EP 137: Reclaiming Your Worth & Breaking Free From the "Too Cheap" Trap
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[00:00:00] Are you a soul centered entrepreneur ready to step into your power and create a life and business you love? Welcome to the Alive and Thriving podcast, where host Jessica and industry experts explore how your inner world fuels your outer success. Let's dive in and ignite the embodied leader you were meant to be.
Is there such a thing as being too cheap? I used to believe that lowering my prices would attract more clients, but the truth, it actually only attracted more self doubt and affirmed for me, the beliefs that I had within myself that were telling me that I didn't fully believe in my ability to charge what I was truly valued at.
Now, if you have been undercharging because you're scared the market won't pay your worth, it is time. For a shift, your inner world reflects your business and [00:01:00] undercharging often reveals deeper fears. So if you are ready to claim your value, then I'm going to ask you these questions. I want you to, to really reflect on yourself and where you are at right now and join me for this episode.
Are you constantly questioning your pricing because you fear rejection or scarcity? Are you scared to raise your prices because you've convinced yourself that no one will pay it? Do you feel like lowering your prices is the only way to actually bring clients in? And maybe you have some evidence of that.
I'm going to talk about that a bit later, but I want you to actually look at the people that you're working with. And how empowered they are to do the work that you need them to do to get the results that you can help them get. So what if the real issue here isn't actually the price that you're charging?
What if the real issue is what is beneath your, in your world, beneath the surface for you [00:02:00] that is telling you that you need to lower your prices? Hmm. Let's get into that. Welcome to another episode of Alive and Thriving. I am really excited to dive into today's topic. I'm so sure it is one that so many of you are going to relate to, you know, feeling like you have to price yourself lower to get clients or that the economy is holding you back.
I have been there. I want you to know that I have walked this path. It is how I started my business. It is the money minds that I came into my business with. And we're going to talk about that today. The what if the real barrier. Isn't your pricing at all? What if it actually is about what is happening for you internally?
So let's shift this narrative today. Let's uncover how aligning your inner world can actually help you to step into your full worth and raise your prices and attract clients who see and appreciate your value [00:03:00] because there is Is I truly do believe as someone who has shifted my mindset and continually working on strengthening my relationship with money, I do believe that there is something called too cheap.
Okay, so if we haven't met yet, hello, welcome. My name is Jessica. I am an alternative therapist, a holistic business mentor, aft practitioner. I specialize and clinical hypnotherapist too, if we want to go down that pathway. Um, and I specialize in helping female founders, entrepreneurs, coaches, healers, just like you.
Master their emotions, rewire their mindset and build sustainable, scalable businesses that are aligned with their values. I guide impact driven women to embody their unique version of success by integrating energy, strategy and emotional resilience for deep, lasting growth. So welcome if you are new here and if you are returning, welcome [00:04:00] back.
Please make sure you share this episode. With a entrepreneur friend, your business bestie, who can benefit from hearing these takeaways today, who do you know that needs to raise their prices? I literally got off a mastermind call the other day, and it was a hot seat call, and the last thing I said to my very last person who were hot seating, I was like, and before you go, go raise your prices.
I'm sure you know someone who, who needs to do this as well. So why do we, I want, well, I want you to think about for yourself. Why is it that when things aren't working the way that you want them to work, maybe your calendar is not full. Maybe your program is not selling. Why is one of the first instincts that so many of us have to go, I must be too expensive.
Okay. This is real indication that there is money mindset work to do within [00:05:00] you. I want to give you an example of something around the word expensive. It is a word that I have done my best to eliminate from my vocabulary. And that's not because there are things that are out of my price range at the moment.
That's not true. But for me to be perceiving things as too expensive is me saying that I don't value those things. Because when I have a tap, what I have attached to the meaning expensive is that it's something that is, is out of my reach. It's too hard. It's too much. And I don't value it enough to find a way.
Now I had a conversation with someone yesterday and they were talking about a certain treatment for their child. And she said, it's too expensive. Now this could be permanent lasting results for this particular thing. And I said, okay, that's going to come down to your value. And what you have deemed to be expensive.
It is a large out of some pocket right now with a lifetime [00:06:00] value that I couldn't even put a price on. So let's eliminate that word expensive from the vocabulary right now, because you, my friend, are not too expensive. I work with mentors who charge from between 800 a month to 4, 000 a month. Literally, there, there is such a gap in terms of what people are pricing based on what they can, what they believe they're worth, what they, what are transformations, they can facilitate what evidence they have of this, how much in their authority they are.
There is so many different and I don't view the 4, 000 a month when it's too expensive and, and the thing is, is that when you are looking at your prices and you are looking at your current calendar or your new program and you offer and you're thinking, okay, no one's buying. My [00:07:00] first question to you is what are you making this mean?
Instead of asking yourself, why aren't clients coming? Ask, what am I making this mean about me? Because we'll go to things like, okay, well, I must be too expensive. I must like, we'll just go for those default behaviors and default patterns. But if you are lowering your prices, if you're going, oh, okay, no one's buying from me, no one's working with me, so I better lower my prices, then you are likely doing this out of something like fear, or imposter syndrome, or a scarcity belief.
So my question for you is, what belief are you reinforcing by taking that action of lowering your prices? Maybe it's the belief that you're not good enough or that people won't pay for what you offer. Here's the truth. Your inner world is a direct reflection of your business. So I want you to use this as an opportunity to ask yourself, what am I making this mean about me?
This, this pull that I have to lower my prices as the solution. [00:08:00] What am I making this mean about me? Because I can tell you as someone who has operated from a very scarce money mindset, who came into my business, this particular business, charging 50 a session, scared to charge any more than that, and still letting people negotiate me down, um, go on to payment plans, all sorts of things for that pricing.
I can tell you that a part of that was my money mindset. And another part of that was me doubting whether or not I could really make transformation and me having absolutely no attachment and no clue about what my time, my energy and my transformation was worth. Now, In a job like mine, in a role like mine, I can't really put like a monetary value on someone's transformation.
It's not you're going to come in here and you're going to make X amount of money. It's not that because what kind of monetary value can potentially happen for [00:09:00] anybody, um, you know, if they suddenly, you know, We're comfortable being visible if they were comfortable raising their prices if they had beliefs that actually allowed their business to create financial freedom for their family and then they were able to homeschool their kids and travel the world if they were able to overcome their anxiety, um, you know, that is crippling their business that actually go and speak on stages and do the things that they want to do.
I can't put a monetary value on any of that because only my client gets to choose what is, what that is worth to them. And we are going to talk about in a moment, as I said, things being too cheap because the client who values that kind of transformation, the client who knows that, that, that, that lifelong permanent lasting change.
That is going to literally give them this whole new internal programming and this, this whole new perception and this new [00:10:00] way of doing things that is going to give them a completely different result to what they've done in the past because they are different. The client who understands that value is going to pay what I'm charging.
So I have also had to really learn the value of my energy and my time. My energy and my time cannot be split into too many multiple places. That is not how people get the best of me. And you can't run a business of 50 an hour or 50 a session. I never stuck to an hour. It was a session. So I want you to again, ask yourself, what are you making this mean about you?
If your instinct right now is to go and lower your prices, let's stop and pause first. Okay. Before we look at strategy, which we'll talk about soon as well, I want you to come back. First of all, what am I making this mean about me? What is it within me that is actually mirroring the fact that no one is buying?
And is it because I actually don't even have conviction with my own offer is because I'm not even clear on how I help people. [00:11:00] Maybe you haven't done that foundational work, or you need to go back to that foundational work if you've recently upleveled and you're speaking to a new client, or you have, you have upleveled in your energy, if you are unclear on what you do and how you help people and how you transform people's lives.
Then you are not going to speak about your offers with conviction, and this is going to show energetically. So it's not going to be your prices, it's going to be something that is actually going on within you. If your nervous system does not feel safe with the level of visibility or impact or income that you desire, you will self sabotage.
So this is going beyond strategy. This is what are you actually calling in when you are setting your prices too low? Oh, let me know if that hits home. If you're watching on YouTube, let me know in the comments, if you are watching on. A listening through podcast, come and share on Instagram with me. If that hits home for you, there is a lot I think to [00:12:00] unpack and we're not going to go too deep into it now.
But a really common thing that I hear a lot at the moment is around that fear in the current climate. Now, I know that there is a lot of reality around things needing to change in the way that we spend. But with all of the fears circling around the economy, it is really tempting just to lower your prices just to make a sale.
But the thing is, and I really want you to hear this, people are still spending money. People are. People are still investing in themselves, especially in businesses that they believe that they can help them. So before you let all of the talk about how bad the cost of living is and how badly people are struggling.
I want you to know that people will find a way for something that they truly need and value. They will find a way. I know people who've [00:13:00] gotten loans to work with business mentors because they know that that's how they grow their business. It is not, I'm not suggesting you go put yourself into debt, but I am just saying that if that narrative is there for you.
If that narrative is, I need to lower my prices because of the economy, because of the cost of living crisis, please know that people are still spending and it's not about lowering your prices. It's actually about you asking yourself, how do I become a must have for my ideal client instead of a nice to have and, and if you need to pivot.
If you need to pivot in your offering, if your ideal client that you are selling to is someone who is very impacted by the current economic climate. Can you actually pivot your offering to serve them or are they still your ideal client? So [00:14:00] how, how do we do this? How do we communicate that I am a must have, not a nice to have.
And that again, is you coming back to your inner world. Your values, your vision, your mission, your understanding of how you create transformation and clearly communicating your unique value and positioning yourself as the solution to your ideal client specific problem. Okay, you have to show them. You have to show them why they need you now more than ever.
So don't allow this fear based conversation to plant. If it is planting a belief inside of you that is allowing you to go, Oh, okay. Yep. I, I, my business is going to struggle because other businesses are struggling. My business is going to struggle because other, you know, other, um, that's what the climate's doing.
I have a really, I have a really good friend [00:15:00] who I'm in a mastermind with and they have a e com business and they are watching these other e com businesses, blaming the economy, the fact that their business is struggling while they are having their biggest months yet. Okay, that's not to say that the other businesses are doing something wrong.
I don't know exactly what they are doing different. But imagine if they allowed that same narrative. To say, oh, well, we're not going to have our 50, 000 months because everybody else seems to be struggling around us and that's what they're talking about on social media and that's what they're feeling and they're feeling the stress of it and that's what their lens of perception is allowing them to see.
Imagine if they did that, they would not be having these milestone months over and over again. So I want you to get really just aware for yourself, because if those beliefs are coming in, you have a button, you have a button inside of you that is ready to be [00:16:00] pressed around fear of money. So let's deal with that.
So I actually think, as I said at the beginning, that you can be too, I think it could be dangerous. To undercharge yourself underpricing does not just undervalue your service. It also undermines your credibility. And I've been there when I priced too low, there were people coming on to discovery calls with me who did not.
Take me seriously, there were people who came into my world who absolutely drained my energy, completely drained my energy and there were people who were coming in who didn't value their transformation enough. It was just, this is another thing they were trying another way, you know, to try and do something different to try and have a different result, but they [00:17:00] didn't truly value what was possible for them, so they weren't fully committed.
I will never, ever forget my interview for the mastermind that I am in when I said how much I was charging for my services and my mentors said straight away, I don't care how good you are, I would never hire you. And that is because she knows that the value of overcoming at that point, I was working more with with stress management and anxiety healing and and trauma recovery.
And she said, I know the value. Of being able to live my life anxiety free. I know that value. I've done that work. And so I'm going to wonder if you're charging 50 an hour, I'm going to wonder what's wrong with you. That never left me clearly. Your pricing should reflect your value. It should reflect your expertise [00:18:00] and.
The results that you deliver and yes, you can gradually increase it. You know, it doesn't have to start right at this top tier. But the thing is, is that when you undercharge, I truly believe you are sending the message that your work isn't worth much. And that's not the message that's not the message that you want to be sending.
And trust me, that's what your audience is going to receive. If you don't value yourself. And as I said, even with my time, my pricing, my, my private containers, my private containers have a lot of personalized support. You get me in Voxer. You get me multiple times a month. Sorry, not the Voxer Slack. You get my eyes.
On all of these assets in your business, I take my time to actually carve out of my day to sit to review landing pages, to work on offer copy with people and to help them to get through [00:19:00] beliefs. We are back and forth thing in Slack and it is the same in my mastermind. I cannot charge per hour because my energy in between our zoom session together is worth so much more than that.
And so again, If I didn't actually value my time, then my prices would look very, very different. And I would be working with people who had. expectations of me that also didn't value my time. And, and that was lessons that I had to learn. I had to learn that I had to learn that by not holding boundaries. I had to learn that by showing up and over delivering and thinking, Oh yeah, I'll do all of this support in the in between.
But I wasn't even charging for it. It was just, I was doing what I thought everybody else, you know, was doing as well. Oh, and, and I'm not saying don't over deliver, but I was over [00:20:00] delivering with no value for my time. And what happens when you do that is you start to become resentful and you don't want to be resentful of the work that you love or the clients that you love to support.
So you need to look at your, what you truly value. And I do value my time. My time is important. And if I'm going to choose to give that time to someone. And give all of my focused energy and all of my 17 years of combined business and entrepreneur experience and all of my, my learnings from my hundreds of thousands of dollars of, of learning that I have done.
You know, if I'm going to funnel that into someone, then I want to know that they are going to pay a price that feels like a mutual energetic exchange. For that amount of time and that amount of knowledge and that amount of, um, depth in [00:21:00] terms of support. So I want you to think about that for yourself too.
Are you too cheap? Are you too cheap? And if, and if you feel like you are, or if you're scared, you know you've got to raise your prices and you're scared too, or you've got the imposter syndrome coming in, then I just really quickly want to drop in. That my embodied entrepreneur 12 month program is the ultimate personal growth and healing experience for you to cultivate that internal dialogue that is actually going to support you.
In raising your prices, in believing in yourself, in, in stepping into your authority within your business, in creating a nervous system that feels safe to hold what you want to call in and being the woman who believes that you can and takes aligned action with that. So embodied entrepreneur is a 12 month integration program that you can actually jump into right now.
I will make sure it is linked in the show notes. If you would [00:22:00] like a little taste test rather than jumping into the whole program, becoming limitless. Is a one off experience that you can access straight away. It includes a 30 minute bonus call with me and we will break through. One belief. Okay, one focus, one belief.
So there are 2 options right there. If you are feeling like you are stuck in your pricing and you know that it is your inner world that is stopping you or I'm starting to make you realize that it might be your inner world that is stopping you and that actually it's not the economy and actually you're not too expensive.
Um, you know. That there are 2 options right there. If you are an action taker, you can take that action right now, and I cannot wait to meet you because I love action takers. So the next thing that I do want to just touch on before we finish up this conversation today is, you know, that more strategic side as we look at aligning our pricing.
With our ideal [00:23:00] client. Now, sometimes when we first and this again, this comes back to number 1, like, what am I making this mean about me? Because if you don't have a calendar full of clients or your programs are not selling out, we're looking inward. What is going on with me? What beliefs? I literally had a conversation with someone this morning.
Morning, a past peer of mine. Uh, I am going into her VIP program to talk about resilience and to talk about the challenges of entrepreneurship and, and how that is so real, um, you know, and, and how, how we get ourselves back up once we get knocked down and build that internal resilience. And she was saying to me this morning that she's just been through something similar this year, you know, she consciously believed that this program was going to bring in these results.
And then when it didn't, instead of looking to blame all of the externals, she went internal first and realized that there was still an imposter in [00:24:00] there that was coming up and sabotaging her. She didn't have the energetic capacity to actually hold what she wanted to bring in. So that's that 1st piece is if you are going to drop your prices as your natural go to.
I'm not full. Then we want to look at what, why, why within you do you believe that you need to do that? But then we also want to start looking as well at. Okay, well, maybe. Maybe there is a gap in your strategy to maybe that strategy is actually something that you think you should be doing rather than something that is aligned with your strengths that is aligned with your ideal client.
Maybe you're on platforms that that don't, you know, allow you to be seen and heard in the most authentic way, and maybe you have also aligned your pricing with an ideal client who actually can't pay it. Okay, so, um, [00:25:00] you know, when you think about aligning your pricing with your clients, you think about who you truly, truly want to work with.
And this is just going to be a very, a very blanket example. Um, if you were to price your high ticket premium, you know, 30, 000 offer. Huh? To a brand new, still working their full time job person who's just shifting from that hobbyist mindset. They may not be your ideal client. They may not have the funds to be able to pay that investment.
They might, like I said, this is, this is no judgment if you do, um, this is just a really sort of black and white example. But if you're, so are they actually your ideal client? If you have this hype, you know, this premium offer at this pricing, but you are, you know, pitching the uni student, for [00:26:00] example, the uni student who's who's working part time.
He's also studying, but you, you have this premium offer. Are they still your ideal client? And so we want to make sure that our offer. And our services and our ideal client also match. Okay, if you are pitching to somebody an offer, but you already know that that ideal client has the victim mentality of I can't afford it.
Are they really your ideal client for that offer? I had to make a really big decision at some point when I broke away from just offering traditional sort of complimentary therapies. There was a part of me for a really long time, particularly when I didn't fully understand my value and the value of my transformation that I Have the potential to offer.
There was a part of me for a really, really long time that [00:27:00] when I was charging that sort of 50 an hour, I felt like I had to convince people. I was speaking to the audience, the people who were in so much pain. Then I felt like I also had to convince them that my services were needed. I had to educate them that I even, that they even existed.
And then I made a shift one day. I shifted to speak to the part of that person who is already empowered enough to know that they want an alternative solution. Who already knows, maybe they don't know exactly what AFD is, or maybe they don't know exactly how hypnotherapy works or. Or body psychotherapy or anything else that I work with.
Maybe they don't know exactly how that works, but they already know that they're looking for something different. I didn't have to do that. Convincing that convincing. That was partly me trying to prove something to myself. And that was coming through by me going on. I'm going to speak to this audience.
[00:28:00] Anytime that I now feel like I have to prove something to myself. I realized that I am speaking to the disempowered part of my ideal client. And that is not the part of my ideal client who is going to go. Yes, I see the value in that. I see the energetic exchange. in, in me paying for that time and that, and that transformation and that knowledge and that skillset and to be in her energy.
So I want you to align, look at, are you actually aligning your pricing? And if you come into our mastermind, we can help you do this together. If we work privately together, we can do that as well. But are you actually aligning your offers with your ideal clients? You know, not the bargain hunter, not the person who wants to grab your calls only because it's 90 percent off.
The person who actually values their transformation. The person who is ready to invest in themselves, because I promise you, go and find some evidence despite the [00:29:00] economy, I promise you there are still people doing that. I promise most of my masterminders who came in in October last year have renewed for next year, because they see the value in investing in themselves.
I, myself, reinvesting in myself, the 30 odd people in the mastermind that I'm in reinvesting in themselves. There are people you need to find the evidence. You need to find the evidence, particularly if you are starting to believe that it's not happening, because that's what you're seeing around you. Or maybe that's what you're also starting to experience.
Yes. Find the evidence that people are still buying. They prioritizing differently. Yes. Being more discerning. Yes. And that's why I said earlier, you need to become a must have. Not a nice to have a must have. So when you're pricing reflects that value, you are going to attract clients who resonate with your energy and who are actually serious [00:30:00] about growth.
Oh, I would love to know what message landed from this episode. Want you to consider what really, truly is the transformation that your ideal client desires and what impact is that going to have on their life, on their family. On, on their jobs or their business, on their health, their emotional state. What what outcome is that going to give them I get really deep and clear on that and how do you guide them through that?
And again, if you are unsure, you know how to step into your authority How to understand your unique energy that you bring into your business and you know that That you need to back yourself more and really cultivate that internal resource that is going to help you to feel safe in [00:31:00] holding your next level of successful, scalable, and sustainable business that embodied entrepreneur is the program for you.
So you can check out how to work with me either privately or an embodied entrepreneur, uh, which is all personal, personal growth and healing focused or in the mastermind because we do have some spaces available right now, uh, which is personal evolution. So healing growth, um, and. Strengths led strategy.
You're supported by myself, my beautiful business strategist, co coach, as well as our human design mentor, who joins us in that container too, as well as all of the other beautiful ladies who are in there. So there are three ways that you can continue forward with me. If you are the action taker who knows that you are ready to invest in yourself.
So price yourself in alignment with the value that you deliver. Own that, have conviction in [00:32:00] your offers, have conviction in what you do and watch how your client base shifts. So I hope what you've taken away today, overcome is that overcoming that too cheap mindset isn't just about, you know, slapping a higher price tag on your offer, but it's actually about shifting your internal beliefs.
By questioning the meaning behind your pricing fears by addressing the false narrative about the climate around you that you are starting to believe and make decisions on by pricing offers based on your internal money beliefs. You are, you are not going to be attracting the right clients. If you're doing that, when you align your pricing with the clients who you are serving, then you can finally step into that thriving business.
And you will see there will be a huge shift. So [00:33:00] I look forward to hearing in my DMs as always come over and say hello. I love to chat hearing your biggest takeaway from today. What action you will be taking, and if you would like to come and ask or have a conversation about one of the three ways forward with me, then please do.
It is really important to me that you make a informed decision that feels like a full body yes, that feels stretchy and expansive and exciting all at once, even if it is a little nerve wracking. for listening. But you'll know in your God, if you are ready to step into your next level, and I would absolutely love to support you to do that.
So don't go and drop your prices. If you are not fully booked, go and turn inward and let's really see what's going on. So you can make permanent, lasting change and really feel that energetic exchange shift in your [00:34:00] business.
That's a wrap on today's episode. Feeling inspired to explore your inner world and reach your full potential? We'd love to hear from you. Subscribe for more, leave a review and share your takeaways on Instagram at jessica. reid. ilc. Until next time, keep thriving!
