45. Your Pricing Strategy: Frameworks, Scripts, and Mindset Shifts
How much time are you spending staring at your computer screen, trying to figure out what to charge for your services?
That knot in your stomach forms as the voice in your head whispers, "Who am I to charge that much? What if no one says yes?" Yet, you wouldn't ask your boss to pay you less than you're worth, so why are you doing exactly that in your business?
Join me this week as I tackle one of the biggest roadblocks for mom entrepreneurs: setting prices. You’ll learn clear frameworks for calculating your rates, word-for-word scripts for confidently communicating them, and the critical mindset shifts that will transform your relationship with your own value. By the end, you'll have everything you need to fix your pricing problems and start charging what you're truly worth.
Download my free Business Model Worksheet! This guide will help you map out your income goals and figure out your pricing.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
How to use value-based pricing to focus on the transformation you provide rather than the expense.
Why working backwards from your income goals creates clarity around your pricing structure.
A simple method for finding your pricing sweet spot.
How to position your prices alongside the value you provide to make potential clients see your rates as an investment rather than an expense.
The power of silence in pricing conversations and why it communicates confidence to potential clients.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
Click here for step-by-step instructions to leave a rating and review to let me know what you think, and don’t forget to share the podcast with others who you think would benefit!
If you want to realize your dreams of leaving corporate and starting your own business in 2025, join me for a free strategy session by clicking here!
Join us in the free Mom Entrepreneur’s Circle here!
20. Money Mindset Shifts for Moms Leaving Corporate with Germaine Foley
Get my Business Planning Guide here!
Full Episode Transcript:
When I first started coaching, I charged just $50 an hour, and it taught me one of the most valuable business lessons I've ever learned. Not only did I struggle to make enough money to call myself a business, I attracted really unmotivated clients who constantly canceled and really just didn't do the work. At $50 they simply weren't invested enough to take themselves or me seriously.
And if you're like me and many of my clients early on, you regularly stare at your computer screen trying to figure out what to charge for your services. And I'm sure it creates a knot in your stomach, right? There's a voice in your head saying, "Who am I to charge that much? What if no one says yes?" I want you to think about it. You wouldn't ask your boss to pay you less than you’re worth. So why are you doing exactly that in your business?
In this episode, we're gonna fix any pricing problem you have going on. By the end, you'll have clear frameworks for setting your prices, scripts for confidently communicating them, and a completely new mindset around your worth.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. It’s a podcast that helps working moms just like you, optimize your time, manage your mind, and start a business that helps you create more freedom, flexibility, and, yes, fun. I’m business and mindset coach Jenna Rykiel. And I offer practical tips to help you ditch the nine-to-five. I have been exactly where you are and I know what it takes to make the transition without trading one form of burnout for another. So, let’s get started.
Hi mom friends! Today we're tackling one of the biggest roadblocks I see in nearly every mom starting a service based business, okay? And that's setting prices. Even in my free Mom Entrepreneur Circle, if there's one topic that comes up the most, it's how to set prices. It's the thing that makes your palms sweaty and it makes you second guess yourself. And honestly, it's the thing that's likely keeping you from the income and business success you deserve.
Pricing isn't just about numbers. It's about your relationship with your own value. And as moms, we've been conditioned to give, give, give without expecting anything in return. And in business, that's the fast track to burnout and resentment and unpaid bills.
So here's what we're going to cover today. First, I want to talk about the actual frameworks for calculating your prices. No more giving away your expertise for free or spending unnecessary energy trying to come up with a number. Then I want to give you word-for-word scripts for communicating your prices confidently and where to get that confidence, even if you're terrified. And lastly, and throughout this conversation, we're gonna be talking about the critical mindset shifts that will help you believe in your value so deeply that clients don't even question it.
Let's start with the tactical, practical stuff first. I'm gonna give you several frameworks for setting your prices, and you can choose the one that resonates most with you or combine them, whatever you wanna do.
The first framework is value-based pricing, which I consider the gold standard, especially for service-based businesses, right? We're not even getting into product-based businesses, mostly because product-based businesses are a little bit easier to price because you have material costs, you have a calculation to come up with the actual cost.
On service-based businesses, it really does feel like you are making it up as you go. So I think having a framework is much more important for service-based businesses, since product-based businesses already have it, especially if you've taken a business course before.
The question here isn't how much will this take me, but rather what is the value of the transformation I'm providing. Okay? I want to repeat that again. So for value-based pricing, the question is not about how much time it will take you, the question is about the value of the transformation you're providing to your client.
So let's use an example. If you're a sleep consultant helping exhausted parents get their baby to sleep through the night, What is the value of that? It's not just about the hours you spend on Zoom calls or creating a customized sleep plan. When parents aren't sleeping, everything suffers. Their health, their relationships, their work performance, their joy.
I remember when my newborn Jude wasn't sleeping through the night, my husband and I were absolute zombies. I would have paid almost anything to fix that problem. If you don't know, sleep is one of the most important factors in your health, your focus, your everything. So what is the true value of a well-rested family? I mean, honestly, it's essentially priceless.
So as a sleep consultant, when you're setting your price, you're not just charging for your time, you're charging for the transformation from exhausted, frustrated, and desperate to well-rested, functional, and happy. Okay? That transformation is worth thousands of dollars easily. And here's where the mindset piece comes in.
As moms, we have a complicated relationship with pricing ourselves, and it's not your fault. I want you to think about it. How much do you get paid for the most important job in your life? Being a mom. $0. Okay? No monetary compensation whatsoever for the CEO level crisis management, the 24-7 emotional support, the logistical masterminding, right, the meal planning, the home maintenance, nothing. And so we develop this mindset that our time and expertise just exist. They're not valuable commodities to be exchanged for money. We think, who would pay me just to help them when I do that for every, every day of my life?
But here's the thing, that thinking is keeping you from making money in your business. Whether you know that thought is happening or not. The fact that you're good at something, that it comes easily to you, doesn't mean it's not valuable. It actually means it's more valuable because you've mastered it.
The second framework I want to talk about when setting your prices, this is a shoutout to episode 20 when I interviewed Germaine Foley. She shared a pricing strategy that I absolutely loved. She said, ask yourself what is an amount that is definitely too low and that I will feel like I am being taken advantage of if I offer this service at that price and you come up with that number and then you go to the opposite. How much do I think is too much and that I would literally throw up saying it? Okay. And then you have that second number. And so with this, you know, it needs to be somewhere in between those two numbers.
And from there, pick a number and then go a little higher than that number. Allow yourself to increase as you go, as demand increases, as your expertise increases, as your competencies increase, and as people get better and your clients get better results, you can always increase that number. But you start out with maybe the average or a number that feels good in between what is too low and what feels too high.
I love this approach because it acknowledges both your comfort zone and your stretch zone and then intentionally pushes you just a bit beyond what feels easy. The third framework is to work backwards from your income goals and I'll include a free template in the show notes that will help you map this out.
It's a business planning guide so that you can take some time to write this all out instead of letting it live in your head. So go to Jenna.coach/45 to access that business modeling pricing sheet.
So here's an example of this. If you want to make $100,000 in your business in one year, you would simply break that down. That's your goal, $100,000. So that's $25,000 per quarter. And you could work with one client for $25,000 a quarter. You could work with two clients for $12,500 each quarter. Or you could work with 1,000 people for $25 each in each quarter.
So you want to think about your business model and your services. How many people can you realistically work with and what's the best combination of client volume versus payment amount?
Let's say you decide to work with 10 clients at $10,000 annually. And trust me, no matter what your services are, there are 10 people in this world with the disposable income to pay $10,000 for it, right? They just might be harder to find. There's a lot of money out there being spent in far less productive ways. The bigger piece is you believing that your service is worth $10,000. If you believe it, you will bring a completely different energy to pricing conversations, which we are going to talk about next.
And here's a simple truth that I hope liberates you. I want you to stop taking yourself so seriously and just pick a number and go from there. So whether it is picking a number based on the what's too high, what's too low, let's find something in the middle, whether it's looking at the actual results that you get for people and figuring out for yourself, if they went into a store and saw that result on the shelf, how much would they pay for that result?
For my clients, if they walked into a store and saw a complete business with its first few paying clients in a box on the shelf. They would pay a lot of money for that, right? That is the outcome. That is the result that I'm providing for clients or that I'm helping clients get to.
So finding out what is the outcome, what is the value of that outcome and really being intentional about pricing that way or arbitrarily working back from your goals and figuring out a sweet spot based on what is the number that you want to achieve in your business? And how many clients do you need to work with in order to get to that number and finding a sweet spot based on the services that you provide?
So I want to seriously encourage you to go ahead, pick a number that feels a bit too low if you must, that's fine. Just say a number to someone and see what happens. If they say yes, and you realize that you should have charged more, charge more next time. The world will not end and you'll have gained valuable data.
Okay, taking action and making decisions is the number one thing of entrepreneurship and of business building. And remember, pricing isn't set in stone. It's not like you're carving your rates into a mountain for all eternity. You can adjust, learn, and refine as you go.
Okay, the most important thing is to start somewhere and to get real world feedback. Stop approaching pricing from a scarcity mindset. A scarcity mindset is believing that if you say your price and someone says it's too expensive, that you've failed and that this isn't working. And that's so far from the truth. Just because someone says no does not mean that the problem is your pricing. Maybe they aren't your ideal person, or maybe you didn't do a great job of explaining the results they would experience after investing.
Which leads me to the next piece of this, which is how do you position your costs and services in a way that makes potential clients nod their heads and say, "Yes, that makes sense."
The key is to always think about your pricing alongside the value and transformation you provide. Instead of saying, "My coaching package is $10,000" you would say, "My one year coaching program helps busy moms launch their service-based business and sign their first three clients, typically resulting in $70,000 to $100,000 in new revenue. The investment for this program is $10,000."
You see the difference? In the first version, $10,000 sounds like a lot of money in isolation. In the second version, $10,000 sounds like a bargain compared to the potential return. When you're communicating your value, focus on outcomes, not process, clients don't care about the 10-step methodology as much as they care about the end result.
Will they feel better? Will they make money? Will they get more sleep? Will they save time? Will they strengthen their relationships? Lead with that. And this one hits home for me recently because I do a deep dive evaluation after every consultation call I do. I like to ask myself what went well, what didn't go well, what would I do differently next time? It doesn't matter whether the call ends in a client or not. I always do this evaluation, but recently I got a little lazy.
Instead of talking about results, I've been digging into the how, probably because that's what I naturally geek out on the most, But every single client I've worked with has ended up with a business and has made back their investment in coaching, some even tenfold. And when I got off of my most recent consultation call, I realized I didn't talk about any of that, right?
I talk about the benefits. I talked about all the cool tools that I teach and all these tools that transform every area of life and business, but I didn't talk about what people want to know the most. Will I have a business and will I make that my investment?
The other thing I want to mention is when you are starting out it's really hard to know the transformation because you likely haven't seen the results happening for people yet. It's okay to pick a number on the results you believe they will get And then as you see outcomes with clients to shift your pricing. Your pricing will evolve as your skills and expertise evolve. And as your experience evolves, right?
The other thing is that while this is an episode that's all about charging people money for your services. I wanna remind you that episode 24, Why Offering Free Work Pays Off In the Long Run, it's okay for you to provide free work and to see these results in action before going to the stage where you then charge people.
Here's another crucial element of price positioning and that conversation with your clients or your future clients. Silence. Okay? When you state your price resist the overwhelming urge to keep talking to justify to offer discounts or to backpedal. Okay? Simply state your price confidently and then stop talking. Let there be silence. Give the client space to process.
This silence feels excruciating when you're not confident in your pricing, but it's powerful when you are. Okay? It communicates this is my price because this is the value I provide. Take it or leave it. And that confidence is incredibly attractive to clients who are looking for someone who knows their worth.
One other thing I want to mention just because I think it's important is that when someone says no to your price, it's very rarely because they literally don't have money. Although they will often say things like, "I just don't have the money for that right now." And I want you to think about it because it's very rarely that they literally don't have the money. It's because they've decided other things are more important to spend money on.
Your job is to help them understand why your service deserves to be a priority or why they won't regret asking a family member or a friend to help them with the upfront costs. And it all depends on the service that you offer, the problem that you solve, and how deep they are in that problem.
All that being said, it is important to remember that not everyone is your client. It's okay if someone doesn't have $3,000 of disposable income for interior design expertise. It's your job to find the people who do because there are people out there who need what you offer and who have money. And if you don't believe that, that's why I always say you have to work on your thoughts first and manage your mind. You have to believe it first.
You have to do thought work to truly believe in your price, in you being worthy of charging that price and the belief that there are people out there in the world willing to spend money for the result you're helping clients reach. When you have negative energy behind your price, other people can feel that. The price itself is just a circumstance. It's just a number.
The problem for most of us is that we're making that number mean something. Are you making it mean that it's too high? Are you thinking no one will pay that? Are you thinking who will I to charge people when I don't have more experience? These thoughts create feelings of doubt, insecurity, and unworthiness which affect how you show up in pricing conversations. The client doesn't just hear your words, they feel your energy.
So before any pricing conversation, I want you to write down all of your thoughts about your price. Then ask yourself, are these thoughts helping me show up as the confident expert my clients need? If not, what could I choose to think instead?
Okay, you can choose to think things like my price reflects the value I provide, or the right clients will see this as an investment, not an expense, or my expertise saves clients time, money, stress, and these things are priceless.
Also keep in mind that pricing will evolve as your business evolves. You're not locked in to the rates you set today for the rest of your entrepreneurial life and I actually encourage you to not lock your prices in because you should be regularly raising your prices.
When you're starting out, it's perfectly fine to set rates on the lower end of market value while you build confidence and gather testimonials, but have a plan for when and how you'll raise them. And trust me, it's gonna feel really uncomfortable raising your prices, but as you learn more about your own value and truly see the impact in client after client, it actually becomes a little easier to raise your prices and see that sweet spot.
And as you raise your prices, you're not just making more money, you're creating space to serve your clients at an even higher level. With fewer clients paying higher rates, you can give each one more attention, more creativity, and ultimately more value. Okay? And the more they are investing in themselves, the more seriously they will take the entire process, which means better results. It's a win-win for everyone.
So today we talked about the practical pricing frameworks, right? Consider either value-based pricing, work backwards from your income goals, or using Germaine's method of finding the sweet spot between too low and what makes me want to throw up. The key is to just pick a number.
We also talked about the price positioning and what you can say and how you can say it. And you know using specific scripts for stating your rates and making sure that it's in the context of the value and transformation you provide.
And the last thing is the belief, right? You have to believe in your price. You have to do thought work and understand the sentences in your head that are getting in the way of confidently saying your price. You deserve to get paid for your zone of genius. Okay, so pick a number and go. It begins with the courage to state that number out loud and it continues to grow in confidence, experience, and impact right as you get more data.
If today's episode resonated with you, I want you to take one simple action, okay? Write down your price. Not what you think you should charge, not what feels safe, but what would feel good and right if you truly believed in your value. Put that number somewhere so that you see it every day, and do some thought work if you don't yet believe in that number.
Commit to saying it out loud to the very next potential client who comes your way, okay? No apologies, no justifications, just the number, followed by confident silence. Go out there, charge what you're worth, and give yourself the space to learn as you go. I want you to take action, I want you to believe in yourself, and I want you to get paid.
Alright, I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
And if you're like me and many of my clients early on, you regularly stare at your computer screen trying to figure out what to charge for your services. And I'm sure it creates a knot in your stomach, right? There's a voice in your head saying, "Who am I to charge that much? What if no one says yes?" I want you to think about it. You wouldn't ask your boss to pay you less than you’re worth. So why are you doing exactly that in your business?
In this episode, we're gonna fix any pricing problem you have going on. By the end, you'll have clear frameworks for setting your prices, scripts for confidently communicating them, and a completely new mindset around your worth.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. It’s a podcast that helps working moms just like you, optimize your time, manage your mind, and start a business that helps you create more freedom, flexibility, and, yes, fun. I’m business and mindset coach Jenna Rykiel. And I offer practical tips to help you ditch the nine-to-five. I have been exactly where you are and I know what it takes to make the transition without trading one form of burnout for another. So, let’s get started.
Hi mom friends! Today we're tackling one of the biggest roadblocks I see in nearly every mom starting a service based business, okay? And that's setting prices. Even in my free Mom Entrepreneur Circle, if there's one topic that comes up the most, it's how to set prices. It's the thing that makes your palms sweaty and it makes you second guess yourself. And honestly, it's the thing that's likely keeping you from the income and business success you deserve.
Pricing isn't just about numbers. It's about your relationship with your own value. And as moms, we've been conditioned to give, give, give without expecting anything in return. And in business, that's the fast track to burnout and resentment and unpaid bills.
So here's what we're going to cover today. First, I want to talk about the actual frameworks for calculating your prices. No more giving away your expertise for free or spending unnecessary energy trying to come up with a number. Then I want to give you word-for-word scripts for communicating your prices confidently and where to get that confidence, even if you're terrified. And lastly, and throughout this conversation, we're gonna be talking about the critical mindset shifts that will help you believe in your value so deeply that clients don't even question it.
Let's start with the tactical, practical stuff first. I'm gonna give you several frameworks for setting your prices, and you can choose the one that resonates most with you or combine them, whatever you wanna do.
The first framework is value-based pricing, which I consider the gold standard, especially for service-based businesses, right? We're not even getting into product-based businesses, mostly because product-based businesses are a little bit easier to price because you have material costs, you have a calculation to come up with the actual cost.
On service-based businesses, it really does feel like you are making it up as you go. So I think having a framework is much more important for service-based businesses, since product-based businesses already have it, especially if you've taken a business course before.
The question here isn't how much will this take me, but rather what is the value of the transformation I'm providing. Okay? I want to repeat that again. So for value-based pricing, the question is not about how much time it will take you, the question is about the value of the transformation you're providing to your client.
So let's use an example. If you're a sleep consultant helping exhausted parents get their baby to sleep through the night, What is the value of that? It's not just about the hours you spend on Zoom calls or creating a customized sleep plan. When parents aren't sleeping, everything suffers. Their health, their relationships, their work performance, their joy.
I remember when my newborn Jude wasn't sleeping through the night, my husband and I were absolute zombies. I would have paid almost anything to fix that problem. If you don't know, sleep is one of the most important factors in your health, your focus, your everything. So what is the true value of a well-rested family? I mean, honestly, it's essentially priceless.
So as a sleep consultant, when you're setting your price, you're not just charging for your time, you're charging for the transformation from exhausted, frustrated, and desperate to well-rested, functional, and happy. Okay? That transformation is worth thousands of dollars easily. And here's where the mindset piece comes in.
As moms, we have a complicated relationship with pricing ourselves, and it's not your fault. I want you to think about it. How much do you get paid for the most important job in your life? Being a mom. $0. Okay? No monetary compensation whatsoever for the CEO level crisis management, the 24-7 emotional support, the logistical masterminding, right, the meal planning, the home maintenance, nothing. And so we develop this mindset that our time and expertise just exist. They're not valuable commodities to be exchanged for money. We think, who would pay me just to help them when I do that for every, every day of my life?
But here's the thing, that thinking is keeping you from making money in your business. Whether you know that thought is happening or not. The fact that you're good at something, that it comes easily to you, doesn't mean it's not valuable. It actually means it's more valuable because you've mastered it.
The second framework I want to talk about when setting your prices, this is a shoutout to episode 20 when I interviewed Germaine Foley. She shared a pricing strategy that I absolutely loved. She said, ask yourself what is an amount that is definitely too low and that I will feel like I am being taken advantage of if I offer this service at that price and you come up with that number and then you go to the opposite. How much do I think is too much and that I would literally throw up saying it? Okay. And then you have that second number. And so with this, you know, it needs to be somewhere in between those two numbers.
And from there, pick a number and then go a little higher than that number. Allow yourself to increase as you go, as demand increases, as your expertise increases, as your competencies increase, and as people get better and your clients get better results, you can always increase that number. But you start out with maybe the average or a number that feels good in between what is too low and what feels too high.
I love this approach because it acknowledges both your comfort zone and your stretch zone and then intentionally pushes you just a bit beyond what feels easy. The third framework is to work backwards from your income goals and I'll include a free template in the show notes that will help you map this out.
It's a business planning guide so that you can take some time to write this all out instead of letting it live in your head. So go to Jenna.coach/45 to access that business modeling pricing sheet.
So here's an example of this. If you want to make $100,000 in your business in one year, you would simply break that down. That's your goal, $100,000. So that's $25,000 per quarter. And you could work with one client for $25,000 a quarter. You could work with two clients for $12,500 each quarter. Or you could work with 1,000 people for $25 each in each quarter.
So you want to think about your business model and your services. How many people can you realistically work with and what's the best combination of client volume versus payment amount?
Let's say you decide to work with 10 clients at $10,000 annually. And trust me, no matter what your services are, there are 10 people in this world with the disposable income to pay $10,000 for it, right? They just might be harder to find. There's a lot of money out there being spent in far less productive ways. The bigger piece is you believing that your service is worth $10,000. If you believe it, you will bring a completely different energy to pricing conversations, which we are going to talk about next.
And here's a simple truth that I hope liberates you. I want you to stop taking yourself so seriously and just pick a number and go from there. So whether it is picking a number based on the what's too high, what's too low, let's find something in the middle, whether it's looking at the actual results that you get for people and figuring out for yourself, if they went into a store and saw that result on the shelf, how much would they pay for that result?
For my clients, if they walked into a store and saw a complete business with its first few paying clients in a box on the shelf. They would pay a lot of money for that, right? That is the outcome. That is the result that I'm providing for clients or that I'm helping clients get to.
So finding out what is the outcome, what is the value of that outcome and really being intentional about pricing that way or arbitrarily working back from your goals and figuring out a sweet spot based on what is the number that you want to achieve in your business? And how many clients do you need to work with in order to get to that number and finding a sweet spot based on the services that you provide?
So I want to seriously encourage you to go ahead, pick a number that feels a bit too low if you must, that's fine. Just say a number to someone and see what happens. If they say yes, and you realize that you should have charged more, charge more next time. The world will not end and you'll have gained valuable data.
Okay, taking action and making decisions is the number one thing of entrepreneurship and of business building. And remember, pricing isn't set in stone. It's not like you're carving your rates into a mountain for all eternity. You can adjust, learn, and refine as you go.
Okay, the most important thing is to start somewhere and to get real world feedback. Stop approaching pricing from a scarcity mindset. A scarcity mindset is believing that if you say your price and someone says it's too expensive, that you've failed and that this isn't working. And that's so far from the truth. Just because someone says no does not mean that the problem is your pricing. Maybe they aren't your ideal person, or maybe you didn't do a great job of explaining the results they would experience after investing.
Which leads me to the next piece of this, which is how do you position your costs and services in a way that makes potential clients nod their heads and say, "Yes, that makes sense."
The key is to always think about your pricing alongside the value and transformation you provide. Instead of saying, "My coaching package is $10,000" you would say, "My one year coaching program helps busy moms launch their service-based business and sign their first three clients, typically resulting in $70,000 to $100,000 in new revenue. The investment for this program is $10,000."
You see the difference? In the first version, $10,000 sounds like a lot of money in isolation. In the second version, $10,000 sounds like a bargain compared to the potential return. When you're communicating your value, focus on outcomes, not process, clients don't care about the 10-step methodology as much as they care about the end result.
Will they feel better? Will they make money? Will they get more sleep? Will they save time? Will they strengthen their relationships? Lead with that. And this one hits home for me recently because I do a deep dive evaluation after every consultation call I do. I like to ask myself what went well, what didn't go well, what would I do differently next time? It doesn't matter whether the call ends in a client or not. I always do this evaluation, but recently I got a little lazy.
Instead of talking about results, I've been digging into the how, probably because that's what I naturally geek out on the most, But every single client I've worked with has ended up with a business and has made back their investment in coaching, some even tenfold. And when I got off of my most recent consultation call, I realized I didn't talk about any of that, right?
I talk about the benefits. I talked about all the cool tools that I teach and all these tools that transform every area of life and business, but I didn't talk about what people want to know the most. Will I have a business and will I make that my investment?
The other thing I want to mention is when you are starting out it's really hard to know the transformation because you likely haven't seen the results happening for people yet. It's okay to pick a number on the results you believe they will get And then as you see outcomes with clients to shift your pricing. Your pricing will evolve as your skills and expertise evolve. And as your experience evolves, right?
The other thing is that while this is an episode that's all about charging people money for your services. I wanna remind you that episode 24, Why Offering Free Work Pays Off In the Long Run, it's okay for you to provide free work and to see these results in action before going to the stage where you then charge people.
Here's another crucial element of price positioning and that conversation with your clients or your future clients. Silence. Okay? When you state your price resist the overwhelming urge to keep talking to justify to offer discounts or to backpedal. Okay? Simply state your price confidently and then stop talking. Let there be silence. Give the client space to process.
This silence feels excruciating when you're not confident in your pricing, but it's powerful when you are. Okay? It communicates this is my price because this is the value I provide. Take it or leave it. And that confidence is incredibly attractive to clients who are looking for someone who knows their worth.
One other thing I want to mention just because I think it's important is that when someone says no to your price, it's very rarely because they literally don't have money. Although they will often say things like, "I just don't have the money for that right now." And I want you to think about it because it's very rarely that they literally don't have the money. It's because they've decided other things are more important to spend money on.
Your job is to help them understand why your service deserves to be a priority or why they won't regret asking a family member or a friend to help them with the upfront costs. And it all depends on the service that you offer, the problem that you solve, and how deep they are in that problem.
All that being said, it is important to remember that not everyone is your client. It's okay if someone doesn't have $3,000 of disposable income for interior design expertise. It's your job to find the people who do because there are people out there who need what you offer and who have money. And if you don't believe that, that's why I always say you have to work on your thoughts first and manage your mind. You have to believe it first.
You have to do thought work to truly believe in your price, in you being worthy of charging that price and the belief that there are people out there in the world willing to spend money for the result you're helping clients reach. When you have negative energy behind your price, other people can feel that. The price itself is just a circumstance. It's just a number.
The problem for most of us is that we're making that number mean something. Are you making it mean that it's too high? Are you thinking no one will pay that? Are you thinking who will I to charge people when I don't have more experience? These thoughts create feelings of doubt, insecurity, and unworthiness which affect how you show up in pricing conversations. The client doesn't just hear your words, they feel your energy.
So before any pricing conversation, I want you to write down all of your thoughts about your price. Then ask yourself, are these thoughts helping me show up as the confident expert my clients need? If not, what could I choose to think instead?
Okay, you can choose to think things like my price reflects the value I provide, or the right clients will see this as an investment, not an expense, or my expertise saves clients time, money, stress, and these things are priceless.
Also keep in mind that pricing will evolve as your business evolves. You're not locked in to the rates you set today for the rest of your entrepreneurial life and I actually encourage you to not lock your prices in because you should be regularly raising your prices.
When you're starting out, it's perfectly fine to set rates on the lower end of market value while you build confidence and gather testimonials, but have a plan for when and how you'll raise them. And trust me, it's gonna feel really uncomfortable raising your prices, but as you learn more about your own value and truly see the impact in client after client, it actually becomes a little easier to raise your prices and see that sweet spot.
And as you raise your prices, you're not just making more money, you're creating space to serve your clients at an even higher level. With fewer clients paying higher rates, you can give each one more attention, more creativity, and ultimately more value. Okay? And the more they are investing in themselves, the more seriously they will take the entire process, which means better results. It's a win-win for everyone.
So today we talked about the practical pricing frameworks, right? Consider either value-based pricing, work backwards from your income goals, or using Germaine's method of finding the sweet spot between too low and what makes me want to throw up. The key is to just pick a number.
We also talked about the price positioning and what you can say and how you can say it. And you know using specific scripts for stating your rates and making sure that it's in the context of the value and transformation you provide.
And the last thing is the belief, right? You have to believe in your price. You have to do thought work and understand the sentences in your head that are getting in the way of confidently saying your price. You deserve to get paid for your zone of genius. Okay, so pick a number and go. It begins with the courage to state that number out loud and it continues to grow in confidence, experience, and impact right as you get more data.
If today's episode resonated with you, I want you to take one simple action, okay? Write down your price. Not what you think you should charge, not what feels safe, but what would feel good and right if you truly believed in your value. Put that number somewhere so that you see it every day, and do some thought work if you don't yet believe in that number.
Commit to saying it out loud to the very next potential client who comes your way, okay? No apologies, no justifications, just the number, followed by confident silence. Go out there, charge what you're worth, and give yourself the space to learn as you go. I want you to take action, I want you to believe in yourself, and I want you to get paid.
Alright, I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
Enjoy the Show?
Don’t miss an episode, follow the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or RSS.
