The problem with ‘charge your worth’

You’ve heard it before right- raise your prices! Charge your worth!

It makes sense right? You are SO valuable. Your knowledge, your insight, your offer has the power to transform lives.

But, there’s a problem.

When there’s a financial transaction involved, charging your worth isn’t enough.

Why? Because this isn’t about you. This is about your customer and how well your marketing, brand positioning and messaging speaks to them. It’s about how well you convey the result your customer will get in exchange for paying for your service.

I’m raising this because it matters. Because many, many women in business aren’t trained marketers (me included- I’m guilty of making basically every mistake I write about on this blog. Point is, don’t be like Rach!) and it’s super common to think just telling people what you sell and encouraging them to buy your thing is enough. But this strategy (or lack of it) is killing sales, it’s killing businesses, and it’s killing dreams.

So, let’s talk about what to do instead.

I’m going to use She Owns It as an example, but you could apply this to any type of business, from product based to online biz same concepts apply:

Step 1: The ‘Backwards Business’ Strategy

She Owns It wasn’t my first biz rodeo. My first biz, a nanny agency in London, taught me a LOT of lessons. When we started it, we were really young- 22. We didn’t have a lot of confidence or understanding around pricing. So, we looked at what everyone else charged, and charged less.

And then, as time passed and we worked ourselves to the ground and made sales and still made no money for ourselves, we eventually and very tentatively put our pricing up. It was literally like our pricing reflected our desperation 😂.

So when I started She Owns It and launched our Membership, I knew I had to tackle it differently.

I had an unproven product. But I felt confident it would work. I had a keen, engaged community, but I didn’t want to burn my bridges by making promises I couldn’t deliver on.

So I decided to work with the end in mind. I decided what the ‘ideal’ price point would be for the Membership. For me, as a scalable, impact driven business that price had to offer massive value, be widely accessible but also represent a commitment that facilitates action and results for people.

Then, instead of launching at that price, I launched at a one time only, founding Members price of $97 including GST. Those Members (many of whom are still around today, 7 years later) have helped me clarify what to deliver and been She Owns It’s best advocates over time. Starting out at that rate allowed me to have some fun and test and trial things without feeling like everything had to be ‘perfect.’

It was a soft path forward as I built confidence in my idea and defined, refined and marketed the product. Brand positioning isn’t largely impacted because you’re constantly reminding people of the true value, and that being an early adaptor allows you to get in at never seen again rates.

Bonus result was that over time, I’ve been able to use real price increases to remind people that now is the time to jump on board and grab your lifetime pricing (ie, you’ll never pay more)- because it will go up again soon.

Step 2: Creating ‘Feedback Loops’

Now you might be thinking well Rach, I’m super confident about the value of my offer. I don’t need time to remind myself how good it is, I KNOW how good it is and I’ll back it.

But as we spoke about above, most people don’t care what you think. Because you’re selling the thing! Of course you’re going to say it’s worth it.

If you want to charge what your worth, you also have to PROVE your offer’s worth it.

Let’s use She Owns It as an example. Of course I believe in my offer. But the reason I know the cost of Membership is worth it has nothing to do with what I think. I know it’s worth it because every single week I get feedback like this (literally- this is all feedback that I got TODAY):

Our Membership is designed to help you get visible, stack small wins, build momentum and confidence and grow your business faster. So when I get feedback like ^ that ^ I know it’s hitting the mark.

So the takeaway from this is - create ‘feedback loops.’

When you create feedback loops, you get a steady stream of customer feedback- good and bad, that you can use to refine your business, tweak your offer and share with other people who might be thinking about buying.

And no, it’s not always good feedback.

But in my opinion, there is no bad feedback. There is only curiosity and learning. They didn’t like that? That’s interesting. Where did we go wrong there? How did we fail? What could we do differently?

To create your feedback loops, take a step back. Get out your post it notes and quickly map out your customer journey then ask yourself:

➡️ Where could you be adding in an automated feedback request email?
➡️ Where could you be responding to social media comments asking ‘how did it go’
➡️ At what point would it make sense to send out a customer survey, ask for a testimonial or poll?

Don’t overcomplicate this! These are things that you can implement over time, but aim to start doing at least one of these things now. Which one would be the easiest for you?

For example, for the Membership we always stack lots of feedback when we check in with people about their Mission of the Month progress. Helping our Members with gentle accountability nudges also gives us the chance to learn what’s working and what’s not.

This is so easy for me because I’m always super curious about the progress our Members are making and love checking in with them!

Ultimately, I get it, pricing can be a complicated beast.

But after years in biz even though I still feel like I know so little one thing I DO I know this.

Overcomplicating things can really slow you down.

You have to move forward on the path of least resistance. So yes, know your worth.

But if you’re not making the sales you want ask yourself this. Are you proving your value to your customers?

Because if you’re not, now could be the time to start doing it!