708 - Why You’re Still Undercharging (and How to Stop Without Losing Clients)

Welcome to the Next Level Life podcast with Christine Corcoran. This podcast is made for the powerhouse business women who are ready to ignite their fullest potential. This is where we will dive deep into mindset breakthroughs and sprinkle in some pick up the butt motivation so you can scale your business with confidence and clarity. Whether you're craving more income, impact or inspiration, this podcast will be your ultimate resource for all things Next level. Listen in as we have authentic conversations with game changing female entrepreneurs as we reveal the secrets of what it takes to rise and thrive. So go ahead, ignite your inner fire and let's get you taking massive aligned action. Are you ready to elevate? Let's go. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you're having an incredible start to your week. I am pre recording this before I head to America. I'm about to head to America and then head to Canada to speak at an event called High Vibe Women in Toronto. So freaking excited to be there and just so excited to meet everyone and get to connect with so many more people and also have my first experience of my first international speaking gig. So freaking excited. So people have recently asked me like, how has this come about? How did you get this? Are you getting paid like all these different things? And this opportunity has come about from connections that I've made while spending some time in America last year. And it's with this beautiful woman, Christina, who runs High Vibe Women. We met in part of a mastermind years and years ago and then we connected again at these events that I attended last year in America and we've stayed connected. And when she, we were talking about, I was talking about launching my book and we were talking about next goals and whatnot and she was talking about Hive Vibe Women. She actually asked me and approached me, she said, would you come and speak at High Vibe? And I was like, ah, yeah, of course. And so I am not getting paid for this opportunity, but it's an incredible opportunity that is worth flying over for. So honestly, I think sometimes we need to be fully transparent when it comes to speaking because there is absolutely always going to be times where you get paid and there's going to be times where you are absolutely willing to do it for free. And so I'm totally willing to do this one for free. I really want to expand my speaking into, you know, Canada and America and I haven't got that opportunity yet. And so why would I say no to an opportunity when I'm going to be in front of 150 people and getting this opportunity like, and worry about being paid for it. Like, you know, I know that I'm recognizing that I'm at the stage of growth in my business that I need to expand more of my audience and I know that I don't have a big, big audience in order to be able to demand payment. Like, I just know that. And so I absolutely have an incredible expertise to share and I absolutely have a great message to share and I'm willing to do that to expand, expand into the right audiences. So how do I go about determining whether I price versus whether I don't charge? So there is absolutely times this year where I've been paid to speak and usually those opportunities come about because people are wanting my expertise to add value to their communities or add value to their groups. And so that's often the time where I will charge depending on my whether my idle clients is in their audience. Right. So if they're coming to me, they're wanting to me to add value to their community and that's obviously costing my time. Absolutely. I'm going to go and do that. Sometimes there are speaking opportunities where they will pitch it to be like this is going to get you in front of these audiences. This is how it's going to increase your visibility. This is what we're going to do to expand your reach, et cetera, et cetera. Are you willing to invest your time and to share your expertise to do this for complimentary? Now if people ask that I'm going to do the due diligence to uncover is my ideal client in the audience, is this going to be valuable for my growth of my business? And if the answer is no and no, then I will charge. I know that like, and if the answer is yes and yes, then sometimes I won't charge. It'll just honestly depend. And I think it's just a case by case basis. Now an opportunity like this has come about, I don't care that I'm not getting paid. I honestly don't care. It's such a great opportunity. I know it's going to help expand my credibility as well. So it's honestly worth my while. So you need to have your own non negotiables when it comes to when you will speak and when you won't speak. Because there's absolutely times in my business where I'm like, oh, I think I need to say no to this because it's going to take me away from my really important goals or it's not going to benefit the growth of my business and I need to be conscious of that. Other times I'll say yes, because I want. I'm getting paid or two. It's a really worthwhile opportunity. So you want to just consider what feels right for you and you know, your own non negotiables. So, so excited. So speaking at this event, going to the VIP night the night before and then also going to another event the day after because while I'm in the city, I may as well maximize the connections that I'm there. But also going to be doing a bit of extra traveling. So going to Palm Spring to enjoy, because I've never been to Palm Springs. Going to enjoy some downtime there. And then I'm also going to do Niagara Falls as well while I'm in Toronto because it's so close and I've. It's a bucket list. I've never done it before. So, so excited for that as well. So make sure you're following along on Instagram to check out all the. All of my journey. Okay, so today I want to talk to you about why you may still be undercharging and how to stop it. How to stop without losing clients. So one of the biggest hesitations when it comes to charging more is we always worry about, oh my gosh, will people pay it? And majority of the time actually happens is that you increase your prices and then people pay it and you're like, oh, why didn't I do this earlier? So there's going to be times within your business where you recognize that it's time to increase your pricing. But this conversation actually came about because someone asked me the other day, like, really, when it came down to what the problem is that you solve in your business, what truly is it? And I was like, oh, that's a really great question that I haven't pondered on for a little while. And so I sat down and was like, what is the real problem that I'm overcoming and helping people solve? And one of it was undercharging. So one of the key ones is definitely undercharging because I help you understand. Like, is the undercharging around money mindset issues or around your own self? Belief in your value is about communicating your value. There are so many elements that I help with when it comes to undercharging, and then the next one was plateauing. So when you're hitting a plateau in your business and you feel like you want to keep moving forward, but you're not really sure how to go about doing that, it's going to be a few different things. So it could be authority building, building on your presence and your visibility. It could be your own belief in limiting beliefs and that are holding you back. You could be self sabotaging your expansion, or it could be strategy. You may need to improve your strategy to level up. So I feel like in my business, those are the two major problems that I help clients with that usually when they're coming to me, it's because of those two things. I know I can. I know I'm ready for more, I know I can do more and be more, but I'm absolutely plateauing and I'm not sure why versus I'm undercharging. I want to be able to charge more and I want to increase my sales and I want to get better at selling so I can charge more. Right. Because it all is so intertwined. So when it comes to undercharging, there's a few things that we look at. One, is it, are you undercharging because you are doubting your value and you don't understand the sales process, so you find it really uncomfortable having conversations around money or that you actually don't see the value in what it is that you do? So one of the things that we need to shift when it comes to perceived value is that you've got to step out of your own shoes and stop perceiving the value value from your eyes. Because when we do that, we often think it from a place of like, well, it's easy for me, or it comes naturally to me, or it doesn't take me long. And you're not perceiving the value from the place where it should be perceived, which is from your ideal client's eyes. Your ideal client values it and it is valuable for them. And you need to understand what that value is. So you need to take the time to sit down and be like, okay, what is the cost of my client not being able to solve this problem or fix this issue or achieve this result? Right. What is the value to them? What is the cost of it to them? If they don't fix it, what will it cost them versus if they do fix it, what will they gain? So when we start to unpack that and you recognize, like, what is the value of that? You can look at it from the value of time, value of effort, and the value of money. So when you really do that, and often if you work with business owners, you can really quantify that, because there are certain services that you do that will generate ROI or may generate results based on moving beyond the problem they're experiencing. And so when you start to perceive the value from your ideal client's eyes, you'll start to realize that you're probably undercharging. The other indicators of undercharging are things like becoming resentful towards the clients that you're working with or the work that you're doing. Feeling like you don't have enough money left over at the end of the month because you are giving, giving, giving so much, you're possibly over delivering. And sometimes we do that from a place of not believing in our value. So we keep giving because we think that we're charging too much. Like you're sitting at that price point, you're like, oh my God, they've given me money, I better keep giving until they tell me that it's valuable, right? I hope they like it. I hope they like me. And we get stuck in that doubt phase and we then over deliver because we believe the value exchange is off. Because you're not believing in the value that you deliver, you have to come back to understanding the value from your client's perspective in order to see that it's well worth what you're charging. So other signs that are showing up for you if you're undercharging is that if you are so exhausted, where you're working so much, but you don't have enough money left over at the end of the month, or you feel like you're actually not even earning the amount of money that you used to be earning in your corporate job or a job that you were in previously. So you may be undercharging. If your clients are giving you things, if they are giving you gifts, if they are, you know, somewhat giving you extra value after you finish working with them, it's usually because the value exchange is off from their side and they're like, oh my gosh, you've given me so much. You've done so much for me, now let me give something back to you, right? So that's often a sign that you're undercharging. The resentfulness can show up, and that's where you're under charging because you know deep down the value exchanges off, right? So you become resentful, and that's usually an indicator that you're undercharging, that you're not really believing in your value or your worth. And so you are angry at yourself because you should have charged more or you should have set better boundaries in order to not over deliver. If other people are telling you that you're cheap if you have other people that are always signing up because it's like you, you're on a good wicket, right? So if you've never had clients leave you, if you always have clients come back to you and like love what you do and you've never increased your prices could be another indicator also if you never have any pushback on your pricing. So if you, because you have to be expensive for someone, right? So if you are having sales conversations and all of them convert because they're like, oh my God, that's a bloody good deal. That's also an indication that you're undercharging. Okay? So even like I have a client, like she's so overworked because she actually should be charging more and working with less clients because of the level of value that she delivers and the standard of work that she delivers and the experience that she has, the expertise that she has. She's so incredible at what she does. She's just realized recently that she's like, I actually need to double my prices and work with less clients and continue to deliver the high level quality that I do. And I'm like, hell yeah you do lady. Like what are you doing? And so that could be a really good indicator as well. So if you've uncovered that you are undercharging, what you want to do is ask yourself what are you worried about happening? If you were to charge your worth, that will usually show up any mindset blocks that are preventing you from being able to charge your worth. Now that could be money mindset blocks, it could be your worth, your self worth and how you connecting your self worth to your value and your self worth to your offerings. You need to disconnect that your self worth is non negotiable and has nothing to do with what you're charging. It's completely separate. You need to look at your offerings and the value of your offerings as a separate service that is delivered. Your company delivers to your ideal clients and the clients see the value in what it is that you deliver, right? It's got nothing to do with your self worth. This is all the work that we do in unstoppable sales. So you need to start seeing your offerings as incredible value and you need to start communicating that value in order for people to see the value in charging more, right? So there are so many elements to this, right? And so then obviously we want to raise our prices. And if you're worried about losing clients, you need to really consider like will that really happen? And you don't have to do a massive jump to begin with. We want to look at like, okay, what are you currently charging and what do you want to be charging and what's the increases that we need to do over time in order to get there? Now we want to start increasing your prices. It's going to be scary. It is. It's going to be scary to begin with. But then you will have people pay it and you'll be like, oh, actually it's okay, people do see the value in it. People do pay it. And then you can start increasing your prices even further if you need to. And yes, we don't want to lose clients. I mean, you might want to. It's up to you. Like, you need to determine like, is it time to actually reduce a couple of the clients that have been on a really good wicket with you for a long time, that you need to drop a couple in order to take on new clients that really see the value in working with you at your higher price? And that will obviously sometimes you need to drop a couple that were low grade clients that maybe don't really value the work and what you do and they were just on a really good price point with you. And yeah, so these are all the types of conversations that I usually have with my clients to start figuring out, like, where does your pricing need to be in order for you to be able to charge your worth, be able to get paid well for what you do and also price yourself well in the market so then you can increase your prices and have incredible clients to work with. So what I would love for you to do from this episode is sit down and ask yourself, do you feel like you're undercharging? And if you are, what would you like to be charging? And just try to put a couple of numbers down on paper of like, okay, if you were to be able to choose what you want to charge, because you can write down what that is and then look at the gap from where you're currently charging to what you want to be charging. Do you want to increase the prices straight away or do we need to do it in increments? And I want you to start looking at your value from the perceived side of your ideal clients to start to uncover your the effort, the money and the time it costs in order for you to deliver that service. Because honestly, once you take out tax, you haven't got a lot left over. You need to start considering that price point and whether it's actually worthwhile for you to continue to charge that rate moving forward because where will you be in a year's time if you don't increase your rates? And if you're not happy with that, you need to start changing some changing some things. So the only reason you are still undercharging is because you're one worrying about losing clients, upsetting clients and your people pleasing, or two you are doubting your own value. Please take the time to do the work to uncover the value from your ideal client's perspective and start communicating that you've got to own that. You've got to believe in yourself and believe in the value that you deliver before anybody else will. And you've probably got all the testimonials, you've probably got all the incredible feedback from your clients. You just haven't really taken it on board as your identity. You haven't taken it on board to believe in yourself enough to be able to charge more. You are worthy of charging more and it's time to step up and start doing it. If you want help with this, the wait list for unstoppable sales is currently open. We're going to be taking a new intake in at the end of November when and we'll go all the way through into the 2026 and it'll be a four month journey with me. So if you really need to work on this, that is the perfect container to do that because we work on all of it. Your money mindset, the strategy, your pricing, your value, your worth, being able to communicate your value, your sales messaging, all of it. Because I'm a, I'm so such a big believer in women charging what they're worth so they earn a good amount of money in their business so they can continue to have a sustainable business. Right? Otherwise I just see too many people, too many women give up on their businesses too early and it usually comes down to because it's not worth it because you're not getting paid well, it's time to start charging your worth. Thank you for listening. And if you found any value out of this episode, make sure you hit the follow button so you get access to the episode episodes as soon as they are live. And make sure you come hang out with me on Instagram. You can find me at Christine Corcoran Underscore Coach. Have an incredible weekend.