George Kao argues "charge what you're worth" is bad advice. Instead, price from enoughness: set rates that sustain you without overcharging clients, build a ladder from free content to one-to-one coaching, and raise prices once you have a waiting list.
Or to stand up for your value in your pricing. Let me ask you this question. How much are you worth? Are you worth $100 an hour, or are you worth $10,000 an hour? Or are you worth an infinite amount? I hope you will say the final answer, because as a human being, you are worth more than any money in the entire world. And of course, if you charge what you're really worth, nobody in the world could afford you. So instead of charging what you're worth, I'm going to advocate and suggest that you charge based on enoughness and compassion. Charge based on enoughness and compassion. So the question is, what is enough for you? And could you even adjust your financial needs so that you need even less? Probably could. Probably could. Now, the other thing is, do you need your business right now to pay all of your bills? Or would that be giving your business too much pressure and giving yourself too much pressure and therefore giving your clients too much pressure? Because you have to charge a lot in order for them to. For them to be able to support your livelihood? So charging based on enoughness, that's the first idea, means that you need to maybe look at having a second income stream, maybe having a side job or two side jobs. There is no shame in having a side job when you're building an authentic business and then allowing your authentic business to grow over time so that you can then let it take over and be your primary income. So charge based on enoughness. Okay? And my suggestion to you is to look at the rates in your industry. What do people in your market, in your industry charge? Maybe they charge somewhere between $50 an hour and $150 an hour, or whatever it may be, or $250 an hour charge. For now, if you need clients, consider charging at the lower end of your industry's prices. So charge $50 an hour, because if you do that, you will appear to be a great deal for people. People go, wow, I can hire you at that level. Sign me up. You will get clients more easily. And then as you build a waiting list, as you have a waiting list, then you can charge a higher rate for the new clients, and then also tell your current clients, hey, I'm going to be raising my rates in three months. So you raise your rates in three months for the current clients. You charge the new clients at the waiting list the new rate. And then once you get all your clients at the new rate and you have a waiting list again, you raise your rates again. So you raise your rates every time you get a waiting list up Until a level where you feel like, okay, now I can live on my income as well as being compassionate. So that's my second point. Charge in a compassionate way to your clients. Because like I said, if you truly charge what you're worth, nobody can afford you, right? So charge in a way where you're like, you know what? I feel proud of the rate that I'm charging. I feel like I'm giving my clients such a good deal. Now the other thing about charging based on compassion is that your one to one service doesn't have to be the lowest price thing that you offer. Think about this. Are you making it such that everybody has to support your livelihood based on your one to one service? That's a lot of pressure for your business and for your clients and for yourself. So you need to create a business model where for example, you might have online courses that are the lowest price thing that people can work with you at. And then above that you have a group program that they pay more than your online courses, right? And then above that you have your one to one service. So please have multiple offerings. So that, that is another way to be compassionate. So for example, most of you cannot afford me one to one, and that is by design. I'm not being uncompassionate with my rate, okay? I am purposely trying to price myself out of your range because I don't want you to hire me one to one. I actually only have a few sessions of one to one per week. That's not the main thing that I want to provide. Some of you can afford my group program and that feels compassionate for you as a way to step in. Some of you cannot afford my group program, but you can afford my online courses. And my courses had to have, have price ranges too. And you can afford my cheapest online course, let's say $50. Okay, that's doable, right? And some of you say, well, right now I don't want to spend any money on my business and I just want to consume your free content, George. And that's the ultimate compassionate move for a business to serve people, is to produce free content. And you can of course watch my free videos. I have over a thousand free videos. I have many, many articles you can do if you're consuming my free content until you're, until you're blue in the face. So you need to have a business model that allows for that kind of compassion at the different levels so that your one on one rates can really sustain you and it provides enough for you while being compassionate with your business model. So I hope this is helpful. And remember, we don't want to charge what we're worth or stand up for our value because it's dangerous to compare our worth of our humanity with the prices. Because if you charge what you're worth, does that mean someone who charges more is worth more than you? Think about this. If they charge more, are they worth more than you? No, it's ridiculous. You are worth an infinite amount and so are they. So charge based on enoughness and compassion instead. I hope this is helpful. Thank you for joining me for this video. My name is George Kao, authentic Business Coach. I love talking about building businesses from from the heart in a way that truly feels good and brings compassion and wisdom into the world. So anyway, I hope you enjoyed this and maybe I'll see you in the next video. Thanks again for joining me.
