EP050: Determining Your Value with Sachin Patel

Welcome to the Perfect Practice podcast where we share the most innovative strategies to help you build a successful functional medicine business, attract your ideal patients, serve your community, and get paid what you're worth. Each episode is packed with practical steps that you can take to immediately grow your influence and serve more people. Our mission is to share golden nuggets from successful practitioners, technology experts and innovators from around the world. Your host, Sachin Patel is a functional medicine and success coach, international speaker and best selling author. He's calling in all his favors to bring this information to you so you can create your perfect practice.

Hey, Hope you're super amazing. I'm having an amazing week and my honest hope is that you are doing the same. Had a lot of manifesting taking place. You know, a lot of hard work over the years is bearing fruit. We had a big launch of our Metabolic Reset program and even though the carts closed and we sold out, people are still wanting to pay us money because of the value that we're delivering. And that brings me into our topic for today, which is determining your value and specifically determining your pricing. So this is something that comes up over and over and over again in consultations that I do one on one and even in group consultations. How do I figure out my price? So I'll tell you how not to figure out your price. And the worst way to figure out your price, so we'll start there, is to charge what other people are charging. Okay? That's the worst way to structure your pricing model. So don't charge what I charge. Don't charge what somebody else down the street charges. Charge what feels right to you, not what sounds right to you. And we'll talk more about that in this video and in this, you know, this conversation. So the key is that the price has to feel good to you. Joe Polish taught me that the only person the price matters to is you. Notice, not the patient. Because if you can deliver five to ten times the amount of value than what you're charging, then of course the patient, if they see the value and they share the values, it's gonna be a no brainer for them. So if in your mind there's a car and it's worth $50,000 and you're selling it for 10, because that's a fifth of the value that's perceived by the patient, they're gonna buy it every time. Even if it's perceived as half the price of what they value, they're going to buy it every single time. So it's important for you to Recognize that. That our pricing is based on sharing values with other people. Now, here's how you determine your pricing. It's not based on how it sounds. It's based on how it feels. So what I encourage you to do, if you don't have one already, you should. This is an inner balance from HeartMath. And if you've got a different HRV neurofeedback device and you can use that, you clip it to your ear. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna sit down and actually go through your program and visualize your ideal patient and what it's like working with that person. And you're gonna get yourself into a state of coherence. Now, when you're in that state of coherence, your heart field is actually soothing. It's energizing. It's inspiring. Okay? You're in a state of, you know, coherence, which means that people are going to be attracted to that energy. As we know, our heart isn't just a pump. It's an electromagnetic field generator. And people can feel that electrical field and magnetic field that you're generating. So here's what happens. A lot of times, somebody comes in, they know the price, right? Hopefully you're being transparent about that. They know the price. They kind of have a sense of the process. You go through their intake, you go through their history, you get all excited, everyone's pumped up. And the moment you present the price, everything goes downhill. And you're, like, scratching your head. You're like, what the heck? We had good rapport. Everything was great. But then, guess what? You didn't feel good about the price. You went from a state of coherence into incoherence. The client has no idea what's going on. And their field shifted. Their energetic field shifted. And what they were experiencing before you presented the price was coherence. And now they're out of coherence because you're out of coherence. And so you will have matching heart fields. And so immediately, the energy shifts in the room and the energy shifts in the patient. And they went from, hey, everything sounds good, to you know what? Everything sounds good, but something doesn't feel quite right. I need to think about this. I need to talk to my spouse. I need to give this some time. I need to do more research or the type of excuses that you'll start hearing. And it's because you didn't feel good about the price. So get into a state of coherence. Walk through your program, make sure that you're offering services that you can over deliver on, right? You only want to offer services you can over deliver on, not services you can barely deliver, because we're trying to 5 to 10x the investment that these people make. And so get to a price where you feel good and you're incoherent. What I will always tell you to do is that you should never gouge people. And your heartfield will tell you when you're gouging people, but you should never gouge yourself. Because when you gouge yourself, you're gouging your team, you're gouging your practice, and if you're not around a year later, you're gouging your community because they've lost an amazing practitioner who then reverts back to what they were doing before. And now you're completely out of coherence because you're living a life that's not aligned with your values. Now, speaking of value, I always lead with my values because I tell people, listen, if we share the same values, this is gonna be priceless. If we don't share the same values, then this is gonna be a waste of money and a waste of time. Even if you pay me a dollar, I'm not interested in wasting your time. What I am interested in is changing your life. And so if we share the same values, and those are hard work, integrity, honesty, vulnerability, coachability, teachability, whatever those are for you, if you're that person, okay, then we can work together. If you're not that person, then this probably isn't the best investment for you. And maybe you need to go somewhere where they do share your value. So I'm very clear about that when I work with people. And guess what? They appreciate that, okay? Because that's what they're looking for. They're looking for a practitioner that shares the same values as they do. And we can only add value into the lives of people who share the same values that we do. Now, one thing that also comes up with people is this issue of imposter syndrome, right? So when you're first graduating or you're first starting a functional medicine practice, you're kind of scratching your head and you're like, okay, what do I charge? And. And the worst thing you can do is charge what the guy or gal down the street is charging. You know, if they're doing very, very well, it's not because of their price. It's because about how they feel about their program in relationship to the price. That person feels like they're adding five to ten times more value than what they're charging. So they're gonna be able to confidently express from a state of coherence what that pricing is. If you can't do that, then don't charge that price. Now, an issue that comes up for a lot of people is, hey, I'm starting out. What do I charge? And so they feel like they might have something called imposter syndrome, where they might be overcharging or, you know, not charging fairly for their time. Now, here's what I'm gonna tell you. In the beginning, you're gonna have to do some complimentary, so to speak, work, because that's part of your research. Researching the market and getting data from the market is important. I did tons of free consultations. I did tons of $50 consultations. And that allowed me to learn. It allowed me to pay my dues. It allowed me to put in the work, you know, before I started charging people, because then I could understand my market and I could understand my audience and the questions so much better. So, you know, if you're afraid of hard work, then functional medicine is really not the right profession for you. But if you're willing to, you know, offer your time in exchange for data, in exchange for market knowledge, that's extremely valuable. Companies pay millions of dollars to do market research. So you should be willing to donate a few thousand dollars of your time for your own benefit, really. For your own benefit at the end of the day. And that's gonna give you confidence to understand your market better and know what your clients need to create a program that's gonna resonate with them and then create a program that's gonna resonate with your heart field, which is then gonna resonate with them when you present the pricing. So the other way to get around this kind of imposter syndrome. Cause you're never gonna know it all, right? That's impossible for you to know it all, is to be willing to be in a state of growth all the time. So what I'll tell people is, listen, you know, I don't know everything. There's gonna be times where you're gonna present information to me, and I might have never seen it before. And that's totally okay. I'm always willing to learn something new and evaluate it through my experiences and through the lens that I have. And I appreciate you bringing new things to me because not only am I hoping you learn something from me or a lot of things from me, but I'm hoping to learn a lot of things from you. Those are the type of relationships that I want to engage with. You know, I want to feel smarter. You know, I want you to feel smarter, and I want to feel smarter after every conversation we have. So that's the type of things that I value. That's the type of relationship that I value. And if I don't know the answer, I've got a deep network of people that I can reach out to and I can get that answer back to you. And here's the other thing. I promise you, Susan, or whatever the person's name is, Susan, I promise you that six months from now, I will be a different person. I will have evolved, I will have grown, I will have learned new things. So when you work with me and you make a decision today, you're actually making a decision of investing in somebody who's going to be in a constant state of growth and learning. I'm going to read new books, I'm going to listen to new podcasts, I'm going to go to new conferences. And so you're also getting all of that. So as I upgrade, you know, you're not having to pay extra for all those upgrades, and you're gonna get the benefit of all those upgrades. And so as long as you're willing to continue to grow, continue to expand your knowledge and willing to provide excellent service to people, then you can feel good about yourself and stay in a state of coherence. But if you feel like you've gotta be a know it all, and the moment the person pays you, you've gotta have an answer to all of their questions, then you're gonna be out of coherence and it's gonna be really hard for you to position yourself appropriately. Now another thing that comes up is, should I charge a case fee or should I charge a la carte? Listen to your heart field, okay? Listen to what your heart is telling you to do. If it's not clear and cut, which it is for me, I charge a case fee. Then do the exercise. Go into a state of coherence. Practice some deep breathing. You should be doing that anyways. And then start thinking about the things and that, the questions that you have, and ask your heart. You know, the brain is too logical. The brain will talk you in or out of anything. But the heart is not logical. The heart is pure love and pure energy. And if we can exude that type of energy into our field and we can feel good about it, and we can be in a position of helping other people and they can sense it, which they can by the way. Cause your kids can sense it. So can your patients. They're not any different. They're wired the same way. Then we can have some amazing and astounding outcomes in our clinical practice, in our financial reward that we get for helping people and serving people. And also in how well we sleep at night and how well and excited we wake up every single morning. So do this exercise. Get your pricing dialed in. Make sure you're not gouging yourself, you're not gouging your community. Your heart won't let you do that. So you'll be able to see very quickly what your pricing should be. You decide if you're going to charge a la carte or a case fee. Again, I'm a big proponent of a case fee. But do this exercise and be willing to be in a constant state of growth. And I promise, promise, promise you the best is yet to come. As long as you're willing to become the best version of yourself. Love to you all. Have an amazing rest of your day.