038: Money Mindset Secrets For New Coaches

What is it about money mindset that seems to be the hot topic when it comes to coaching and building a new business? Nearly every entrepreneur I talk to has, at some point, had to deal with the concept that we just don't value ourselves enough to make loads of money – and yet that's why we're in this game. That's why we want to build a business. Yes, we want to make impact, but the majority of us also want to make a great income. I know that I personally have great ideas about abundance and wealth and how important it is to make a great success of my business in financial terms, as well as feeling lit up, making a great impact and changing lives.

So, what is the deal about money mindset? Is it really a thing? How much do we need to worry about it? Let's dive in.

Hi this is Action Taker Tribe and I'm your host, Jo Ingram. Today I'm talking about money mindset. What does money mindset mean to you? What is it that you feel you're coming up against as a new entrepreneur or as a new coach that makes you think, ‘if only I could sort out my money mindset?’ Well, for me, it was a couple of things.

First of all, it's this idea that you have to ask people to pay you for your services. There's something so incredibly icky about this aspect of running a business - where you actually have to say to someone, look, my services are this, and this is what it costs. You'll need to pay me for my services. Actually, in this business where we are taught and encouraged to give all of our value away for free, there's often a discrepancy between the thoughts about charging and what I give and how I can earn and all the things in between.

Is that something that you've come up against? Have you've also been wondering how much do I give for free, where do I draw the line and what exactly do I charge for?

I do truly believe in giving a great deal of value for free, and you should have platforms where you do that naturally. This podcast is one of mine, where I love giving value for free and talking about topics that some people pay me to discuss, and many others are delighted to get the value for free. However, getting to a place where you are comfortable to charge for your services is incredibly important. It's so important to consider why you find it hard to ask for money or to raise your prices.

What exactly is holding you back? What element of the money mindset problem is actually keeping you stuck?

You may have heard me mention this before, but at the beginning, when I first pivoted out of a 20-year career working in corporate for an advertising agency, I knew that I wanted to coach. I very quickly understood that I could give great value as a business coach in the online space yet did not trust myself to ask people to pay me for it. I do believe at the beginning that sometimes you just have to try it for nothing to find your feet and get a bit of experience – and that's exactly what I did. However, I wouldn't necessarily recommend to everybody that you're still doing that after 30 clients and that is exactly where I was at the very beginning.

Yep. You heard that, right? I coached 30 people for free before I got paid. Now, why exactly did I do that? What was that about? I know that for me, it was about feeling the confidence that I could do it. It was seeing true transformation in others that made me understand that this was my calling and that is something that I could charge for, but I could have done that surely with a few less than 30!

It was an incredible lack of confidence inside me that just had this need to overachieve, even in giving value for free, before I had the self-worth that I could charge. In actual fact, what is it that created the transformation from somebody that kept working for nothing to somebody that got paid? It wasn't even my own proactivity. It was a client that I was working with on that day, who literally said to me, ‘you've been so helpful, I have to pay you’. I was like, no, no, no, don't worry, it's completely free, I just want to help you…and she said, ‘nope, give me your PayPal details now because I am paying you’.

I literally had tears in my eyes. I felt so overwhelmed when I finally realised that this was the moment where I just had to accept with gratitude - just say thank you, I would really appreciate that, here's my details…which I eventually did do after she refused to accept it when I kept saying no.

I had asked for a very nominal amount in exchange for my time from the very next client I worked with and when I checked my PayPal account, she had more than doubled the amount that she put in there.

The validation that I felt at that point, knowing that indeed I could charge for my services, for my coaching, for the transformation that I can create in others, was something that just completely transcended the experience that I expected.

Knowing that meant that I had a future business, something that could sustain me and something that could become affluent and profitable. Is that the stage that you're currently at? Or perhaps you've moved on to the next stage, the stage where you are being paid, and yet you're probably not charging your worth. Are you wondering, when do I raise my rates? Where's the right amount to set? Am I undervaluing myself? Am I charging too much and overvaluing myself? - all of these questions that run through our minds.

I'm going to tell you the exact way that I judge whether to raise my rates, the method that I used to raise my rates three times over the last year, and the only way now that I set my own rates and encourage my clients to do so.

And here's the magic word – it’s alignment.

Let me tell you a story. Back at the beginning of the year, I launched a program that was one of the first programs I'd run, and I didn't really know how to price it at first. I had a call with some amazing pod mates who told me unequivocally that I was undercharging, and I had to raise my rates immediately before I pitched on my webinar and launched my program. Of course, I believed exactly what they were saying because they were right, but I still felt quite nervous – however, I did it anyway. I went out in my webinar in this free masterclass that I offered to help people transform into intentional CEO thinking - I went out and I gave all the value I had in my heart and at the end I pitched, and I talked about how they could join me on my program and that the price would be a thousand dollars.

As I spoke those words, my heart was in my mouth. It just sounded at that time like such a large amount of money to ask somebody to pay me, particularly as I was coming off the back of asking so little for some one-to-one coaching.

Now, two incredible things happened after that. Firstly, some people bought it. I was so, so excited that people had stepped forward and said yes to this offer - an offer that went well beyond my comfort zone when it comes to pricing. Secondly, I literally hid under my duvet until the cart closed. I just felt so icky about this offer. I asked myself, what, what's your problem? Why are you feeling so uncomfortable, particularly as you've had some people buy? Yet something just didn't align within me.

I reached out to some of the people that didn't buy from the masterclass and asked them, what was it about the offer that you didn't like? The feedback came that actually the offer was really appealing, but the program went on for a little bit too long, and the price point - because it was such a long program - was just not something people felt comfortable with. I immediately reshaped my program both in the amount of time that I was going to work with people and the amount that it cost.

Now, I wouldn't recommend that you backpedal in the middle of a launch. It isn't something that's commonly done, but my alignment felt so out that I just knew that if I could make those changes gracefully, then I could move forward - not only serving more people, but feeling great at the same time, feeling aligned with my heart, absolutely in the right place with the offer, the pricing, and the clients.

Now they say do it messy, but that’s not something that through my corporate life I have ever felt comfortable with - and I'll tell you what, boy was I doing it messy! I contacted the people that had already bought and came to a graceful, unique solution for each one of them, so they felt comfortable progressing with me…which they did. At the same time, I onboarded several more people onto the program, which went on to be a thrilling program that both my students and I thoroughly enjoyed, and everyone got the progress that they needed.

And me? I got extra clarity when it comes to alignment and pricing.

I got that firsthand experience of going out with something that just did not feel right to me. Even if J was worth it, even if my program could transform, I didn't feel good and feeling good is so incredibly important. So how do we find the right alignment without undercutting ourselves and making sure that we're moving forward and progressing?

Ever since that experience, I always apply this method to pricing my one-to-one work as well as my programs. First stage is to simply pick a price you feel really, really comfortable with, and now start increasing it in your mind or on a bit of paper until you reach a point where you start to feel a bit icky and then finally reach a point where you feel downright uncomfortable. Your first price point is somewhere between the original price that you set and the one that just leaves you feeling a bit icky. That's where you need to start.

There is no shame in having a beta price point. That is absolutely fine when you're new, you're just finding your feet and you're starting to bring clients towards you and getting those first transformations. Make sure that your clients know that it's a beta rate and they are getting an amazing deal. In fact, ask them to help you formulate the content or program as you go. These are special times. It's a great opportunity for somebody to work with a new coach and get that transformation at a cut price that perhaps they really needed at the time – and it's a great experience for you as the new coach to go into something feeling like the pressure's off, and you can just do your magic. There is something really freeing about that, in the same way that perhaps I felt a lack of pressure when I was doing all my coaching for free – but this time you're going to get paid.

You're going to create a price point that takes the pressure off and allows you to go with the flow and do what you need to do to grow your program, experience, create those initial transformations, and get those testimonials.

Here's the thing though - you don't want to get stuck there for too long. You want to make sure that you're progressing, and your rates are going up. So how do you do that? Well, I do it like this. I simply feel into my feelings and the feeling that gives me the most resonance with knowing that it's time to raise my prices is that of resentment. You know that feeling - where you get on a call and you think, ‘oh no, I'm so busy today. Do I really have time to do this?’ The resentment that says, ‘how have they got time to take on another client?’ The resentment that even suggests to you that it's time to do something different. Probably what you need to do differently is change your prices at that point, because what you should be feeling is thrilled, lit up.

Here's something interesting - when you charge more, you actually raise your game, because when someone's paying you what you consider to be an incredible amount of money for your services you want to nail it.

Now, different people will respond to pressure in different ways, but certainly if this is you, you should lean in to raising your prices, because you know you are going to show up with bells on, show up 120% compared to what you would have done if you were just giving it away for free.

They are two slightly contradictory ways of approaching it. The point is to do the one that feels right for you. It may be that the one that feels right for you just depends on when and what. One might feel right that you might want to just charge less, do a beta, go with the flow, take the pressure off. Then for another program or another coaching package, you might feel like putting the pressure on yourself. It's simply about your energy. So you have two different options available to you.

Also looking at your calendar is a phenomenal clue. Are you booked out? Are you converting your discovery calls? Are you getting people booking onto your programs? If you are, it's probably time to raise your prices because you should get a little bit of resistance. You should meet with people that feel that you're not right to work with because you're at a higher price point than they're willing to pay. These are people who probably wouldn't show up with all their passion to do the work anyway.

As you start to raise your prices, you start to weed out those people who are serious about the transformation you offer and those that are not.

The bottom line is that money mindset is an incredibly important part of being successful in the entrepreneurial space. I hope I've given you a few ideas about how to approach your own money mindset.

Before we go, I also want to share with you a book that I have read recently - it's called Rich as F*ck by Amanda Frances. I was really, really impressed by what she had to say because her teachings and her journal prompts really allow you to dive into your money mindset, particularly as a female entrepreneur, so give that book a go.

Two other books that I am going to share right now, which I absolutely loved in the past too, are You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero and also Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield-Thomas. I love the fact that women are breaking new barriers when it comes to earnings. I love the fact that women in the online space are writing amazing books. And I love the fact that now is our time to rise.

It's now time to overcome our money mindset problems and start making money that allows us to give that value, to make that impact and to live the lives that bring us joy in all levels of abundance.

So, this week to your inspired action - have an amazing week. If you want to jump on a discovery call with me, I am here. I'm going to put the link in the show notes, and you can find out in a free strategy session exactly how I can help you overcome your challenges as you're building your business in the first year. Take care.