You’ve stepped out of your comfort zone, your desire of being a service has come into reality, you crafted an offer, which can bring lots of love and light into people’s lives…

You realise that you only have 24 hours a day and you can’t offer your service for free forever.

Now the confusing part is how to price it wisely.

 

As a creative or right-brained business owner/freelancer, you might find it daunting and confusing to determine the right price for your beloved product/service.

But price is such an essential factor to sustain your business and balance your energy (eg, if it’s too low, you can’t make a living)

So how can you get it right?

This week, I’ll share 5 guidelines to help you determine YOUR sacred pricing.

 

1. Internal mindset determines the outcome

Firstly and foremost, you need to do some inner work on your self-worth.

The thought of “inner work” might turn some people off. “I want fast results, who cares about the inner game?”

Well, truth is your mindset can either make or break it for you.

You have to be utterly comfortable with the price you charge, whether it is your product or service.

&

Your pricing needs to support you FINANCIALLY.

 

Many new start-ups keep offering free stuff, they end up exhausting themselves, and losing the momentum and motivation to carry on.

If this is you at the moment, my sweet, you need to draw a line + start charging.

Unfortunately, overall “self-worth” is not something we inherently value.

Maybe deep down you feel that it is wrong to charge your time.

Typical thoughts include:

It’s dirty to charge;

you feel like a fraud;

you don’t deserve to get paid by doing what you love (especially if you had a corporate job before where the salary is made of your blood);”

you’ll lose people if you start to charge / increase your price…

If you have any mirky nerky eeky fearful thoughts speaking out loud in your head, you must recognise them immediately and take actions to release these fearful thoughts, eg, writing to your fears, EFT, talking to a coach etc.

If you are a doctor, you won’t have to blink when it comes to invoicing the supplements, medicines, diagnosis fees…It should be the same thing for you, as an alternative healer, life coach, spirit guide, creative artist – if you can see how much energy you put into your work, you’ll have less hesitation to charge.

Clear those obstacles in your head, before attempting to work out the right price.

It saves you time, effort and confusion in the long run.

 

2. It must be “Energy In” and “Energy Out” equal.

 

Everything is energy.

When your customers open and consume your product + when your clients prepare for your sessions, there is invisible energy to direct them how much effort they will put into the work.

If you charge less than the value your offer delivers, your clients won’t value your offer as they should. As a result, they won’t give it enough focus or attention…

In this case, not only you are discounting your own profit, but also you are stealing away the focus, attention, and worse, results from your clients – they could have achieved better results if your price conveyed to them the value they could have got.

In the meantime, as for yourself, it is important to charge a price that excites and assures you: you don’t want to keep offering at beta price/free that you have to constantly worry if there is enough money flowing in while you are doing your client work.

I can’t emphasis this enough:

If you want a sustainable business, you must charge a price that works for all parties –  including yourself.

The more money comes into your business, the more capacity and resource you have to serve the people you love.

If you want your beloved clients achieve the best possible results, it is YOUR job (not theirs) to convey the value so that they will throw 100% into the life-changing experience.

Many people thought lowering price will attract more clients – this is just a fearful illusion caused by the ego. Countless case studies have reported that increasing your price to the right level will attract more IDEAL CLIENTS.

This leads to the next point.

3. “What’s the right price for me”?

Stop looking around and copy your competitors’ price.

Or checking out your mentor’s website and charging 50% of what they charge.

Everyone’s situation is different.

You know your own offer better than anyone else – step into your own power and determine this yourself.

If you feel stuck, here is a suggestion for you:

Start with the market price.

Then use pendulum method or muscle testing to help you determine if you should go higher or lower, until your body feels comfortable with THE price.

You have to trust your body.

In this case, your own body knows much better than your brain. And quite often it works the best in the long run.

Of course, there are some “norms” you need to respect, on the format you deliver your offer:

For example:

1. No matter how great your e-book is or what type of results (tangible/intangible), it’s difficult to justify at $1,000 {side note: apparently, the world’s most expensive ebook is at $8k ish – on nuclear materials};

2. If you present the same content from your ebook as an e-course, somehow it is expected to sell at a higher value;

3. No matter how niche, unusual or great your blog is, it is expected to be free – although a fantastic long term marketing tool.

4. Intention + content first, price follows

You need to know why you are creating such a product/service, what specific challenges you can resolve for which group of people.

Always have a clear idea and vision why you have your offers, then come up with the right price to go with it.

Some might aim to earn XYZ: they have a price in their head, then work it backwards to determine their niche/offering/target. Sounds smart on the surface huh? But it doesn’t work like that.

In my late teens, I was running around like that to make my venture work……Ooops, wrong way round.

You don’t have to make that mistake.

Know exactly why you are doing what you do, the price follows and customers will come to you.

5. Bartering? CAUTION!

Once you have determined your price, you will be tested by the Universe.

Eg, people wanting to barter with you more than ever.

You might think bartering makes things easy (eg, from transaction or admin point of view).

Hypothetically, it does – providing two products/services have the exact same value and each party needs the other equally at the same time!

In reality, it’s very rare.

The chances are there is one party needs the service/product more than the other at that point of time.

This will inevitably cause some level of resentment towards one party.

Then you’ll need extra time to clear the resentment, negativity etc…

Too complicated – don’t go there.

Just pay each other properly, in your normal process + with full respect.

Many coaching schools encourage coaches to barter with each other, rather than harness your unique talent and selling point and charging it professionally.

From my observation, this can really delay the process of kicking off your business.

{I’m NOT talking about the scenario where you had zero experience and need a few people to practise on first}.

Think about it, if you have a full-time job to juggle while you are trying hard to fill in your practice.

Your time is limited. It’s easier to find a fellow coach to barter instead of getting out of there to find paying clients.

Therefore, you stick to bartering with other coaches.

Over time, no matter how good you are, subconsciously you are telling yourself that you are a “freeline”…

Even when there are people who want to pay for your services, you are not even in the mindset to give a proper quote…

This goes back to #1.

I received so many emails asking me what specific steps they need to take to get paying clients.

Step 1, is to decide to put a price. This comes before any business skills or marketing techniques.

This seems like common sense – who doesn’t know the obvious, but you might not be DOING it.

If you are at this early stage, and nervous about charging your full rate. Then start with charging a smaller price, or using “pay-as-you-go” model.

This will help you to open up the money inflow.

Give yourself permission to let the money flow in.

I sincerely hope you find the 5 guidelines helpful to determine the RIGHT price for YOU and YOUR CUSTOMERS.

If you enjoy it, please feel free to share this article with your friends who might be interested.

With love,

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