Spiritual, Service-based Entrepreneurs: How do you know when it’s time to raise your prices?

Here are a few hard and fast rules to determine whether it’s time to raise your prices:

• You haven’t raised your prices at all in the last year
• You haven’t raised your prices…ever
• You’re totally overwhelmed with clients right now
• Your clients are telling you that you need to raise your prices
• You aren’t excited about getting a new client – instead you only think “more work”
• Your clients aren’t committed to the work you’re doing together

And really, if you’re asking this question, then it’s time.

Here’s the thing about pricing for services: it’s truly arbitrary. The things we assign value to are sometimes not actually valuable (I mean, you can argue the reason we a pay a lawyer more for her time is because she went to school for 6 years, but I know plenty of other people with master’s degrees who are earning under $30,000 per year.)

Really, despite what most people believe, pricing has nothing to do with your experience, your education, your sex, your skin color, or anything else you might imagine.

The way your price your services has everything to do with what you believe about those defining qualities, though.

You are earning exactly what you believe you deserve.

If you believe that experience is the only thing that counts, then you won’t feel comfortable charging more in your first year in business. If you believe that your education matters in terms of how much you can charge… You get the point.

You might still think I’m kinda nuts here. “But Erin, of course experience matters.” Of course it does in terms of the work you do! But it honestly doesn’t matter in terms of how much you charge. Truly. The only thing that matters is whether you can solve a problem or offer transformation to someone, and then communicate that effectively and with confidence.

How do I know this? Because I’ve done it. I booked three high end clients this last month in my second year of business, and now that I’ve proven to myself that I can do it, I’m doubling my prices.

But don’t take my word for it. Go find the high earners in your industry, whatever industry that is, and check out their pricing. They didn’t get to six and seven figures by charging $50 or $75 an hour. (Or by charging by the hour at all.)

I believe that there is something magical that happens to big-time entrepreneurs. It’s that they start to believe, at a certain point, that money is truly just energy. And as energy, it means we can decide to play with that energy. We can get really creative about how we invite that energy in.

From the outside, that might look like a bunch of different things, none of which might make sense for you or your business…but on the inside, it’s all about moving through blocks, fears, and old belief patterns to make way for one new belief:

I am energy. I am money. I am the total potentiality of abundance, and I deserve and expect all good things in my life.

Did I freak you out?

Sorry. Not sorry.

You will absolutely need to move through your own blocks and fears in order to speak your new prices confidently. You will have to realize that you are valuable and you are enough RIGHT NOW. (And then from there, talking about your prices is kinda’ cake.)

Here are some pretty common fears:

• No one will pay that much.
• I’m not worth that much. I don’t deserve that much.
• Who do I think I am to charge that much?
• My clients don’t have that kind of money.
• I need more experience first.
• I need more education first.
• I need to have a business plan/marketing strategy/website/branding…whatever.
• I need to be in solidarity with people who don’t have money.
• It has to be a struggle to earn that much.
• It has to be hard.
• Rich people are snobby/assholes/unethical.
• I won’t be able to sell to people at that price.
• It’s not ethical to charge more when so many people can’t afford this.
• Healing shouldn’t cost this much.
• My _____ doesn’t charge that much. (Father, aunt, mentor, friend…fill in the blank with that person’s face you are envisioning.)

You might recognize some of these. I hear these fears in Facebook groups, with my spiritualpreneur friends, and from my clients…as well as in my own head. And each and every time I raise my prices, I work through some of them again.

The first step in releasing these fears is acknowledging them. You can use journaling in order to see what’s truly coming up in your subconscious. Try these two approaches:

1. Write down a number that would have you SUPER excited about if a new client walked in the door. Then fill in this blank: If I were to charge X, that would mean…
2. Write down the word “money”. Same thing: write down everything you can think of beneath it.

Release the kraken! (With Tapping.)

Okay, now you’ve got your own personal demons out on paper. Next step is to release those demons. Tapping/EFT is a beautiful tool to use for this work (and you can grab my Tapping Secrets for Next Level Income here).

The HARL process:

But if that doesn’t float your boat, then just notice where each fear is sitting in your body, acknowledge it, send love to that area, and then allow it to be released. Finish with love for yourself.

You might not be able to do these all in one day. You might also notice that one fear leads to other, even deeper fears and experiences from your past. That’s all right, too. Just jot them down and come back to them, and then do the same process again: hearing the fear (writing it down), acknowledging, releasing, and loving (I call this the HARL process!)

Want a little more goodness before you get on a phone call or put those new numbers up on your website?

1. Tune into your place of inner power. This can be done in a bunch of ways – I like to drum or rattle. You can also simply go into nature and feel the strength and support of Mother Earth beneath you. Whatever floats your boat!
2. Notice what your inner goddess is saying. SHE is super excited that you’re (finally!) raising prices.

And if you still need a little bit of help, set up a call with me. We can chat about how I help women entrepreneurs to truly claim their value.