Wendy McCallum (01:42)
Hello there. Welcome back to the Coaching Edge. I'm your host, Wendy McCallum. I'm so glad you're here. This episode, Piggybacks on last week's, where I talked about what I have learned and noticed in my 17 years or so of coaching, working with other coaches, and in the last six years or so directly supporting, you know, at least a hundred coaches, I would say, in a very direct way when it comes to building their businesses. And this
Topic today, how to know when it's time to charge more is a critical piece of that. And I didn't talk about that in last week's pot podcast, but coaches who succeed are also coaches who charge what they're worth. And they're coaches who keep an eye on that number and who increase their rates over the years. So today, what I'm going talk about is how I doubled my rates in 2020. And I don't mean like a little increase.
This was not a like keeping up with inflation thing. I actually doubled my hourly rate. I looked at what I was charging for one-on-one coaching and for group programs for everything, frankly, and I doubled it. And I was terrified. I was sure that people wouldn't pay. I was sure there was gonna be a lot of resistance and some really uncomfortable moments for me on discovery calls. And then something really unexpected happened. I didn't just maintain my client load, I actually doubled my client load.
So I had more clients than I'd ever had, and I was charging twice as much for those clients to come see me. And so for the first time I had to turn people away because I was fully booked. I had never had that before. I had been busy before this, which is part of why I felt confident in the idea of at least looking at my rates. And we'll talk more about that in a second.
But I had never been busy like this. I had never had to turn people away. I'd never been in a position where I was regularly referring people out to other coaches. what that meant for me that year is that I didn't just double my income. I actually tripled my income that year from the year before. It was an insane experience. It was an amazing experience. And it was, it's something that I feel like is a helpful story to share with you. I think.
Telling you this story is important, not because I think you should go double your rates tomorrow. I don't. Maybe some of you should, but because I think a lot of coaches are undercharging, they don't even realize what it's costing them in money, in energy, and most importantly in longevity and sustainability as a business owner. So we're gonna talk about what happened in 2020 for me, why it worked, and what you should actually consider before raising your prices. So let's start with a bit of the backstory.
where was I before I made this decision to raise my rates? I had been coaching for about eight or nine years at that point, and my rates had barely moved. So I had a lot of programs that were, you know, I was charging kind of a package price for. And they had gone up a little bit, but I mean, the most I would say I my rates had shipped was maybe $50 more an hour than when I'd started nine years before.
And when I started coaching, I've told this story before on podcasts, I underpriced myself. So my rates were low from the get-go. I had gotten two additional certifications since I started coaching. So I had I started with a natural nutrition certification through the Canadian College of Natural Nutrition. I did a full-year program, it was very expensive, it was a big investment in time. I actually went to school full-time two days a week to get that certification. And then about
Five or six years in, I got a certification through the Coactive Training Institute in general life coaching, which was also an enormous investment. I had to travel to a different city for five different long weekends and pay for my lodging for that weekend and pay the tuition for the course. It was expensive, it was a big investment. And I had then done, just very recently had done another certification to become an alcohol-free life coach.
And that was also a big investment, about 15,000 US dollars. So I had gotten two additional certifications since I started coaching, and my rates had only gone up about $50 an hour. I was way more experienced. Obviously, I now had eight, nine years of very consistent coaching under my belt. I was a lot more skilled, not just because of the additional certifications, but in part because of those, but largely because of the experience that I had.
I was just so much better at what I did. And I was having a much bigger impact in coaching sessions with people. We were talking about bigger things. We were going deeper. People were having bigger transformations when they were working with me. But my prices did not reflect any of that. Now, why had I not raised them? I'm gonna be honest here because I am nothing if not painfully honest. It was mostly my own money mindset stuff. I felt safer.
staying where I was with my pricing. I was uncomfortable with the idea of charging more. I was worried about what people would or would not want to pay and how people would think of me if I raised my rates. I was, I was just avoiding the discomfort of putting a higher number out there. and I guess another factor is that during those first years of building my coaching business, I was not doing it
Really wasn't hugely motivated by money. I needed to make enough money to have it feel worthwhile, obviously. I needed to be in profit and all the rest of it, but I was raising my kids and I was okay with having a a part-time coaching business, which meant for me probably 30 hours a week. during my school kids' hours, the hours they were in school. I didn't really work on the weekends. and occasionally I would obviously have to do work outside of those hours to build programming, that kind of thing. But
I was cool with not making a big full-time salary for my business. So that was obviously a factor as well. The tipping point, though, was that I had just finished this third certification and it was really expensive, the $15,000 one. And I was hell bent on making that money back and making it back fast because I felt nervous about having I paid that in cash from my business, the $15,000. We talked a little bit last week about how.
Coaches who succeed don't spend a lot of money they don't have. And that's exactly how I built my business. So I waited until I had the cash in the bank for that certification, and I did. And I did the same thing with my middle certification. I paid for it all in cash out of my business. But that was a big investment for me. And I wanted to make it back. I had also started looking at what other coaches were charging, coaches with similar experience to me, and frankly, coaches with less experience than me. And partly this came from that.
Certification cohort that I was in. I was listening to what people were planning on charging and I was thinking, holy crap, these people have never coached before. And they're planning on charging as much or much more than what I currently charge as a nine-year coach with two pre-existing certifications. And so that got me thinking. I just realized I was way underpriced, as I suspect many of you are. And it was honestly that point where it was more painful to stay where I was than to take.
this very uncomfortable leap and really raise my rates to what they needed to be for market. I guess the only other little factor that was there is that was part of this too was that it was also for me a turning point personally in my life. My kids were leaving the nest. So my kids had gotten, you know, they were in high school, they had gotten pretty independent and self-sufficient. They didn't need me nearly as much as they did anymore. I was starting to feel resentful of about the fact that my
husband at the time had built this really cool business and I had not done anything that I was like incredibly proud of yet. And I just thought I can do this too. And so there was also this sort of intersection happening between that and this third certification and this like awareness that my rates were just way too low. So it was like the perfect storm for me and I just could not stay where I was with my rates.
So here's what I did. I didn't just raise my rates, I actually up-leveled everything. And I think that this is a good strategy for anybody who is finding is feeling that they're in a similar position. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, yeah, that's me, my rates are way too low, but you also feel that uncomfortableness about raising them. For me, it was very helpful to do like a cross the board full sweep up level of my business because it helped me feel more confident and it really just gave me.
Just another level of justification for what I was about to do with my rates. So when I say I up-leveled everything, it was the middle of the pandemic, it was 2020. So I did have some extra time and I used it. I was coaching. I was running, I had come up with some really creative solutions to the pandemic, and I was running my first online groups. the pandemic really forced me, like everybody else, to get on Zoom and to start doing things in a different way. So I was doing all of that, but I also
couldn't go anywhere. And so I had time to do other stuff. And I rebranded completely. I had been doing business as simple balance consulting for a long time. And I switched all my branding over and got a new URL and started doing business as Wendy McCallum coaching, which was which was a good rebrand for me. and something I suggest to all my new coaches when I'm working with them. Like just use your name for your coaching business. You don't need a fancy name.
People were Googling me, Wendy McCallum. And so if my name for my company is Wendy McCallum Coaching, they're gonna find me. so I rebranded completely. I built myself a brand new website on Kajabi. So I invested in Kajabi as a platform, which is a platform I love. Talk to me about it if you're curious about it. I'm happy to chat with you about it. But I learned, I went to Kajabi University, I took an entire week and I just did Kajabi.
Courses online to learn how to build my own website. And I built a new brand package, and it was all under the wendymacallum.com URL. I refreshed all of my offers. I had this new certification, so I thought, I can create some really cool new offers now. I was already doing burnout coaching for professional women, and now I could add in the component of helping women explore their relationship with alcohol, which was something that many of my burnt burnt out people.
were struggling with because alcohol is such a common coping mechanism. So I built, you know, some new sort of silos in my business in terms of offers and refreshed and rebranded everything. I also started a podcast and when I say I did like went for it, guys, I really went for it. I started a podcast, not this one, I started a podcast called Bite Size Balance, which was really focused on helping women in midlife deal with the overwhelm and stress and some of the common challenges of
midlife. and that became a really fantastic funnel for this for this all of these coaching offers as well. So that was great. I also started charging my US clients in US dollars. And I know that sounds obvious, but a lot of Canadian coaches don't do that. And I was not doing it. I just felt like, I'm just gonna charge my US clients in Canadian dollars. But of course with the exchange rate that does not work out nearly as well for me. And it also
For a US client, they're getting me at what feels like a real bargain, bargain rate. and you know, I'm not like a bargain coach, a bargain priced coach. And so that didn't feel in alignment to me anymore. And I started looking at what other successful Canadian coaches were doing, and I realized they were all charging their US clients were being charged in US dollars as well as their international clients. So that was also something I did then. And then as I said earlier, I doubled my rates across the board.
And I really think it was just a complete doubling at that time. They've gone up a little bit since then, but at the time it was a doubling. Why did I do all of it at once? Well, I've given you some of the things that were going on in my life, but I think the news certification gave me a lot of confidence and a lot of energy. I just was energized by it. I had some extra time because it was pandemic. The rebrand gave me a really
Fresh start, and the podcast gave me some new visibility and credibility. I also worked really hard during this year to get on other people's podcasts, and I hadn't done that before. So I was pitching myself all over the place. I was inviting people on my new podcast and then asking them if I could be on their podcast, doing a lot of podcast swapping. And that was really helpful as well. It all just created a lot of momentum.
And the price increase just naturally felt like part of that momentum. And this is why I'm saying to you, if you're resisting this and you've been coaching for a while and you know your rates need to go up, but you just for maybe all the reasons I had just are not doing that or resisting that, what about a refresh? Is there, is it time for just kind of an overhaul of all the things in your business? And what would that do for you in terms of your confidence? And how might that help you justify charging what you're actually worth, which we should all be doing?
And I want to be really clear on this whole like doubling the rates thing. I was not just slapping a new number on the same thing. This isn't me saying, like, I'm just gonna, you know, put a big shiny website in front of you and then double my rates and hope that you pay twice as much for the thing that's only worth half as much. That's not what was going on here at all. And that's not what I'm suggesting for you. I had genuinely increased in value over those nine years. I had
More experience, more training as I talked about, two more certifications. I was getting much better results with my clients. I was just way better at what I did. Clients were consistently leaving sessions with me saying that was the best hour I've spent in a long time, or I feel completely different now about this problem than I did before I came in. so I was having really good results in the coaching sessions.
The rebrand and the new offers reflected all of that and the higher price matched the higher value. So again, I was charging what I was worth. And before that, I was way undercharging. And that's what I'm talking about on this podcast. I'm not talking about raising your rates just because I'm talking about raising your rates if they are not reflective of your actual value as a coach.
What happened after I did this? Well, there was a moment where I panicked. I'm not gonna lie. I was really terrified about doing this. It felt really uncomfortable to me. It's probably the most uncomfortable thing I've ever done in my business. Short of the very first episode of Bite Size Balance, that first podcast, I was so nervous about the idea that I might actually start a podcast, that I called it a fake podcast in that first episode. But other than that, I think the most stressful thing and
nerve-wracking thing I've ever done my business was this doubling of the rates. I genuinely thought people wouldn't pay. I was ready for it to just be like crickets. and I almost talked myself out of it so many times. I mean there were so many nights where I woke up and just thought, I could just maybe I should just reduce it to this or maybe I should just add in this. You know, it was all doing all the things we do when we're trying to justify an increase in rates. The opposite happened.
And this is why I wanted to do this podcast because I'm not the only one that this has happened to. I've talked to so many other coaches who've had similar experiences when it comes to raising their rates and charging what they're actually worth. I did not lose any clients. There wasn't one person who walked away who said, I can't play, I can't pay that anymore. So my existing clients, now I did grandfather them into their existing rate for a while, and that's always something that you can do as a small business owner. It's your business. You get to do what feels right to you. So to all my existing clients, I said, Hey, if you guys want to re-app for another
12 sessions at the current price, I would love to offer that to you now. but know that as of whatever it was 2020, January 2021, everyone will be paying this new increased rate. Anyway, lots of people take advantage of that offer. And then I had clients, many, many clients who stayed on after 2021. There wasn't anyone who said, I can't afford this anymore. And frankly, if there had been, I would have worked with that. but
It was a s it was surprising. So I didn't lose any clients. In fact, I gained so many clients. I doubled my client load. Now, was it just because I doubled my rates? No, it was obviously because I was doing all this other work. I was out there getting on podcasts and I started a podcast and I was just more visible, I think. But I think the reason I was so visible was because I had all this confidence. And part of the confidence came from charging what I was worth, to be honest.
I, as I said in the intro, was fully booked to the point that I was referring clients out. So my one-on-one practice had never been jammed. It was jammed. And if you're somebody who coaches one-on-one, you know that jammed does not mean you're coaching 40 hours a week of coaching, like one-on-one coaching time. That would be insane. You would be exhausted. For me, I think my client roster who was sitting at around like
20 to 25 clients a week, which is bananas. and so when clients came to me and I felt like they weren't maybe as good a fit for me as they were with another coach, for example, I would happily refer them out. That had never happened before. and because I doubled my rates and doubled my clients, I effectively tripled my revenue. And I know you're thinking, wait, shouldn't you have quadrupled your revenue? But I didn't. I tripled my revenue, and that's because I started saying no.
One-on-one clients and doing more of the referring so that I didn't have to work 20 to 25 clients a week, which was nuts. because I am not at my best when I'm working like that. And I didn't want to do that. I started building group programs as well that allowed me to scale.
So it all worked because of a bunch of different things, I think. So I have a few theories about why this all worked and why it generally works for people when they raise their rates, when there is actually a real justification for doing that, when they are not.
Charging what they're worth when they're not charging their value. Higher prices definitely signal higher value. People take you a lot more seriously. People took me a lot more seriously. And I was largely working with professional women. So women who, frankly, are very accustomed to high hourly rates. So my rate for everyone I was working with was like for a long time, I was charging sort of like a third of what most most of my clients charged an hour, like which is ridiculous.
so I think that me raising my rates actually allowed my avatar client, my dream clients to actually take me more seriously, to be more committed to the work when they showed up because they were investing more. I was finally charging also what the market dictated, what the market could bear. So I was actually aligned with the market. I looked at what other coaches were coaching who had the level of experience I had, kind of commensurate to me in terms of like what they did and
I increased my rates to be within that range. The rebrand and the podcast, like I said, created more visibility and more trust for me. But I think the biggest thing for me, other than the podcast, was that I had a lot more confidence. Like the I just was showing up differently during this time. It only took a couple of weeks, maybe like five discovery calls with clients were like, sign me up, sign me up, sign me up for me to realize.
my God, holy shit, why didn't I do this like ages ago? so that excuse me, that really helped me with my confidence. And also because I could now work with kind of the perfect number of one-on-one clients a week and also start building and scaling these group programs that I was running for women, I was able to stay out of burnout. Like I was able to control how many hours I had to put into my business. And that was because I was charging more by the hour. I could
Scale back on the number of hours and still make good money in my business. So this is not magic, but this is real. And this is what happens. I have, again, heard versions of this story from many other coaches out there. When you charge what you're worth, everything shifts. Your energy, your confidence, your client relationships shift. You start showing up from a different place. You start showing up. I get, you know, I'm I've always been very
Committed to showing up with a clear mind and being present for my clients and doing the best job that I can. But I can tell you that something happened when I raised my rates to what I was worth. And I just showed up with a whole different level of presence and commitment and energy. And yeah, it's great. It's really great. And the funny thing that happens is you'd think that when you start charging more, you would feel that.
urge to just start adding more and over delivering. And actually the opposite happened for me. And I think the same thing is true for other coaches. I just started focusing on the value of the actual hour that people got to spend with me in the in that coaching session. As opposed to yeah, I can look for workbooks and the you know tech support outside of and this and that and the other thing. It was just like I can just charge this for this program and basically what you're paying for is the time you spend in the room with me.
And I am committed to showing up and to providing you with the absolute maximum value in that time that you get from me. I will be there with you. I'm not checking my phone. I'm not doing other things. I am there. I am listening. I am hearing. I am reflecting. I am staying curious, staying present, asking good questions. I'm I'm I'm doing all the things, good things that a really good coach does. I'm I'm committed to doing those things in that, in that time.
Now, I do want to just throw this Katie in because I know there are going to be some of you who are going to be thinking, but if I raise my rates, that means there are necessarily going to be some people who can't afford to work with me anymore. And you know what? That's true. You'll hear people say, well, if people really value what you do, they'll pay for it. That's also true. But there are genuinely always going to be people for whom spending, you know, $200 an hour or whatever it is on coaching is just completely outside of the realm of possibility for them.
You don't have to stop servicing those people. And this is the place where people get a lot hung up a lot when it comes to raising their rates. Create something else for them. Create like a fallback offer. I always have a lower-priced, a lower-ticket offer that I can offer people, no matter what type of coaching it is I do. Case in point, the business building boutique. If you don't want to work with me one-on-one, if you don't want coaching support as you build your business or as you launch or whatever the thing is that you're working on right now in your business.
You can just take the online course. And the online courses are now, you know, if you've been following along for the last month, you'll know that I did a restructuring of the BBB. And so the business building boutique is really a like come and choose what serves you kind of thing. And you can just do one course, you can do an a la carte kind of thing and select a couple courses, or you can do the whole shebang. but
Again, if you don't want to work with me, the option because you can't afford it, for example, right now, or it doesn't feel like the right time to make that investment, you can just do the course. And this has always been the same in my on the personal coaching side of my business. With my burnout clients, I've always had an online burnout to balance program. There's a rewind program, which is a six week program that I offer for women who are trying to change their relationship with alcohol. And they can take that on their own.
self-guided and it's obviously significantly less of an investment than working with me one-on-one. So
You can create something to fill that gap if that's your big worry that there are going to be people who can't afford you. Of course, there will be people who can't afford you, but you can offer something else in the place. You can give them the level of support they can afford, honestly. Like you can give them that support. And I've talked about this before on the podcast. If you really want to support somebody and you really want to work with someone, you love them and they're really committed and they cannot afford your current rate, give them a discount. You can always do that too. I don't recommend doing that a lot, but I have certainly
Done that with clients who I have absolutely loved and wanted to help and felt like they were just so committed to the process, and they've been some of my best clients. You can offer scholarships, you can offer discounts, you can do all of that. But you gotta charge what you're worth. You gotta put it out there, what at what you're worth.
So, what this is not, I just want to reiterate this. I know I've said this a couple times. This is not me telling you to go double your rates tomorrow. For some of you, that might be what I'm telling you, but this isn't about arbitrary price increases. This isn't about charge more and just believe more in yourself and charge more. That's not what I'm talking about here. You need a basis for your rate always. And I'm a I'm very committed to this idea. You cannot just go out there and listen, I have heard all the people
Say all the opposite things to this, but I'm standing firm on this. I think it is absolute bullshit that you would just get one certification and go out there and start charging a thousand dollars an hour as a coach. That's just ridiculous. and you would be you would struggle with that unless you are the absolute most overconfident person in the world. But I think at some point someone would call your bluff on that. So don't do that. That's not what we're talking about here. You need to be able to justify your rate to you, to your clients, to the market. Okay. So that
Justification, your value is based on a lot of different things. It's based on your experience and your training for sure, how long you've been doing this, what you your investments have been in training and certifications and what you're trained in and all of that stuff. But mostly it's your results. Mostly it's the value you create. It's the transformation that you help people, you help to affect for people. You help people affect in their lives. And the value of that is very much.
A personal thing for people. And it depends on the type of work that you do. So there can be a lot of variation there. But I'm here to tell you that you are not out there affecting radically amazing transformations with people if you also don't have experience in training. It just doesn't happen. Okay. Like maybe this is that's that is not the norm. The norm is that the more time you spend coaching, the more experience you get, and sometimes the more training you get, although that's not always necessary, it's the more.
hours you put out there, the more sweat equity you have in coaching, the better a coach you will be. And the better you get at coaching, the more valuable the work is that you do to people. That's just, that's, that's just the truth of it. And so those are all the things that I look at when I'm looking at what is your value as a coach.
My rate increase was justified, as I said. I had nine years of experience or something at the time. I had multiple certifications that were very expensive and pretty intense in terms of the amount of time that I had to put into them. I had had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, probably thousands of clients by this point. I had a track record of results, and I was still at the lower end of the market, like when I looked at the market range.
And so if you're brand new to coaching or maybe you've just been doing it for a couple of years, this probably isn't your story yet. And you're probably, you know, you're not gonna charge the same as someone with a decade or more of experience as a coach. And that's okay. But you should be paying attention to your rate and paying attention to the market and paying attention to the transformations and how much better you're getting as a coach and the feedback that you're getting from clients. And you should be planning for your rates to increase over time.
Don't wait as long as I waited. Okay. So here's what you want to consider before raising your rates. One, are you within market? The market actually matters, guys. Again, notwithstanding what some wackos are saying out there on Instagram or wherever, the market matters. You have to know what other coaches with similar experience and niches and training are charging that you've got to get a sense of that. Go out and do your research. Usually people guess low.
Honestly, so this will benefit you because it's not going to show you that you're overcharging usually. It's going to show you you're undercharging. Do some research, look at what's out there, make sure you're not dramatically underpriced. Okay. Also, has your value increased, which we've been talking about. Do you have more experience, more training, better results, more testimonials, a clearer niche, better reputation? You're getting more word-of-mouth clients. Like, are you delivering more value now than when you set your current rate? And if so,
your rate should change to reflect that. Number three, are you able to justify the increase to yourself? This is the mindset piece. This is the part that kept me stuck for so long. This is the part you might need some support and help around. And I should mention here, I'm gonna forget to do this, there's a one-on-one pricing masterclass. I think it's $27 that I offer if you go into the coaching resources section on my website. it is worth its weight in gold. And it will
Not so much work you through the mindset stuff, but what's gonna do is it's gonna show you the practical math on setting your rate and all the stuff you have not thought about that goes into getting a one-on-one client and all of the time that you're not accounting for in the price that you have set, that is basically just time you're putting into your business and not getting paid for. so I go through all kinds of different iterations on how to price, and it is an eye-opener.
For new coaches. So go and grab that. I will put the link in the show notes for that. but what I'm talking about here is more can you justify the increase to yourself? And this is where, like, you've got to believe that your rate is fair. You have to believe that you are charging what you're worth here and not wildly overcharging. If you don't, this is gonna show up in how you talk about your pricing, how you show up on discovery calls, just with your confidence.
your confidence when you're out there talking about your offers, how you deal with objections, if you get pushback, just generally your whole sales process is going to be dramatically compromised if you do not believe that your rate is fair. That's why all that work is important because the work's not just about raising the number, it's about getting right with the number. And that's really what I had to do. And there's a little piece of like fake it till you make it with it.
I think for almost all of us, and that's what happened with me. But I'm telling you, you only need to sell one offer at your new rate, and you're gonna realize, look, somebody thinks it's worth it. Somebody else sees the value besides me. And once you get that re that that reinforcement, that confirmation, that will really change the way you show up for the next call. The other thing to look at and to consider before you raise your rates is what is the cost of staying where you are?
And this is something that people forget to calculate all the time, but it's actually really important because if your rates are too low, and I've kind of hinted at this, if your rates are too yo low, you're gonna have to work way more hours to make the same amount of money.
You're going to burn out. I promise you. I have I've seen so many coaches burn out, and that's not what I want to see, but it happens all the time, and it often happens because they're not charging enough. you're going to start resenting your business, and maybe even your clients, which is awful. but it happens. because you're not building a sustainable model. And so undercharging has a real cost and
It's just that that cost is harder to see. It's a little less visible than the fear of raising your prices, right? Which is why we get stuck so long in rates that are too low. The last thing to ask, and this is just my
My idea, my story, my experience is like, is there a way for you to raise your rates as part of like a bigger paradigm shift in your business? Can you level up across the board, including your rates? Because that's what worked for me. The price increase, as I said, came with a rebrand, new offers, new visibility, just new energy that was infused into my business. and it was a bit of a chicken and an egg thing. Like I don't know where the energy came from or if the energy created the offers or the offers created the energy, but it
It definitely helped that I did more than just increase my rates and leave everything else the same. So if you're refreshing your business anyway, it's a natural time to look at your pricing and reset your pricing too.
The last thing I want to say is your rates absolutely have to go up over time. Like they really should go up over time. So if you're looking for a permission slip, this is it. Your rates cannot stay the same throughout the course of your business building adventure. It's not optional if you want to stay in business. It is part of building a successful business, raising your rates regularly.
Your experience grows, your skills improve, your results get better, the market changes, inflation is a real thing. Like you have got to keep up with all of that. And you have to charge more as you get better at your job. If you're charging the same thing in year five that you charged in year one, something's way off. Like, what other profession does that? It's just not the way it works. Like as people get more experienced and senior, they are able to justify significantly more.
Dollars for an hour of their time, right? So unless you've been overcharging from the start, which as I have said is highly unlikely. I almost never see that happen. Your rate should be increasing as your value increases. There is no way you are the same coach as you were when you started. And if you're trying to tell yourself that you are, like I would look, I would dig deep into that. What's going on there? You should not be the same coach as you were when you started. And I'm very
Sure, that you're not. I'm not, you're not, like I said. And our prices shouldn't pretend that we are. So our prices should be increasing. The coaches who stay in business long term raise their rates. They do it strategically, they do it thoughtfully, they do it consistently, because that is how you build something sustainable. Okay. And since this one big increase in 2020, I have increased my rates in a number of different areas. I've done it
Several different times in several different ways because I could justify it, because the value was there, because I was no longer in market, because, because, because, but I could justify it. Okay. so have a think about this. When was the last time you raised your rates? Does your current pricing reflect your current value, or is there a gap there? And if there's a gap, get out there and start looking at.
There what other coaches are charging? Start digging into the gap. Why is there a gap? What's going on with that? Why are you not charging what you're worth? avoid assumptions in this area because they're not going to serve you. They never serve you. But you know, the assumption that people won't pay is one that I can tell you is just never played out. I've never had a coach who's raised their rates with that fear that people won't pay and then have had nobody pay. It just does not work that way.
So I guess just to conclude this episode, I doubled my rates in 2020 and it changed my business forever. Not because the number was magic, but because my pricing finally aligned with my value. And that shifted everything. And most importantly, it shifted my confidence and my energy in my business. And that made my business so much more sustainable. I'm not telling you to do what I did.
But I am telling you to pay attention. I'm telling you to get curious about this and mindful. Are you charging what you're worth? Are your rates keeping pace with your growth? Are you building a business that's actually sustainable? Or are you working way too hard for too little? your rate should go up with time. That is not greedy. That's just good business. That's how you build a sustainable business. And so if you've been avoiding this conversation with yourself, now's the time to have it. Thank you once again for listening to the coaching edge. I would
Love to hear from you. If you have a second, send me a note at Wendy McCallum Coach on Instagram or at Wendy at WendyMcCallum.com through email. Love to connect with new coaches, always. Lots of different ways that I can support you. You can check them out on my website. And again, I'll put the link to the $27 pricing masterclass underneath in the show notes. Have a great rest of your week. I'll see you next week on the coaching edge.
