Aging In Place Directory

#40 - Pricing Strategies for Aging in Place Professionals

• Esther C Kane CAPS, C.D.S. • Episode 40

Share episode

Got a comment or idea? Send us a text.

Pricing services correctly is crucial for thriving in the senior care business, especially for newcomers to the aging in place industry. Esther Kane shares her expertise on developing fair, competitive pricing strategies while creating unique value propositions that differentiate your business.

• Understanding cost components: direct costs, labor rates, overhead expenses, and profit margin
• Using BLS.gov/ocs, state economic opportunity departments, and sites like PayScale to research competitive hourly rates
• Developing a unique value proposition that focuses on solving specific problems rather than generic services
• Creating specialized packages for specific conditions like dementia care, stroke recovery, or wheelchair accessibility
• Leveraging digital tools like Dwell Safe and Silver Spaces for home assessments
• Utilizing video marketing to demonstrate solutions and build trust with potential clients
• Remembering that clients typically need at least seven interactions before purchasing services

More information on this PDF

If you found this information helpful, please subscribe to our podcast, like our videos, and consider joining the Aging in Place Directory which offers free membership for your first 365 days, including marketing training and monthly Zoom calls to connect with other professionals.


Thanks for listening!

Sign up to our Homeowners Newsletter - it's a weekly newsletter filled with expert tips and advice on how to age safely and more comfortably in your own home.

If you provide services for modifying homes for disabled or seniors aging in place, sign up to our directory and expand your business.

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone, how are you? This is Esther Kane with Aging in Place Directory. Welcome to the Aging in Place Directory podcast. I am if you haven't been listening, this is your first podcast. I am a retired occupational therapist, a certified Aging in Place specialist and an internet marketer all rolled into one, and an internet marketer all rolled into one. And today we're going to be diving into a topic at the heart of every thriving senior care business, at least if you're starting off.

Speaker 1:

It's a question that I get most often in emails and forums, linkedin and YouTube. It's how to set fair and competitive pricing for your services. If you're just starting out, it's a difficult concept, but there's a few factors to consider and I'm going to go over them in this podcast. The very first thing that I want to say and I don't like a lot of fluff, so I do get into it, but I do want to say before I get into it is you know, if you like this podcast, please subscribe and follow us. Give us your comments, you know. Let me know exactly what it is that you need to hear from this podcast.

Speaker 1:

The whole purpose of the podcast is to help you build your business as an aging in place professional, all right. So the very first step in trying to comprehend about pricing your services is to understand all the cost components that go into it. And I'm talking about things like a direct cost, like material, all right. So that could be anything from software you know accounting. It could be services that you're using, maybe writers, accountants, attorneys, you know marketing companies anything at all that you're using. That's a direct cost. So that goes into your plan for what you're going to price. The next are your, obviously, your labor costs. You know what is your hourly rate rate and I'm going to talk a little bit later on how to determine that. How do you find that out overhead? You know your office, your home based office. You know your insurance, your marketing. You know what you're paying for marketing, continuing education, website hosting. You know if you go to seminars, webinars, anything like that. Those are your overhead costs, expenses. And then the important thing is is your profit margin? You know what are you going to mark up your service for it? 20 percent, 30 percent over the total costs of what you're spending out. So let's talk about how to determine you know what your hourly rate could be.

Speaker 1:

The very first thing is you can go to sites like BLSgov, slash, ocs. Now I'm going to have all this information on the uh notes for the podcast and also on the description uh information for on the youtube. But you want to look up your occupational classification, you know, is it a noti, is it an interior designer, a construction, you know, bill, whatever? You want to look that up and then you can filter it by city and state to see a medium and percentile wages for what your competitors are earning. You also want to go to Department of Economic Opportunity for your particular state and they usually publish regional wage data for common trades and services. Now I will say you probably aren't going to find aging in place professional in there. It's not yet as common as interior designer or occupational therapist, but you can take a look at what those people are getting and that gives you at least an idea of where to start.

Speaker 1:

You also want to look at websites like pay scale calm and glass door calm and then search by job title, by city, by state. You can even search by services, I believe, and then look at the, look at the 25th to 75th percentile of what these people are charging to give you an idea, a range of what you can charge on an hourly basis. Then also, if you have a national association For aging in place professionals, it would probably be the National Association of Home Builders, nahb. For occupational therapists, it would be AOTA, the American OT Association. For CAPS associations, there are several services, several companies that provide degree certifications for aging employees assessments. Look at those, look to see what prices are, and then you can also go on Facebook forums, linkedin forums, groups, things like that, and ask about the rates. You could probably also find the same information on reddit and quora. And don't forget to use ai. You know perplexity deep seek, grok, chat, gpt. Use those to see if they can research any of these for you. Don't necessarily these days have to go to each individual one. A lot of these AI programs can do the research for you.

Speaker 1:

You also want to look at, or you can look at, things like thumbtack, angie or Angie's list home advisor, to see what they're, what they may be charging if they're posting it, and those are the types of places that you can go to find what you can charge on an hourly rate. What are the people charging? You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to see what your competitors are doing and then try to be competitive with. That Doesn't mean you have to go below what they're going. You know they're charging. It just means you need to be competitive with what they're charging. In other words, if they're the average cost is thirty dollars an hour, you don't want to charge sixty dollars an hour, you want to charge thirty dollars an hour and be competitive with them. Of course, if you're offering more than what they're offering, then of course you can consider charging more. But anyway, that's how you can look at how to consider what your hourly rate would be. So, on top of the direct costs which you can easily get by just seeing what you're being charged for services, software, that kind of thing and then you can add your hourly rate, what you're going to charge, and that gives you ideas of, and then of course, your overhead costs, and that gives you an idea of what you should be charging for your services.

Speaker 1:

You absolutely want to research your local market rates. You want to browse competitors' websites. You can even go on there and ask for quotes. You know, act as a client, find out what are they giving you. And also, when you join their newsletters, when you do ask for quotes, you'll then have an idea of one how quickly they respond. You then have an idea of one how quickly they respond. You might have an idea up what programs they're using to respond I'm and then you also get an idea of what their quotes look like, you know.

Speaker 1:

Do they have it in a nice excuse me formatted template? I am. Is it just an email? Sorry, is it just an email? Sorry, is it something you know? Very generic. Is it tailored to you? You know what is it.

Speaker 1:

How are they creating their quote and can you make it better? Can you make your quote look better, act better? Can you offer more than just maybe a newsletter? You know what? What can you offer that may outrank your competitor? The next thing that you want to do that a lot of small businesses don't do. I have been doing internet marketing for 26 years. I just now closed my internet marketing company after 26 years to focus more on Aging in Place and the Aging in Place directory. But one of the things that I learned in all those years and working with small businesses is that a lot of businesses did not take the time to figure out what their unique value proposition is.

Speaker 1:

This is often, you know, mentioned as a UVP, your unique value proposition. What is it? What do you have that the other people do not have? Obviously, you probably have expertise. Okay, they may too. You have experience. They may, too. You have specialized training. A few of them may have that as well. You may offer a full service package. Not all offer full service packages, so you may want to add that into your repertoire of services and products.

Speaker 1:

Proven results. You know what are your case studies. How do your case studies Compare to their case studies? Maybe you don't even have any case studies yet. I can certainly see that that's where you want to begin maybe doing some pro bono work or some kind of work for friends, family, whatever to start getting those case studies, because it's very, very important to have some trust build up, some trust from your customers or potential customers. So think about that when you're starting your business. Anything that they, that your competitors, may not be offering, consider offering.

Speaker 1:

When I'm talking about I'm talking about this for aging in place professionals. What I'm talking about are things like, maybe a package for homeowners who are dealing with caring for someone with dementia, packages for homeowners who are dealing with someone who's had a stroke, packages for homeowners who have someone in a wheelchair, things like that. When you're focusing it on the problem and you're helping the homeowner to solve the problem, then that makes you a little different than others who are maybe just promoting a wheelchair ramp or wider doorways or non-slip flooring. People aren't necessarily thinking about that, or they're not thinking that they need that. What the homeowner knows is that they're caring for someone with dementia or living with someone with dementia, or their mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband has just had a stroke. What do I do? You know they're focusing on that, on what they have been presented with and what they're living with. So maybe focusing your packages on that can differentiate you from your competitors.

Speaker 1:

The next thing you want to consider is using. These days, we're so fortunate to use interactive digital tools. There are companies out there like dwell safe. There's also others like silver spaces, whole modification assessments. You know these are digital programs that can help to assess the environment for what is needed in order to make the home safer. You can, you know, speak to these companies about adding your logo or your you know your brand to them. You know that may be something that's viable. I don't know. I don't know, but I know that there's a lot of companies now coming out with apps like these, companies that offer that make the entire process a little more automated, a little easier to use instead of just the paper. You know the old-fashioned way with paper and binders and pamphlets. And then you also want to use the interactive digital tools for email marketing, for social media marketing. These are all types of tools. You know the quizzes and surveys of your clients or potential clients. All of these can be automated, especially nowadays with the AI tools, and it's really quite amazing If you're not sure how to use any of the tools you know.

Speaker 1:

Becoming a member of the Aging in Place directory, we have a weekly webinar. I offer a weekly webinar on marketing. I just did one all about prompting, how to create prompts. I gave a whole slew, a whole pamphlet of prompts that you can use to create prompts. I gave a whole slew, a whole pamphlet of prompts that you can use to create all kinds of things, content to help you with your marketing. But we have weekly webinars and then once a month we do or I do actually a two-hour zoom live zoom call to answer any questions about the webinars, about marketing, any way that I can help you to build your Aging in Place business. So consider all of those. Yeah, I mean, consider joining the Aging in Place directory. It's completely free for your first 365 days. Free for your first 365 days, it's absolutely worth it. You would normally I'm not lying when I say you would normally pay a few thousand dollars for the kind of training you get in as being a member of the directory.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the other thing I want to mention is video. Video is so extremely important these days and that's why I'm posting, I post these podcasts on YouTube, any type of video that you can get. Youtube, of course, is the third most used search engine on the planet. Used to be the second, but I believe now Instagram has taken over as number two. Google, of course, is still number one, but anyway, video is extremely important. It doesn't matter if it's a two-minute video or a 30-second video that you make a reel out of and put on Instagram. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 1:

Videos are meant to, you know, solve a problem, showcase a service, anything like that. But I think, for my personal opinion, is that for aging in place professionals, I think the more that you can solve a problem of a potential client, the better you're off. So try to aim your videos towards that. It could be demonstrative, you know. Maybe you're showing how getting in and out of a bathtub with a specific adaptive equipment well, you know how that works. Or how a wheelchair can easily get stuck on. Draw on a doorway that is too small. You know anything. Or it could be just informative. Maybe you're talking a little bit about how to calm someone down with dementia. Or maybe you're talking about how important it is to use, you know, a security device in your home or an Alexa device maybe you know, as a security alert, anything. Whatever it all mix them up.

Speaker 1:

The important thing is to address the needs of your clients and potential clients. The more they see you as the person or company with the answers, the more likely they are to end up buying from you. And please remember that it takes an average, just an average of people to see and or hear from you seven times, at least seven times. Personally, I think these days it's a little bit more so. If you're sending out emails, you're doing videos. Don't expect people to buy from you from the very get-go. It takes time. Just keep doing it. Persistence is definitely, definitely the key. You can even do videos. As far as stories, you know, tell the story behind a person, a client, anything at all and stories carry a lot of weight with people because they can relate to them. And another thing that you can also do is a behind the scenes kind of podcast or video anything at all to show.

Speaker 1:

These are the kinds of problems that you're dealing with here. You have a, maybe a family who is urging their senior loved one to do some aging in place modifications, but you're getting pushback. You know, no, they don't want to do it because they don't want to make changes to their home. No, they don't want to do it because they don't think they really need it. You know how do you deal with that, how can you have a conversation with them, and basically, what you're doing is you're helping people to understand why your services are so important, and so that's just another idea that you can do. All right.

Speaker 1:

So you want to again, just to reiterate, you want to look at your direct costs. What do things cost you, your and that could be everything from software to classes, education, everything. You know what are your overheads, your insurance, your rental for your room, your office, you know furniture, equipment, anything at all, and what are your hourly rates and you put all of those together and that is how you can come up with a pricing package. Obviously, you want, if you end up, if the dollar amount that you end up with, everything that you are spending, is so much more than what your competitors are offering as far as their rates, then you have to figure out okay, then I'm spending too much. I'm spending too much for this accounting software. I need to find something that costs less. I'm spending too much for my legal services. I need to find a way to decrease those costs. I'm spending too much on rent. Maybe I, you know, move into a home office.

Speaker 1:

You know, the idea of knowing these prices also gives you an idea of that. Your competitors are maybe using programs, software, services that are less costly to them than they are to you. Of course, if they are a very large company, they have a lot of clients. Then that could help to reduce their price overall cost as well. But you're just starting off, so you want to try to look at other similar businesses as well, and one way you can do that is if they have a website, and hopefully they do. They actually most every business should. These days. You can go to who is calm and you can type in their domain name and you can see when they register that domain name and that'll give you an idea of when they started their business. If the domain name is 10, 15, 20 years old, then you may have an and you're like well, this person has been around a very long time, unless, of course, they purchased an existing domain name. That's a whole other story, but it's just a free way to get an idea, hopefully, of when they started their business, and that may help you as well. All right, so I hope that this information was helpful.

Speaker 1:

There's going to be much more in a PDF that I'm going to attach to the notes here for the podcast and to the YouTube channel. I know that for me, when I listen to YouTube channels or podcasts that are pretty much more than 20 minutes long, I tend to wander off, so I am trying hard to keep this slow, but I will have a PDF that you can download for even more information. Again, give us your comments. Click on the like button. We appreciate each and every one of our listeners, you know. Subscribe to our channel, be it podcast, be it YouTube, and look at the aginginplacedirectorycom. Join it. You get a lot for the information you put in. Not only are you in the directory, but you get marketing training as well and monthly Zoom calls, which the purpose of that is really to try to bring people together to work with each other, to help each other in building their businesses across the country and Canada. All right, I am going to close down this podcast and I will see you next time. Thanks for listening.

People on this episode

Contributor

Esther C. Kane, CAPS, C.D.S.

Host