257: Joanna Hennon + Holly ~ Are We Charging Too Much For Our Services?

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More About Joanna Hennon

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What You’ll Learn

• How online business prices compare to a psychologist with a PhD
• Why we’ve created a kind of online bubble of high pricing amongst ourselves
• Why this world of online entrepreneurs has become its own mini economy
• Why many people believe they can’t charge the same prices for face-to-face sessions as they do online
• Why most “normal” (read: offline & local) people can’t access these prices – and why other online business owners can
• Whether or not we would we pay these prices in our offline lives
• Why entrepreneurs are more willing to pay higher prices
• Why sometimes we want the expensive thing to be the magic bullet (and how online marketing reinforces this)
• Why it’s not just about whether you have the money or not – we need to ask: is it really worth it?
• Why we sometimes hand over responsibility to others when we buy expensive products/services
• Why you need to ask the question: are you making the purchase decision out of love…or fear?
• Why you need to be in the right energy if you actually want to make your investment work
• Why some people have to spend a lot of money to show up…and why that’s not necessarily the case for everyone
• The questions you need to ask yourself before making an investment
• Have we lost sight of the value piece? Why value is so important to consider
• Is it really a money block when we choose not to pay for big ticket items?

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast, episode 257. This is your host Holly Worton, and I am back with another co-hosted episode with the fabulous Joanna Hennon. Today, we ask the question: are we charging too much for our services? For years the online business world has been all about increasing prices and truly valuing what we have to offer the market by selecting prices that reflect our value, but have we gone too far? In this episode Joanna and I talk about how online prices compare to the prices of other types of professionals in the market place, and we discuss whether or not we are all charging too much.

But, before we get into today’s episode I wanted to mention a podcast that I was recently a guest on, and that is the Enterprise Now podcast with Elzie Flenard and if you go to: http://HollyWorton.com/Elzie you can find that episode. So, Elzie and I talk about: how to step into your greatness by transforming your mindset; we talk about how important mindset is to the success of your business; we talk about how to become aware of your blocks; why you need to write them down; how to do the mindset work. I really, really, like Elzie, love his energy, you may have seen my interview with him, which is a YouTube video which you can find on my YouTube channel. So, I would love for you head over to his podcast and check it out, again that is: http://HollyWorton.com/Elzie.

So, getting back into today’s episode, I think this was a really fascinating conversation for us to have and I think that you will find it really useful, because I feel like a lot of us have been caught up into this spiral of raising prices, and raising prices, and raising prices and it has created a kind of bubble, which is something that we discuss in the episode, so what are you going to learn here today? You are going to learn: how online business prices compare to, for example, a psychologist with a PhD who doesn’t work online. We talk about why we have created this online bubble of high pricing amongst ourselves, and how we are all kind of swimming in the same soup and passing our money back and forth amongst ourselves.

We talk about why this world of online entrepreneurs has become kind of its own mini-economy. We discuss why many people believe that they can’t charge the same prices for face-to-face sessions, as they do online, and what does that say about the market? We talk about why most “normal” (read that as offline and local people/not online people) can’t access these prices, and why other online business owner can. We talk about whether or not we would pay these prices in our offline lives for offline services; we discuss why entrepreneurs are often more willing to pay higher prices. We mention why sometimes we want the expensive thing to be the magic bullet, and how online marketing reinforces this. We talk about why it is not just about whether you have the money or not, we also need to ask: is it really worth it? We also discuss why we sometimes hand over responsibility to others when we buy expensive products and services. We also discuss why you need to ask the question, why we all need to ask the question, whether we are making this purchase out of love, or fear? And why you need to be in the right energy if you actually want to make your investment work. We talk about why some people really do have to spend a lot of money to show up, and why that’s not necessarily the case for everyone. We discuss the questions you need to ask yourself before making a big investment, or an investment of any kind. We ask: have we lost sight of the value piece, and why value is so important to consider.

And, finally, we ask: is it really a money block when we choose not to pay for big ticket items, or are there other reasons that might be in play? So, again, I hope you find this episode interesting and useful; I hope it helps you question your current prices and reflect on are they right for you? And that could be either way: are they too high; are they too low or are they just right? I used to do pricing calls for people and if you remember me talking about this a couple of years back and I used to offer these pricing calls where I would go into surrogate on for the person and muscle test to find the right prices for them, and I regularly found that people coming to me were pricing very low and the muscle testing was indicating that they needed to price higher. I, for years, have set my own prices based on muscle testing, and I have always felt like that’s confirmation that those prices are the right prices for me, but I think it is always a good exercise to re-evaluate and question and make sure that we are charging the right prices, that we are on the right track, I think we are always on the right track, but you know what I mean, we are doing the things that we are meant to do, we are doing the things that we want to do, we are consciously making decisions about every aspect of our business, including prices.

So, without further ado, I will hand you over to the main part of this episode.

 

Holly: Hello Joanna!

Joanna: Hi Holly!

Holly: I am super-excited about our topic today! This is very controversial, and I am looking forward to hashing this out with you.

Joanna: Yeah, me too, and I hope that we can make some sense out of it.

Holly: So, we are talking about pricing, which is a big issue for all entrepreneurs I think, especially online entrepreneurs. And we are asking the question: are we charging too much for our services? This is something that we have been talking about off the podcast lately, because it is like we’ve gotten into this mindset of: higher, higher, higher, prices, you have got to value your services, and now at this point we are starting to re-think what this means for our business, for the market and beyond. So, Joanna, tell us the story of how we started with this conversation, because this is actually a really, really, interesting comparison.

Joanna: Yeah, we started the conversation because I went to see a local psychologist and this woman is super-well-educated, she has a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, and a PhD from Georgetown, something like that, anyway, it was definitely Stanford and Georgetown. So, two really, really, super good schools, and she charges €100 euros an hour. And it just really, really, struck me, I mean do you know anybody online who is charging €100 an hour? Not many people anymore charge €100 an hour unless they are just starting out with their first price, right? It just really struck me, and I was like: wow, that’s a huge difference kind of, between the local market and the online bubble that we are in. And then I think my husband made a comment saying: well, not everybody has a whole load of money for multiple sessions that aren’t even reimbursed. And that kind of added to it, because of course here in Europe we have really good health insurance, so that a psychologist’s session, would or could potentially be reimbursed as well, so, you could pay 100 but you are actually getting some of that back. Whereas for an online coaching session of some kind you are paying 200/300 and not getting anything back. So, that’s how it started.

Holly: Yeah and I think what’s really interesting about this case is that part of the justification for charging high prices is it is not just that hour with the client, it is all of your years of experience with clients, it is all of your education, it is all of the training you have done, all of this comes together to make you who you are to deliver this hour with the client. But, this woman did many years of very expensive training – Stanford is not cheap, Georgetown is not cheap – and it takes many years to get not just your bachelor’s degree, but your PhD, I mean that’s what, probably 12 years of school?

Joanna: Yeah, and in a field like that you do have to keep on top of recent developments, you do actually have to know what we are talking about…especially with Google, right? You can’t actually have a situation where a client comes into your office and knows more about the latest developments in the field than you do, so you do have to keep up, so she must do something on an ongoing basis as well. And so, we started talking about, I raised this question with Holly, and we started just talking about whether the online space, how much of an online bubble it is. And if it is a bubble is it bursting what’s happening in there? The whole online space is just coaches selling to coaches selling to coaches and in the end I kind of see it like this little mini-economy, where we are just exchanging all our money within the same soup – some people gain more with that and some people gain less with that – but it is, kind of, like this mini-economy of its own?

Holly: Yeah, exactly, and I think one thing that I have heard many people say is that they can’t charge the same prices in person, so if they want to work with local clients, as this psychologist does, they can’t charge those online prices, they have got to lower their prices for local people which also leads to conflict because an hour of your time is an hour of your time, so why should you charge differently, and why should other people pay differently, because it is the same service but often you can’t charge the same for offline work.

Joanna: Yeah, I guess that’s a problem within one’s business, right? You can’t, actually as you said, have two different prices for the same thing depending on where one lives, well within reason you can, like Access Consciousness does that, they have different prices for different areas of the world; but that’s based on average income level in that part of that world or something, those are set indicators I suppose that they are using, so there is something to be said about that. But in our normal, whether you charge someone in the UK, or in Belgium in your little village or you charge someone online who is used to seeing prices like 10k.

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: I mean nobody in my little village is going to pay $10,000, that’s insane {laughing}

Holly: You never know, I am sure there is someone out here! {laughing} But, you are right, that’s not how people function in the offline world, at our socio-economic level. Okay, so maybe this is a limiting belief, but I am sure there are people who are of higher economic status who drop £10,000 pounds or euro or whatever on therapy or coaching.

Joanna: In fact, I was watching, I was watching a really great show, in fact this is a little bit of an aside, but since it is a podcast I think we can do that. I am watching a really great show, and it is called Mozart in the Jungle, it is on Amazon Prime. And there was a scene in there when they were having a cocktail party, and just for really rich people with a symphony orchestra. And this guy said: you play the violin for us today, and I will give you $200,000 and here is a cheque. And I said to my husband, I want to be able to do this {laughing}. I want to be in that one moment: I want this and here is a cheque. So, I guess there are parts of society where that happens and that’s fine. Actually, this is something that we didn’t mention Holly when we prepared for this, but you mentioned it now, the difference of how we function in our regular life and in the online space, I wouldn’t… prices that I pay in the online space, I wouldn’t pay in “real life”, at all, and that’s weird!

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: So, why are we making this distinction between real life, or regular life, and the online space, and we are not spending our money in the same way.

Holly: Well, I think it is because, it is like this whole different world, we have gotten used to paying these prices, and I think especially when we pay for business-related-things we justify it because it is going to help us with our business, it’s a business expense…whatever; but I think, a lot of us even pay the high prices for personal work online and we just accept that as normal. Whereas if I were going to someone, a local therapist or someone, I just wouldn’t expect that.

Joanna: No, and that’s weird right? Also, and just the way that we approach money in our day-to-day life, there is this separation; now I am talking to you about it, I can feel the separation between how I approach the grocery shopping, and how I approach my online business. That’s probably something for everybody who’s is listening to explore for themselves, right?

Holly: It is like if you think about, whether you budget or not, you think about how much you spend on food every month, and transportation, entertainment, whatever and compare that to business spending, or online service spending, you get so much in the offline world for your money compared to…

Joanna: Yeah, I think that just goes back to the online bubble, because the people who are in the bubble are entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs are selling to entrepreneurs.

Holly: Yeah, exactly.

Joanna: Some of them are selling business advice, and some of them are selling health for entrepreneurs, and some are selling whatever for entrepreneurs. And, as I told you before, I’ve had coaches who have encouraged me very, very, strongly to make sure that my marketing was aimed at entrepreneurs because they are more willing to pay more money, and I have always refused which is why as I said before my marketing has been kind of all over the place {laughing} because I refuse to say that I only work with entrepreneurs. I don’t think that’s true, and I think that’s really limiting.

Holly: Okay, that’s interesting that you say that because, so I do work with entrepreneurs because I had this very personal problem, when I was setting up my coaching business, of coming to this world with ten years of practical, offline, entrepreneurial and marketing experience, but yet not being able to build my business because of the mindset stuff. So, for me, I have a very personal, vested, interest in helping other people with the mindset stuff, because that was such a big problem for me. However, I am aware that I do have that belief that entrepreneurs are more willing to pay, that business owners are more willing to pay, because that’s how I function. I am more likely to spend money on a business coaching session, or whatever, rather than stuff for my personal health and wellness or personal issues. There are plenty of personal issues that are kind of on the back burner that I haven’t invested in because it is more important for me, because I see the return on investment, I see the money coming back, whereas if it is just for my general wellbeing, of course that has a ripple effect, that makes everything better, but it is less obvious.

Joanna: That’s terrible, right? And I share your approach to this, I think. For me it is really to spend money on things that are for business, because they are a business expense, it is like it is not coming from the same budget, it is not coming from the same pot, somehow.

Holly: Exactly.

Joanna: It is not coming from the same pot, but at the same time it kind of is {laughing}.

Holly: Yeah, yeah, because it is all related.

Joanna: It is all related. So, there is definitely something about the online bubble and I do tend to question when it is going to burst, like, I see some of the prices that people are charging, and that could be partly my own money stuff, sure, but I kind of have the feeling that I have done so much work on my money stuff, I don’t feel it is my money stuff anymore, it is something more. It is just I don’t see, when somebody told me that their mastermind was £20,000 pounds, my question was: what can you possibly teach that is worth £20,000 that I don’t already know from all these other courses I have purchased?

Holly: And, is that £20,000 going to give you more information about how to run your business? Is it going to be coaching? How is it going to change your life and business?

Joanna: For that price, I couldn’t imagine. Having had this experience of putting all my hopes and dreams on the next thing I buy, I had a really hard time when my mind went to: Oh but, maybe this is it. Because I’m not sure it is dependent on the price, I think that is why we are willing to pay so much more because we tend to think of the things that we buy as that answer, right?

Holly: Exactly, it is the magic bullet that is going to help us fix our problems.

Joanna: It has never worked out that way for me so far.

Holly: No, and when I invest in things, or I buy things from that place, that needy place: I can’t do this on my own, I absolutely need someone else to help me with it. It has generally not been a good investment.

Joanna: Me as well. I have just finished my accounts for 2017 and there were several things that I invested in at the start of the year that I had forgotten, and I looked at it when I had to enter it into my spreadsheet, and I was like: Oh man, I cannot believe that I gave this person this much money!

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: {laughing} And I got nothing out of it.

Holly: That’s the thing I mean I think, is the value there? Because obviously some people do deliver value, some people don’t.

Joanna: That’s the word though, right? It is the value piece that I think we really need to pay attention to, because I am not saying that I don’t have money to spend, so I have the money to spend, and I am willing to spend the money, but not just because spending that money will mean that I have no money blocks. I don’t know, there is that value piece and the example I always come back to isn’t actually a business example, it is the example of buying a house near Dublin. It is going to cost over a million euros, whereas somewhere elsewhere, also nice, will cost €300,000 euros. And I am like: even if I had that money is that worth it for me, to spend that money on that and not on something else, right? So, there is that value conversation that I think we have to be having.

Holly: And for some people, yeah, it is worth it to stretch your budget and live in Dublin because they love the city life, they love that city, they love whatever. But, for other people it will be like: no, I would rather have the extra money, I would rather not stretch myself so tight with the mortgage and have other things.

Joanna: Yeah, and both of those are valid choices. I think we tend to collectively, in the online space, kind of demonise those choices. The mastermind that I was just referring to that I was just referring to that was £20,000 I remember that lady said to me: oh, so you don’t want to go fast, you want to build up slowly?

Holly: Oh, that’s crappy!

Joanna: And I was like: well, I want to do things so that they have foundations. {laughing} I don’t think it is wrong to prefer to have something different, or in a different way, I just think we have lost sight of what’s right for each individual.

Holly: Exactly, because the thing is marketing reinforces the fact that the expensive stuff is worth it, and that if you don’t pay you have got money blocks, or you want to go slowly, you are not willing to skyrocket to fame, so we get it reinforced from all sides.

Joanna: We do, we do, and the [idea that] the only reason for, if people aren’t buying your 5k offering, the only reason that that is the case is that you haven’t explained the value well enough.

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: I have a problem with that, what if people just don’t want to spend 5k?! I don’t always want to spend that either, there are times in my life that I am okay with that, and there are times in my life when I am not okay with that, and it has nothing to do with how they have explained the value to me.

Holly: Or does it? Because I kind of feel like when I think about the people I know I think: I don’t know anybody right now that I trust would give me my return on that kind of investment or would give me that value. So, maybe it is not that they haven’t explained it right, but I am not seeing…

Joanna: Maybe that’s the thing, because all the business advice hinges on how you explain the value, how you show the value, how you convince them or persuade them of the value, maybe I don’t want to be persuaded you know?

Holly: Yeah, I don’t.

Joanna: I tend to buy on intuition, instinct, and I can see when I follow my intuition and not fear that I know that it is the right thing and that I will get the value that I need, but I don’t need them to explain it to me.

Holly: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I see a sales page and I get an instant gut reaction like: ooh this is exciting, I want to learn more, or: oh God that is not for me.

Joanna: What does that depend on, tell me?

Holly: Okay, to me, it is more about me than it is about the sales page. It is where I am, what’s my place of mind, because I am comfortable, I am happy, things are generally going well in my life, and business – so, I am not at the place where I am desperate. Like, going back to making bad investments, I can think of one investment that I made in particular it was £2,495 pounds, a nine-month-programme. A friend of mine had gone through it, it changed her life and business, I had a bunch of talks with her, I was going back and forth, back and forth, but ultimately, I signed up for it because it had worked for my friend, and so I was desperate, and I thought it would work for me. And in the end, I wasn’t doing the right business for myself, I ended up shifting my niche, shifting my business several months later. It wasn’t the right thing for me, it wasn’t the right time for me it was not right for me, but I was desperate and it had worked for someone else so I just wanted it to work for me and it seemed like the easy solution and I was also handing over a little bit of responsibility to that business mentor, because I wanted her to solve my problems, I wanted her to lift me up out of the desperation and hopelessness and worry and stress into that better place and just make it work, to be my magic bullet… and because it was the most money I had spent on something at that time I thought it was going to help and it did not.

Joanna: You see, if you are in that space of desperation, and I know because I have been there too, I don’t think that anything can help, the only thing that you need to do is go back to yourself. I repeat this to my people, over, and over, again: do not buy anything out of fear, are you making this decision out of love, or out of fear? I told somebody just yesterday to not buy my current thing because they were oh-ing and ah-ing over it and I was like: don’t put yourself under financial stress for this, just don’t. This is…at the end of the day this is a workshop and if this is stressing you out just don’t do it. This isn’t a loving thing to do for yourself you are doing this with fear that this is the answer, that you will miss out in some way.

Holly: Yeah and that investment stressed me out, I was so worried about it and I spent, probably 48-hours, going back and forth, back and forth, talked with my friend a couple of times, talked with my husband a bunch of times, and he was so supportive, he was like: if you want think this is the thing that is going to help you, let’s invest in this. He was so fantastic! But I was in such the wrong place. That was before I discovered PSCYH-K, it was before I the mindset work, I didn’t have the tools I needed to get my head in the place to make anything work, so I was taking the action, but it was the wrong energy and it was just ugh!

Joanna: I really don’t think if you are in that energy anything is going to work. If you are listening to this, and you are in a state of desperation, work on that first {laughing} and don’t buy anything — it is just not worth it.

Holly: I am trying to put this into words, it is like, again, what comes up into my mind is that concept of money blocks and how if you are not willing to pay the high-ticket items then it is clearly because you have got a block, or you are not willing to invest in yourself or you are not willing to step up.

Joanna: I really disagree with that. I think that we make choices about our money and those choices have to be right for us.

Holly: Yes, because I have certainly gotten value out of low-ticket things, plenty of value.

Joanna: Maybe we should talk about that, this is an interesting point, this is kind of the thing that is quoted as a reason to charge more money, because when you charge more money people show up in a different way, and if you give it away for free, people don’t get as much value out of it. I even heard someone say, people tend to give friend and family discounts, and I remember someone saying, I can’t remember who this was now, that in fact if you follow this theory we should charge our family and friends more, because we want them to get more value, right?

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: Is that true? Do you get more value stuff out of the stuff that you pay more for?

Holly: Kind of yes and no, because a couple, two or three years ago, I used to get a lot of enquiries through the PSYCH-K website for people who really wanted to work with me, they really needed the help, they had big stuff going on in their lives, but they couldn’t pay…and I wanted to help. So, I decided that once a month I would pick someone if I had time in my calendar, and I would work with someone, not for free, but for very low cost and help them. So, we would agree a price, but often it was really low cost, but not free because I wanted them to invest something, but I made it super affordable. None of those people got the results that my higher-paying-clients were getting. So, I don’t know, I don’t know if that is because they needed more time, whether they were just not coming from the right place, I don’t know but I stopped doing it for that reason because these people were not…it was so frustrating to me, they weren’t taking the action, they weren’t doing the action plan, they weren’t doing the stuff they needed to do outside of the call, and sometimes they weren’t willing to dig deep on the call. So it was just they weren’t getting the results, I wasn’t enjoying the experience because they weren’t getting the results and so I stopped.

Joanna: There is a difference then, we need to make a clear difference in our heads between people who really don’t have the money and people who just don’t pay for your thing, right? You know this, I think it is an Abraham Hicks exercise, or The Secret exercise, where you spend fake money, where you get $1000 every day, and you spend it.

Holly: And it doubles every day.

Joanna: It doubles every day, so you keep having to find new things to spend it on, and you are not allowed to save it. And I remember, I was playing this game and there was this course that I was considering I can’t remember now it was about $1000 or something, and I was considering it and then I was playing this game and I realised that I wouldn’t even use fake money for it. I put it on my list and then I was like: no. That’s my clear answer you know {laughing} if I am not even willing to pay fake money, why would I pay real money?

Holly: {laughing} So, this is interesting, you had this thing on your list, you were interested in it, but you wouldn’t even pay fake money for it, what was going on there

Joanna: I don’t know, I don’t know what it was.

Holly: Because something was attractive about it.

Joanna: Well, it was a weight loss thing, so it was attractive because I thought I would buy it and drop the weight, right? Which is the same as a business course, you think you buy it and then you have consistently high income; and so, it is that same concept of somebody selling you a certain result. But I think I have the money to spend and I still wasn’t valuing a particular thing which probably means that if I had bought it I wouldn’t have done the things that they wanted to do as part of the programme.

Holly: But you said that word again – value – you weren’t valuing the thing.

Joanna: No, I wasn’t, because I think actually there is a distinction. I think sometimes people just don’t have the money, it is wrong to say: you have money blocks, or you are not valuing my thing, or whatever. And then it is possible for us of course to get value out of something for free, plenty of people have built their businesses on free opt-ins, and free sessions, or whatever, before they start making money and they can pay for stuff, right? But then there is also a difference when you are paying 3000, for a business mastermind, but then you get, and somebody offers a channeled reading for 50 and you get that, and you don’t really value it, you had the money to spend but you prefer just to spend 50 because it is not something that you, at your core, value as valuable to you as making a contribution to your success.

Holly: Yeah, however, there is also that argument that people always say is: put it on the credit card, because if you really value yourself and you value your business then you will make that investment, because you trust that you will do the work to get the investment back.

Joanna: I don’t know…after five years in this online game, I am not convinced that it is always possibly to make that money back in that space of time. You know, I have had some really shitty things said to me as well, in the early days I was on a call with someone and she actually said to me: if your son was ill you would find the money.

Holly: Oh my god!

Joanna: I was just like, yeah, you are right, that is really important, and your service is clearly not! {laughing}

Holly: That all comes back to priorities, obviously you are going to prioritise your son’s health over…

Joanna: …anything, anything! I mean that’s really a low blow, right?

Holly: Yeah that’s yucky.

Joanna: But you hear about tactics like that all the time, and it kind of buys into what you were just saying that if you really wanted it, and you wanted to be successful badly enough, you would pay for this. Whereas, I think, and we have talked about this before as well, that we need to take it back to personal responsibility and, instead, say: if you want to be successful badly enough, then you would spend the time on your inner work.

Holly: Yeah exactly, and I think that’s interesting, because I was just thinking of all the things that I have paid for over the years both workshops, and training, and coaching, and mentoring and some of the things that I paid for with cash and some of the things I put on a credit card. And I put a lot of my coaching training on a credit card and I put a lot of my PSYCH-K® training on a credit card and both of those things were absolutely worth it. They were worth putting on a card, worth not paying the card off in time and paying interest on it, because those are skills that I use in my life, in my business and they are priceless. So, that kind of thing, I absolutely would go back and do it again. A lot of the coaching and mentoring that I invested in, that I sometimes put on a card, not so much.

Joanna: So, what was the difference? Was it just the desperation energy piece?

Holly: Yes, so I think it is not only the desperation energy piece for making some of the wrong decisions for some of the coaching and mentoring I did, but also with the PSYCH-K® training for example, yes, I used it in my business, but I also used it with myself every single day in the beginning, and transformed my own mindset, and transformed my own life so that’s a skill that I am never going to lose, that I use to help myself. So, it is not something that was just useful during the five weeks of the coaching programme, or the nine months of the mentoring programme, whatever, it is something that I use, and I have got it forever, not just for my business but for myself and I use it to change my own life and business. So, to me, that has so much more value than coaching program — but those are things that I have used, so I use the coaching, I use the PSYCH-K®, I have trained in other things that I don’t ever use like NLP.

Joanna: Which brings it back that it has to be right for the individual…one of my best ever investments I put on a credit card at a time where I had no money and I had no idea where money would come from or if money would come in the next few months. That was a risk, but it turned out to be one of the best investments I had ever made, and that was on a coaching package, you know, there were some skills that I learned from the end of the day it was a coaching thing, and I think you just have to bring it back to what’s right for the individual, and that’s why it is so important to do your own mindset stuff, and to do the soul stuff, intuition stuff, to be in your power. We can approach it logically as well as intuitively, a lot of the stuff I buy is based on intuition, a lot of the clients I get they hire me based on an intuitive hit, they are not really sure where it is going to lead them, but they know that it is the right thing.

Holly: And I don’t want to work with people who are in that desperate space, I have turned a lot of people away from discovery calls because I thought that – not necessarily that they were desperate – but I wasn’t who they needed at that time. Could they have benefited from mindset work? Of course, you can always benefit from doing the mindset work! But that wasn’t the highest priority for them, and I could see that, they needed practically coaching.

Joanna: So, let’s bring it back to the money. Are we charging too much for our services? Because we have both talked about bringing our prices down…

Holly: Yeah, I thought about it, but then I thought: I do value my one-to-one time, and I do offer a lot of things free, a lot of things for low-cost, my books are very inexpensive, and I do think they are helpful — obviously otherwise I wouldn’t write them, because writing a book isn’t like: boom! {laughing} But, I am not willing to do the one-to-one work for less.

Joanna: The same conclusion that I came to.

Holly: I would like to make it more affordable, but I don’t want to work for less. So, what I did do, was last week, when I sent out the newsletter, I set up 10 coupon codes in my Acuity to charge a lot less for a single session. So, I usually charge £249 for a single 90-minute-session, I put out 10 coupon codes for £100 pounds, to make it more accessible. And, there we go, people have signed up for that, and I am realising that a lot of these people were, actually they were all returning clients, so it is people who have worked with me, they know the value of working with me, they want more help of the same kind, but maybe they don’t have it in their budget I am assuming.

Joanna: Maybe it is a nice thing to do once in a while.

Holly: Yeah, exactly, I think that’s the thing. I think once in a while I am going to offer it, not the super-cheap thing that I used to offer to people who were in a bad place, something that’s a lot less expensive, but does represent an investment, something that I am happy to deliver for, and there you go. A couple of months ago I offered a pay-what-you-can, I offered three pay-what-you-can sessions on these two specific days, because I had time in my calendar and I thought let’s make this space available to three people and one of the people signed up said: I really want to pay you more, but I have just paid you everything I have in my PayPal account because I really want to work with you and that’s all I’ve got, I hope it is enough. And I was like: that’s absolutely fine, it is pay what you can, and I said I won’t be offended, that’s perfect. She had some extra money in her PayPal account and she put it towards that, because she knew what she wanted. So, I like making it more accessible to people every once in a while, but I am not willing to lower my prices, because I do think that one-to-one work is VIP work, because it is just the two of us going really deep.

Joanna: I think, we talked about this as well, it goes back to really feeling what’s right for you as the business owner and I, as I have talked about many times, I don’t want to run a business that has this kind of coaching model. So, I don’t want to, every day, have a bunch of one-to-one sessions, which is why I run my membership group the soul space, which is why I run my workshops, which I do readings or remote PSYCH-K sessions so that I can organise my time in a different way. And so, because I prefer to run my business in this way, the one-to-one work that I do is VIP, and in fact when you were talking it reminded me that the reason I priced my three-month VIP package maybe higher than I would have logically is because I wanted to be able to give everything. So, I don’t want to ever feel resentful, I don’t want to ever feel that. I want to have a price, a package, where I can be like: oh yeah, I will throw in this extra thing, oh yeah, we can do this. I can do this extra thing for you. …and that feels really, really good for me.

Holly: Yeah, and I think that’s the value of doing the one-to-one work with someone that you know, like and trust will deliver the value that you are looking for and the thing that you need.

Joanna: Because for me it is a VIP thing, I only have two or three at a time, and that works for me and that means that I can make the rest of my stuff more affordable. So, I think that the conclusion that I have come to is that you really need to have different price points.

Holly: Yeah, I agree. And I have got the very low, and I have got the free, and I have got the high, but I don’t have anything mid-way right now, and that’s I think what I want to look at putting more of that together.

Joanna: That’s what I am working on at the moment, so that the stuff that I am offering right now is in that mid-range; because I also identified that gap. I might have the low and the high, but nothing in the middle and I think most people are there in the middle.

Holly: Yeah, I think so, but it is interesting because I, and again this comes back to offering what your audience wants and needs and not necessarily what you would pay for, because I don’t often do group programs, I don’t like them as much. I really like doing one-to-one work, so if I am putting money out there, I am usually buying one-to-one sessions, not group stuff. So, I need to pull myself out of that mindset and say: I don’t like doing the group stuff, but other people do, and other people will pay for it, and other people like it, want it, need it.

Joanna: I would challenge you even more: what would you make you want to buy a group thing?

Holly: Value.

Joanna: What would make a group thing super-cool? I am actually part of some really great group programs, where I am getting loads of value and there is lots of great content and I am really, really, happy. I don’t think I would need any one-to-one sessions with the people who are running those programs.

Holly: Okay, that’s an excellent point and it brings me back to value. I feel like I haven’t got an amazing value, or an amazing experience out of any of the group things that I have done. They have ranged from either crappy to okay, but I haven’t had any group experience that I can think of, unless I am forgetting something where I am like: oh my God, that was so amazing, it was so worth it, I can’t wait to do the next thing, because it was just so great. I haven’t had that feeling that I can remember about anything.

Joanna: Yeah and I think something to explore then is it to see why and what you would have liked instead, or if you could design the best group experience ever what would that look like, you know? I think there is value for group stuff, and I mean people are running masterminds all over the place and they are saying it is the best thing, that’s just an excuse for them to sell a group thing and not a one-to-one thing. I have experienced that as well and that’s kind of not the point, you have to really put some effort in to making your mastermind the best mastermind ever, that is actually valuable to the members so there is value being in a group.

Holly: And that’s the thing, rather than just selling a bunch of individuals this group thing, really making it into a group thing, and pulling on the strengths of working in a group with other people and creating that community and creating that support from other people in the group, not just you.

Joanna: That’s what our next podcast should be about, community, because that’s something that I have been really thinking about, how to foster, nurture, create, community in mind space, but that’s an aside.

Holly: Yes, I will make note of that for next time! So, have we reached any conclusions, are we charging too much for our services? What do we need to do? What’s the solution?

Joanna: I think we bring it back to the individual, because even when we say: that we don’t want to work with people who only show up if they pay millions of dollars, and they don’t show up for anything smaller, even if we say all these things, there are people who will show up for stuff that they have paid more for, for whatever reason — and that’s also their prerogative. So, I really think the answer to our question is a very unsatisfying: it depends.

Holly: Yeah, it depends on you, it depends on what you are thinking about buying, but I think more than anything it depends on you, it depends on what’s your mind space, what do you need? What do you want? How do you function best? If you are the kind of person who needs to buy a high-ticket item so that you do the work, then do it, because that’s what works for you.

Joanna: And really be aware of what you need from that investment, right? Because some people don’t need the one-to-one support, some people will pay a lot of money for a program that doesn’t offer any one-to-one support but offers other things. So, be very aware, I know what I need, and I know what I am willing to pay for and it took a few years of really paying attention to when I felt that I didn’t get what I wanted out of the thing. Basically, it was an expensive trial and error process.

Holly: Exactly, I think that is really useful as long as you are willing to take that time and say: okay, I regret this investment, but why was it not the right thing for me? Because, then you can use it as a learning experience. So, maybe you didn’t learn the thing that you thought you were going to learn but you learned something else that will help you make better investments in the future. And you learn about what it is that you want and need and how you work best.

Joanna: Indeed, so it is always: bring it back to yourself, always bring it back to the value and just ask yourself these questions that we are talking about today, like when you are considering own pricing structure, ask yourself these questions. There is no judgment if you decide to charge €2000 an hour, that’s totally fine, if that’s what works for you then great, but know that you are doing that from a space of empowerment and not because you have a coach who is teaching you how to charge more. I think that’s really, really, important because I think there is a bubble of all of us…

Holly: charging more and more and more and more. It is like this upward spiral…

Joanna: More and more and more and then selling just to each other or people coming in at the bottom just setting up businesses and they are coming into this world like we did at one point, seeing all these different prices or whatever. So, I think you should just be very kind of aware and ask the questions and make sure that you are comfortable with what you are charging. There is no shame in charging less, also. There is no shame in charging lots, but there is also no shame with charging less.

Holly: But, again, a lot of us will wrap up our value in our pricing. So, if I am charging less does that mean that I am worth less, that not only do I not value myself, but does that mean that I am not as good as someone who is charging more? Obviously not, but a lot of times that emotional stuff can get in the way, because we automatically think that the people who are charging more are better.

Joanna: Okay, well, if you are thinking that then go see Holly. I don’t think I believe that. My whole thing is that I want the soulsmart message to reach the masses and I am very aware that I will not reach the masses by charging €10k per package.

Holly: Or by only doing one-to-one sessions.

Joanna: Yeah, indeed. So, I had to rethink that and, really, I want to be paying attention to the people who are drawn to me and I will not discount below a level that I am comfortable with and that supports me, right? But I think that was a point in my business where I had to be really thinking: where am I going with this? Am I taking on this model of doing the VIP stuff and going higher and higher? Or, is my path different and for me the path was different.

Holly: Yeah, and I think that helps to go back and look at other business owners who are doing well, and who are using different business models, and seeing what business model you want to follow. Plan the structure of your business based on what your long-term goals are, do you want to work with a small number of people for a lot of money? Do you want to work with a ton of people, so you can get your message out there? Or something in between?

Joanna: Something in between, and I think it is really, really, fun to go look at what other people are offering and what packages they have and how they work with people, especially now, when the online space is really changing. We are starting to see some real innovation in how people are setting things up. I have seen some really interesting things in the past six months, where I was like: oh, I haven’t seen that before. So, there is innovation happening and I think it is just useful when you like someone, you see a livestream, when you read a blog post, just check out their ‘work with me’ page and see what they are doing.

Holly: yeah, and how they charge.

Joanna: And how much they charge. I can already tell you that I do that, and I do that to everybody where some content has resonated with me in some way, I go and check them out. I already started to, I didn’t realise that I was doing this until this second, but I already started to put people in the kind of ‘old’ business model, and ‘interesting’ buckets. For example, if I go to your work with me page and you don’t have prices, it is immediately the old business model, and it is of no interest to me.

Holly: Me neither, I click away, I do not like that. Do not make me contact you to see how much you charge, because I am not going to do it, because maybe I am not ready to work with you and I don’t want to just disappear.

Joanna: It is just a really interesting exercise to go look at people’s: ‘work with me’ pages. Not mine because mine is really outdated. {laughing}

Holly: {laughing} Do as I say, not as I do.

Joanna: Maybe by the time this goes live! {laughing} Okay, I am going to commit, by the time this goes live you can have a look at mine.

Holly: You are allowed. All right. So, I feel that we have done a pretty good job of exploring this topic.

Joanna: Not of answering the question…

Holly: No, we have, we have, as you said people like really nice neat packaged answers, but the answer often is: whatever is right for you and get in touch with yourself and get in touch with your intuition and be self-aware and pay attention to that gut feeling.

Joanna: Yep, that’s always the best message right.

Holly: Get your head out of the way and pay attention to what your gut is saying, or your heart, or whatever you call it.

Joanna: Stop listening to whatever everybody else is saying and doing because that is not necessarily the way forward, right?

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: It is always a number of innovators who are thinking about the next steps, the online space will not look like this forever, things always change so just pay attention to where you are being steered towards.

Holly: All right I think that’s it. So, if anyone has any questions, comments, do you disagree with us? Do you agree with us? Get in touch. Joanna’s email is:

Joanna: [email protected]

Holly: And I am [email protected] check out our ‘work with me’ pages, check out our pricing and let us know what you think, we are open to and very much interested in hearing your feedback. So, thank you very much for joining us.

Joanna: Bye!

Holly: Bye!

Holly: And thank you very much for listening, I hope you find that interesting and useful. Please drop me a line and let me know what you thought about this week’s episode. You can email me at: [email protected] or you can find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and get in touch. I would also love to hear from you in my private Facebook group: Business Mindset Alchemists, so we can continue the conversation there. We have just been talking at you for the last hour, I think, so I would love to hear from you what you feel about this topic. How do you feel about your prices? How do you feel about prices in general? How do you feel about online prices? What are your thoughts on prices? So, if you head over to https://www.hollyworton.com/group you will be redirected to the Facebook group. And finally, just a reminder if you want to listen to the episode that I did on Elzie’s podcast that’s https://www.hollyworton.com/Elzie.

Thank you so much for listening, if you enjoyed this episode please leave a quick review on Apple podcasts it would mean the world to me.

Next week

Next week’s episode is another solo episode with myself and I don’t have a topic yet, so I am open to topics. I have a list of topics and things that I want to talk about, but I love talking about things that I know you want me to talk about. So, drop me a line either in the Facebook group, online, email whatever, if you have a topic in mind, please send it to me I love speaking on topics that I know people are curious about.

So, remember to visit hollyworton.com/257 for the show notes on this episode.

Thank you.

Thanks again for listening and remember to visit hollyworton.com/2xxfor the show notes on this episode. Thank you.