What I learnt from visiting a super fancy house

I want to talk about my favourite sightseeing stop during my Spain trip last month: Casa Batlló.

This is a house (“Casa” is Spanish for “house”) that the Batlló family used to live in. It was designed by the architect Gaudí, and it’s beautiful.

I had a really good experience visiting it and took away some things that could help us do business and serve customers better.

Tiered pricing

You have to buy tickets to visit Casa Batlló. There are three pricing tiers offering different levels of access:

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These options are designed to help the house earn as much money as possible.

Because sure, maybe most people will pick the cheapest Blue tier (like I did, haha). But some people may be willing to spend more to access more experiences.

If the house had offered tickets at only one price, it would have missed out on this extra revenue.

And depending on how many buyers it has for each pricing tier, the house could be earning more from its more expensive tiers—even though they have fewer buyers—than its cheapest one.

So, is there a way you can introduce tiered pricing in your business?

Think about the extra things you could offer for the more expensive tiers—things your customers will find valuable, and especially if these things won’t cost you much more to provide.

Just like the pricing for the Refactoring UI book by Steve Schoger and Adam Wathan. The basic tier gets you the book and some video tutorials. The more expensive tier gets you the book, the video tutorials and a bundle of digital files.

​In this respect, tiered pricing is the easiest to implement for digital products, like ebooks or courses. Create the product (and its bonuses) once and you can sell them over and over with low or no marginal cost for each extra sale.

Implementing tiered pricing for standardised services is possible, too. But you may need to price the more expensive tiers much higher as you only have so many hours for delivering services every day. (Likewise if you’re selling access to a place with limited physical capacity, like Casa Batlló.)

There are also design tactics for nudging people to pick your more expensive pricing tiers, but I won’t go into those now.

Just don’t make your pricing too confusing.

That’s my main issue with Casa Batlló’s pricing. Because the three pricing tiers you see above are just for general visits.

The house also has other tickets for early morning visits, night visits, night visits + a concert etc. Honestly, I was overwhelmed by all the options at first.

​I first came across this idea of tiered pricing from reading Authority by Nathan Barry. If you’re interested in making money from self-publishing, I’d recommend checking out this book!

And okay, this is just about my experience buying tickets to visit Casa Batlló. I haven’t talked about my actual visit to it yet! But I’m going to cover that next time—otherwise, this email is going to be super long.

To be continued…

More freelancer news

Reflections on freelancing and entrepreneurship

Read/listen to some recent sharings about freelancing and/or running a business!

​In ad hoc work, asking for money was the hardest skill to learn​

The writer, a full-time journalist turned freelancer, shares some challenges of transitioning from full-time employee to freelancer. E.g. learning how to talk pricing and being self-motivated to get work.

(You’ll need a Straits Times premium subscription to read this article. If you don’t have one, you can access the article for free here. Log in with your library membership and go to the 31 May edition of the e-paper.

​Don’t fall into the trap of entrepreneurship​

The co-founder and managing editor of the DollarsAndSense finance blog talks about when and when NOT to become an entrepreneur.

My favourite line from the piece:

“It’s important to note the difference between having control of your time and having lots of free time. Most entrepreneurs have the former, not the latter.”

Can relate 😂

​Managing your finances as a freelancer​

An episode from CNA’s Money Talks podcast where the CEO of financial planning platform MoneyOwl provides advice on managing fluctuating earnings, the amount of emergency funds freelancers should set aside, and other topics.

Her approach to managing fluctuating monthly earnings is interesting. It involves using your yearly expenses to set a yearly revenue target, and then seeing if you can realistically hit that figure. This way, even if you’re earning less for one month, you can make up the shortfall during the months you earn more.

But if you can’t earn that much in a year, “then perhaps you should delay your entry into this space”.

(At least, I think that’s what she means. I had trouble understanding her explanation.)

Upcoming freelancer events (free admission)

The NTUC Freelancers and Self-Employed Unit is hosting a couple of events for freelancers at the National Library this month. Registration is free, but you need to have a library membership.

Here are the events that still have available seats (as of the time of writing)!

• ​NTUC U FSE Freelancer Fundamentals: Setup and Contracting: Learn about various freelance business setups and get tips on signing contracts with clients.
• ​NTUC U FSE Clinic: Book a 30-minute consultation with a freelance photographer/copywriter, or a freelance fitness instructor, to get your freelancing questions answered.

The event pages also provide the link to sign up for library membership if you don’t have it.