107: How to Know When You’ve Gotten Pricing Wrong with Jacquette M. Timmons

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I think about how for some of the organizations with whom I work, I think about sometimes how just their breakfast catering bill is 10 to $15,000. And I'm like, if you can spend that much on food, well then clearly I love that. Oh yes, you can spend that much on me.

I love it. That's true.

This is your time. How can we earn twice as much in half the time with Jo and ease while serving the highest good? That is our guiding question here at the Freetime Cafe, your home for heart based business. I'm your host, Jenny Blake. Join me for conversations with authors, friends and fellow business owners as we explore ways to free your mind, time and team to do your best work. Now onto today's show.

Hello, hello Free Timers. I am so, so delighted to have our first ever returning guest to the FreeTime pod, Jacquette M. Timmons. Jaquette is a longtime friend. She's featured in the book. She focuses on the human side of money to help you see that you don't manage money, you manage your choices around money. Jaquette is the author of Financial how to create a healthy relationship with your money and your mate. She runs really incredible programs like her Comfort Circle dinner series, her quarterly pricing Made Human workshop, and just recently I've been hearing her talk on her podcast More Than Money about her pricing masterclass. We talked about the psychology of pricing on episode 20 and there was so much good stuff in that interview that I tried to cram as much as I could into the book and just inevitably had to take some out. Today I want to really dive deeply into this question about pricing because as Jacquette describes it, the there's two ubiquitous questions that so many business owners find themselves asking. What should I charge for this? And is now the time to raise my prices? Jaquette, welcome back to the show.

Oh my goodness. Jenny B. Thank you for having me.

We were just talking before we hit record about intuition when it comes to pricing, purchasing and how I love what you said. You said practicing intuition in really small moments, even in things that might seem frivolous, actually informs us and gives us confidence for the bigger ones.

Yeah, it's so true. And you know, for those listening and joining us today, if you Read the book Free Time. Jenny will describe for you, you know, an instance of how you tune into your body and ask a question and use, you know, the movement of your body to help inform a decision. And I sent Jenny a text and said, this is probably not what you intended this to be used for, but I this exercise to make a purchase for a luxury item that had been on my to buy list for quite some time. And we just kind of enjoyed, you know, the fact that now every time that I see this item and use it, it just brings me so much joy and a great big old smile. And the arc of this story is that I was weighing potentially getting one item over another. And when I did the exercise three times, my body moved backward and I decided to sleep on it, and then I decided not to do it. And. And for the item that I did purchase, it was just a yes all over the place. So just to provide context for that yes.

Thank you. I love that you're willing to share. I didn't want to out your purchasing decision story, but I love that you were thinking, well, this is the one. You narrowed it down and you're like, should I get it? And your body goes, no. And then it's like, you got to go, wait, are you sure? No. And you do it again a third time. You're like, wait, but I really want this one. No. And then it's not until the next day or when you saw the new listing show up that you go, oh, that's the one. And the way you're describing it was this whole body. Yes.

Yeah.

And I think, I mean, one of the reasons why I'm delighted to share the story here is because if you do it for, again, those things that are quote unquote, small, relatively price tags, right, or small risks, and you learn to trust in the answer that you get, then you will question less when you do the same for those bigger decisions and those things that do come at a higher cost and perhaps a higher a risk, you'll be able to trust that. Oh, I remember this sensation when I did it for X, and I'm experiencing the same doing it for Y. So I can trust that this is leading me in the right direction.

I also love how you describe the joy that you have every time you see this item. And I feel like as business owners, I've heard them called trophy purchases. I remember encouraging my friend as she was celebrating a year of solopreneurship, and I'm like, get the fancy sunglasses, like, go for it. And I don't want to out her. I don't want to give her away just in case she doesn't want it. But yes, they were obscenely expensive. Something that her former self would have never allowed herself to buy. But now these sunglasses represent something. Yes, they're expensive, but part of the joy is that she did it. She achieved this. She generated this money after a year of solopreneurship. And they sparked joy every single time. Just like what you're describing.

Yeah. And you know what I love about that as well is mine also was connected to a goal.

So this is.

Like I said, it had been on my to buy list for quite some time, but for me, it was. I can't even think about going there until I hit a particular goal. So for me, it's also a celebration, just like your friend was celebrating a year in business. For me, it's a celebration of the work that I did in order to reach a particular goal. And so I think we also have to make sure that we are giving ourselves permission to treat ourselves and to not think of those treats as extravagant, if you will.

Do you mind sharing what the goal is or can you give us a rough idea even if you don't give the specific metrics of it?

Yeah, the goal was actually two part. It was hitting a revenue threshold, but it was also paying down a particular debt.

Awesome. And you hit it sounds like you hit either one or both.

Yep, I hit a bit of both.

Yep. Wow. Congratulations. I love it. And you know, Jacquette is a pro. We met back in 2012 at a speaking gig. I love how Jacquette every answer, you're just tying to this nugget of wisdom like a bigger, bigger principle. It's so good. You even already gave us a permission slip for the episode.

Yes. Amazing. That's right.

You're ringing in my ears often because you're right. These ubiquitous questions of how much should I charge business owners, myself included, I find we're always asking each other, what should I charge for this? What would you charge for this? And looking for input. It's almost like we have a hard time seeing what to price and we want that outside feedback. And then also you ring in my mind when I'm thinking, did I price this correctly? So I want to start by asking you, how do you know? Because this is picking up the thread of episode 20. How can we know when we've priced something wrong? Because you said with pricing, there's actually a clear you either got it right or you don't. So how do we know when we're priced incorrectly.

So I think there are a number of signals. So very broadly there are financial signals that will tell you that you've priced something wrong. And there are also non financial signals. So let's talk about the financials first. You don't have enough sales, you don't have enough revenue, you don't have a robust pipeline. You're not paying yourself or you're not paying yourself as much as you could given how well your business is doing. And that's not an intentional and strategic choice. If you used any of your personal savings to either start your business, get it through a rough patch, or help take it to the next level, whatever that may be for you, you took some of your personal savings, but you haven't yet begun to replenish those. And maybe you put pause on your long term investing again because you were concerned about cash flow, et cetera, and you haven't resumed any of those things. The challenge is you might be able to operate for a nice period of time. For some people it's actually a short period of time, like maybe only a couple of months. But some people can go six months, nine months, maybe even an entire year with those things not being at the threshold that ideally they should be. And while you may be able to survive that way, you certainly can't thrive that way. And so you'll know that you have gotten the pricing wrong if any of those things are your experience, if they're showing up in those ways of again, not enough sales, revenue, et cetera. And while you may be able to make it work for yourself, eventually you have got to get honest about there's something that I need to do and correct and adjust. And more than likely that has to do with your pricing. It might also have to do with your business model and your sales process. But if you make some tweaks to your pricing, you can adjust oftentimes some of the bottom line results. So those are the financial signals that you've gotten it wrong. And again, while you might be able to operate for a bit of time and just coast, eventually you're going to have to confront those things and adjust them. Now the non financial signals I think are perhaps a little less clear because sometimes it's energetically you are feeling exhausted and maybe you're feeling exhausted as it pertains to selling a particular offer, or maybe you're feeling exhausted and you're not as excited about a particular audience that you currently work with. Or maybe you're frustrated that your current audience is not Interested in what you have to offer as you are looking, or as you are, I should say, raising your prices. Other non financial signals are when you actually have conversations with your peers and your colleagues and maybe some of your business besties and you're listening to what they're doing and you're like, oh my God, I'm not doing that. Those to me are like non financial signals. And then also it could be a signal that comes from the observation of what you see happening within your industry. So those are less about what's happening directly in your business as it regard the financials. But at the end of the day, there's still signals that can speak to. I might want to take a step back and look at how I am approaching my pricing.

It seems like many more people struggle with not pricing high enough than those who are maybe out pricing their particular market. Do you find the same thing?

Totally, yeah. Yeah. So absolutely.

Why do you think so many business owners struggle to know the value of their programs and their services and then have the courage to put that value out? Why is it so easy and so common that many of us are underpricing?

Well, I think part of the challenge is somewhat natural from the standpoint of value is really subjective. I mean, you know, my whole thing about it's not tied to your identity, but it is tied to what is the container that you have wrapped your service or product in to help someone solve a problem, address a product question, you know, fulfill a desire, tackle a frustration. And yet that value is subjective. So how you define it might be very different than how the person on the other end of that transaction may be defining it, or even the other folks in your industry that might be offering a similar product or service as you for those very same things. So perception of value is what makes it so hard. And that is why it is really imperative that you understand your particular method or approach, whatever language you want to use for how you are helping people. Because that's what you are pricing. You are pricing your particular process, your methodology, your expertise, the perspective, the talents, the skills, the gifts that you bring to the table. And I think it's kind of hard to, you know, sometimes say, this is my price. And you know, to sometimes hear, well, wait a second, can we negotiate? And sometimes you might negotiate, but other times, and hopefully more times than not, you're like, no, this is my price. And if someone says no, then it's not on you to reduce the price. It's for you to find another group of people or institutions that will say, yes. And I think that's hard because it gets you out of your comfort zone and forces you to deal with the rejection. When people say no, it's never fun. But also, in addition to dealing with that rejection, it forces you to then think about, well then who will say yes and how do I find them? How do I connect with them? How do I get them to see the value of what I am bringing to the table and to appreciate that value and to be willing to pay whatever that price is without question.

I love how you're reframing this, especially if you're putting out a higher price than usual for the first time and somebody says no or a launch doesn't go well to want to just back it up and wind back up and say, oh, I left the price too high. Oh so sorry universe. Let me walk that back and lower my price again. But really what just happened was one no or one thing didn't work. And what you're saying is don't just jump and immediately walk your prices back. Now the question needs to be who is the right fit for this service at this price?

Right. Exactly. Exactly.

We'll be right back just after this.

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I did a launch not too long ago and this kind of happened to me because I set a price that was my joyful number. I always tell people there's a minimum number that you would want to charge where you won't even do the service at all or want to offer that thing at all. You'd rather not do it. There's kind of nice to have. And then there's a joy number. And I think everybody wins when you pick a joy number because you're joyful to facilitate that product or service and the clients rise to the occasion of investing in it and getting that value. So I basically launched my launch tree fell into a forest and nobody heard it. Okay, I don't know what happened, to use a really wacky metaphor, but basically the launch, I thought these things were going to sell like hotcakes. I thought they would fly off the shelves and this program was just going to like, fill up instantly. And this is my magical thinking. Sometime business owners, we have our own fantasies of how launches are going to go. And it was interesting in hindsight because I did price what I felt was edgy, but I couldn't tell if it was the price was the issue. Maybe it was the timing of a certain season not being aligned. Maybe it was the audience could be product market fit wasn't there could have even been my marketing copy or my marketing strategy. So how, when a launch doesn't go as planned, how would we identify that pricing is in fact the problem and not any one of those other variables?

Well, one way is to perhaps get some feedback from the people who said no. Well, let me put it this way. It depends on how you might have been tracking interest. So let's say you were using email marketing and you noticed that someone clicked on the link but they didn't buy. Then you can do some sort of a feedback query around, hey, I noticed that you were interested in this, but you didn't buy. Can you give me a sense why? So I think you first have to figure out a way to get some feedback that will actually enable you to determine why there was a lack of interest. It could be timing, it could be price, it could be format. So before you make any adjustments to the price, make sure you understand why. I think the other thing that folks bump up against, especially when it comes to launches, is they don't give themselves enough time. And so, you know, I was talking to a client yesterday, we had a session and they had the experience of the similar, you know, the tree falling, and no one heard it. They only started marketing it, though, four weeks ago. And it's just like that. That probably is not enough time for people to make a decision, especially if you weren't, you know, kind of seeding the seeds for this, planting the seeds for this to let people know. So did you give it enough time? So I think you've got to take the time to get some feedback, then you've got to do like a debrief and look at, well, did I give this enough time in terms of marketing and getting the message out? And then I think you've got to reevaluate the return on investment and the return on energy. Because whatever you did to help promote, and when I say you, I mean the universal you, whatever you did to help promote and get the word out, that was time and perhaps money and energy that you did not allocate to something else. And so before you both make a decision to either adjust the price or not do it again, or even to do it again, there needs to be an evaluation of, well, what is the purpose of this product or service and my overall portfolio of services. What is the job of this? Because depending upon what the job is, you might decide, you know what, it's actually not worth it for me to give this another try when I think about what I'll actually get from this and when I think about what I've already invested and what I'll have to reinvest again. So I think it's going back to getting that feedback, looking at the return on investment and return on energy and looking at what was your intention in terms of the role of that particular offer in your portfolio of offers.

I love that you mentioned getting feedback because now that you say it, I have seen other business owners, they do a big launch and I think I've tried this once or twice in the past 10 years, but they do a big launch and then there is actually something that goes out to everyone who didn't buy and it just says, hey, we'd love your quick feedback if you're willing to share, why didn't you invest at this time? And I think sometimes I worry about annoying people, especially the ones who didn't buy, especially at the end of a big flurry of launch communications. But if someone's willing to click that link and answer a two question survey, that could be super helpful. Not to mention, of course, one on one outreach.

Yeah, absolutely. And it will help you to get out of your head because you might be making a whole bunch of assumptions, right? And doing a whole lot of projecting that isn't really accurate.

I also love what you said about giving it enough time. And I'm laughing because I do this. My friends do this. The program that I'm talking about, I put into two newsletters. Two. And I hadn't seated it at all. Now in my fantasy, I didn't need to cede it. You know, in My fantasy that I built up in my head, it was such a compelling offer. It was going to just absolutely fly off the shelves. I wouldn't even be able to mention it into a second newsletter. It would be sold out already. But alas, I'm not Dan Ferriss and that's just.

Not how it's going to work right now. And so I've had friends as well where they put a lot of time and energy into creating something and it starts off really slow in terms of sales and they're like, well this must not have worked and almost want to even quit the entire program. So I love your encouraging us to not have a sunk cost as you talked about in your three Biases episode of well, we've already sunk so much energy and time and resources. Let's keep sinking more. At the same time, there is such a thing as just cutting something off the vine way too soon before it's had nearly enough time to grow. But a lot of us are ideators and we're not necessarily the long term. We don't take joy in just like building and maintaining a sales process.

Right. Which is why I think it's so important to again think about what is the role of every offer in your business. So if I ask you that, if I may, if I ask you what was the role of this offer in your business? Was it to be an entry point? Was it to be a lead generator? Was it to be a pillar offer for B2C? Like what was its role in JB Enterprises?

This one was, and I'll just put it out there, this was Voxer coaching that was more of an experiment and I don't do any one on one coaching anymore. But I really love the idea of asynchronous coaching. And I had a coach that did voxer coaching with me for three months. I loved it. So maybe this was part of the problem. I didn't know yet exactly where it fits and I kind of just wanted to put this experiment out and see if I even liked the format. And if so, maybe this could become a quarterly offering or a twice a year so that I don't take one on one clients very often, but once a quarter. And I love the idea of it. I didn't know if I would like it at scale. Like If I have 10 clients at a time each submitting one question a week on Voxer, would I feel overwhelmed and distracted or would it be super joyful? Because it is asynchronous and so I kind of wanted to run it once Test it out and then perhaps do what you did. Because I think it's really interesting how you have a sales schedule like you have a quarterly schedule for at least one of your offerings. And that was interesting to me where maybe I would know for sure. Clearly, summer, the interval I first tried this did not fly off the shelves. But I could retry it and build it up a little more for, let's say, 2023 New Year kickoff Q1 burst of momentum because we got a lot of enrollments into the private BFF community for Q1, way more than we ever had in the past. And so that's why I was like, is this a timing issue? Is it that I didn't market it well? Is it priced too high? Everything about this experiment was still in a question mark mode. So I'm curious, with your workshop that you do quarterly, how's that working for you and do you feel like it's the right cadence? Sometimes I wonder if quarterly is maybe even too often. If I would feel like, oh, I'm always promoting, always trying to fill the spots kind of on a. Yeah.

So it's really interesting because it was quarterly up until this year, and then this year it switched to twice in June and December. And you know, financially, I would say, hmm, I'm not quite sure.

Because I would fall into that category of we invested and we probably started eight weeks earlier, but we did invest a lot of time, effort and energy into getting the word out there. And we didn't get the response that we have had in previous years. And so I'm evaluating, should this be twice a year? Should it be once a year? Should we go back to quarterly? So I'm not really quite sure. But here's where I'm also evaluating the purpose of this offer in my ecosystem. So I've got a trademark for it for my framework, and this gives me an opportunity to utilize it outside of coaching engagement. So that gives me the practice of doing that. And because when I am about to present it and I am promoting it, it puts me on the radar of folks that may not have even known that this is something that I focus on. They might just know me as a for hire speaker, or they might just know me as a financial behaviorist that does a hybrid of personal finance and business coaching. But they might not know that I also focus on pricing and in particular the whole pricing made human framework. And so to me, I look at it as like, if I think about this last one, it may not have hit the goal in terms of the number of people or the revenue that I wanted to bring from it. But in the process of promoting it, that is how I got on the radar of this organization that reached out to me. As I was telling you about before we hit record, that is actually an enterprise to enterprise selling. So it's one of those things where I think we would love to be able sometimes to just make our decisions black and white, yes or no. And sometimes it's a little bit gray. And I don't even know if I've just rambled off and didn't even answer your question.

I love what you shared because it's really interesting to hear your thought process of this is a flagship program that you offer pricing made human. And how even you don't necessarily always know with certainty. You have to run it quarterly, see how it goes, run it semi annually, see how that goes. And what you're describing is this ancillary benefit and oh, gosh, I think so many people need to hear this right now. It's like no matter how the launch itself goes, there may be side benefits to all the marketing surrounding that launch, putting you on people's radar, establishing expertise in an area. And then you. It created this serendipity popcorn that this organization you would have never thought of reached out and is actually stretching you and challenging you to adapt the material to an entirely new audience that could provide a lot more revenue even down the road. Which is fascinating. A fascinating kind of consequence of this.

Yeah, yeah, totally, totally.

Also, with the voxer coaching, like I said, there was a number when it came to pricing that if it was lower, I wasn't gonna do it at all. So sometimes I rule out pricing changes. I go, in a way, if I'm gonna be stubborn, then the next time I run it, I might need a longer marketing window. Maybe I do. Maybe I could throw in some bonuses or like you said, get feedback. But at a certain point, I'm not just gonna cut the rate in half, most likely, because then I wouldn't do it at all. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Yeah, well, you know, I would suggest, and this is for everybody joining us, is when you are revamping things. A, change one variable at a time, and B, let changing your pricing be the very last variable.

Ooh, that's good.

That's good, right? Because at the end of the day, you don't really want to diminish whatever it is that you're offering and quote, unquote, negotiate on price or you want people to make decisions about working with you. Based on quality, regardless of the container. So I do eat meat. I love me a hamburger. And I don't know if I shared this before, but I don't cook hamburgers.

Me either, as it were. But I love a good one. Love a good New York juicy burger.

Yes, exactly.

With cheese. But I don't cook them either.

Oh my God, totally. And so if we use, you know, a hamburger as a visual for just kind of outlining the spectrum in terms of positioning, you can get a hamburger at McDonald's, you can get it at a diner, a pub, or a bistro or a steakhouse. And each of those different entities represents a different price point, budget, standard, mid range premium. And it also reflects the experience that you're going to get the quality of the beef that you will have. I mean, you know, McDonald's is probably not doing Angus burger. Angus beef.

I can't see grass fed or wagyu beef.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, they don't have the white tablecloth and the waiter coming around with a suggestion of, you know, anything. But I like to use that because when it comes to quality, there are different degrees of quality. But in any event, you want people to buy whatever it is that you are offering based on quality, not based on price.

I love that reminder. I think in episode 20 you talked about the coffee shop analogy as well. There's the same cup of coffee. One coffee shop is charging this and the other one's charging that. And I love, love, love this instruction to have pricing be the last variable that we play with. Because for so many people it's probably the first.

Well, it's the first because it's sometimes the easiest thing to do. Right. It's the thing that will kind of bring you a more immediate comfort around. Well, if I change this, and then if people buy up, it almost becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If you're like, oh, my price was too high, I lowered it and now everybody's buying it. I knew that. Is that kind of an energy to it versus if you make changing the price be the very last thing that you tweak, it actually challenges you to think about all the other variables and what you might need to do and how you might need to get out of your comfort zone to address them.

We'll be right back just after this.

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Speaking of getting out of the comfort zone, I love how you described triangulating and calibrating pricing with business besties. And I do this all the time. I've been very grateful for fellow speakers or somebody trying to get a book deal. I've been so grateful for those business owners who are transparent with me and they say a rising tide lifts all boats. They know that and they go, here's what I'm charging for speaking. And then that sometimes gives me more confidence. And then we have almost a united front of what could really be disparate consultants. We could either be out to get each other or if we all price in an abundant way that organizations learn, oh, this is what this costs now. You know, kind of. We all benefit from that. There are some times where I'll talk to a fellow business owner and someone that I might even think of myself as kind of parallel to in terms of experience. And maybe not, I could be delusional, but they'll say a price of what they're charging for keynotes or something. That blows my mind. And I realize the only difference is they had the courage to put that number out and that they genuinely believe that that is the value of their service. And somehow I don't know if you've experienced this, but somehow their confidence is just 10x mine. When in fact on paper an objective outside analyst might say the value delivered could be pretty close. But I just would never have had the guts to put out some of these numbers. What do you do in these situations? And I will say more often than not, when I've had these moments, it has been men who've put out the eye popping numbers. Not always. Sometimes every now and then I will have like fellow female business owners. And I know today like gender is becoming a completely an outdated construct. And yet this has still been my reality up till this point, which is that it's often the men that seem to have way more confidence putting these big numbers out. And kudos to you fellas, if you're listening. Way to go. I just want to know, how do I get some of that special sauce?

So I think that there are two ways to approach that. Whatever the difference may be between what you are currently quoting and their quote. If you need to close that gap incrementally, then do that. You know, make a commitment that you are going to close it either $1,000 at a time or $5,000 at a time or $10,000 at a time. I don't know how wide the gap is. That's one approach. Another approach is to just say it at the very next time that you've got to quote something, even if it is uncomfortable, because the very first time you say it, it makes it easier to do so the second time. And what that then means is when you say it on that occasion is you also have to be willing for them to say, no, it's too much. And, you know, if you're not able to negotiate, then there's that. But you can always perhaps go back and say, well, what about next year?

Well, how come I didn't get the idea to charge those rates in the first place? That's kind of what I want to know is like, I wonder why. For myself, it's often other people that tell me what they're charging. That sort of blows my mind. It turns the light switch on in my brain. I was like, what? That's possible?

Yeah. But I think that that is an endemic in our space, especially when we're donning the hat of the speaker for hire. The spectrum of what people can get paid is absolutely crazy.

You know, I mean, some people get paid $100,000 for a talk or even more. So I think it is not your fault or anybody else's fault that finds themselves not charging comparatively with their peers or people that they are believe are their peers, if you don't know. And so I think the reason why it is really beneficial to have those transparent conversations with folks is so that you know what's possible. And even if you are not yet charging those prices, you know what's possible. You know, somebody else paid for it. And so therefore, you know that you can get paid that as well. And one of the things that's kind of helped me get over even my own, like, internal, like, oh, my God, is I think about how for, you know, some of the organizations with whom I work, which is Fortune 100 to 500 companies, Am Law 200 firms. I think about sometimes how just their breakfast catering bill, it's 10 to $15,000. And I'm like, if you can spend that much on food, well then clearly I love that. Oh yes, you can spend that much on me.

I love it. That's true, that's true. I've spoken at conferences of one of those big fortune something something companies has flown out hundreds of people to this location. Just that cost alone, right? The travel, the catering, the swag bags. You know, it also strikes me two patterns that I've seen of the people who do have the courage to lead the charge in these really high rates. Usually two other things are present. They have a ton of demand, so they actually have to raise their rates higher and higher and higher. I'm thinking of the Brene Browns of the world or Adam Grant's probably now, James Clear for sure, where they have so much demand, they actually have to price it in a way that keeps them only speaking at the amount that they want. And then secondly, the people have seen price absurdly high. They don't care if they get the gig or not. And so they're willing to take those risks because they're not in a position where they really need the money. And I noticed that every time in my business where I really need the money, I've seen such a hard time negotiating because I go, don't want to lose the job. I still want to price well. But there's a part of me that goes, I know, I know how low I would take this for. Whereas the ones where I see that their energy, they don't even care if they get it or not, they really have nothing to lose of putting out whatever price they feel like, right?

And I think the challenge is to actually figure out a way that you bring that energy to every conversation and negotiation, even when you need it.

How do you do that? How have you practiced that muscle over the years?

I think it's a little bit different for me in that my business model is a combination of for hire speaking and one on one coaching. And so I have the benefit of being able to look at my pipeline and say, okay, If I quote $15,000 and they say, no, that's a bummer. But at least I do have these current coaching clients and I've got a pipeline of others. So if I don't get it, it just means I don't get an additional $15,000 or whatever added to my bottom line. So if you are only doing coaching and you're like, oh my God, I need this. I think it is more challenging, but. But if you give yourself permission to do it, it will actually free you up to actually find that opportunity that will pay you the price that you want.

I love that. And yeah, I always tried. When I did have coaching clients, I always trusted that if they came on or not, it was for the highest good. That, like, I just never wanted that pressure. It's just if they sign on, that's amazing. And if they don't, then it's all good. Another thing that works for me is calculating the true cost of something. So with speaking, I realized that if I did a cross country gig, it was a week. So people think, oh, I'm charging 15 grand or 25 grand to stand on stage for an hour. And they think, well, wouldn't that be nice? 25 grand for an hour. But actually there's a day of packing, there's a day of travel, because getting to the airport, the flight, getting to the hotel, there's the day of attending a conference or meeting with the organizer, speaking, doing the event, talking to everybody afterward, crashing at the hotel. The next day of coming home, the next day of unpacking, the next day of even catching up on house and family time and errands. So it's a full blown week. And now these days you have the risk of getting sick and getting sick for three days, three weeks or three months could be long, Covid three years. So now I mean that actually, by necessity, I price pretty high now. Higher than ever before. For all these reasons, I kind of remind myself the true cost and the true risk that's associated with what seems like just an hour.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I am so glad to hear that. And I will tell you, if I may, a little story of how this kind of bit me in the butt. So this is going back a few years, but in 2018, I was doing two different tours for two different organizations. And what that meant is that I was on the road every week except for 10 days, and they were not consecutive from September through December. And at one of those speaking engagements, another organization saw me and they were like, oh, we want you to come and do something for the entrepreneurs and small business owners that we support. Okay, perfect, fine. We're exchanging email messages. We finally get on the call, and the email messages, though we are talking about one event. We get on the call and it morphs into two events. But I didn't recalibrate in real time. So when I quoted the price, I quoted it based on one event. I hung up the phone and I was like, if I can swear in this moment, I was like, oh, shit, what did I do?

Oh, gosh. Yes.

So I thought about it. I thought about it and I just went back the very next day and I just put out an email and said, hey, you know, we started off, during our email exchange, when we started off the conversation, we were talking about one thing. Over the course of our discussion, it expanded into another. But I did not recalibrate. I really did use those words. I did not recalibrate in real time. But here's how I will honor that. If you do both events on one day. So maybe you have me speak at the keynote, the luncheon, and then keynote the evening event. Have me speak on one day. I will honor the price that I gave you. However, if you want both of those things to be one night and the other the other night, then here's the new price precisely for the reason that you were talking about. I've got it in my contract. I don't do red eyes, so you gotta fly me in the night before.

Absolutely right.

And if the event, you know, doesn't end at a decent time in the afternoon so I can get back home to New York at a reasonable time, you got to pay for an extra night.

I do the same thing.

Yeah. And so what that means is that I could potentially be gone from Sunday night to Thursday or Thursday night. That means that I'm not coaching, I'm not available for other speaking engagements. So all of that has to be factored into our costs. And I think the other thing that has to be factored into our costs is resting.

Yes, absolutely. Yes, yes, yes, resting. And I even tell them, like, you don't want me on a red eye. You don't want me coming from the airport to the stage. So it's always two nights minimum hotel. Because it's not good for anybody if I'm rushing onto the stage or off the stage. There's so many delays and cancellations now, it's just building in the rest and building in the buffer. Maybe there's the permission slip here, emerging around the idea of rest, but I don't want to put words into your mouth. You know how this ends. If you could give fellow business owners permission to do something differently or drop something as it relates to this pricing conversation, what would it be? Oof.

God. I think the permission slip I would like to offer is when it feels really scary and uncomfortable, that's probably the price that you should quote. And quote it even if it means you won't get the gig because once you quote it once, you'll be much more comfortable to quote it again. Especially if you detach yourself from the outcome and just realize that it is an exercise of you actually saying it and getting more comfortable with saying it. So that would be the permission.

I love that. Detach from that one instance. I love that. Say what's edgy. Say what feels scary. Like, if you pick a scary number. That's it. Say it once for the mere exercise of having said it so that it's easier the next time. So good.

Exactly. Yay.

Thank you, Jacques.

This is so fun.

I love. I love talking this all through with you, and I appreciate you sharing the stories. You did, too. It's really helpful.

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Where can people find you if they want to keep in touch and listen to your podcast?

Well, thank you. And I'm so glad to know you listen to it.

You know I do. You were in my earphones just this morning. I learned the three biases that are holding us back in our money. I learned so many things.

Oh, my God, that's awesome. That is so awesome. And, you know, that was a true story. Like, some people were like, are you, like, faking this? I'm like, no, that was a true story. It wasn't me.

Like, you know, right. Because Jacquette had said, a friend of a friend, and we're like, oh, sure. Jacquette, a friend of a friend has made this mistake. Yes, sure. She's like, I swear it's not me. I'm not asking this.

Yeah, exactly.

That's so funny. I'm going to start recording episodes a friend of a friend launched where, you know, it didn't go very well.

Shoot. Why didn't I think of that? Exactly.

Right, right, right, right. Oh, my goodness. So, yeah, people can check me out on the podcast more than money. I do happen to love social media, especially Instagram, so you can check me out there, or you can go to Jaquette Timmons.com wheel and download our free exercise called the Financial Wheel. And one of the reasons I invite people to do that is it's an exercise to help you really either connect for the very first time or reconnect with the financial vision that you have for your life. But what it invites you to do is to also think about can your business as it is today, your business model, your sales price, your sales process, and your pricing. If you change nothing about it, would it enable you to fulfill that vision and that's where I'll leave that question.

Thank you. So good. I'll throw all of these into the show Notes. Thank you so much Chantet. It's always a joy to jam with you.

Likewise. Thank you Jenny V. And big thanks.

Everybody who's here listening.

If you've listened this far, you get a gold star.

Thank you.

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