You’ve created a great coaching program or built your first coaching course.
Bravo!
You step back, take a deep breath, and …
…panic!
What the h##%%%LL do you charge for it?
What are online coaching prices? What are the latest life coaching fees?
How do you price private coaching? You’ve got a great system for clients but…
If you ask too much, people won’t buy, right?
But if you ask too little, you can’t pay your rent and you’ll look like a discount provider.
HOW DO YOU FIGURE IT OUT??!!!
What rates do you charge as a coach?
The agony.
The stress!!!
ARGHHHHHH!!
Okay, let’s get off of our fainting couches.
Pricing private coaching is an art and a science.
But here’s something important to remember: People pay for perceived value.
For instance: You can find a resume coach who charges $50 an hour for a quick resume upgrade, and you can find one who charges $3,000 for a brand new resume.
Or put another way: You can find a cheap phone for $100, or you can pay $1000 for what Apple is selling you lately, and you know what?
Apple is doing fine.
So, before you do anything else, remember this lesson: People pay for perceived value.
What are you giving your clients that they want and see as valuable?
Start there.
When I was just starting my coaching business all those years ago, how did I price my private coaching?
Back in the day, I was just as terrified as you to talk about my pricing with my coaching clients (I tell inside stories about it in my Build a REAL Business program, learn more about it here…click).
I was also confused. What the heck should I charge? How should I price my private coaching? What *were* the right life coaching fees?
Well, fortunately I realized that I needed to base my coaching price on value, and not on an exchange for hours, and that was the start of something beautiful.
My very first coaching client paid me $2000 for a ten session package to help her with her career. Note: I was serving smart professional women who wanted to find work they loved.
My next private client paid me $2500 for my coaching package, and within months I was charging $3500 and $5000 for a VIP version.
Eventually my practice got full and I wanted to leverage my time, so I only took clients once a year and my rate was $6000…and they had to apply.
Does that sound incredibly douchy?
It was actually hard to write because it kind of does – but it is true! 🙂
(Also: Here’s a blog on executive coaching fees if you are curious!)
Let’s go back to the beginning, to how I figured out how to price my coaching effectively (and ethically!)
I thought about what I was coaching my clients on, and who they were.
First off, I was serving a market that was hungry for career help and that could pay for it (professional women).
Secondly, I was coaching them on finding work that they enjoyed.
So let’s pause for a second.
Think about a job you’ve had that you hated.
How much would it have been worth to you to get help finding one that you loved?
$1,000?
$5,000?
One million dollars?
I ask this question a lot when I teach live webinars, and the answer I get is usually “priceless” with “one million” being second.
So, if it’s worth a million dollars for someone to find work that they love, then …
…charging $5000 for a VIP service is actually incredibly cheap!
The value of what I did is hard to state, because it’s such a huge deal.
And therefore I priced it accordingly.
(Wondering why people sometimes add a 7 or a 9 to their price? Like $999 versus $1000? Here’s an explainer!)
And every time I raised my private coaching rates or my online coaching fees, I asked myself this question:
Am I honestly adding more value?
I thought carefully about my programs and what I provided, and made sure that it was what I had promised.
I was 100% invested in my clients (I’m terrible at the coaching art of professional detachment), and willing to work for them at any time, anywhere.
As my clients progressed, I saw the positive changes they were making.
Based on that, I felt comfortable with the value I was offering. I knew I was getting powerful results.
And, even more importantly, I also communicated the value that I was offering in a way that resonated with them.
It’s not just about your coaching rates, it’s also about how you communicate your rates.
If you communicate your value as a coach correctly, you’ll find people are often willing to pay more than you are asking!
So take a deep breath, and ask yourself this: “What is the TRUE value of what I do as a coach” and start there to determine your coaching price.
Take a deep breath. You can do it!
Now that you’ve got your pricing set, how do you find those paying clients and get them to say yes?
This is called marketing and it doesn’t have to be exhausting, scary, or involve hiring an expensive social media team.
But you do need to learn how to do it. So why not sign up for this amazing free marketing masterclass, where we’ll look at the 5 big marketing mistakes coaches make (you are almost certainly making at least two of them, so this is important!) + the 5 fixes. Grab your pen, it’s time to find you some paying clients
–> CLICK HERE TO GRAB YOUR SEAT!
