The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 79: How to Increase Your Rates Today
In today’s episode we are going to go over how you can increase your rates today. We will walk through why, how and what to do. I’ll also share my story of what I went through on how I decided to increase my rates and what I went through.
How to Increase Your Rates Today
By: Melissa Lin
Are you an online coach that feels lost on how to start, how to grow and how to actually make this your full-time gig? Do you spend every morning downloading every business freebie? Are you spending hours scrolling Instagram trying to find your ideal client not confident in your coaching because you're struggling to get clients? Even if you are confident in your prices, are you letting people off the phone because you’re afraid to push them? Trust me I get it. I remember when I first started and I was so lost and tired. I tried everything like my website, my logo, a hundred free clients, and none of them worked. I get it and once I invested in myself, I got through it and now I help other women do the same.
I want to walk you through how to increase your rate starting today. This is going to blow your mind. So what you need to do is go to your sales page, click on edit and go change the price. Increase those prices baby, for real. That's what you have to do. But I'm going to walk through more of the why and the how and really share more of my story.
We tend to increase our prices as we grow, as we learn new things, and as we expand. So many of us avoid increasing our rates because we're afraid to. Some of the stories, one of the lies that I told myself was “you’re not worth that much”. “I can’t increase my prices. I'm not worth that much” or maybe you've told yourself the story “Nobody would ever pay me to do that, not in a million years” or maybe you are comparing yourself, looking at other coaches and you're thinking to yourself “if that coach is charging this much and she's been coaching or he has been coaching three years longer than me, there's no way that I can charge as much as that”. Does any of that sound familiar? If yes, that's okay. These are all stories that we have in our heads and we can rewrite them. You are still worthy of charging whatever you want to charge. You can have this and more.
So starting today, no more comparing our prices to other coaches' prices. Their programs are very different from yours and you are very different from them. So you're allowed to charge whatever you want and I'm giving you that permission slip to do so. I actually had a recent client of mine that just wasn't all too excited about bringing on more clients. So we dove in together into what was really going on and what we determined was; There was a lack of energy exchanged. Her rates weren't where she really wanted them to be. So she wasn't nearly as excited to show up each day. We’ve all been here at some point.
I'm going to throw this out there. (I've said this before.) 80% of coaches are under charging right now. They just don't know how, they don't feel like they can. They haven't been doing this long enough. I'm telling you that you can. You have that permission slip. Let’s look at what I was charging when I first started and I really want to go into this because you may really be able to relate to this. This is back in 2014 when I first started, I was the coach that was charging near to nothing for my programs, yet offering so much value and so much time. So I want to go into some of the details of what I was offering back then, just so you can kind of picture and visualize this. So my first health and fitness programs that I was selling at about $50 a month. I was just starting and so many of my fears and limiting beliefs were just invading my body. They were screaming every minute of the day, and I, of course, got into a huge comparison-itis. I was taking a peek around to see what other Fitness coaches were charging and it scared the Living Daylights out of me. I found some of the other big influencers in my Niche and saw that they were barely charging $100 a month for their programs. Of course, my fears started coming in and screaming at me “Melissa how in the world can you ever charge more than them? If you’re cheaper than this, why would anyone come to work with you? You could have had even more on top of what they're doing”. So a huge comparison coming in hot and I did a few things.
I don't recommend doing this but I'm going to share it with you. I went cheap and I mean so cheap. I was just trying to over deliver as much as possible and I'm a big believer in over-delivering and really treating your clients with that and giving them such an incredible experience. I started around $50 a month and this included customized macro plans, workout plans, 24/7 texting access to my personal cell phone number, then I also started adding on coaching calls. You can probably guess that my money mindset was in a bad spot during this time. It was, and you know what this cheap mindset brought me? Cheap clients that were looking for quick fixes. I was a cheap option. I was attracting that.
So this really started to affect my business and my personal life, but it took me a while to actually see it. I had a few clients coming out of $50 a month and I was like, yes, this is working. I can do this. I can help a hundred clients at $50 a month and finally make it. And it just didn't turn out that way. I was not very happy during this time in my coaching career. I had clients that were not checking in with me. They would text me all weekend long, breaking boundaries, until late hours in the night. I was starting to see, these cheap clients and my cheap prices were also affecting the results and just the expectations were not aligned whatsoever. My clients were upset. They haven't lost 40 pounds in 2 weeks because they were looking for a quick fix and I was asking for cheap clients. So with charging only $50 a month, if I want to hit a 5k month I would need to have a hundred clients for a month. And here's a little spoiler for you. It takes just as much energy to sell a $50 program as it does a thousand-dollar program. In my experience, higher ticket programs are usually easier to sell.
I really just want you to know that you do not need to be charging $50 a month and giving massive value that is not an even energy exchange.You're probably starting to feel that. I started feeling resented as a couch. I was draining myself. I was creating all these programs for clients that weren't even putting in the work or the effort. So there are days that I felt like a failure, there are days where I was thinking to myself “Okay, you know, maybe this isn't For Me, Maybe coaching is not my answer. Maybe I should just stay in my engineering job and just keep on going because that's how it's supposed to be.” So I kept Trucking along doing the same things with no changes. And of course, I finally opened my eyes and realized if I wanted to make a change in my business, I was going to have to start to do things differently. If we want to make a change, if we want different results, we've got to do things differently.
So, I grabbed some money mindset books, I started listening to some podcasts and realized I was really undervaluing myself. And I was the one that was attracting those clients. The ones who wanted quick fixes but weren’t checking in. So I knew that I had to change my program and the pricing to start attracting the clients that I actually wanted to work with and that wanted to work with me back. I was done feeling underpaid. I was done with that uneven energy exchange and being under-appreciated, undervalued, but it had to be a change I had to make. I increased my prices, not only increased them but I quadrupled them. What happens when you decide to charge more is you start to serve your clients better. That sounds silly as you increase. Your prices are asking the client to fully invest in themselves and into the transformation, into the result, into the experience both emotionally and mentally. Think back to when you downloaded a cheap ebook for $7 or $14 or $19.99, did you use it? Did you even open it? Did you read it religiously day in and day out and really give it your all. I'm going to say probably not. I know from my experience most that I bought, big no. Typically don't even open them. I’ll all look at the cover and then just not open and other things happen. I'm not invested. I'm not committed. As we start investing ourselves, we have a higher commitment to ourselves, a transformation, that result that we are striving for.
So if you are in this moment, you're reading this and you still just don't believe you are able to increase your prices for your current programs. It could be a few things. You might be right. Maybe your program doesn't have enough value right now, in this moment that we can shift it. So you can add more value. However, Most of the time it's because we don't feel worthy of ourselves to increase our prices. So we need to start to change this mindset, the story that we're telling ourselves. You might be telling yourself, “I’m not good enough to charge that much. I don’t have the experience yet to increase my prices. I don't have enough followers. I don't have enough free clients. I don't have enough testimonials”. Whatever it is that story, that you're telling yourself. It's in our heads. It's a story and we get to start to really shift and rewrite those stories and step into that next level, the next version of you and who you really want to be. You are enough right now. You are enough right now. You bring everything and more to table for your clients and it's not like your clients won’t buy at a higher price because people are out there wanting to pay high ticket prices and you don't even need to be doing high, high, high ticket. You can just increase them to a number where you feel like, it's an even energy exchange. Where you're excited to be showing up every single day. Usually It's not because clients don't pay the higher price. It's because we're scared to charge the price that we really want to charge. Clients will pay if they understand what the transformation is and what that result is that they're going to receive.
So if you don't believe in yourself, if you don't believe in your program, it's going to be very difficult to sell your program at any price, whether it's for $20, $30, $50 or $1,000. So as you’re starting to look at your offer today, the one that you've been thinking about increasing your rates at, Start to really value it, look at everything that's inside. If you’re charging $100 a month and you had coaching calls, you are really only charging $25 an hour, plus everything on top of that; your value, your expertise, your time to create your programs for your clients, the check-in time. Everything on top of that isn’t even included. As you are looking at your offer today. The one that you've been thinking about increasing your rates, and I know you know which one I'm talking about. You've got the one in mind. Really evaluate the value of it.
First, write everything out in your program, all of the things you teach your clients, all of those deliverables they get, all of the time they get with you, the accessibility to you. If you're private coaching, they have you in the back of their pocket, that's so valuable. What is the value of each of these items in my program? Then start to put a number to your program. How does that number feel? Does that number excite you? We need this to be a number that is going to be enough for your clients to be showing up and really be committed and also be enough for you to be so committed and give your clients your all. We’re here to change lives and we’re also here to create an incredible customer experience for your clients, right? The sale doesn't just end when you swipe their credit card, it's the entire Journey with them throughout your program, together. Remember, clients are wanting a life-changing transformation. Those that do invest, they're going to put in the work and see the results.
So if you've been wanting to increase your prices, go increase them today. Go and do it. You're going to feel so great about it. You're going to have this huge relief and weight off your shoulders when you put a new number down in your notebook. What is it that you really want to charge? And I know you've got a number in there. What is that? Write it out. It's okay if that number scares you, it should scare you a little bit. It needs to be enough for you to feel energetically even. So it should feel a little scary. If it's not, if it doesn't feel scary at all, then that's a sign that we may need to make some adjustments to your pricing as well. So go increase your prices today. Let me know what you increase them to. I can’t wait to see and hear from you!
Topics we cover include:
Fear of Increasing Your Rates
I was offering too much
Setting expectations
Uneven energy exchange
Evaluate your offers and your value
And so much more!
Times to check out:
(4:44) So many of us are afraid to increase our rates
(8:10) My first coaching package I sold was $50/month
(11:39) The expectations were not aligned
(14:10) There was an uneven energy exchange
(17:35) Evaluate your offer and look at what you are giving
(19:44) What is it that you really want to charge?
(20:00) It’s okay to be scared by the number you want to charge
GET IN TOUCH WITH MELISSA:
Hot Leads Machine (new course):
https://www.themelissalin.com/hotleadsmachine
Are you ready to take your online coaching business to the NEXT level? Have you been wanting to start coaching, finally start making a full time income doing what you love? The Fierce Business Academy might be the right fit for you! Head to the link below for more details and to hop on the waitlist!
The Fierce Business Academy:
https://www.themelissalin.com/academy
The Caption Capsule
https://www.themelissalin.com/caption-capsule
Promo Code: PODCAST to save $$$ on The Caption Capsule!
Sell Like A Sales Queen Crash Course:
https://themelissalin.lpages.co/sell-like-a-sales-queen/
Five Figure Launch:
https://themelissalin.lpages.co/five-figure-launch
Find me on social media for more daily content!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themelissalin/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melissa.lin.180410
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fiercebusinessbabes/
Fierce Fitness Business Academy: https://www.themelissalin.com/academy