Natalie Brite

Do you need to raise your prices?
Yes… No… Maybe? 🧐

Here’s the thing: Raising your prices solely because you want to isn’t really a justifiable reason to raise them. WANT is not the same as NEED.

Creating a culture of raising prices whenever we feel like it, without taking into consideration whether we actually NEED to, is likely to create unnecessarily inflated and highly unethical pricing norms.

I recently had a convo with a client who invested in a 30k$ service package that left them feeling like they didn’t even receive what they signed up for. I don’t know about y’all, but 30k$ is a TON of money to me. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Especially to then experience post-purchase dissonance!
This is a common story I hear WAY to often, showing we have a problem with pricing.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a time or place for premium pricing. What I am saying is that it should be LOGICAL, justifiable, and backed with strong delivery of what you promise!

How do we ensure we are adopting an ethical pricing strategy?

For starters: Understand that ethical pricing happens when both the business owner AND the purchaser benefit from a financial exchange in an equitable way. When we lose equity in exchanges, we often enter into the waters of exploitation of people. Have you established your pricing from a lens of equity?

Some strategies to consider:

📌Cost based strategy: basing pricing on the cost of producing a good/service.

📌Freemium strategy: you offer a great free version of your product/service that builds natural interest in the full version.

📌Hourly/rate based strategy: you charge by the hour (reasonable rates that are sensible!)

📌Project-based strategy: you charge based on project & deliverables (again, sensibly!)

📌Value-based strategy: you set the price of a product/service based on consumer feedback & interest (your consumers HELP you establish pricing! This is my fave 🙃)

Questions to ask yourself:

✔️Is my pricing making essential products/services accessible?

✔️Is my pricing potentially harming vulnerable populations?

✔️Are my prices potentially manipulating or taking advantage of consumers?

Share questions/thoughts below 👇🏼!

Have you ever thought about Why it is so popular to use money as a means for attracting people to a product/service?

Money controls just about everything we do (or are able to do).  It is required in order to be able to access basic humans needs.  We need to have money to pay for heat to stay warm, food to stay alive, shelter to stay safe.  Heck, water even comes with a price tag & in some regions of the world it is illegal to collect rain water even though it just freely falls from the sky!

When we see someone financially thriving, we attach a ton of imagery, ideas & beliefs to it.  We also consciously (or unconsciously) know that many of our basic survivals depends on our ability to pay to survive. We have things like ‘living wages’ that basically means that you’ll get paid a wage that'll keep you alive… but the catch with that messaging is that no one guarantees that the QUALITY of life will be great with the wages you earn. We have ‘costs of living’ that basically means that there is a COST to live & you better be able to pay up or you won't be able to survive.

When someone uses financial gain as a way to sell products and/or services…. it's like little flashing lights & sirens 🚨 go off in our bodies, signaling that whatever they are selling could potentially help us survive.  We often get so distracted by the dollar signs that we don't stop to question things like whether we actually need what their selling, or whether it's a smart investment to buy what they are selling, or even whether what they are selling is going to deliver what we TRULY need.

So then, what do we truly need?
This is different for everyone & important for us to define for ourselves.
Sure, it may be money. But is it also more ease in accessing something? A more equitable system that supports their well-being? A more inclusive environment? A society that provides access to basic human necessities?

Our businesses can be a vote for the world we want to live in & our messaging can help carry out that vote. The messaging we use in our businesses has the ability to either uphold toxic cultural norms …or disrupt them. 💘

More on this topic in next weeks newsletter! Access via 🔗 in bio.

Content planning doesn’t have to be complicated! 🥹

Before diving into my 4 part content planning process, make sure you understand the difference between content PLANNING and content CREATION. I’ll be sharing my content creation process later this week, so come back to check that out! In the meantime, today I’m sharing my planning process.

Content planning is the PRE-creation (aka design) phase. It’s super important and will speed up as well as increase efficacy of your design time!

I plan content a month in advance (minimum) BUT, that goes without saying that the plan ALWAYS changes! I’m a creative person by nature, with lots of ideas always steaming. I plan in advance knowing that the plan is not written in stone.

I also plan each week, and this is when I update my monthly plan as needed.

My planning process is as follows: 👇🏼👇🏼

1. Brainstorm & research: I have a page in my Notion for ‘content brainstorming’ and this is where I keep all my content ideas! I then research ideas I want to work with for the upcoming month as needed (SEO research, trends research, market research, etc)

2. Organize content ideas by TOPIC of content and TYPE of content: I take the ideas from my brainstorm and pick the ideas that I want to work with for the upcoming month, organizing ideas based on my content pillars AND channels I share content on (types of content). This completes my monthly editorial calendar!

3. Identify marketing objectives & direction: I then define the GOAL of the content I’m creating, identifying CTAS and activities I’m doing to drive said goals.

4. Review, schedule, publish! Last but not least, I review it, schedule it, and await publishing time!

Easy peasy!
Ok a good day, I can knock out my monthly content plan in one sitting! Doesn’t have to be super time consuming yall! But this gives your content efforts direction & intention… which will ultimately help increase the results your content generates for you!

Have questions about content planning? Drop them below ⬇️! I’d love to hear about the content planning process that you use 🌞. What works for you? What isn’t working with your current approach? Xx

“Invest in yourself, you’re WORTH IT!”

“Investing in yourself is a sign to the universe that you believe in yourself!”

“If you don’t invest in yourself, you just must not want your goals bad enough!”

“Not investing in yourself is a sign of money blocks and scarcity mindset!”

…. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point 🫠🫠🫠.

There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t see the above 👆🏼 types of marketing messages somewhere on the interwebs. Y’all: those types of messages are SO toxic! Let alone they’re also incredibly manipulative and ignorant. Can we all agree to just stop pushing this thought?! 😑

There are a million reasons why someone DOES invest in something…

And there are a million reasons why someone DOESNT invest in something.

We can’t just assume we know someone’s reasoning… and we can’t just link folks decision making processes to their levels of belief in themselves. 🙄

I have invested in things because I DIDNT believe in myself. I have invested in things because I DID believe in myself.

I have invested in things because I budgeted and planned for it… and I have not invested in things because I quite frankly didn’t have the financial ability to do so.

If you’re a statistics person, you’d know that the average person has little to no savings, retirement, etc. (EX: 60% of Americans consider anything that costs in the 2k$ realm a financial emergency that will bring financial stress! According to Fortunly)

Toss in wage gaps, our ever growing class gap, and our oppressive systems that hit BIPOC & forcibly marginalized communities the hardest, and yeah….

You can believe in yourself all you want but that doesn’t change the fact that we do not all have the same levels of access to money needed to make financial investments.

Comment and/or share this post if you agree 😬😬.

Which color combo do you enjoy the most? 🌞🌞

At the beginning of each month, I pull a card from The Wild Unknown’s Archetypes deck. Whatever archetype I pull is the overarching archetype that I work with for the month. It’s wild (no pun intended 😜) how aligned the pulls always seem to be & how the archetype that i work with always seems to be exactly what I needed to focus on.

This month I pulled The Stone archetype. This archetype is about working with your anchor or tether; the thing that grounds you, helping to keep you centered and present.

Ironically enough, just a few days into the month of May & I can already see why I pulled this archetype.

There is so much that feels in transition right now. Between my partner & I house hunting while also preparing for my mom to come stay with us for most of this month…to being in transition with my work as I prepare to move into a Studio biz model & shift some of the ways I offer support to folks.

There are also many social & environmental transitions happening… all of which can definitely disrupt our ability to feel grounded or centered.

The Stone archetype is perfect energy to work with right now. Identifying WHAT your anchors or tethers are is definitely the first step.

For me, one of my strongest anchors has always been art & creativity or any form. Using art as a therapeutic outlet and allowing creative expression to help me stay present/grounded has been a great support system.

This fun little color combos series came out of that space & I actually loved both the process of designing this series as well as loved how it turned out 🌷. Choosing humorous names definitely was the most fun part 😉.

What is your anchor or tether that helps you stay grounded amidst times of change & transition? 👇🏼👇🏼

May Content Ideas: addition!

So apparently it’s small business week this week! 🤷🏻‍♀️

📌 This post so you can back to it & tag/share with other biz friends you’d like to potentially collab with this week!

I wanted to provide some content ideas for how to make the most out of small biz week. You can also use these content ideas at ANY given time because they definitely aren’t exclusively relevant to this weeks theme.🌞

I personally love any chance to amplify & highlight other indie biz people whom I value & adore. Scope my stories out throughout the week because I plan on sharing some of my fave recommendations up there!

Tomorrow I’m sending out my first May newsletter that links a free copy of my May 2022 Content Marketing Guide 📧 … so if you’d like even more laser focused content & marketing tips, insights and ideas… make sure to subscribe via bio!

Which content ideas on the list feel most exciting for you to test out this week?! 🥰🍄🌷