A mentor of mine once said your pricing should be just high enough that you throw up in your mouth a little when you tell a prospect your rates. Everyone in the room laughed, because he was kind of joking, but not really.

You see, we (you, me, everyone) tend to undervalue our services. We think of the dollars per hour or whatever and then think nobody would ever pay that, or you personally would not pay that….

However, you also can probably think of some event, training, or coaching you invested in that was really expensive, but you made the investment because this thing could solve a problem causing you discomfort – or maybe even big pain.

So, how do you present your pricing in a way that feels in integrity with who you are and how you like to do business AND is profitable and sustainable?

That is what I have been wrestling with lately, and I wanted to share how I approached the problem in case it can help you.

In my business, I help professionals in career transition find positions that are aligned with how they want to work. What I offer is job-search strategy and accountability primarily. I have been doing it for 13 years and have a strong track record. A prospect who researches me or my business will find a lot of social proof. This means I am able to charge premium prices.

That said, people in career transition get very stressed about money (whether they have it or not), and I need to be aware that even if someone can pay premium prices, they may not feel like they can.

I sell my time in six-hour packages that I call my Coaching Six-Pack. Since I am a solo practitioner that equaled six hours of my time that we broke up however a client needed.

Very recently, I have started to receive pushback on my pricing from people who could easily afford it. Multiple people who were targeting executive-level salaries for themselves. Huh?

Maybe it is inflation or recession fears or years into a pandemic, but I have never gotten pushback like I have recently.

I am so used to positioning selling my time as a Coaching Six-Pack that I didn’t want to mess with that. Since I am currently partnering with a fantastic coach, I decided to swap in two hours of her time and limit the time with me to four hours. Then I added some detail about what we would do in our time together like this:

Coaching Six-Pack for $997

6 hours of time
– Two one-hour sessions with Angie Rome Gonzalez to work on limiting beliefs, negative self-talk, necessary mindset shifts, etc.
– Two one-hour sessions with Catherine Morgan – one for setting strategy and goals and one for Interview Question Coaching
– Four 30-minute coaching sessions with Catherine Morgan for spot coaching on specific jobs or skills
– Complimentary membership in our Job Search Coaching Group for three months. (We meet at noon Eastern on Monday and Thursday. You can attend as often as you like.)

When I read my service page now, it feels like a DEAL. My profit margin is lower because I have to pay Angie, but I didn’t drop my hourly rate and former clients, or prospects who were quoted my previous rate, can’t get upset.

I feel pretty good about this solution.

 

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash