April 12, 2022
.jpg)
Editorial Disclaimer
This content is published for general information and editorial purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice, nor should it be relied upon as such. Any mention of companies, platforms, or services does not imply endorsement or recommendation. We are not affiliated with, nor do we accept responsibility for, any third-party entities referenced. Financial markets and company circumstances can change rapidly. Readers should perform their own independent research and seek professional advice before making any financial or investment decisions.
In 2008, when the financial crisis hit and business owners everywhere were slashing prices to survive, I did the opposite. I raised mine. Not by a small amount. By five times.
Everyone around me said it was the worst possible time. The market was contracting. Clients were cutting budgets. The conventional wisdom was to hold on, reduce costs, and wait it out.
Twelve months later, I had fewer clients, less stress, a higher income, and a business I actually enjoyed running.
If you're scared to quote a higher number, I completely understand. I've been there. What I want to show you is that the fear isn't a signal to stop. It's a signal that you're approaching the price your work is actually worth.
Fear of charging more isn't a character flaw. It's an extremely common response to a genuinely uncomfortable situation, and it usually comes from one of three places.
The first is a money story: an inherited belief, often formed in childhood, about what you're allowed to earn, what it means to charge a premium, or what kind of person asks for money. Money stories are almost never examined until they start costing real income.
The second is imposter syndrome: the nagging sense that you haven't quite earned the right to charge that much yet, or that a higher price will expose you as less qualified than the client expects. Imposter syndrome rarely reflects actual competence. It reflects the gap between how we see ourselves internally and how others see us from the outside.
The third is fear of rejection: the worry that quoting a higher number will result in a flat no, and that a flat no means something fundamental about your worth as a professional. It doesn't. It usually means the prospect was wrong-fit, the timing was off, or they need a smaller entry point first.
All three of these fears feel very real. None of them are accurate guides to what you should charge.
The most immediate cost is obvious: less money. But the structural cost is worse and less visible.
When you charge too little, you need more clients to hit your income target. More clients means more delivery time. More delivery time means less time to sell. Less time to sell means when your current clients finish, you're starting the sales cycle from scratch with an empty pipeline.
This is the Sales Cycle of Doom. Sell. Deliver. Sell. Deliver. Never ahead, always reactive. The income rollercoaster that feels like hustle but is actually a structural problem created by a price that is too low.
There's a subtler cost too. Undercharging attracts undervaluing clients. When you charge very little, you attract people primarily focused on cost, who negotiate hard, ask for extras, and consume disproportionate amounts of your time and energy. Raise your prices and the profile of your client base shifts. Not because of some mystical law of attraction, but because a higher price acts as a natural filter. People who pay premium prices for professional services are usually people who understand the value of those services.
The goal isn't to work more and earn more. It's to work with fewer clients, serve them brilliantly, and earn more. That's what I mean by double the income with half the clients. It's a formula, and it starts with a better price.
The Pricing Auction is a body-led exercise for finding the price you can hold with confidence. I've used it with hundreds of coaches and service business owners, and the results are consistently useful, often surprising, and sometimes uncomfortable in the best possible way.
Find somewhere quiet. Write down your current price for your main service or package. It doesn't matter whether that's a day rate, a monthly retainer, or a fixed package fee. Write down the number and say it out loud.
Notice what happens in your body as you say it. Is the number easy to say? Does it feel light, or is there a small flicker of anxiety? Pay attention to the physical sensation, not the intellectual response.
Now increase the number by 20%. Write it down. Say it out loud. What happens?
Increase again by 20%. Say it. Keep going. Repeat until you hit the number that produces a clear, strong physical response. The number where the internal voice says: "There is no way anyone will pay that." The number that makes you want to laugh, or that tightens something in your chest, or that feels genuinely absurd.
That number and that physical response mark the boundary of your current money story. It's the edge of what your nervous system believes you're allowed to earn.
Here is the important thing: that edge is not a fact. It is a feeling, and feelings can be worked with. The right price for most coaches and freelancers who run this exercise sits just above the first significant point of resistance, not at the absurd extreme. You don't need to jump to the number that makes you laugh. You need to move just past the number that makes you wince. That's where the growth is.
This sounds almost insultingly simple. It works anyway.
Before any sales call, discovery conversation, or pricing discussion, say your full price out loud to yourself at least three times. Not in your head. Out loud, in a normal conversational tone, as if you were saying it to a prospect.
The goal is to take the emotional charge out of the number before the conversation begins. Numbers we say rarely feel strange. Numbers we say for the first time in a high-stakes context feel terrifying.
Think of it like rehearsal. An actor doesn't wait until opening night to say their lines for the first time. A musician doesn't wait until the performance to play the piece. The rehearsal is where the discomfort lives so that the performance can be clean.
If saying your price makes you visibly uncomfortable when you're alone in your office, it will produce the same discomfort in front of a client. Clients read that discomfort as a signal. They see it as permission to negotiate, as doubt about the value, as an invitation to challenge the number. When you say your price calmly and without hesitation, none of that space exists.
Practice until the number feels ordinary. Then say it to a client.
Let me address the main fear directly: yes, some clients will say no.
In my experience, the clients who say no to a higher price are, almost without exception, not the clients you most want to work with. They are the ones primarily motivated by cost, who push back on scope, who make you feel that your time is a burden rather than a resource. Losing these clients, uncomfortable as it feels in the moment, is usually a net positive for your business.
What you might not expect is who shows up instead. Clients willing to pay higher prices are typically clearer about what they want, more committed to doing the work, and more respectful of your time and expertise. They come looking for a result, not a discount. The experience of working with them is different in almost every respect.
The second thing that often surprises coaches is the Pricing Bandwidth. The same service, delivered to the same standard, attracts genuinely different prices from different buyers. A freelance strategist might charge £1,500 for a brand positioning project to a startup and £8,000 for an equivalent project to an established business. The work is comparable. The context, the stakes, and the budget are completely different.
This means there is no single right price for what you do. There is a range. Most coaches and freelancers have been sitting at the lower end of that range, not because the market demands it, but because their money story says that's where they belong. Raising prices doesn't price you out of the market. It prices you into a different part of it. And for most service businesses, that part is better.
If you want practical support making this shift, accountability coaching can help. Having someone hold you to a new pricing commitment removes the easy option of backing down when the conversation gets uncomfortable.
Here are five concrete steps you can take now.
For a deeper look at the full pricing methodology, Robin's books including Take Your Shot walk through the psychology and the practical conversations in detail.
Whether you're working through this on your own or alongside a business coach, the result is the same: a price you can say with confidence, for clients who genuinely value what you do.
Ready to take your shot on better pricing? Take the Fearless Business Quiz. It's 40 questions, free, and you'll get a personalised report on where your business stands right now.
The fear of charging more usually comes from one or more of three sources: a money story (inherited beliefs about what you're allowed to earn), imposter syndrome (the sense that you haven't earned the right to charge that much yet), and fear of rejection (the worry that a higher quote will result in a no). All three feel very real. None of them are accurate guides to what you should actually charge.
A useful starting point is the Pricing Auction: a body-led exercise where you say your current price out loud, then incrementally raise it until your physical discomfort becomes significant. The number that sits just above your first strong point of resistance is typically your right price. It's the number your nervous system finds unfamiliar, not the number the market will refuse to pay.
The Pricing Auction is a practical exercise where you say increasingly higher prices out loud, paying attention to your body's response at each increment. The physical discomfort you feel is data about your money story, not evidence that the price is wrong. Running it regularly and practicing the resulting number before client conversations progressively removes the emotional charge that makes pricing conversations so difficult.
Some clients will say no. In almost every case, these are the clients who were primarily motivated by cost and who would have been the most demanding to work with at any price. The clients who value your expertise will stay. Higher prices also tend to attract a different type of new client: clearer about what they want, more committed to doing the work, and more respectful of your time. The short-term discomfort of a few clients leaving is almost always worth the long-term improvement in client quality.
Don't start there. Apply new prices to new enquiries first. Once the new price has been validated by new clients converting at the higher number, you can approach existing clients from a position of confidence. Frame it as a change to your offering structure, not an apology. Most long-term clients who genuinely value what you do will stay. Those who don't were already a poor fit at any price.
.jpg)