CRAIG MAGINNESS: They find somebody who actually did themselves start a pretty good practice and they would come in and say here's what I did. This is how I started my practice.

These are all things I did and if you do what I did, you'll be successful. The problem with that is if everybody does the same thing, what's your competitive advantage? I first started teaching, I'd say to people, what can you charge for acupuncture?

They'd be like, I charge 90, that's what everybody charges. Who cares what everybody charges? What can you charge based on what you do?

Podcast Intro: Pilates business owners, welcome to The Pilates business podcast, brought to you by the people who own, operate, and instruct in a successful clinical Pilates studio in Australia. 

Our mission is to help you to discover Pilates business assets to build your clinical Pilates business success. And now, here's your host, David Gunther. 

DAVID GUNTHER: What makes somebody happily pay $4 for a bottle of water when there's one for 85 cents right next to it? That's not just a marketing ri. It's the battlefield every clinical Pilates studio owner walks onto daily. They're not just selling Pilates. You are selling a decision, a belief, a moment of finally, I'm doing something for me.

In our first episode of the David and Goliath series, I sat down with global business coach. Craig McGinnis to tackle the existential challenge we all face. How do you stand your ground and your own space in a market dominated by giant fitness franchises? We broke open the myth. That you must compete at all, and instead explored how you redefine the field entirely by knowing your unique value.

Today, we'll go deeper again, because what do you charge for your Pilates? This episode is about the real price tag, not the number on your schedule, but the story in your client's head. We unpack how pricing is never about the product. It's about the perception, the story the client is telling themselves, and the one you are too often forgetting to tell. Craig's back with metaphors, mental pivots and examples ranging from choosing a car to grabbing a bottle of water. Trust me, this episode will rewire how you think about value. And if you've ever wondered why some studios thrive with higher prices while others scramble around in circles with discounts, stay tuned. The answer isn't technical. It's emotional. Let's rethink pricing together. 

 Our wonderful team at the Pilates Business Podcast have created a set of tools that we call David's competitive Edge, practical Action steps to compete with Goliath in the Pilates marketplace.

It's free, it's easy to use, and it's action oriented. And it's built from the best insights in this David and Goliath podcast series. There's even a scorecard so you can pinpoint where to focus next in your business. Whether you are just getting started or looking to scale up. This checklist is your tactical roadmap to thrive in today's competitive Pilates business landscape.

Download it free at www.pilatesbusiness.com.au or via the links in our show notes, and take the first step to owning your advantage. 

So let's talk about that. What price is on that, Craig? How do you set your pricing to compete in the marketplace or are you saying we don't even have to worry about price?

CRAIG: Again, you have to get back to the very first thing. When I teach people how to start a business, the very first thing we've got to get at is understanding your personal, you know, your value. Why are you doing this? Right? So let me say this. What I say in a nutshell is, people don't buy the thing you sell.

People buy the story you tell. Okay? And where a lot of people in the small business, they get so focused on the thing they sell. And this is one of the problems with conflating, honestly, like cost control with value creation. Okay? Because cost control is usually about changing the way I actually do the thing I sell.

Let me start with one might be a little counterintuitive at first, but it in some ways captures this, what do you mean somebody, they're telling them the story you're telling? And maybe something as far away from Pilates as a car, okay?

And more specifically, a Toyota Prius and a Hummer. I could make the argument that those are simply two versions of similar products. The way one clinical Pilates studio is just a different version of another Pilates studio, right?

It's the same thing. They're both modes of personal transportation. They both have two axles, four wheels, rubber tires. They both depend principally on an internal combustion engine. They need, similar complementary infrastructure to function. They need roadways, they need a network of gas stations, they need traffic laws that we all understand and obey to make this work.

All those things. But would anyone try and argue that a Prius is the same thing as a Hummer, really? I would say to you that the person who drives the Prius could hardly have a civil conversation about personal transportation with the person who drives the Hummer. And here's why.

Because the person who buys that, you know, I can say, yeah, okay, we've rationalized things, right? I mean, one gets better gas mileage, the other has more cargo space, right? We can get into technical specs and say, well, that's how they're different. But the fact is, the person who drives the Prius is because they tell themselves a story about I believe in the environment, and no one of us can save the planet by ourselves, but if we each do our own little part, maybe we can start to make a difference.

Okay? And so, when I pull up at the grocery store or the market and get out of my Prius, I feel good about myself. Because the car reflects a value that I hold myself for what's important to me. Okay? And when I do that, it's not a value judgment. Like, I have my own personal opinions about what I would do or wouldn't do.

But it's not about that. Different people tell themselves different stories. Different customers show up with different stories. the person who drives the Hummer, they tell themselves a different story, right? I don't need to save the planet. I own the planet. I can go anywhere with this thing.

I can't parallel park downtown, that's a different problem. But, other than that, the world's my oyster, right? It's a different story, and people who, drive a Porsche or whatever, you know, they have different stories about that. And yes, and having said that, In many things we all have to settle, right?

 look, I just can't afford the car I'd really love to drive that would be me, so I drive a beater or a half decent whatever, because that's what I got, and that's fine. And we have to do that, yes,but in the perfect world, you're looking for that thing. That is a reflection of the story you tell yourself, okay?

And I'm going to tell you that this proposition is true of the kind of toothpaste you buy, the kind of coffee you buy, whether you buy your enterprise software from SAP or Oracle, or you go to the funky little skunk works downtown where the guys in flip flops and cut off shorts are going to custom design your own system.

It's true at some level of everything we buy, and again, we settle for stuff, sure, we get, it's the best thing I could find, I'm not loving it, but it solves my problem. But man, when we can find that thing that really is, whoa, this is the thing I was looking for. I'm glad somebody finally saw the world the way I see it and said, yes, that would be the way to solve that problem.

Wow! Boom. Yes. Don't even tell me how much it costs. Just give me ten of them. And by the way, the other thing of course this does when you get into the spot, is marketing. People talk about, particularly small businesses, right? I want word of mouth marketing. I want referrals. I want my customers to tell their friends.

Those are the people who tell their friends. The people who are getting something and going, Wow. This is it. You bet I'm going to tell my friends about this. And then the wonder, of course, is most of us, to some extent, I think I can say a pretty diverse group of friends, but still, you know, we tend to hang out with people who at some level tell themselves a similar story, at least in some respects.

So if I'm thinking, wow, this is really great, I didn't even know this kind of thing existed this way, I'm way more apt to tell my friends who are also apt to go, huh, wow, if Craig thinks that, I ought to check that out. Anyway, so that's as sort of far away from Pilates as cars, but if I go the other way, so as I say, I teach acupuncturists at our local Chinese medical.

Now, so that's a very similar market, right? in the sense that it's a personal wellness thing. It's,a challenging group of people to talk about business sometimes because for all the reasons they went into alternative Eastern based healthcare. They find business to not only be something they're not thrilled about, but in fact something they find affirmatively antagonistic.

It's western, it's capitalistic, it's exploitative, even though a well run business should be none of those things. Well, it may be capitalistic and it may be western, but it shouldn't be exploitative. But, anyway, at this university I teach at, which is one of I think the most respected Chinese medical schools in the United States, I am the first non acupuncturist.

To teach their business, clinical management course, to basically teach acupuncturists how to start businesses. And it's a critical class because they're in a market where there's no big employers out there hiring acupuncturists. So they went to school for the thing, and then they come out and find out if they actually want to practice that, they have to start a business.

 And the reason they always had acupuncturists do it is they had this idea that only an acupuncturist could teach other acupuncturists how you run a practice. But the problem is they find somebody who actually did themselves start a pretty good practice and they would come in and say here's what I did This is how I started my practice.

These are all things I did and if you do what I did, you'll be successful. The problem with that is if everybody does the same thing, what's your competitive advantage? I first started teaching, I'd say to people, you know, what can you charge for acupuncture?

They'd be like, I charge $90, that's what everybody charges. Who cares what everybody charges? What can you charge based on what you do? 

Because I had to get them back from the point that, look, again, it's not the thing you sell, right? Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, Wow, I wish I could find somebody to stick needles in me.

That would be really valuable, okay? It simply doesn't happen, right? No one thinks that sticking needles in me is valuable. But, if you can use that as the modality by which you relieve my chronic pain, and I'm saying that beyond relieving my chronic pain, that allows me to go home to my wife and kids in a whole different mood and a whole different head space and a whole different perspective.

And so what you're selling me is not acupuncture. You're selling me a chance to change my life. To be a better father and husband. That's valuable. Now, you happen to do it using needles. Other people may use a Pilates reformer. Other people may do some other mode. Great. But the point is, you need to understand that's where the value is, right?

And I, yeah, and so I started to change, like, all these people's perspective about what is it they do. And then so to your question about, what do you charge? How does it fit? It's back to, like, you know, somebody may only be able to charge 90 bucks if they're in a marketplace and given who their customers are and what they're trying to value.

I worked with one woman whose whole point of it was to practice in a valley with a large immigrant population, a lot of people working, day labor jobs. So just in terms of socioeconomic available thing, you know, it's a lower price point, right? But that was her story, and man, those people loved her.

And what they could pay, they'd be happy to pay, right? And then I worked with other people who were, just like in a whole other world, in terms of who they were aiming for, and so they had a potential for a higher price point, but again, to hit the people who are like, if you're going to do that for me, and I actually experience that, which then becomes, it's got to be authentic.

You actually have to deliver on your value proposition. You can't just say it, right? Then, you know, the sky's the limit. I don't know, I don't even look at the bill. I just give you my credit card, I pay it, I come back next week because I'm just so thrilled, about the differences. That's an example that relates a little more to this. You can see it in any product there is as to how this works. I'll tell you, can I tell you one more story about something that at first that's really generic and yet has huge price point. 

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CRAIG: So I usually being a, I think a reasonably good citizen of the world, use a refillable water bottle for water.

I don't like to buy plastic bottles if I can help it or any other kind of bottle. But every now and then, you know, you get out, you're about, you forget, it's a hot day, you run around, you don't have time. So I was, out one day and I realized I didn't have my water bottle, I was getting thirsty. And there was a little corner market, it was in the, in a downtown neighborhood in Denver, a little funky corner market.

And I went in, hoping I could find what I wanted. And first of all, this place was one of these places that had everything. Everything you could imagine. I mean, they had all manners of food. They had cereal, they had chips, they had car windshield washer fluid, they had cell phone chargers.

They had everything you can imagine. They had oil, they had, everything. They had a big refrigerator case and in that they had beer and energy drinks and water. Okay, so first of all, this is a relatively little small corner market that has so much stuff. You would think that as a business strategy, space would be at a premium, right?

Like they'd be really sensitive to how many inventory items they stock at any one time. So I go to the water case and there in front of me is an entire door and there are at least eight different brands of bottled water, in roughly the same size bottles. But then even more remarkably, these eight bottles of water.

Ranged in price from 85 cents to over 4 dollars. So here's 8 different products, the same thing, frankly. In a space I can look at them all side by side. And the competitive price environment ranges from 85 cents to 4. dollars you know, why is that? Okay, well, here's why. Okay, so the cheap one was, truly a generic bottled water, right?

It was called something like Pure Life. There was, like, nothing on the label other than barely a label. But it was 85 cents, right? So if all I want is, I don't care. It's wet. It's water. My God. Yes, fine. Take it. Boom. Great. That's for me, right? Another one was, Dasani water. Okay, that's Coca Cola's bottled water, right?

So that's the big sort of corporate brand. You see it everywhere. It's in Coke machines and places. it's all around the world actually. I've seen it. I've had it in Kenya. I've had it lots of places. I don't know who fills these Pure Life 85 cent water bottles, but, I got a feeling like Coca Cola, it's like McDonald's, it's the same. No matter what. I know what it's going to be. Because it's going to be the same thing I get everywhere. And somehow that's important. I may not even articulate this, but I know I'm feeling this, that I feel better getting the repeatable corporate, I know what it is, I'm gonna get it, right?

Another one was called Eldorado Springs Water. Okay, this is your local brew. There's a place up here just northwest of Denver where, a stream comes out of our Rocky Mountains. And so it's Rocky Mountain spring water, bottled in El Dorado Springs, Colorado, right? So that's another story.

It's fresh Colorado spring water coming out of our mountains. This is local. There's lots of things that says to me that's something a little different, right? So going down the line. So another one is Fiji water. I bet you have that in Australia, right? Okay.

Interestingly, crazily enough, Fiji water actually comes from Fiji. It turns out that the island of Fiji, has a giant aquifer under it, which produces vast amounts of fresh water. And so the island, as a, partly an economic development thing, decided to start bottling their water and selling it. Now, do people look at that and go, wow, water from Fiji, I've always wanted that.

No, I think, you know, they have a really little bit of a unique bottle, and originally they had their label on the back. You saw this tropical thing through the water. But it says something about fresh water, tropical nature , it's feeding me on some emotional level that's causing me to reach for the $2.50 Fiji water instead of the 085 cent, just take it, or the $1.50, it's Coke, I know what it is, water, right? Another one of that I'd never seen before was, one from Iceland, Icelandic water. Now, I was in Iceland recently. They do have water, amazing amounts of water in Iceland. But, you know, I don't know, is there any magic to Icelandic water?

I don't think so. But it says something about cold and Nordic and, it's a different story, right? And then the ultimate, so this, and I'll end it here. So among , the top of the line, the most expensive one, was smart water. 

It's called Smart Water. And, it's water. You know what makes Smart Water so smart? It's got a pH of 7. 0. Do you know what makes water, water? In general, it has a pH of 7. 0. Smart Water is smart because it's actually water, right? But the point is, it's not that the water is smart. It's that if I am the person who drinks Smart Water, It says I'm smart.

And I'll tell you, you know, they say sex sells. Well, the other thing that sells as well as sex is smart. Right? If I can look smart, be smart, people see me and go, wow, he's, yeah, you know. I mean, they have ads here, recently, a big ad campaign for Holiday Inn, which you probably have there, I've stayed in them around the world periodically.

Anyway, they're Holiday Inn Express brand, and their tagline at the end of it, is this guy, and he's got a coffee machine in his room, so he can save time before he goes to his business meeting, and da da da da da, and at the end it just says, I stayed at Holiday Inn Express. Smart. Very smart. And that's it. 

And again, it's a thing that is pretty generic. If you stayed in generic business hotels, it's kind of hard to tell the difference. But, if one of them says I'm smart that's attractive to me or a certain person, right? Anyway, so again, this is something that, so it is so generic.

We're talking about water. For God's sake. And yet, the people who are buying it, all the people who stand in front of this refrigerator case, are making a decision about what to buy. And some people only go 85 cents, some people go 4 dollars Because the product is telling a story that in some way resonates with their story.

Different people. Different stories, and just like the Prius and the Hummer, person is going to buy the 85 cents bottle of water, looks at somebody, and buys the 4 dollar bottle of water, they're going to look at them like, pal, you are out of your mind, what planet did you swoop in from?

And the person is buying the $4 bottle of smart, or is looking at the guy with the 85 cents, going, not very bright.

DAVID: That's terrific, Craig. So what I'm hearing, if I'm going to summarize this a little bit, what I'm hearing is that the perceived value of the proposition is decided by how well the story connects with the prospect's values. And that connection is decided by things like feeling and emotion. That connects with their values and their values for Pilates could be that it's time for them to look after their body.

They're finally realizing that's really the ultimate value for them at this point in time. And they need the best approach to naturally deal with that condition, that injury that's been bugging them maybe for decades. 

So one of the things that we do that reflects that very well, that is a practical thing that can be done by people out there in our audience, business owners, Pilates business owners, but any wellness. or any brand is that they can do a great job with their Google reviews. So we have well over 100 five star Google reviews and Craig for the first 15 years of having Google reviews. I'm not sure, but something like that. It was a long time having, we had about eight. Google reviews. And then last year we decided, look, it's important that we tell these stories or we get these stories out because we were hearing all the stories all the time from our clientele, how well they were going and how much they felt that was because of the Pilates studio and what they were doing with their instructor and the environment that we had created.

So we thought. It's so important to get that out there. And we noticed that other businesses didn't necessarily have, that number of stories out there and in their Google reviews or the level of connectedness with our particular target group, who has these values that I described it a little bit earlier on.

 If today's chat sparked a rethink about how you are telling your studio story and what that means for your pricing, you are not alone. That's the work and there's more of it ahead. Follow the show so you don't miss what's coming next In this David and Goliath series where we go even deeper into the importance and effectiveness of Google reviews for business, specifically for clinical Pilates studios.

See you at the next one in your car, on the dog walk or just sitting quietly looking out your window. No matter, as long as you make sure you listen to the next episode of the Pilates Business Podcast.

OUTRO: You have been listening to the Pilates business podcast with David Gunther. If you are enjoying the show, let us know by subscribing and leaving a review. For more information or if you have any Pilates business questions, visit www.pilatesbusiness.com.au.