As I described in my previous post, mindset can play a huge role in the money business owners generate.  Another place to look for some money leaks is your pricing model.

Since my main market is the service provider, I’ll address that in this article.

Usually for service providers, we start by looking at either the fees per session, or what kind of packages/programs they are offering their clients. Too many people are still stuck charging hourly. I know this one well, having been a psychotherapist for decades! The problem here though is that you have to constantly be selling. One of my sub-niches is holistic practitioners, so let’s use an acupuncturist as an example. If you have a fee-per-session model, at the end of the treatment, you have to get your book out and ask them if they want to reschedule. Hopefully your client is “blissed out” because of the amazing treatment you just did, but what if they are in a rush and have to pick up their son from school. You will likely hear….”Oh, let me call you soon.” Then they get busy, or sick, or short of cash, and you lose the business.

Compare that with the holistic practitioner who has a six month PROGRAM. I like to structure this where some of the money is paid up front or there can be payments made, but folks know that they are paying for a longer term commitment and seem to have more “skin in the game” because they are paying even if they aren’t coming. (Of course we’d prefer that they come!) It works for them because the understand that you are holding a bigger vision that just a one time fix, and it works for you because it levels out your cash flow because you don’t have to constantly be selling and getting new people in the door.

Now let’s look at your model. Where do you see that you could make some tweaks?

And the final place we will talk about here is you owning your value. Have you done that yet? What is your time and expertise worth? The way to understand this is to look at the results your service gets for people. These are some questions that will help you get what you do in a bigger way:
What results to people get after working with you?
What problems do you help solve?
What did those problems cost them?
What intangibles (like confidence) do you provide?
What’s that worth to get?
What’s the lifetime value of the work you do?
What has not working with you cost them?

I guarantee that if you would take 20 minutes and just do some journaling on those questions, you will never again devalue yourself! Make time for this ever important foundational piece so both you and your clients have a better experience.

By the way, if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email at Therese@HappyInBusiness.com.  I’d love to hear from you!

Blessings,

Therese