Interior Designer working with client in a living room

What is the value of your time as a service-based professional?

If you stop for a minute and think about how much time you put into a client, and then you look at your prices, you may realize you’re working for less than minimum wage. If that’s your goal, that’s perfectly fine. Today I want to talk about unf-cking your business rates to reflect the value a client receives.

Service-based professionals come from many fields, yet the scenario is often the same. They can be lawyers, interior designers, consultants, health coaches, tutors, entertainers, recruiters, life coaches, integrative health professionals, hypnotherapists, etc.

Your expertise has worth and it’s time you stepped into your power

In the early days of becoming a service-based professional you may have had ancillary experience, yet you still didn’t have the experience of those doing it for years, or decades. As your experience grows, so does your value. If you’ve developed a successful style for your industry, then your value increases yet again.

This does not equate to years = guaranteed experience. We all know you can have one year of experience 30 times over, or you can have 30 years of experience. A service professional that is invested in the positive outcome of their clients will grow and learn from each client’s experience as the years go on.

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the most difficult aspect of being human is self-actualization, or knowing yourself. Service professionals have the ability to help others find their meaning or purpose. They have the unique perspective of knowing what questions to ask in their industry to help their client become more self-aware of their needs in this instance, and sometimes in other instances.

Maslow's hierarchy of basic human needs in a pyramid chart

The value of your time as a professional relies heavily upon the questions you ask and your expertise to help your client get to the next level in their life. As you begin to help people self-actualize, you’ll find that more and more clients will want to see you. Your value, your hourly rate, and your time are now in more demand and your worth increases.

Don’t be afraid to charge the value of your expertise as you grow and learn

Some of you may still want to do pro bono work, or offer some financial assistance to less fortunate clients, or not. That’s completely up to you and how you build your business model.

Know that if you’re giving clients a cookie-cutter approach that you learned when getting certified or mastering your field, and you haven’t changed your modality, then your worth is exactly what it was when you first started. But I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in this situation. We can’t help but to learn from each experience.

Yet many professionals and consultants don’t want to change their prices according to their value and worth because they resist. It doesn’t matter the reason they use: nobody will book with me, people won’t pay my worth, etc., it still comes down to the resistance of stepping in your worth.

What if we play a numbers game for a moment. If you charge $100/session now, and your people are needing 90 minutes, then send follow-up emails for clarification, not to mention the time talking to them about your services to book the appointment, and the time you spend preparing for each client you could end up spending 3 hours of time per session. If you up your price to $175/session, and you lose three potential clients ($300), but you end up with two new clients ($350), you’ll save 3 hours and make $50 more.

Again, if you want to offer financial aid by reducing your price to some, or grandfathering in your existing clients, that’s completely doable under your new business prices.

Take a look at your rates, the time you invest, the years you have grown, and the value you offer your clients and see if it’s time to invest in yourself and ask for the price you are worth.

TL;DR: You’re probably worth more than you realize, it’s time to take stock of your value. 

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