Part 5 - Price Your Experience
A common theme I hear from folks who are newer to coaching is, “I don’t feel like I deserve to charge the big bucks since I’m new.”
While there’s definitely some impostor syndrome involved in that (which you should work on with your own coach - you do have a coach, right?), there is a fundamental shift in perspective that needs to happen, too.
Sometimes these newer coaches don’t have a certification yet, or don’t have a specific enough certification, or don’t have any certification at all, just coach training from a non-certification source.
What they often miss is: EXPERTISE is not tied to length of time coaching or to any letters after your name.
Read that again.
Who would you trust more to get you to your first $100,000 in real estate: someone with 20 years of experience as a real estate investor and no coaching certification or the owner of a construction company with a master’s degree in engineering and 3 coaching certifications?
Who would you trust to teach you to better manage your ADHD at work: Someone who’s lived with ADHD their whole life and started multiple companies that sold for millions, or a person with 20 years of real estate investing experience AND a master-level coaching credential?
Those two examples might feel a little far-fetched, but they do help put into perspective that your expertise in your field is NOT necessarily tied to any formal education or certification.
If your experience is relevant to your client’s goals, it is indeed expertise.
Having done or experienced something that your clients WANT to do or experience… that makes you an authority.
This part’s a little shocking for most people: Your FAILURES also make you an authority.
The person I mentioned who scaled and sold 3 businesses? I GUARANTEE they had a bunch of failed businesses before and between, too.
Your clients are desperate to learn not just what TO do to get the results they want but also what NOT to do.
They are hungry to learn from your failures.
The more examples you have, the better.So start looking at your experience not just as the time you’ve been coaching, or thinking about coaching, or certified as a coach.Instead, look at your experience as the sum of what you’ve done AND what you’ve failed at in the arena you’re coaching.
THAT is what you bring to the table.
After all, something like these thoughts is probably what inspired you to start coaching in the first place.
And THAT is the expertise that you’re charging for.
Stop walking around talking about yourself like you’re a baby coach.
Sure, if you pursue coach training, you may add some new skills around specific conversation formats or how to help clients get results for themselves rather than micro-managing them, but I’d wager you’ve got a lot more experience under your belt in your coaching area than you’ve been giving yourself credit for.
Act like it - and price like it.
This concludes part 5; stay tuned for Part 6 where we talk through the ACTUAL pricing I see from day-to-day.
Morgan
Price Your Coaching Series
4. Price Your Market & Competitors