When Pricing Feels Personal: Separating Self-Worth from What You Charge

In this episode of The Pricing Lady Podcast, we talk about when Pricing feels personal, separating self-worth from what you charge. We all know our mindset can get in the way, and being able to separate your self-worth from your Pricing will help you move forward with more confidence and ease. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the episode. Hello and welcome to The Pricing Lady Podcast. I'm Janene, your hostess. This show is all about helping you turn pricing confusion into clarity so you can grow your business with more confidence. Today we are talking about when pricing feels personal, separating self-worth from what you charge. Let's get real. If you've ever thought or said to yourself. This is my price, but I can be flexible or I feel weird asking that much. You are definitely not alone. A lot of people feel that way. For service-based entrepreneurs, especially women, pricing often feels very personal. After all, you are the one doing the work. It's your expertise, it's your energy and it's your name. When someone hesitates or says no or pushes back on your offer, it's hard not to take it personally. That's exactly why this episode matters. Because when pricing feels personal, you tend to undercharge, apologize and overexplain, over deliver to compensate for how you feel or avoid raising prices even when you know you should. Many people will tell you you need a thicker skin. You don't need a thicker skin. You need a better lens. One that lets you price with clarity, not emotion. Let me replete that. You need a better lens, one that allows you to price with clarity instead of emotion. Let's take a look at how this shows up in your business. I've got five ways I'm going to share with you that I see this shows up in people's business and don't think that I haven't done some of these things myself, because I definitely have. It's why I'm so familiar with them. Okay, so the first one is you feel nervous quoting your price. Sometimes even I still feel nervous quoting my price, especially when I'm doing something I haven't done before. Maybe you go shy, your voice softens, you over explain, or you rush to cover the silence when there is silence, 'cause you're afraid of getting that rejection. This is one way in which it shows up. Pay attention to how you are behaving. Number two, you drop the price mid-conversation, or even before the conversation has started. I've had clients who have done that, who offer discounts before they even set out the offer. So you fear or you sense hesitation on the part of the client, and you offer a dis a discount that's not even been asked for. Third, you struggle to explain why it costs, what it costs. You're so wrapped up in you. It feels weird to try and justify it. A lot of times people come to me and they say, oh, Janene, I need a list of arguments to justify my price. Like, no, no, no, you don't. You're RA so wrapped up in. Defending yourself and your position that you forget that this is actually you know, mutually beneficial. You're trying to find a mutually beneficial solution for both of you rooted in trust and value. So if you struggle to explain why it costs what it costs, it could be because you're too focused on yourself. Fourth, you personally feel rejected when you hear no. So instead of thinking it's not a good fit or it wasn't the right time for the client, you automatically default to, I'm not good enough, or I'm doing something wrong, or what am I doing wrong? Right? So if you feel personally rejected by each and every no, you get that. Of course, you're tying your pricing a bit too much to your own self-worth. And the fifth one is you avoid increasing prices even when the results or your experience justifies it. If there's evidence that shows that you should, and you're still avoiding it. Then it feels like you're, you know, by raising your prices, you might be thinking to yourself, I'm worth more, so I have to raise them. And that might feel uncomfortable, but it's not about you being worth more. You were born worthy. You have always been worthy, and you always will be worthy when you're raising prices. You're usually either trying to align to where you should be, or you've built more into what you're offering, you're, you're getting people better results and you need to reposition yourself for that reason. It's actually has nothing to do with you personally, but again, you've created this very strong bond between your own self worth and what you charge, and that's messing up, for lack of a better phrase, what you're doing with your pricing. So those are five ways it shows up. You feel nervous quoting your price, you dropped price, mid-conversation. You struggle to explain why it costs, what it wa costs. You feel personally rejected when you hear no. Or you've avoided increasing prices even when you know you should be. Okay. So that's how it shows up and how you can identify if this is something that's happening in your business. Now let's shift modes and let's look at three tips for how you can start to shift your perspective without feeling like you're selling your soul. Right? So tip number one, you want to externalize the offer. So you are not your pricing and your pricing is not you. So what does that look like? I'm sure you've thought to myself at some point in time, yeah, Janene, I know this. I know I should do this, but I just don't know how. Well, here's one way that you can start. So write it out. Your offer that is, write out your offer like it's a product, like you're completely detached from it. Problem. What problems does it solve? What results does it create? What journey do people go on with you? What's included? What tools and systems and things like that, and write it in the third person. So instead of saying, I'll help you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you say you are going to get. This program delivers our coaching can help you do this. When we work together, we will go through this process. Yeah. Or you'll go through this process. So create it in a third person language and create consistent pricing rules for yourself. So make sure there's some boundaries. I'm going to come back to that in a moment. 'cause it's actually tip number three. So tip number two is to recognize your emotional pricing triggers and prepare for it. This is such a big thing. Now, if you follow me, you know that I love telling people to prepare for such things, and it's true. The reason I recommend it is because it works. So what does that look like? So, first of all, you have to notice. When it is that you're getting triggered and how you're responding when you get triggered. So is it before this discussion happens, is it before you were even pre, before you've even prepared the offer or while you're preparing it? Is it during the conversation? Is it only with certain offers or only with certain types of clients. Sit down and really think about where you're getting triggered and what the response looks like when you're triggered. Is it discounting? Is it stumbling over your words? Is it procrastination? Hello, I'm, I'm one of those who I procrastinate when I feel uncomfortable. Name what's going on? Are you feeling rejected? Are you wanting to be liked? Are you feeling guilty about the money somehow. Or are you afraid of the success? There's lots of reasons why these things happen, and be honest with yourself. You don't have to share it with anyone if you don't want to. The honesty is important here. Then decide, okay, in this specific situation, so let's say I'm prepared an offer for a client, I'm nervous about sending it because I'm afraid they're going to reject it. So I'll just add a discount up front. You're going to create a little plan for yourself. You say, I will not be offering discounts before I've sent the offer to a client. Right? That's going to be one of your golden rules for, for example. If that's one of your trigger points. You want to decide how you want to run a respond. The third tip then, of course, is to create boundaries. Before we go into that, let me just say one thing, preparing for how you'll deal with the emotional triggers helps take the pressure off of future you. This is really important. This isn't about memorization. It is about taking the pressure off of yourself at a time when you feel triggered. When you feel triggered, it's easy to fall into those old habits, but if you prepared for how you want to respond in that situation, you're much less likely to fall into that habit. Okay. Let's look at tip number three, which is set boundaries that support your confidence. When you are clear with your limits, it becomes easier to lead with calm authority. Yeah, to lead with calmness. I love that. Without them, it's easy to give in to people pleasing and to over deliver or to get overly generous with discount... unnecessary discounts. Let me be clear. Prepare yourself. Again we're back on the preparation, helping future you prepare go-to lines for discount questions. If you're used to or occasionally get questions, can you offer me a discount on this? Then prepare. How can I respond? What's one way or what's three ways I could respond to that question? One could I can be silent. Just let it sit there. Chances are the other person will try to cover the silence. Or you can say, that's interesting. Why do you think my offer is worth less than what I'm charging? Right? There's lots of different ways that you could handle that discussion. By the way, I do have a workbook on pricing objections, i'll put the link in the show notes for this episode, that could help you come up with some of these. There's lots of scripts and and content in there to give you ideas for this as well. You can grab a copy of that. Set limits for extras, define what's actually included and write it down. But then also, have in your back pocket, you know, okay... I could throw this little thing in instead of granting a discount. It could be one of your prepare lines is I don't offer discounts, but let me throw in this ebook for you. Right. Then instead of lowering your price, you're offering them something else instead. Write down how that conversation might go and what you would use and when you would be willing to use it. It shouldn't be always the same default. Yeah. You want to use it sparingly when you need to. And the last part of this is stick to your process. Whatever process or go-to lines you prepare for yourself and whatever boundaries you prepare for yourself, stick to it. Even if you're feeling nervous about it, stick to it because that consistency can build your confidence for you and for your clients. Now, if it doesn't work at all ever, then you can always change your mind, but you need to give a little time. You can't just quit after the first time if it doesn't work, right? Setting boundaries isn't about being rigid, it's about protecting your energy so you can serve your clients well. Okay. Now that we've taken a look at how this shows up in your business and some tips to start shifting it, you, my dear, need to take action and here's your wrap up challenge for this episode. This week, take 10 minutes to write out your main offer in product language, removing the eyes and focusing on what it delivers. Then step two is to define one clear boundary that will help you to protect the value in conversations. Remember, this isn't about you having a thicker skin. It's about you having a better lens so you can focus on the right things and do so with calm and confidence. That's all for this episode. I wish you a wonderful day and as always my friend, enjoy pricing.