One of the challenges I see so many coaches and solopreneurs struggle with is what they should charge for their services. Most do not know what they should charge. Many charge what they think they can get. Some charge whatever the next coach or practitioner charges. That is--"the going rate". Many charge what they would be willing to pay themselves. Most charge less than they are worth--while improving the lives of others dramatically.

But why? And what are the solutions to this travesty of value?

• Mistakingly thinking they are actually trading time for money, and/or that their services are a commodity. A thing to purchase
• Limiting beliefs; usually about themselves or the value they bring at their very core-and what they or their services are worth, what the prospective client would be willing to pay, or about money in general
• A lack of sales skill; they do not know how to create accurate yet inspiring value perceptions in the prospective client that make the fees irrelevant or appear minimal in comparison to what they are getting through the service.

How the heck do you determine or set your rate?

What are your services and/or your offering actually worth?

• 20% more than you feel comfortable asking for
• Whatever the market can bear: whatever you can consistently get in return for your services or product

I have never met a solopreneur or some other type of small business person, who was in their first 5 years in business, who I have not advised to raise their rates. After understanding what they do, I examined their rates, and told every single one of them to raise them about 10% to 20%. They were all dramatically undervalued and undervaluing their offering.

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There is fear around raising rates for most people. They think they will see less clients, and as a result, have trouble with their financial obligations, they fear people will not pay that rate, and ultimately they either lack confidence in themselves and their offering, or they themselves are making the mistake of confused value perceptions; they do not see the true value for themselves.

So especially if you are just starting out or you are in the first few years of building your business, as a general rule of thumb, you should add 10% to 20%. Not so much that you are anxious about it, but enough to expand your beliefs about your value.

What can the market bare? In other words, charge whatever people are willing to pay. Ultimately, the consumers of your services set the rates. If your conversion rates of prospects to clients is too low [and I say it is too low if you can not reasonably count on them signing up], then your rate may need to be adjusted down. However, where you look first, is your ability to sell or enroll others in your services. Be careful to look there first. Anyone can get better at anything. Lowering your rates serves no one--least of all the client.

Clients who pay more are more serious about the work--and they get more accomplished in a shorter period of time. AND you show up at an ever grater level of excellence at a higher rate, multiplying this exponentially.

This is why I do not allow friends or family to subsidize a clients work for them with me.

They can borrow the money--they will take that seriously--but they may not be gifted any number of sessions. It is for the clients own good. And in the case of their borrowing it, I usually conduct my due diligence in making sure my work with them relieves more stress than it creates, so if there are underlying issues around money in their relationship, I may still decline that, not wanting to exacerbate them.

Additionally, if you told me you were unable to get the rate you wanted, I would ask a few questions

• Can't get it from whom? Which market? There is always someone somewhere who can afford you and will see the value in it. The higher the rates, the smaller the pool of prospective clients as a matter of financial and numerical fact, but you can get it from the right target market
• How confident and relaxed are you when they review the agreement and see the fees? Do you communicate worth and confidence? Or do you communicate an opening for a negotiation? Do you communicate uncertainty? Or--god forbid--do you ask them if it is too high as you project your own unresolved issues around money onto them? [The client has enough of their own limitations--they do not need you to add yours]
• Are you selling from vision and possibility and creating more accurate and inspiring value perceptions in the prospect--or are you trading time for money?
• How effective are you at inspiring, enrolling, and re-framing concerns?
• Where do you need to gain additional skill?

No matter how good you are, you can ALWAYS improve your sales and communication skills.

Those are the questions we explore first to be an Evolutionary Professional--to be constantly improving our efficacy at leveraging others beyond their limitations to have the life they dream of. There is always something you could have done to make a difference in the process. Examine that and only that. After that inquiry is exhausted, then you can indulge in examining how the client X,Y or Z. And it is, in fact, an egoic indulgence unless you are clarifying what a "qualified" prospect is.

You also need to look at what your intake process and your behavior is telling the client and yourself about what are you selling and offering? What are you offering? How clear are you when you communicate that? Do you communicate competence? Where do you come from or what platform do you stand on? What does your approach and your behavior presuppose as organizing principles. Not espoused beliefs or platitudes, but rather--integrated and aligned behavior.

One of the organizing principles I shared with my Apprentices and Evolutionary Professional clients and I will share with you now is this: You are not selling them on your service or product. It is a mistake to think so no only for your relationship to your own fees, the client's relationship to your fees--their investment--but also your level of fulfillment. If you try to sell them on how great your product or service is, you run the risk of some dynamics that will be set you up to less effective.

What you are selling them is a solution to a problem, or an access--a gateway--to the vision they have for themselves. Therefore:

Inspire them Towards Their Vision and Leverage Them Beyond Their Limitations; Never Try to Convince Them of the Value of You or Your Service

It often becomes a matter of convincing them that your product or service is worth XYZ for beginning and even journeyman or mid-level seasoned practitioners. Not only does that not serve the client, but it leaves you with results that are unpredictable. That is to say that if you have someone come in for an exploratory session, or an initial consultation, that you can not say with certainty they will sign up until they do. Wouldn't you rather be certain, in your mind, that they will? If you are trying to convince them, there is a 50/50 chance they may polarize against your points, and suddenly you are in a debate.

Do not sell the client on your products or services--guide them to selling themselves with more accurate and more visionary value perceptions. In your presentation, do no selling. In your presentation, demonstrate competence.

I have never had the debate or polarized communication with a client in an exploratory session. It has never happened to me in my business because of the Organizing Principle on bold above. I urge you for the sustainability of your business and for the benefit of your clients to try it on.

Additionally [and worse for the clients' experience] if you are trying to convince them, it had you be attached and has you be "jerky" and potentially jumping on a client's concern or objection immediately to try and address it--by telling them how great your product or service is, in whatever way you do that. Or worse, telling them [or saying something they can interpret as] their objection is invalid, in whatever way you do that.

This is yet another reason you must come from a platform of service and contribution. If you come from a place of just closing the deal to be making money, or relating to your clients and prospectives clients as objects to be moved around like chess pieces hoping to checkmate your financial obligations, you will behave differently than if you are coming from service and contribution. They will sense this on some level or another. They will not know what it is, or perhaps even how to describe it, but it will show up for them in some was a a lack of rapport, or safety, or trust in your motives. That is the very thing that no longer works in the 21st Century Marketplace.

My mom is a former tennis player, golfer, softball player - super athlete in her day - and I remember her going on and on and on about the follow through - follow through on the stroke, meaning, the stroke does not end when the ball is contacted, but way further along, back behind her somewhere.

So yesterday I finally had my first sales meeting, and it went okay, not great, the person is interested, wants more information, is open to talking to her peeps - and then I go home and don't know what to do next. So then I realized, that's what the flow chart does  - it shows the path of the stroke all the way through to the end of the swing.

Rapport is one of those things which you either have or you don’t. And if you don’t have it you can manufacture it, create it, literally produce it out of thin air - if you know how. We naturally seek rapport and affinity with others, and not always because we want something tangible like money, a contract or recognition. Sometimes it’s simply, or not so simply as the case may be, acceptance and acknowledgement. But when we looking for a reward, rapport as a tool does pretty nicely. Up to a point.

When I was learning the techniques of pacing, matching and leading I was taught that it was ideal for situations when you needed to get onside with a client pretty quickly. This, I thought, was great. Then, it turned out, because time was short, I needed to contrive the situation and the feeling in order to get an outcome. This was not so good. My problem was the incongruency I felt. Particularly while I was teaching the tools of rapport at a seminar one day, and I’d just finished telling them how important trust and the spirit of service was in a business. I didn’t entirely convince them that time (because in my heart of hearts I wasn’t either) and I haven’t taught another rapport class since.

But that’s about to change. Because what I’ve come to understand is that I can be congruent through and through- from the inside to the outside, as a business woman, and as a spiritual human being. That what I value and how I am in terms of my virtues, can be consistent in every context, and on every level. Otherwise how could I be of true service (the adjective, not the noun) if I’m only prepared to connect outwardly, holding back the best part of me from myself and the client? How does anyone really grow doing that?

Virtues are those things by the way that are universally recognisable as aspects of character, traits and principles of moral excellence, cross-contextual.  Values on the other hand are those things we deem important to us, the desirability or worth of a thing- individual and culturally defined, context specific.

Until Jason mentioned it the other day on the call, I hadn’t consciously worked out how to clearly define it for myself. Here’s where I am with all of that and I started by chunking up, and then across...

As the world rapidly changes –even as I write- and as we are (reluctantly) propelled towards a more global consciousness we realize that no country is an island; what affects one affects another. On the micro level the principle is the same; we are connected, “the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch.” Ever noticed by the way how your clients often mirror some of the same issues you have? We’re already past the beginning of the end of our old ways of thinking especially as we confront personal, business and world-wide challenges within the context of an ever-evolving civilization. How then do we deal with this transition and evolution and move from the rather perfunctory tool of rapport to something more durable, trustworthy and congruent?  (while still accepting that time, as always, plays a role; and that we have objectives we  also wish to fulfil?)

Love, I’ve decided is the answer to resolving the congruency ‘stuff’.  Because if you desire to open and maintain a relationship that really serves and contributes something more substantial and meaningful, has integrity and a deep fulfilling connection with every cell of being, arises naturally and without artifice then love is the state and condition required.  Unconditional love that is not particularly concerned with time, or outcomes, goes beyond acceptance and romantic or physical attraction, and surpasses whether or not they serve your purposes or give you anything in return. You serve them and treat them as you would yourselves- and in some cases, inadvertently, better than you might treat yourself. This is the kind of rapport that's is switched on in the background, isn’t manufactured, doesn’t get turned off (maybe a little) and is (as much as we practise it) natural, immediately available and inspires trust. A time-saver? For sure.  A stretch? Absolutely. Risky? Not at all.

If we begin by loving and valuing others as much as ourselves, then service will unsurprisingly take on a greater dimension, and rapport too no longer becomes the mechanical tool we knew and practised but will, in and of itself, arise without being contrived. And as we head towards unity and new and greater levels of thinking then love will become a more natural, and necessary, extension of our own self-expression and service-in-goodwill.

By all means you deserve and should receive a reward and recognition for your services but go in there with a greater offering to your client- really be of service, and do it with love. It’s the most natural magnet there is. They’ll notice it, see it, feel it, hear it. Love presupposes the relationship is open anyway so think it, feel it and be it. And see where it takes you.

Mistake #4: Having Only 1 Stream of Prospects

Mistake #5: Failure to leverage contact points and the opportunity they hold

Mistake #6: Considering Your Service a Commodity

Mistake #7: (Did I say 6?) I guess there is at least one more mistake:
"Healing" that which you need to resolve in your self and in your own life by healing others

Trader Joe, (yes there really is such a person named Joe Coulombe) graduated from Stanford in the 50's with an MBA and was hired by the Rexal drug store chain to manage a small chain of convienence stores in Los Angeles. After a while, Rexal decided to get out of that business and Joe quit, bought the chain from Rexal along with some investors and ran stores himself.

But then the giant 7-Eleven corp. began putting stores in southern California and Joe knew he could not compete with that. At that point he discovered his ideal client: Young, educated, traveled, not making a whole lot of money. So he began transforming each store into the new identity called Trader Joes. People told him he was crazy when he stopped selling cigarettes, stopped selling name brand beer, and all the other crap that you find in a 7-Eleven. He was right and Trader Joes became hugely successful.

Joe is not part of Trader Joes anymore, but he is still around. On the boards of Cost Plus World Market and True Religion Apparel which sells jeans for $300! In this economy?????   I trust he knows what he is doing and I will follow his lead!

It is amazing how many coaches, solopreneurs, massage therapists, lawyers, etc. are competent at what they do--yet suffer financially. They are doing good, but they are not doing well--that is, they are struggling financially, mentally, and emotionally.

There are reasons for this. I have identified the top 6 reasons--and their solutions-that I have found in my experience in my own business as well as observing those who still have a "practice".

The first 3 are presented to you below. The next three will be in Part 2 in a couple of weeks.

Mistake #1:  Thinking "Money and Spirituality are in Conflict"

For some, "capitalism" is a bad word. Which makes sense. "Capitalism" was a phrase coined by the biggest enemy of the free market and free enterprise to ever live--Karl Marx. Yet, we keep that inaccurate and pejorative moniker. We were taught for thousands of years that to profit was bad--and then this meme was punctuated by the evils of capitalism laid out by a failed mathematician who had no foresight into the services industry--never mind respect for private property and Natural Law and was therefore essentially a thief on a grand scale. Even though with the rise of capitalism in the mid-1800s, our standard of living has more than trebled, never mind that our life expectancy has doubled in a short time as a result...it...is...bad.

While there was a a time when one could only profit by exploitation and manipulation or by inheritance or plunder, this has not been accurate for nearly 300 years.

[Before commenting on this, please read my series of articles on Spiritual Capitalism, found here: Read First || Read Second || Read Third.]

Maybe we should consider throwing off the chains of thinking birthed centuries before the Enlightenment and even before the founding of this Country and came to a head--and have been proven to be inaccurate, ineffective, and fundamentally broken in the last Century.

The truth is, it is not only possible to come from service and contribution in a "for profit" environment--that is to live a purpose-filled life--but also to profit well from it and to live prosperously. It takes some personal work--being mindful of your thinking, cleaning out your unconscious imprints of guilt and shame, and to constantly be of service while having sufficient esteem for your self to recognize the value you are bringing to another's life and to have them provide that value monetarily in exchange. It takes a lack of attachment to "closing that deal" and being more focused on service and "opening relationships"--and much more.

Actually, I have found what can be provided to our clients lives is priceless to them. Fees are insignificant when weighed against what the work we do in their lives will make possible. It is not a commodity. It is a gateway to greater freedom and happiness. We can live a spiritually oriented life--and integrate free-market, service-based principles into that.

By doing so, we integrate our spiritual and our financial life. This frees us from guilt, shame, and allows us to flourish spiritually while prospering financially.

Mistake #2: Underdeveloped Skill: Sales, Marketing, and Ethical Influence

We have all had negative experience with sales people. Not sales professionals, but sales people--that is, people who want to "close a deal" rather than open a relationship. And most sales trainers teach techniques with little regard for a philosophical base or grounding. I do not support that.

I used to think sales was a dirty word. That was until I realized that until I could influence people to take action in their lives--leverage them beyond their limitations--I could never really do much good in the world. You can only be a positive agent for change if you can inspire others to move beyond their current thinking--the thinking that has them in their current life situation and has stopped them from being fully free and thriving.

Therefore--if you truly want to do good in the world, it becomes your duty--yes, your duty--to assist others in overcoming their limitations. That means learning to sell and market your services in a compelling way that comes from service and contribution while combining that with powerful tool of influence.

You must gain those skills if you want to make a difference and be prosperous.

While it may be hard to swallow at first [took me years to accept] you must be a sales person first--that is you must be able to enroll others in a vision--to live your purpose and prosper.

Mistake #3: A Lack of Structure: Service, Sustainability, and Packages

One you are coming from service and contribution, you begin to consider what would best serve the client. Most practitioners have session-by-session practices or monthly packages, but they do not have comprehensive packages that have stages and phases in them. How many people out there have dabbled here and dabbled there and never really bucked down and did the deep work to reveal greater depths within themselves? I have found most clients approach their personal development this way. "Well, I have tried this and I have tried that...", [but I never really got what I needed that was deeper].

The best thing you can do as a coach or a practitioner is to find a way to create a compelling 3-stage or 3-phase offering that allows the client to reveal greater and greater depths or to attain greater and greater heights. For a massage therapist, this may mean something like:

Because we are dedicated to helping coaches and practitioners reach "financial sustainability" as well as their clients maintaining "sustainability of change", nothing can be more important than putting together an offering for clients that is 3-dimensional and saying no to a session-by-session weekly commitment model.

What that means is designing a package where the offering is coherent, cogent, and comprehensive. Where the client is moving through stages or phases that logically fit together in a holarchical way--each stage building on the previous stage or phase.

But recently, nascent practitioners have been asking me essentially this questions: "what if I am not yet clear about my offering? How can I figure out what to offer them when I am so unclear yet about my deepest gifts?" I want to answer this very important question because I have noticed that requiring the apprentices to come up with a full offering can be overwhelming and does not assist them in professional evolution, but has them contract and regress.

So, backing up to more fundamental ways to build your practice when you are new:

• Go ahead and work session by session at first. Schedule that single session
• Let them know at the beginning of the session, that once they experience you, at the end of the session, you will offer them an opportunity to sign up for more--then drop the subject and focus on their needs and outcomes
  • This has them know what to expect and takes away any objection to you offering it--and gives the client a smoother more integrated experience
• At the end of the session ask them what they liked about it
• Ask them if they want more of that
• Provided you were effective, they will say yes 
• Offer them a package of 4 or 6 session with a discount if they buy them all now. For instance--buy 6 get 1 free or some such offer.

All too often I have seen practitioners say some version of "if they liked the work..." or worse, "if it is meant to be then they will ask for more".  Not necessarily. Sometimes they just need you to ask. Sometimes they get distracted. And even if true, I have found it is all too often a gussied-up way to avoid what is realling going on--fear and anxiety about selling--while pretending to have a "accept whatever happens" orientation to life.

Rarely, do I sense it is an authentic developmental stage they have reached.

Most importantly, if you truly want to be successful, you need to integrate the fact that no matter how good you are or effective at your craft, you are the locus of responsibility to make things happen.

That, and if you really care about your clients having permanent sustainable change you will offer them a package. Would you go to the gym once and expect to be able to compete in weight lifting? Would you go once and think you have reached a new level of fitness?

Hardly.

So it is with the muscles of your [and your clients'] internal experience. Help them get the exercise they need so they can attain a new level of mental and emotional fitness--a new baseline of success and fulfillment in their life, and you get financial sustainability in the process.  Together, we all create a better world.

Now that is a true win-win-win.

After the last piece on how to get clients and testimonials the same day, I had a few people ask me how to get clients if they had few or none in the past. In other words: what is the second fastest way to get clients.

The short answer is: give a talk or an evening intro to your work.

However, there are several structures you will need to have in place to make this an effective event for client acquisition.

• Give people no less than 10 days notice, but no more than 2 weeks notice about your event. This falls in the window of them making sure they schedule it, without being so far out in the future that they wait and forget.
• Give a cap to how many people will be there [limit it to 8 or 10 or 12] and require an RSVP. This does several things:
  
  • It creates more urgency for them to RSVP
  • It gives you [if you are not used to speaking in front of a large group] a manageable-sized audience so you can become comfortable with the whole affair
  • It allows you to then publish how many spots are left for the evening in a follow up email [and really, 1 email is never enough and 4 is likely too many in 2 weeks]
• Make sure you open with the fact that you are obviously there for 2 reasons [say this in the first 1 minute of your talk]:
  • To provide value such that their lives are improved whether you see each other again or not
  • "obviously" to market your services [at the end]
  • At the end, let them know what is available, but simply pass around an interest sheet that lets them opt in to a free exploratory session, or your email newsletter. Low commitment level makes it easier.
  • When you open in this manner it does 3 things:
    • it sets context and appropriately sets expectations
    • it is honest and direct and also takes away the objection they will have at the end that they were not expecting a sales pitch--tell them to expect it
    • gives them an opportunity to walk out if the do not want that experience
• Bear in mind, you have 48 hours before the prospective clients lead begins to cool off--they become less clear on what they were inspired by or moved by to ask you to contact them
• Do not waste your time or money on letting them take your card [or even having them, really, or brochures for that matter]. If you truly want to be of service, then get their permission to contact them and take the guess work and variables out of it.
• If you are publishing to multiple lists/target markets, you can do this ever two weeks, however, if you are publishing the same type of event to the same list, be aware that what happens is that if you do it more that once ever 6 weeks they will begin to take you for granted--"Oh, s/he'll be doing this in a couple weeks...so" and they won't come.

I hope this makes a difference in your life and in your business today.

In Service,

Jason