How To Identify & Overcome Roadblocks In Success Journey | Avi Arya | Loren Fogelman |

How to price my services when I didn't want to trade dollars for hours, time for money. Because what I do for clients has nothing to do with time. It's about getting results and making it change. It's about the transformation. Or when you're meeting with people you want to really, don't even try pitching your services. It doesn't work. Nobody wants to be pitched to. What you want to do is ask great questions. If you know that there's something you ought to be doing, but it feels uncomfortable, you're resisting it, you're avoiding it, you're getting busy doing other things, but that doesn't really get results. It's just busy work. Then know that that is a clue from the universe that you ought to be doing it. And once again, the insight is if it's uncomfortable, you ought to be doing it.

Good evening, everyone. Once again, I welcome you all to this masterclass and Thursday masterclass. And today's topic is going to be, by the way, Avi couldn't join us here, so I'm going to be your host for today. And before introducing our guest, I just want to introduce our topic today, which is how, how can one identify and clear roadblocks in a career, in their career find success? And today we have with us Lauren Fogelman, who's going to explore about this topic for us. She's an author, a business coach, and a keynote speaker and she helped thousands of entrepreneurs through her online programs, especially accountants. Over to you, Lauren. How are you today?

Thank you so much for inviting me here to Internet Moguls of the World. So excited to be sharing with you. And I just wanted to say that the meditation, I absolutely agree with everything that happened. If you believe that it's possible, then evidence starts to show up that open up doors of opportunities that might have always been there, but you never ever could have seen it up until that moment when you were ready for it. Just want to say thank you for the meditation. Very, very inspiring.

Thank you so much. That's a culture that we are building here at Intent Vocals. Before starting any of our masterclasses, any of the classes, we do this every time to get ourselves in a state of acceptance and learning. So thank you so much for acknowledging that. And Lauren, before you go ahead and introduce yourself, there's a certain way that we introduce within Internet Moguls of the world. We call it hero introduction. I will tell you my hero introduction and then you go ahead and formulate your own hero introduction. So my hero introduction is I'm my name is Agrimon Agram Mittal. I'm a son of two loving parents, father to a Alsatian German shepherd and I'm an engineer turned digital marketer and now a co founder at Internet Mobiles of the World school. In this school we help entrepreneurs to turn to a category of Internet mobiles. Internet Mogul is the category of entrepreneurs who runs their businesses on independent systems and neither compromises on their personal or their professional dreams. So that's my hero introduction. So what's yours?

Mine is that I'm a sports psychologist turned accounting, pricing and profit coach, primarily for accounting professionals. And basically what I found was that my education gave me the tools, the insights, the knowledge to do what I do really really well. But it also prepared me to be an employee instead of a business owner, an employer. And because of that there were three things that I had to figure out in order to have a business that I ran and supported my lifestyle. Instead took from my life where I had a sacrifice. And the very first thing was how to be able to network communicate my value. Especially when I'm actually more of an introvert than an extrovert. The second thing I had to figure out was how to enroll new clients into working with me when I didn't like the sales part. In fact people, they don't even teach selling in school. And the third part is how to price my services when I didn't want to trade dollars for hours time for money. Because what I do for clients has nothing to do with time. It's about getting results and making a change. It's about the transformation. So those are three things that I found that most entrepreneurs need is how to market or communicate value, enroll new clients when they don't like being salesy and pricing their services.

And I think we are going to talk about all three aspects of your learnings today on this. But coming to today's topic. How does one identify and clear roadblocks in one's career and achieve success? So these, I think these are the three ways I think you have mapped it out. Answer this. But you see our, you know our community have various kinds of people. They have coaches, business trainer, business owners and real estate people. Doctors, network marketers and then accountants and people who are just starting out and people who are experienced and have 50 plus members, you know, in their team. So how can you like this these three problems are gonna address similarly to all of those people or it is different for solopreneurs versus entrepreneurs and business owners.

I believe that you have to start where you're ready to get started. And one of the things that I found for myself is that if there was something that I had to do, but I was holding back, I was resisting it, all of a sudden I felt very, very stuck. And that one of the things I learned along the way was that if there's something I should be doing and it feels uncomfortable, that's exactly the thing I ought to be doing. So if you know that there's something you ought to be doing but it feels uncomfortable, you're resisting it, you're avoiding it, you're getting busy doing other things, but that doesn't really get results. It's just busy work. Then know that that is a clue from the universe that, that you ought to be doing it. And once again, the insight is if it's uncomfortable, you ought to be doing it. So for me, it actually started out with the networking piece. I didn't like networking. I didn't like going out to meetings and introducing myself to people, pitching my services, having small talk. And I had to be able to figure out how to be able to market, communicate my value and network. And that was really the first step.

Even so, people who have just started, you know, can use this. And especially like you said, you were an introvert and you started networking and then that was the first step. How do you recommend people who already have businesses but still get stuck into marketing their value proposition? What should be their direction of thinking? Should they, you know, so what we teach here at Indian Moguls, that you should just go and look out, look up to your corporate competitors within the market and see who is, you know, doing the best and then kind of, you know, see what kind of strategies and things they're doing and then, you know, kind of follow them to a path and then make your own mark. So do you think it's the right strategy for those people to do as well?

I think that any path that you go down is going to start to give you insights. The way that I approached it was first becoming aware of who my high quality, ideal clients were. And once I became aware of who they were and started having relationships with them, working with them, then I actually wanted to have conversations with my clients and I wanted to understand from their perspective and in their words what it is that the challenges were before they were looking for some type of solution that I was able to help them with. I then wanted to understand what were the benefits of us working together and how that made a difference for them. And because the fact that we were able to work Together, they no longer had that challenge that they were dealing with. What were they able to finally move forward with or occur, Have. Happen that they couldn't have had because they were stuck with that challenge. So that's what I did, is I decided, you know, I realized who my best clients were. And once I became aware that, I started having conversations with them to understand things from their perspective and their experience, because then I can speak in their language in a way that they would get it, and it would really create a stronger connection. So it was really finding out what was going on in them, with them, in their minds, and how it affected their life and just speak in a language.

There are two questions which pops up in my mind when I see this approach. One, that how do I find my ideal clients? How do I decide who my ideal client is? Whether it should be a housewife, whether it should be college boy, who should I decide? That's first question. And second is whether I should decide based on the skills I have. Under transformation, I can get to people and accordingly. So it should be skill or service first, or it should be people first.

Okay. What I. I don't. I think it is really that so much is individual and you need to decide for yourself. Maybe it's about doing a meditation or some journaling and seeing where the guidance is coming from. What I have found for myself is that I wanted to have a niche, which is who I worked with best, and I wanted to have a specialty, but it wasn't. And the specialty is what you do and the problem you solve. So the niche is who you work with, the specialty is what you do, the problem you solve. And you can have either one or you can have both. And what I found for myself is it was a journey and an evolution. I. I was working with a lot of people in the beginning, and as I worked with people, I found what personalities, what characteristics I liked best, and the ones that I didn't work with as well, and it was having that awareness. So what I also looked at was not just the demographics of where someone lives, their education, what career they're in. I was looking at what I call psychographics, which is the personality, the qualities of them as a human being, as a soul that. That I really connected with best. And it was really the qualities of an individual that I felt were more important than just the demographics. And then the other part of it, like I said, was figuring out, what is it that I do for people? What is that transformation that occurs when we work together? What I've seen For myself was it was the money part. It was helping entrepreneurs, business owners, be able to price their services, be able to get comfortable talking about the money part and how to enroll clients based on the value and the transformation as opposed to selling their services by an hourly rate.

So now, Lauren, so I wanted to ask you whether these people who are figuring out who are their target audience and what their niche is, whether to. You said it, you know, it's a combination of both the things, it's a combination of their audience as well, which is who they are serving and what their specialty is. So. And once we decide this micro niche for ourselves, which is who we are targeting and what should be the next step towards it, how should we actually start approaching these people? Is it through advertising or should we do organic content first?

What I found for myself actually was once I decided who my micro niche was, it actually got easier instead of harder. And I want to say it took years for me to decide. I worked with a lot of different entrepreneurs in the beginning, a wide variety. And then maybe after the first three years of being in business, and I've been in business since 2009, I started to focus on between marketing professionals and accountants. So two very, very different personalities. And after working with both of them for about five years, I realized that it was the accounting professionals that I had a better mix with. They were a better client for me. They got better results. And that's when I made the decision to go ahead and really develop that micro niche. Once I did that, like I said, it was so much easier. There was clarity about what platforms do I want to contribute to and maybe write on, what podcasts focus on the same people that I work with that, that I could be a contributor to, where could I be going to network? Where did they hang out? And I will just say there were so many things I would do in that brought in a wide range of entrepreneurs. Once I had that specific niche, then I could figure out, okay, where do they go for answers? Where do they go to meet people? Where do they go for education? And it became so much easier. And actually that's when my business just took off and skyrocketed.

Okay, so once we find out the platforms our target audience is spending most of their time upon, suppose if I'm a business oriented and I'm a B2B firm, that I will probably focus on LinkedIn more than Instagram or Facebook. And if it is a B2C business, then I'll probably look at B2C platforms like Facebook and Instagram. And see where my customer or my ideal target audience is spending most of the time. But there's certain, even if, you know, for some businesses, even when they decide what is their target audience, they're somehow not able to figure out where they're spending most of their time upon. So how should we answer this question? Should we go ahead and contact some of these people through an outreach campaign? Or how should we answer this question where they're spending most of their time?

I believe that what I would do is I would look for groups where they congregate. And for me, I would do a search for Facebook groups or LinkedIn groups. And that's where I would get started, is looking at the groups for that particular niche interest, specialty and start joining those groups. The dynamics of groups on LinkedIn is very, very different than the dynamics of groups on Facebook. And then once you start getting comfortable with that, you can actually start posting questions. You can engage, you can answer questions that are connected to the solution that you have. And this takes it from very, very large with billions of people between LinkedIn and Facebook, and it really narrows it down to the people that you want to connect with.

Okay, so first thing, that once we find our Micronesian people who want to work with, we should really find these groups online where we can really start to engage with them. But you see, these groups are also found by some other businesses. And there are certain limitations to the things that you can do within these groups and you can directly promote yourself. So there has to be a way. What is that? Give us few tricks that you use to exploit those groups to get some customers out of there.

Well, I really come from following what I call the golden rule when it comes to marketing. With the golden rule, it's about give before you can expect to get. So in there, I'm answering questions, giving very generously, sharing in how tos if there's something specific that I can contribute to, I might then after that start asking questions around some of the things that I do and how I work with people. I might start asking things about pricing or value or how do you communicate that, how do you get new clients? So I'm then starting to engage by asking questions. After that, there might be people that reach. The third thing, and this is really the thing that separates you, is if people start responding to your questions, whether it's a comment to somebody else's or you posting a question, then go ahead and just private message them, thank you for responding to your question or thank you for the like to your post. And that's how you take it from many, many people and you start to narrow it down to develop these relationships is once again get into the groups that are connected to your interest. Start give before you can get. So follow that golden rule of answering questions and be very open and helpful in how you answer them. Then start posting some questions and when people are responding, whether it's liking your post or actually leaving a comment, go ahead and just private message them and thank them for that response.

I think this is a great strategy. I'm just going to revise it for the entire group here. So once we find ourselves our customers, the next step should be to find groups online on LinkedIn, Facebook. These are the best platforms. But even otherwise, if you can find groups where your target audience is there, you should really do this statement before you get and start to engage within those groups. And once someone replies or engages with your post or with your answers, then you should directly message them to start an interaction with them. Thank you so much for that strategy. Lauren. Yeah. You have something to add?

I'm sorry, can you say that again?

Yeah, no, it's okay. I, I thought you were saying something and you had something to add. Okay. No, the next question from my side is. So you talked about three things. How to communicate value. So when it comes to communicating value, we in our heads, we see the value that we are providing to customers differently than what they want from us. Okay. So how to communicate in the language that they are seeking. So because our language will be different from their language so that marketing message won't resonate with them. So how do you actually grab this?

And yeah, yeah, that's really a very insightful question because value is subjective. What I care about is going to be different than what you care about. And so often we're looking at value from what is important to us and our perspective instead of stepping into our clients shoes and looking at value from their perspective. I'd like to give an example of how, how people value different things before we get into communicating it. Look at the vehicles that people drive on the highway and if you look at the vehicles around you, you're going to see some people in very basic, low cost economy cars and they just want to have a vehicle that takes them safely from their home to that destination and then you're going to see some mid sized cars or maybe you're going to see some family vans and those people are looking for something that might be able to accommodate more people. It might have some additional features to it. Maybe there's additional safety factors to those larger cars. And they're looking for a certain type of driving experience when they're on the road. And then you're going to have those luxury cars, the ones that are very expensive that most people don't have. And those people have a certain status. They want you to know that they are a certain status in the world. But also they are looking for a certain type of driving experience. In fact, they might even have a personal driver. They might not even be doing the driving, they're sitting in the backseat doing work while somebody else is doing the driving for them. And recognize that each one of these people needs some type of vehicle to get from their home to that destination. But they value different things. Some of them value basics and just economy, some of them value safety for their family and others value having the luxury and the status of really driving a top level premier vehicle. And that's true for the people that are looking to work with you and really want the solution that you offer is you have different types of people looking for you also some are going to just want the essentials. And some of them are most of your clients are going to want really most of what you have to offer that mid range. And then you're going to have some premium clients that really want additional access. Maybe they want done for you, they want more handholding or more individualized attention. And so what you want to realize is that there's this wide range of people looking for your solution and, and you want to be able to really attract them in a way that they connect with from what's important to them instead of looking at maybe what's important to you, which tends to be our time, our education, our course of doing business. And by doing. The way to communicate value is to not focus on what you do, which is the tasks, how many sessions it is, changing your diet, exercising more. Those are the activities that help someone get to that end result. You want to start talking about the transformation, what is going to be changed because of the fact that they went through your process. Help them get into that future focus just like you did with your meditation earlier on this meeting. Help them connect with that future potential that they have and talk about that. So the ways to be able to communicate value. And there's four different ways. When you want to look at this from a marketing perspective, whether it's networking or online, you want to look at first identifying that problem that they have, where are they stuck right now? And then the second thing you want to do is instruct them what are Some of the steps that you help people with when they're stuck with that problem to be able to get through that. And then the third thing you want to do is let them know why you're qualified to be able to help them with that solution. Maybe you have certain credentials or degree or you have many years, or you went through that journey yourself and now you're on the other side of it. And then the fourth thing you want to do is be future focused in your messaging. And that is where you help them to see how going through this, they no longer have that challenge, they're no longer stuck, and they can now have that transformation and be able to move forward with their life. And hopefully as they're making that transformation themselves, they're probably impacting other people's lives as well, helping other people with some transformation too. So those are the four things you want to think about in your messaging. To communicate value is to identify the problem that they're currently having. Instruct them about the steps on how to move forward past that problem. Let them know why you're qualified to do that. And then the fourth one is really look at that future potential that they have and that they're craving for. That's possible once they go through your solution. And as you're messaging, don't put all four of these in one message. Just take one and focus on one at a time. Maybe for one week you're doing the very first one, the second week you're doing the second one. And just use this as a process that you can focus on over and over again. It's like rinse and repeat.

This is really interesting, Lauren, how you have portrayed this through an example of a highway in a car. A question here. So suppose three different type of categories you defined in your example. And we all have three different types of customers, as you said, premium customers who are looking for different things and then different types of customers. So everybody wants those premium customers, you know, the top level customers. But how should they decide which level to start upon? Because everybody wants to provide that Rolls Royce car to them, to the most premium customer. So how should we decide which level to serve according to our situation?

Well, I think that what I would say is you can actually serve or three. And what I do is I go ahead and package my services and I have three different packages that I offer and then they can choose which package is best for them. The reason that I do that is because according to my study, where neuroscience is the way that people make decisions is they have to compare that's how our brains are wired. And when you just offer one way of working with you, then potential clients are deciding are they going to work with you or are they going to move. Move on to some other option. But when you offer three different options or packages of how to work with you, now they're thinking, oh, which one fits me best? Which one do I want to choose to be able to move forward and work with you? So the three different packages are what I usually call silver, gold, gold and diamond. Silver is the very basic one. It's like that very basic economy car that you see on the highway. It just has the essentials to be able to make the change. The gold is that mid sized car. It is the one that has the some extra features in it. It has more comfort and it has more access, most likely or deeper learning. And then the premium is the diamond. And, and that is for the person that wants more handholding. They want more access, maybe they want faster results and they realize the value of working with you closely and getting things done as quickly as possible. So I would say instead of offering people one option of how to work with you, offer them the three, three package options and then they can decide which one is the best fit for them.

Okay. Yeah. So these three levels of business as you're talking about the lower level, the mid level and the high level and then maybe even done for you could come in place. You know, even after that there's even more premium level. So. But providing options have two different perspectives to it from what I see learned. So when it comes to comparison, I think they're comparing between different brands. Even in the same brand. If they're getting different options, are we not making them confused which option should go for if they are kind of line between two.

I, I believe it depends on how you set it up. And, and this is what I teach my clients also with packaging their services is that you want to have an idea as to who f.

Is it my Internet connection? Can you let me know in the chat if you can all hear me? Okay, Lauren esta. Okay, so when she come back, I think last 20 minutes of this session, I'm gonna ask you guys to put in your questions. So whatever your questions are, please put in the chat.

I'm.

I will take one on one all those questions. Let me just check with her. Sam.

Are you able to see me now?

Yes, I'm not able to see you, but hear you, Lauren.

Okay, my Internet went out, so I went ahead. Okay, here we go. My Internet went out. So now I'm on my phone.

Okay. Okay, that's perfect. No worries. Yes. So you were defining between how should we decide whether we are confusing our customers between packaging or how should we package to differentiate our services?

Yes. As I was saying, when I offer the diamond package, I talk about what are the things that are important to them, what, where they want it faster, they want more access to me, they want deeper learning about the solution. With the gold one, it is for people who are already busy, but they know that if we work too intensively together, they wouldn't get the best results. And with this silver package that I offer, it is for people that just want to get started doing this and they want to get the essentials, or possibly they've done this before and they just want a little bit of deeper learning. There's just one piece of this that we need to work on. They don't need the whole formula. So that's how I describe the packages, is I give a little bit of a sound bite about who would fit best to each one. And now what's happening in their mind is they're trying to think about, oh, which one is the best fit for me based on that description.

Another question when setting up these three different packages and levels for your business, Lauren. So as we are starting out, most of the like, I think a huge majority of people who are present here on this call today are coaches, actually. So, you know, when they're packaging it, should they do all three packages together and then launch themselves in the market or they try to perfect one and sell it first and then try to, you know, create an upsell for that or how should this work? Should they go with all three packages at the starting?

I believe that you want to come up with. They all can help someone move forward with the transformation. But once again, people want options. And it's not that you're creating three different types of paths. You're taking your system of getting that solution. And some people just want a little bit, some people want more, and then some people want as much attention as possible. So it's just going from maybe the essentials and then into deeper work with you. That's how I would say it. It's not about creating three different paths, it's just the same one. But does one person want just a little bit or maybe they want to do a self study and then the other person, they want as much hand holding as possible.

Sure. I think that gives a whole lot of clarity how to approach this value proposition and how communicate your value to your target audience. Now, coming to the second point, Lauren, that you addressed, which is how to sell. Because they don't teach you how to sell even in school. And if you haven't been to a proper business school. So how do you address this? How to sell? How should we start selling those packages?

What I believe once and again I'm going to go back to is the golden rule of give before you get and to realize that when it comes to selling, wants to sell. Most people don't like the sales part and your clients don't want to be sold to. So let's just get on the same page with right there. You want to come from, once again, giving value. That is the premise of all this, of give before you get. Therefore, when you're meeting with people you want to really don't even try pitching your services. It doesn't work. Nobody wants to be pitched to. What you want to do is ask great questions. You want to get curious about them and find out what's going on with them and find where the connection is and where you can help them. And that's really what you want to do, is you ask great questions, then people feel that you're actually interested in them. They want your relationship with them to be relational, not a transaction that just grows your bank account. So you want to really ask great questions and find out what's going on with them. Maybe some of the things you want to find out is where they are now, what's the challenges? What is it that they want to have differently? Maybe in a year from now or whatever time frame you want to look at, where do they feel is what's holding them back and what would be different if they got that challenge, that transformation that you offer? So those are some of the things that you want to ask questions about. Once again, you want to find out what's going on with them right now. And then you want to ask them what it is that. I'm sorry, what it is where they would like to be at about a year from now. What are some of the current frustrations that they're dealing with. And then what would be different if you were able to help them with solving that problem and removing that challenge.

I think this is like a new mantra for this community, this golden rule, which is give before you get. And you don't have to be transactional. And it has to be a different kind of relationship. And you can not. You should not pitch. Rather, you should ask questions in the way that you have defined. So I think, yeah, I Think we'll take this approach and we'll tell you how it is working for our community. Coming to the third and the biggest question I think everyone have here, and even I have this question, which is how to price. How to price your service or products correctly in the market should be decided according to again competitors who are actually working in the market because they will, as you said, because your customer will compare your solutions to the other solutions within the market. So should we like worry about the competitors price going down because. So how should we do this?

Well, I think I want to first point out the mistake that most of us make is connecting our fees to time sessions, things like that. Reason that that occurs is because most of us started as employees where we were getting paid by the hour, whether we got an hourly rate or a salary, somehow our income was connected to time. And that is the mistake that most of us make when we first get into business is connecting our fees to time for our business services. Because that's how we were paid when we first started out working for somebody else in the business sector. What I want to say is that by connecting your fees and time, you are leaving money on the table. You're not getting as much money as you possibly could because time is a commodity and it overlooks your expertise. Your solution, the transformation that occurs and the transformation has value. So this is how I teach being able to start separating your fees from time, if that's how you're currently charging, is that you want to see that new people are coming to you. And when new people are coming to you, go ahead and figure out what you would typically charge for that. Usually it's how much time by your hourly rate and come up with that flat fee. And then what I want you to do is multiply it by 1.5. You're going to now have your new good rates. And this is called good better, best pricing. So you're going to now have your new good rates. You're going to multiply it by 1.5 and you're going to make that the fee that you are asking for. Enroll three people now at your new good rates. And after you roll three people that new good rates, you're going to then go ahead and move up to the next tier, which is the better pricing. You're going to have people coming to you once again. You figure out what that original flat fee would be of time by your hourly rate. And now you're going to multiply it by 2x. And this, this is going to be something where you're going to start getting better at having that value conversation where you don't have to pitch them. You're going to be finding out more about them, what's important to them. They're going to see your expertise because you're going to have to be better at that conversation. You're going to realize that people aren't as price sensitive as you thought that they were. And now you're earning two times more than you originally were because you're getting better at these enrolling conversations. After you enroll three people at your new better rates, we're going to go up to the third tier, which is your best. And this one takes courage, not confidence. The confidence comes later. This takes courage. This is like I was talking about earlier. If it's uncomfortable, you ought to be doing it. You will be uncomfortable in the beginning, but once again, people will be coming to you. Go ahead and come up with that original flat fee and now multiply it by three. And now you are earning three times more for the same work. No more time. But you are more connected to the transformation. You are having a better conversation with people about what's important to them. They you're working with a better client who really sees the value and doesn't want it for as cheap as possible. So once again, you're going to offer it to them. It changes the way you're doing business. You're earning more for the same thing because you're now focusing on what's valuable to them, the transformation, not the tasks or the steps that are necessary to achieve it. But they are hiring you for an outcome and what that means to them. And eventually, after you've been at your new best rates a while, you might need to go through this all over again. And your best rates now become your good rates and you go through the good, better, best pricing and that's how you start to raise your rates. Also, I just want to say, if you actually want the steps to package and go through the good, better, best rates, I have a free resource@businesssuccesssolution.com value once again, it's business successsolution.com value and that actually gives you all the steps to be able to start packaging and then shift your rates away from time into value pricing.

I'm just opening up that URL for everyone so I can post it in the chat.

Thank you.

Business successsolution.com value here is the link in the chat for everyone to pick up the free resource. Yeah, so I have a question about this, about when we are Talking about rates and, and increasing your rates. So some people have this.

I just want to say, I think that in the chat it only went to the hosts and panelists. It didn't look like it went to everyone.

Yeah, no, thank you for addressing that. Yeah. Okay. So when it comes to. Some people have this misconception, I would say, especially you when they are starting out, that premium products or services are only meant to sell by big brands. So is it really the truth? Can you not sell a premium services or a high ticket services by not being a brand?

Can you repeat the question again, please?

So if I'm. I'm just starting out and a lot of people in this community are starting out with their journeys of becoming coaches in their fields, so they are really scared to not only pick up their prices, but they have this misconception where they. Where they say that premium prices are only sold by big brands. And I have to first become a big brand in order to sell a premium product. So how should you address that?

I believe that pricing is an evolution and you have. And where I started out in my journey back in 2009 to where I am now, my prices are very different. So what was a premium price to me when I first started out is different than what's a premium price to me now. And this is, I want to just say success is messy. It challenges you. You have to really look at where you're stopping yourself. We're usually the ones holding ourselves back. And this has nothing to do with how many credentials you have behind your name, how many years you've been a business owner or anything like that. This is the fact that when it comes to that solution that you offer compared to your potential client, you are the experts. They are reaching out because they see something about you. It has nothing to do with how long you've had your own business for or anything else or how much education you've had. My first business coach, she was already making a million dollars a year and she did not have a college education, but I invested in her because she was already further along on the journey that I was just starting out on. And I knew that she could help me. So I want to say that this is about the fact that people connect with you and at some point you might be even charging more than your mentor. And it is because of the fact that you have a certain way of looking at it, a certain way of approaching it, a certain way of getting results, and people value your particular style and who you are and what you bring to the table. And so get out of your own way. Raising your rates is one of the most uncomfortable things that is all of us have to experience. And I just want to say you probably offer so much more value than what your prices reflect and go through the good, better, best. It's a way of step stoning into higher rates and start with where it's a little bit of a stretch for you and just continue to add value and build from that.

I think that's a beautiful explanation about the entire pricing structure and pricing strategy that one should have. Okay, so now I'm gonna take. I think I am done with my questions. Lauren, I think you have cleared a lot of things out for me and for my company as well. But I'll take some of the questions from the community I want to take from the chat. So I'll ask community members to put their questions in the chat so Lauren and I can take it. Okay, I think, Rashmi, you have raised your hand. You have a question. Okay, Harshit, have a question. How to understand what's the value of transformation for customers?

Sure. As I was saying before, like with the example with the vehicles, it's different things to different people. The way that you understand the value of the comp to them is by asking questions. What you want to do is ask them the four questions that I put out there before of where they are now, what it is that they would like to where they would like to be. What do they see as the challenges? What's the cost of being stuck? So there's usually a cost of frustration, time and money. Even if you're selling a soft service like Health, there's still some type of time or money frustration or cost also and you want to find out what that is. And then what would be different if once they no longer were stuck and they had that transformation. So that gives you some insights as to the value from their perspective. I also want to say by asking those questions, they see the value of working with you and how you're approaching this differently than anybody else that's doing something similar. And by asking these questions, it creates rapport. They start to develop trust in you. And also by asking these questions and understanding their challenges, it gives you credibility, credibility and trust is something that has nothing to do with credentials or years of experience. And I just want to say that those things bring out the value of working with you versus somebody else. The other thing I want to say as far as value goes is you might want to add some more specific questions in how much time are you spending Dealing with this, thinking about this. So that's something you want to think about. And also you might want to ask how much have you already invested in trying to solve this problem? And now you're starting to get some real insights into the time and money factor.

I just noted down those two questions for myself. Okay. I think yeah, this is a great strategy. I think, harshit, you have your answer about how to approach the value of the transformation for the customer by asking questions. And I think we have got two very amazing questions which is how much time you're actually investing and how much you have already invested into this problem.

I want to add one more thing that maybe just puts a bow on the present that we're talking about, wraps this up. People value four things. They want it to be easy, fast, save them money and make them money. Those are the four things that people highly value when they're thinking about working with you and when they're thinking about you. As I said, they want it to be easy, fast, save them money or help them make money. And when they are considering working with you, there's a couple of things that they're looking at. They're looking at whether you have the expertise, the know how, the skill set to be able to help them with getting past their challenge or problem to the transformation. They want to know what it's like working with you, the relationship and how that's going to be, what's the dynamic? Do they connect with you or not? Do you listen to them and make them feel valued and heard? And then the third thing is price. So those are three things that people are considering when working with you is they want to know that you have the expertise. They want to. They consider the relationship and then price. But price is number three on the list. It's not number one.

Can you repeat for me the four things? Easy, fast, help them make money and what was the third?

And save money.

Save money. Okay. And then they're considering three things, which is your expertise, whether or not you know how to get their transformation for them and relationship. And the last one they consider is the price.

Yeah, because we all want the best that we could possibly afford.

Definitely. Now when I'm thinking about it, yes. I think like Atul said within the chat, it is a well bought model moment for us. Okay, so let's take the next question. Okay, this is a long one. Sometimes a consultant works with a certain company which in turn puts the consultant in front of the end client as their representative. So in this middle, mediator company has a Certain pricing, which I lost it. I think I'm gonna ask Kanchan to come up here as a panelist and ask this question herself.

And it would be helpful for me if I find out in the beginning what your question is. So if you can start out by saying my question is, then I know how to listen to it.

Sure. Hi, Kanchan. I think, Kanchan, you can unmute yourself and ask Lauren question yourself.

Right.

Thank you so much. And Lauren, I've been listening to everything that you've been saying and let me tell you, it's highly, highly useful. And I can implement it right like the next minute. And it's, it's gold that you're delivering. Thank you so much for giving us all that information. So my question was like, since I'm a consultant myself and I work with many companies to serve their clients because they treat me as an expert and they, these companies help me to get that customer as their representatives. So I play as if I'm a part of this mediator company. Now what happens is if I work with the end client directly, I can quote my own pricing. But when I'm working with this XYZ company who in turn is working with the end client, then they have a certain pricing in their mind and when. So they, they play the pricing model on my behalf for them, which may not necessarily be my price. So how do I tell them like what my real price is, which always is higher than what the company quotes, or they give me as, as my remuneration, so I'm not able to ask for the real price that I would have actually liked from the direct line when I'm working with this mediator company. So how to solve this particular issue?

Well, I think that I would look at it from a different point of view is that first of all, they're helping you gain experience and you're being paid to learn or you're being paid to get out there and that by helping people for the greater good, you know, give before you get the people that you're working with through that media company, they're probably telling others about you also. And it will come back to you in a different way. That's unexpected, maybe through an opportunity. The other thing that I would say is that by them giving you clients, you don't have to now go out and get clients yourself. So it saves you time from having a network or market yourself to. And if you work with any marketer, there's always a cost to acquisition. So they're saving you that because they're giving you that. So that has value in and of itself. And it might be that eventually you get to the point where your own company has grown enough and you no longer need to be doing services through this other company. So that's what I would say is that you're getting a lot of insights and people are realizing that you exist. You're no longer best kept secret because of your connection through this company. Also that you don't have to go out and do marketing. They're sending you clients, which is the biggest problem that most professionals have is getting clients. You're getting a steady stream of clients and then eventually as you grow with your own firm, you can probably step away from this.

Awesome.

So.

So I think there is definitely some give and take that happens and I do understand the value that them giving me the direct clients is serving for me because it's saving me a ton of time and efforts and money. So.

Yes.

But I would definitely try implementing your like doubling and tripling the pricing even with these mediator companies. I'll just try. If it works, fantastic. If not, then I would just start with 1.25 instead of 1.5 and things like that. So I would just take smaller steps and try to move the ladder a little bit.

You know what, I would just go with the 1.5. If you look at the difference between a 1.25 and 1.5, it's not that big of a difference. And people, when you're looking at a price increase, you're not going to get pushback probably on up to 30% of a price increase anyway. So I think you're good if you do the 1.5. You won't need as many clients to be able to hit your revenue goals, but you'll start working with a better quality client and also it'll give you confidence to continue raising your fees.

Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much and I'm completely satisfied with what you said. I'll implement this. Thank you. Thanks Adrian for giving me this opportunity to ask.

Thank you Kanchan for your for asking this question. This may have been a question for others as well that I cannot think of because I'm in north setting. So thank you so much for asking that question. Okay, anyone else have any questions, please let us know in the chat and we are taking last two questions before we thank. Thank you Lauren for today's session. So let us know in the chat what question you have. If even if you want to come as a panelist and ask question yourself to the Lauren, then you know Please be my guest. Lauren, let me tell you, generally this community asks too many questions. But I think today you have solved everything for them. So nobody's actually asking questions now. Out of 58 people, nobody have any questions.

I have a question that I would like to ask, please, for the people that are here today. How long have you been thinking about raising your rates before you actually did something?

Can you please pose that question again?

Yeah. How long have you been thinking about increasing your prices or raising your rates before you actually did it? Because for most of us, there's a thought about we'd like to raise the rate. And there's a. It doesn't happen overnight. It's something that's on our minds. Weeks, months, sometimes years. So I would love to know, how long have you been thinking about raising rates before you actually did it?

Okay. So Nidhi says, weeks and weeks. I've been thinking since last one year, but not implemented. Padma says, Leah says, I would have waited before raising weights. Okay. A lot.

And then I saw someone else say one year.

Yeah.

Conscience said, I took a good year because I was accumulating. I lost the chat.

She got says months.

Mm.

And I want to let you know that that's true for me also is when the thought first comes up, I don't just the next day raise my rates. It's something I think about for a while and then eventually I will do it. But I will let you know that every time I raise my rates, I usually get a brand new client right after that. And that client was just the best client I ever could have wished for. So it takes courage, not confidence to do this.

Got it. Got it. I think we have Kavita with us who would like to ask a question. Kavita, can you unmute yourself and ask a question, please?

Yeah.

Hi, Lauren.

Hi.

Thank you so much. Because I am on my startup mode and I just planned three levels what you told. So I had a nine week plan and nine days plan and 99 days. So I was. I had this question only in mind, whether I'm going right and wrong. And you cleared all my doubts. One basic question I wanted to ask was like, suppose you have a client and you know you can convert that client, but that client is not giving you that importance. And should you be after that client or keep on texting them or mailing them and like, won't that degrade your.

Sure, sure. So when you say they're not giving you that importance, is it that they were interested in working with you, but now they're not? Getting back to you?

Yes. Yes.

Okay, that's great. You know people when they get overwhelmed, they don't make decisions and they postpone things that are uncomfortable for them because they're already stressed out. They don't want more stress. When you're talking with someone and it sounds like they're thinking about it and they'll say, let me get back to you. Is that part of what's happening? Yes. Yes. Okay, great. What you want to do then instead of just letting them say, oh, let me get back to you, and now you have all this energy of will they get back to me? Are they interested in all this stuff? It drains your energy, it takes away your focus. What you want to do is say, okay, well do you have any other questions? You want to see if there's any other questions before you get off the conversation. And then you want to ask how long do you need to think about it? And what you want to do is schedule a follow up meeting with them to be able to see if they were interested in working with you, if they had any more questions or if they wanted to get started. So that's what I do is if somebody needs to think about it for whatever reason, I try to schedule a follow up meeting usually in less than one week. If I can do it within two to three days, that's better. But I want to schedule a follow up meeting with them and I let them know it's just a checking conversation to be able to see if you have any other questions or if you're ready to get started or not. And if so you're ready to get started, we'll get it set up. So that's what I do is I.

Schedule a follow up meeting and if they bargain on the prices in the second meeting, then how do we deal that path?

You know what, I don't negotiate my prices. I know my value. And some people, when they negotiate, they just negotiate is they just always ask for a lower price because it doesn't hurt and they'll save some money. And some people don't fully see the value yet. So I don't negotiate my rates ever. I stand by my value. And if they move on, that's okay, sometimes they come back later. But the other thing is that they're negotiating, it might be because they don't fully see the value of your services. And so maybe they have more questions. You want to see if they have any other questions or possibly that they don't fully understand what it is that you do or how you could help them or get that result. So you need to ask more questions to find out what's behind that. And some people are just price sensitive. They just want to get as much of you for as little price as possible. Those are headache clients. Let them go.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Absolutely.

Okay, so we have another question from Viraj and I think it's a similar one. Another ask how to increase your prices in a very competitive market. One and second is what happens when a client starts to compare your pricing with one of your competitors? What should you do?

And I just want to let you know this is the last question I can take because.

Sure, yeah.

I want to respect everybody's time. What I believe is there is no competition. Different people like different things. Just like the vehicles on the highway, some people are going to be price sensitive. In a basic vehicle, most people are buying midsize vehicles, which are not the lowest cost vehicles on the market. And then you have some of those premium vehicles, luxury vehicles. So, you know, if you want to be price competitive, it means that you're going to always have to be having lower rates than what you would like to have or what you need. And I would focus on the value and the transformation as opposed to trying to compete with other people because there's someone else who's always going to have lower prices than you. You know what they can take the cheap clients or the price sensitive ones that want to negotiate rates with you. Those are my clients. I want clients who value the transformation, the work that we're doing together. So let someone else be price competitive. You don't have to do that.

I think that answers everybody's question. It's just the perspective you give to yourself and to the client.

Absolutely. And you have to connect with your value first before you connect anybody else to recognize the value that you offer.

Yes.

I just want to say one more thing about negotiation, is that when you negotiate your rate, you train that particular client that your rates are just suggestions. They're not your price. And if you negotiate with one with them once, they will come back and always expect to negotiate with you. So you're teaching them that you are willing to lower your prices. And is that really something that you want to do?

No, I guess not.

Yeah.

That's why we offer the three packages. Because you have a lower priced one, you have the one you want and then you have the premium.

Yes. Okay, I think this is it. Thank you so much, Lauren, for all these wonderful learnings. I'm just going to post your Instagram Link in the chat so everybody can give a review on your Instagram profile. Profile, you know how they felt about the session and probably you can get some reviews from there. And we're gonna let you know how soon this, this entire session is gonna be up on our learning management system for thousands of people to follow. So thank you so much with a handful for your time and for these amazing learnings.

Thank you for inviting me in. And I just want to acknowledge everybody that joined us today that you took time away from working in your business. Joining us today, getting some insights. One thing that's working on your business, working on your business is an advanced move and want to acknowledge you for doing that.

Thank you so much. Yeah, I think you, I think you can read in the chat the kind of love that you're getting.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

Let me just put it a link in the chat for the LinkedIn so everybody can give a review as well. I think my colleague Bhaskar Bhaskar Parth. Can you put in the link in the chat guys for everyone to give a review? Yeah. Here. That being said, thank you so much Lauren for your time and, and you know we'll be looking forward for maybe more sessions with you in the future. You know with Internet mobiles of the world school and being a coach with us. Thank you so much.

Take care. Bye.

You too. Bye. Okay, so I think this was a great session and now I want to take your time to introduce to our next part of the session which is to introduce our today's weekly hero spotlight of the week. And for today's hero spotlight we have Dr. Paramjit with us. Yes Dr. Paramjit, how are you today?

Awesome. Awesome sir. Hello Grimji, how are you?

I'm. I'm good sir. How are you? Yes sir. So please tell us about your story or exact steps to get the success.

First of all thank you Agramji for giving me this awesome opportunity. And thank you in advance to all the committee member to listen me. So I will start with my hero introduction. I am Dr. Paramji Singh, father by super girl, husband to a very supportive woman. I am memory coach with 14 years of experience in memory power. I am national and Asia memory record holder and founder of Prime Academy and where we have trained more than 25,000 students, parents, teachers, educators and trainers in approx. 5 countries. So this is hirant about myself and after this I will discuss about my challenges before joining this. So your first challenge to be frank, fear of higher climate. 6,000 5,000, 6,000 5,000 students. I was working as a one man act even can you believe.

Challenges doctor pricing students or five to six thousand follow ups online presence.

Background background animated videos.

Right. Right.

So next learning and experience. Second experience technical problem small changes and.

Big wizards.

Webinar daily basis basis.

Then.

Three videos in a day and 16amonth. Two or three days a class. Seriously Miracle effect Impulse Academy Just by little bit salary. Just by 6000 implementation and next implementation. So why you are working? Why you don't. Why you don't hire any anybody else? So for this purpose to computer related kamta videos I got LMS 6 months join 6 courses entrepreneurs high ticket rate 25,000 only for teachers and trainers. 5 to 6,000 students little bit add on 5% higher here or 25,000 higher authorities CEOs program principals.

Wow. Wow.

Oh thank you. Thank you. I mean just can you imagine same batch may one is a BDS doctor and one is veterinary doctor and one is CEO.

CEO.

Just by spending 30005000 or 8000 to 70 5000. Just by doing one webinar and by spending only 3000. This is the major change.

Sir. Amazing. Is six months implement curry or transform curry. I think. I think beautifully explained how to do proper follow up. But I still not think mind my words when I say it is possible.

After 31st.

March 24th of March 2022. Copy.

I will try my level best. Or as soon as possible.

Or as a memory coach approach.

My one client was there. Please spell your name. Please spell your name.

Signing.

Sir please just dispel your name. Just staring. That means Name is the sweetest sound of the word. Name is the sweetest sound in any language all over the world. Even entrepreneurs. It is very very important. Just imagine Dr. And it is trainable. It is trainable skill. It is trainable skill. And there is no weak memory or poor memory. There is only trained memory or untrained memory. Just like wearing, eating and walking.

Thank you so much sir for giving this. You know for this knowledge about the memory and how. How can we join your webinar? Please have make other chat actually or next time webinar.

Okay.

Okay.

So max class and many testimonials are there. Even Mary Mentorship May 17National Asia and what records and trainers news channels may even newspapers papers are there and other newspapers by these records. So.

Definitely train strong memory. Thank you so much Dr. Paramji ji for sharing your story today. I think it was way more inspiring.

Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you so much for sharing that. With that being said, I think we'll conclude our session today. I want each one of you to post reviews for Lauren on their Instagram channel. My team did put in the link. Once again, in the chat, we are inviting all these people from all around the world, which is telling them about, you know, how our community, you know, and students and members need your expertise and need your help. And in return, we get you excellent reviews. So please review them, each one of you. And each one of you also join Paramji's Dr. Paramji's channel and support his memory training course. Thank you so much and, and good night to all of you. I hope I did my best in, you know, being a host intern of a week. So thank you so much. I hope I did not disappoint you.

It.