Words That Raise the Tier, and Words That Lower It
Replace the words that sound like a shop with the ones a professional uses.
Imagine a private chef named Ingrid who gets an email from Mrs. Oyelaran. The family spends June to August at their house on the lake. Mrs. Oyelaran wants someone to cook from Friday to Sunday. Ingrid replies the same evening. “Thanks so much for reaching out! I’d love to help. My summer package is $9,000 a month for Friday through Sunday. If you’d like to book, let me know and I’ll send over the contract. I can also do a deal on the full three months.”
Mrs. Oyelaran reads it on her phone and forwards it to her husband. The next morning she writes to a second chef, Teodor, whom a neighbor mentioned. He replies, “Thank you for writing. For Friday to Sunday at the lake, my fee is $9,000 a month. If you would like to retain me for the summer, I will send the agreement tonight.” Mrs. Oyelaran forwards that one to her husband with two words above it: “This one.” Teodor cooks at the lake that summer.
Ingrid and Teodor offered the same three days at the same $9,000. What differed was seven words. Ingrid wrote package, book, contract, and deal. Teodor wrote fee, retain, and agreement. Mrs. Oyelaran has read Ingrid’s words before, on a phone plan and at a car dealership. She has read Teodor’s words in letters from her lawyer. Each chef ended up in the company of the people who use the same words.
A few words place your business in a tier in the client’s ear, before the price does. Here is why each word carries so much, and which ones to swap.
A client has heard every word on your page before, from someone
A client places you in a tier before the first call, from your website, your feed, and the person who named you. The words on the page are part of what they go by. The course has its own explanation for why one word does so much, and here it is. Nobody meets the word package for the first time on your website. They met it at the phone company, where a package is a set of services priced to be compared with another set. They met deal at a car dealership. They met fee at a law firm. They met retain in the letter that came with the lawyer’s first invoice. They met agreement on the papers they signed when they hired a house manager.
So when a client reads one of these words on your page, the word brings its room with it. “Package” brings the phone shop, and the client starts comparing. “Fee” brings the law firm, and the client expects to be told the fee and to pay it. Your work has not changed. The company you are standing in has changed.
A photographer who wrote the trade’s business books says fee is the word for paying a professional
In February 2010, a photographer on the DPReview forum asked a question. Was the word “Investment,” used in place of “Price” on photographers’ websites, helping anyone? Richard Weisgrau, a photographer in Narberth, Pennsylvania, who wrote four books on the business of photography, answered with the word he uses. “Personally, I like the word fee, which denotes a payment to a professional,” he wrote. “Your lawyer and accountant charge fees. Price is too commodity oriented and better use for bread and butter.”
His reason is the one this lesson rests on. A fee is what a client pays a professional, and a price is what a shopper pays for a loaf. The client already pays fees to their lawyer and their accountant, so the word puts you alongside them. Price is still the plain word for what your work costs, and nobody mocks it. The swap is for the heading on your page and the word in your reply. There, “fee” tells the client which kind of payment this is.
Wedding photographers chose investment for a reason, and other photographers mock it for the same reason
Jordan P. Anderson, who worked as a wedding videographer, wrote in 2020 about why wedding photographers call the cost of a wedding an investment. When a photographer’s website says “Investment” instead of “Packages,” he writes, “couples are able to imagine their money going towards something valuable.” The word also moves the photographer out of the vendor category. “You pay for a vendor’s time by the hour, but you’ll INVEST in artist’s precious time.” He does not like the word himself, since he believes it is misleading. Even so, he gives the trade credit for getting couples out of price-shopping.
The same word drew a different answer from the photographers on the DPReview thread, who did not use it. Weisgrau wrote that “the word investment as a substitute for price or fee insults the intelligence of the prospective client and makes the photographer look like a fool.” Another member suggested that the client “should ask if they’ll buy it back at the price they’re selling it at in the future.” Osvaldo Cristo, an amateur photographer in Itapevi, Brazil, wrote that he would have trouble hiring any professional “if he is ashamed to admit his price is price.”
Both sides are describing the same move. The trade chose the word so that a couple would picture a return. The forum mocks it because a return is exactly what the client can check. Set that beside a word that makes a promise the client checks. “Luxury” promises that your work is hard to get, and the client looks at your calendar. “Investment” promises that the money comes back, and the client knows that it will not. A couple on their twentieth wedding website may not blink at the word. A client who pays fees to a lawyer hears a word the lawyer does not use. So the word to use is fee, with the couple and with the lawyer’s client. It makes no promise, and it tells the client which kind of payment this is.
A Colorado wedding photographer says to call it what it is
Jesse La Plante, a wedding photographer in Colorado, wrote on his site that the trend had “bothered me for years.” His test is plain. Is wedding photography an investment? “Not unless you figure out a way to sell your photos for more money than you paid.” He points out that a salesman at a Jeep dealership does not say, “for a low $400 dollar monthly investment….” That, he writes, “would be weird. Because it would be a lie.”
He grants that “pricing” on a page can “sound a bit gauche,” and he offers substitutes: “Rates,” “Get a quote,” and “Photo packages.” Against this lesson’s list, two of his three are shop words. A package is a set priced to be compared, and “get a quote” asks the client to shop. “Rates” is honest and plain. “Fee” says the same and names the kind of payment.
The swaps, and why each one works
The table below lists the words most service businesses have on their price page, in their replies, and on their paperwork. Beside each one is the word that replaces it and the reason. The reason for the first swap comes from Weisgrau. The reason for the fourth comes from the lesson on lowering the client’s risk, and the rest are the course’s own.
| On the page now | Say instead | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| “Pricing” or “Packages” as the heading | “Fees” | A fee is what a client pays a professional. A package is what a phone company sells, priced to be compared. |
| “Book me,” “booking,” “spots open” | “Retain,” as in “if you would like to retain me from October” | A client books a table or a room, and anyone with the date free can have one. A client retains a lawyer, and the lawyer has to agree to it. |
| “Contract” | “Agreement” | The document is the same. A contract is what one side holds the other to. An agreement is what two people decided together. |
| “Deal,” “discount,” “special,” “10% off” | Nothing. | There is no professional word for a discount, because a professional lowers the client’s risk instead of the price. |
| “Customers” | “Clients” | A customer buys what is on the shelf, and the shelf is the same for every shopper. A client brings a situation, and the work is shaped to it. |
| “Quote” | “Proposal” | A quote is a number for a job the client has already defined, which is what a plumber gives. A proposal says what you would do for this client, and what the fee is. |
For example, a tutor can write, “My fee for the school year is $7,200. If you would like to retain me from September, I will send the agreement this week.” A florist can head her page “Fees” and write under it, “Weekly flowers for the house are $600 a month.”
“Book” is still the word for your own calendar, and “booked” is still what your Saturday is. The swap is for the words the client reads and hears.
Why swapping the words on a page that still says shop goes wrong
Imagine a dog walker named Priya who reads the table and changes her website in an evening. The heading “Pricing” becomes “Fees,” “Book online” becomes “Retain Priya,” and the sign-up form now says “agreement.” Under the new heading, the page still says, “$25 a walk, 10% off your first month, same-day slots usually available.”
A client who was given Priya’s name by a neighbor opens the page. The heading puts Priya in the company of a lawyer. The sentence under it puts her back in the company of a shop. The client believes the sentence, because a dog walker whose clients retain her would not be offering 10% off. She calls someone else.
The words raised the tier, and the sentence beneath them lowered it, so the client took the lower one. A word holds only when the sentence around it agrees with it. So before you change the heading, read the price, the availability, and the discount below it. Then make the offer say the same tier. Priya’s fix is a month of weekday walks at one fee, with a start date and no discount. Then “Fees” is true.
Using a lawyer’s words is not putting on airs
Writing “retain” and “agreement” to a client who wants someone to walk the dog can feel like dressing up. On the DPReview thread, one photographer called the word investment “sooooo pretentious,” and the fear is that you will sound like that.
The mockery landed on a word that promised more than it was. Nobody on the thread mocked fee, and the photographers who named their own word said fee more than any other. A fee, a retainer, and an agreement are the plainest words in a lawyer’s office. The client hears them there every month. What sounds like airs is the dressing some people put around the words. “We would be honored to welcome you as a client” and “kindly find attached” are the dressing. Keep the noun and drop the dressing. “My fee is $9,000 a month” is as plain as “My package is $9,000 a month,” and it stands in better company.
How to rewrite your pages and replies with the swaps
- Gather the three texts a client reads before they decide. They are your price page, your last reply to an inquiry, and the email you send with your paperwork. Paste them into one document.
- Go through them with the table and underline every word in the left-hand column. Add any word of your own that belongs there, such as “slots” or “promo.”
- Replace each underlined word with the word in the middle column, and cut the discount sentence rather than rewording it. For example, a specialist realtor who wrote, “Book a free consultation and I’ll send over the contract,” writes instead, “If you would like to retain me to sell the house, I will send the agreement after we meet.”
- Read each page and email aloud. Where a sentence now sounds like someone else, take out the dressing around the word and keep the word. “I would be delighted to be retained by you” becomes “If you would like to retain me, I will send the agreement tonight.”
- Read the sentence under each new heading. If it still gives a per-session price, a discount, or an open calendar, change the offer before you publish the heading. Then the word and the sentence say the same tier.
- Say your price sentence aloud with the new word, then the sentence about when the work starts, and nothing after. For example, a coach can say, “My fee is $6,000 for the six months. We would start on the 3rd.”
- When a client uses a shop word to you, such as “What packages do you have?”, answer in your own word without correcting theirs. For example, an event planner can say, “There is one fee for the party, and it covers the planning and the day itself.”
Next: You will see why calling a client’s pushback an objection starts a fight, and what to call it instead.