If you want to know how to make money in your business you might have to think about things in a slightly different way.

This is especially the case if you come from an employment arrangement where you have been previously trading your time for an hourly wage. 

It is also the case if you think that discounting is the best way to sell your services. 

Both of these are unhelpful ways of thinking about time and money and I’m going to invite you to consider a different perspective that will help you to create more money in your business. 

Busting Two Money-Making Myths

The first myth that I want to bust is that people are paying you for your time. This is 100% false. 

What people are actually paying for is the value that you offer in your services or product that will help them get the result they want which transcends the time that they actually spend with you.

And consider this – if they get a lot of value from their session then they should be able to get the result they want and continue to get that result long after that session is over.

It’s the same for a product. Let’s say that I spent $9 99 on a plunger. The value is not in just the plunger it is in the unblocked sink or toilet that I can get with that plunger. I’m buying long term solutions – not a piece of rubber with a bit of wood attached.

The second myth is that discounting is a good pricing strategy for a service based business. In about 99% of cases it’s not. It’s ok if you’re a big warehouse selling mass-produced products. 

Considering that your aim is to sell value, not time, the quickest way to train your customers to value service is to price appropriately. 

Discounting your services simply serves to diminish the value of what you do, and as a pricing strategy, it trains people to think less of what you do. 

It’s really important that you understand the value of what you do because time is a finite resource and yet money is infinite. 

In other words, if you deliver a lot of value then the money you can make transcends the time that you spend on delivering that value.

That conversation happened in 2015, and that client lost 10kg through her coaching program and has maintained that. She is also much happier and making choices that support her in other areas of life.

Do you think she cares about what she paid for the coaching sessions? What she self-discovered is still delivering value to this day.

If a client like that was to refer someone to me, she’d talk about her amazing transformation and the result she got. She would never say, ‘the sessions only cost $80!’

Value has longevity and it is almost immeasurable.

Time is valuable but for a different reason, it’s finite. The only way to make money based on time is to charge a very high hourly rate – or to leverage your time through working with groups or selling memberships or DIY programs.

The message is this – if you think about hours for dollars and being cheap enough, so will your clients. If you think about the value of what you do, so will your clients.

How to Create Value

Now that we’ve talked about value as the commodity that you’re actually selling in your business, let’s talk about how to create value. 

Just like beauty,value is in the eye of the beholder.

There are four things that you can do to create value in your coaching business.

The first thing you can do is to become a good coach through good old fashioned practice. 

This means being totally present with your client, making space for them to discover their own answers, hearing what they really need and letting them drive the agenda.

The second thing you can do is to surprise and delight your client by drip feeding them useful resources to help them to learn, become more self-aware and facilitate change.

I call this, know content, grow content, and change content.

These could include blogs you’ve written articles you found, recipes, podcasts or any other sort of thing that will help them to learn more, generate hope or solve a micro problem. 

When you unexpectedly send them a useful article (something that boosts self-awareness or helps them problem-solve), or a cheerleader text, or a surprise gift, your client will feel you truly want to help them and will feel a sense of value in what you do. 

The third thing to do is to think of your services in terms of the value you offer, and to ONLY talk to people about it in that sense.

The fourth thing to do is to stop trying to convince people to buy from you. If you can help your clients get a result that they desperately want, they will find the money. 

If they can’t see the value, it could mean one of two things: firstly, maybe you didn’t position the value right. Or secondly, they are not ready to buy right now, or to buy from you. In that case, you can go back to your messaging, or target a different type of client.

Your clients are actually incredibly resourceful. I have had clients say they’re saving up to work with me. This communicates that they see the value in the result they can get, and it is more important to them than either time or money.

A coach I know once tried to sell a $600 coaching program and the client said they didn’t have the money. The very next day, the client bought a musical instrument for….$600. What does that say about their perception of value, or perhaps, their readiness to change?