- this is somewhat sad, but a sign of the times- my experience tells me the number of parents who will sit down and play with the kid every time are less than the number who are willing to pay for more independent lessons. Many more parents will be willing to enroll their kid for this "enrichment activity" if it doesn't mean they have to do too much.
Maybe the tech involved in a website and interactive gaming is a bit over your head, but I would urge you to consider it.
Linda
If you send the lessons on a Word document it will be easy for people to forward them on to others without paying you for it. Just a note of caution. I was researching this for a green business with a similiar challenge and found the option below but it was expensive.
Links:
Without reading any of the other answers my first thought was $9.99 per lesson. My thinking went like this: So much is free on the Internet that you just can't charge a lot otherwise people will go look somewhere else. The most successful model I know of for "downloadable services" is iTunes. They charge a small amount per item and people are willing to pay rather than try to find it for free.
Then I read some of the other answers and I liked what Jim Personius had to say. That made sense to me.
You may also want to check out the articles on the "Teaching Sells" site that I've referenced below. I only recently came across the site and have not had a chance to really study it, but it is all about the subject of selling teaching online.
Links:
Rey S.
Global Demand Manager at Abbott Diabetes Care
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Perhaps you can look at the pricing problem by formulating assumptions of your clientele? Who would they be? What's their gross income? What's their disposable, discretionary income? How much do they pay for similar products -- piano lessons, baseball, etc. You can't price it too low as your product loses it's perceived value including the first free lesson. The limits on the high end really doesn't depend on affordability.
Another tack would be first taking how much you charge for your personal lessons, either group or one on one, and discount that by how much you should "pay" the parent for outsourcing the job to them. So it's like they hired you to teach the child, but you subcontract that to a third person that you provide a lesson plan, what your net income under that scenario would be in the ballpark for what you are actually proposing.
Regards,
Rey
More Answers (1)
Sorry I would have no clue how to price something like that. I hope you are getting better answers then mine Best of Luck
Karen
