If your clients can’t pay higher rates

Leah Neaderthal0:01

If you're listening to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching businesses. But I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's so I taught myself how to do it, and I created a sales approach that feels comfortable, makes you feel confident, and it works consistently. And now I teach women how to land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching businesses. So whether your client contracts are $2,000 or $200,000 if you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love, and get paid more than you ever imagined, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Welcome to Smart gets paid.

Leah Neaderthal0:53

Hey there. Leah, here. How are you how are you doing this week? I hope that wherever you are, you're doing well, you're feeling good over here, I'm just coming off of a great trip to Chicago that I took a couple weeks ago for the wedding of a family friend. First time I traveled since the start of the pandemic, which in itself was like a really meaningful experience. And saw some friends. I saw my team in person, which was so exciting, and just had a great weekend. So it came off that feeling really, really good. And I hope you're feeling good as well. Actually, something happened that I have to actually tell you about. It's kind of funny. So the Chicago trip was like, two weekends ago. All right, this past weekend, had a great weekend, like, no work, lot of time outside, time with friends, all of that. It was amazing. And then on Monday, I actually had, like, the worst day, like, such a terrible day. Mondays are always a little challenging because, you know, we're sort of outside of Brooklyn right now, and my son's nanny comes on Mondays, and she takes the bus from the city, and she doesn't get here until like, midday, you know. And so that means that Monday mornings are a little hectic in this house, as my wife and I are trying to juggle childcare, even, like, after several weeks, we, like, have not gotten into the habit and have the forethought to, like, block off our calendars on Monday mornings, you know, either taking turns, or what have you. So it's a little hectic, so maybe one day we'll figure that out. But this past Monday, our nanny's bus breaks down on the way out from the city, and it's like, not close enough to us at that point to, like, keep going, so she had to actually turn around, take an Uber and go all the way back into the city and start over, and she had to take a train because the busses were all messed up, and the train dropped her off, like, an hour away. And it happened to be that my wife had a really important meeting that afternoon, and my son took a late nap. And so when I was sort of dealing with this, I had to basically, like, cancel my entire day, including some calls that were really important. If I couldn't have my call with you that day, I'm really sorry I had to cancel everything. I had to wake my son up from his nap, put him in the car, hope he went back to sleep, drive an hour to pick up our nanny, who we love, and we're so grateful that she comes out from the city to be with us and then drive an hour back. And so basically, I got no work done that day, like no work, and I had really intended to do some very important things, and of course, have some really good calls, right? And so I was in a crap mood. I was so angry, like so inconsolably angry all afternoon, and around five, 515, 530, ish, I was like, you know, screw this. I'm gonna go on a run. And so I put my shoes on and I went on a 30 minute run. So I used, like, the peloton outdoor app, and I picked a 30 minute run, which coincidentally, was like, it's like a Rebecca Kennedy 90s dance songs, run, which was amazing. If you've been listening to this for a while, you know that I love like all 90s and early 2000s music. That's like the best music. And so this run with like all these 90s dance songs was basically like my semester abroad, just in running form and with the music, it was amazing. So anyway, I go on this 30 minute run, I come back in the house, and I'm just noticing that, like, my bad mood had just evaporated. It was gone. I was actually, like, in a great mood at that point. And I was so interested in this and just like watching it, because, you know, I think we all know that working out, running movement, all of that is really good for our brains. It's really good for our self care, for our mood all of that. But I guess I had never actually experienced, like, such a dramatic shift, you know, such a dramatic like bad mood eraser that I experienced that day, you know, like from before, when I was so angry, and after, where. I was like, You know what? This is going to be fine. You know, it was so cool and just wild to watch, like my bad mood just get erased. So I thought it was interesting I wanted to share with you guys, because, you know, if you find yourself in a crap mood, you know, maybe a 30 minute run is what you need, because that day, it was certainly a bad mood eraser for me. Anyway. So before we get into it today, I just want to thank you for listening to this podcast, and if you've learned something in this podcast, if it's caused you to think about something in a different way, or if you've really applied something that you've learned here, just take a second and leave a quick review on Apple podcasts. And if you want, you can also send me a message on LinkedIn and let me know, because I love reading them. I love reading how you're applying what you're learning in this podcast in your own business. And I just want to share one that I got recently. I just have to share it with you, and I'm sharing it with permission. So thank you. You know who you are. Thank you for letting me share this, but I have to share it with you on this episode, because it just made me so happy. And it comes from, hold on, let me grab it. It comes from cm, who wrote, Hey, Leah, I was recently approached by a company wanting to potentially work with me. Thanks to your podcast, I created an amazing pitch at a price point I never would have asked for before. I've never felt more confident through the entire process. And then she goes on and says, In the end, they wanted to postpone the decision for a few months. And she says, which was weird, because they reached out to me in the first place, but nevertheless, even though it was a no for now, I'm so happy and proud with how I went about the whole thing, and your podcast helped me get there. So thank you, and thank you, cm, for sharing that with me. It just makes me so happy. There's a Yiddish word felling, and it means just to be really, really proud. And so I'm felling over here. So again, if you have learned something, if you've thought about something in a different way, just leave a quick review on Apple podcasts, and also, if you want send me a message on LinkedIn, all right, so let's get to it. So in this podcast, if you've been listening for a while, you know that you hear me talk with my clients about specific challenges that they're facing. You've listened in on these one on one calls, we talk through it, and we come to a resolution, and then they take that advice and they go away and they apply it to their business, right? But that's the part that, like, you don't actually get to hear, you know, like what comes next, because all you get to hear is this tiny glimpse of the transformation that clients are going through as they go from, you know, not knowing how to sell, not feeling confident in this part of their business, not being able to sign the clients that they want, not being able to get paid what they want to then being able to sell, right, being able to sign the clients they want, get paid what they want, having the tools, and, you know, having the confidence to do it. And it's that after, right? You hear the before, but it's that after that I really also want to show you, because the after is really amazing. And with me, you know, I kind of want to get out of the way actually, and let my clients and their successes speak for themselves. This is actually a really important part of my approach to my own business, because this business isn't really about me, it's about the transformation that my clients are going on. And so an important part of my business is really elevating my clients, right? And one way I do that, actually, is on my website. So if you've ever been to smart gets paid.com which, after this head over to smart gets paid.com and every picture that you see on the site, it isn't stock photography. I mean, these are my actual clients, women who have worked with me in my programs. And it's kind of funny how that came about, because actually, you know, when we were redesigning the site, my marketing agency was like, All right, well, let's go out and get some stock photos of women who look like they might be your clients. Because my clients identify as women. They're 30 and up. Generally speaking, they're smart, professional, they run real ass businesses, you know, these B to B consulting and coaching businesses. And so we start scrolling these stock photography sites. And I was like, wait a minute, hold on. Why are we going out and looking for women who look like they could be smart and professional and look like they could run real ass businesses and are driven, right? Because I know so many women who are smart and professional and run real ass businesses and are driven, and they're actually inspirational, and I get to work with them every day because they're my actual clients. So we scrapped the stock photography and reached out to actual clients. So now on the smart gets paid website, it's smart gets paid.com you can see my actual clients in all the pictures. I mean, any picture that's not me is an actual client. And it's not just about sort of featuring them. It's about highlighting them. And so there's a page on the site like if you go to the site and you scroll all the way down to the bottom. There's a page called website photos. It's, hold on. It is smart. Gets paid.com/website-photos

Leah Neaderthal10:09

but you could just, you know, go to the site and scroll all the way down to the bottom, and when you click that, you can go to a page with all of the names of the clients who are featured on the website and links to other websites. So I hope sometime you'll do that and go check out some of the women who are featured on the site, because when we work together, this is about you and your transformation, right? Getting to that after And so today, I want to do something a little different and actually highlight my clients voices. So I asked them for their input on what they would say to somebody who's struggling getting new clients. So here's the scenario I sort of put to them. This is something that has something that happened, and I wanted to see what they would say. So a while back, I sent out a newsletter talking about how to start charging and getting paid more for your work. And I was telling a story about a client of mine who started getting paid $10,000 more for each consulting project without adding any scope. And in that email, I invited readers to think about what they would do with $10,000 more for every project, right? Like, if you did the exact same work, same scope, but you just got paid $10,000 more, what would you do? You know, if you want take a second think about it for yourself. You know, like, would you go on a trip? Would you invest in your business? Would you put it into retirement? Would you get something nice for yourself? This is the sort of thinking behind this little mental exercise, right? So I got a reply from a woman who said, let me just grab it. She said, I would love this, but I work with small and mid sized nonprofits. There's no way they can afford premium prices, unfortunately, so I get this email, and of course, I immediately had like, a million thoughts about that, right, and a million ways I wanted to respond. And I know from talking to women that it's actually not that uncommon to have that mindset, right, that you think your clients couldn't pay more or aren't able to pay more. You know, it's something I hear a lot, and I have to tell you, this type of thinking is not just limited to people who sell into nonprofits. You know, it's a really common way of thinking if you sell into small businesses or solopreneurs, and you actually might have unknowingly thought this way. If you've ever talked about, like, industry pricing, like, you know, I'm using air quotes, industry pricing, or standard pricing, you sort of maybe accidentally adopted this type of thinking. But I wanted to hear from the members of my sign program, my flagship program where women learn how to sell to and sign new clients, to hear what they had to say, because these are women who might have thought that way at some point too, you know, and now that they've actually learned how to sell and they know how to charge what they want and get paid what they want. I wanted to hear what they would say now, and so that's what I'm sharing with you today, so you'll hear their words, and at the end, I'm going to come back and pull out a lesson that you can use for your business. So just to recap the scenario, here is a woman wrote back to me and said, I would love this. You know this meaning getting paid more for her work, but I work with small and mid sized nonprofits, and there's no way they can afford premium prices, unfortunately. So here's what my clients

13:07

had to say. I love this question, and I remember when I had this same thinking that somehow people wouldn't pay. And just today, I asked for the most I've ever asked a client, I just keep raising my rates. I've asked for the I asked for the most I've ever had. And the client got back to me with, yes, those are exactly the value things we're working on, and I'm working inside the company to get it paid for. You know, I happen to work with corporations, but even if you work with nonprofits, you can't go around with the mentality of they can't pay for it. Well, I mean, can, but it's always about the values. With this client that I worked with when we I got to her pain points, and I helped her to look at the that pain, but I really looked at the value, like, if we fix that for you, what would that be worth to you? So it's always about to me, what I've learned is it's always about finding the pain, finding out the value of fixing that pain. And the exciting thing for me is I always feel way more like an expert on the calls I've learned to do with Leah and learning to position around value. That's what we're talking about here.

14:19

So I would tell this consultant, that girl, you need some new clients. You need you deserve to work with people who value you and who can afford you. And if nonprofit work is really where your heart's at and where your experience is, maybe you can design a different offer that doesn't take as much time or effort, that maybe is more scalable. But I would just say, get new clients, target someone else, target bigger nonprofits. And half the time, I think that we think that people can't afford us, but actually they can if they really want it.

14:48

I think what I would ask this particular individual is, I would challenge her assumptions. What I read here in this comment is that that she is making. An assumption that the nonprofits that she supports would not be able to pay premium prices. And I would get really curious and ask her about the narrative, like, what is the story you're telling yourself in your head that may or may not be true? I would also, you know, from the coaching perspective, ask her what part of that narrative is actually coming from her own saboteur, or her own inner critic. And I would want to dig into that, because that's likely where that is coming from. It is that inner critic, that saboteur, that is telling her that she is not worth enough and she cannot ask for a premium price, which goes to the mindset work that I know you do a lot with us. So those are the kinds of things I would want to explore, to really uncover. What is it that is the piece of truth, and what is it that is actually a story that she continues to sell her sell herself in her own head?

15:59

My advice, when someone says there's no way a nonprofit or a medium size nonprofit will play a premium price is to have a shift and mindset. Think instead about what the value is to the client, and then your pricing should be aligned with that value. So another way to look at it would be to begin with the power of just asking some questions. Ask whether or not your minimum range of your prices will fit for them. Don't guess what they were willing to pay. Have your minimum price range ready to go.

16:45

The first thing I would say is, if you truly focused on the benefits of your work, meaning the outcome that the organizations you work with will get, whether that be in time saved, or money earned, or whatever, the ultimate goal is that you bring them, then what you're asking for in terms of money is likely not as out of reach as you may think it is. And the second thing I would say is that if they can't afford you, if they don't see the value that you bring, then they're not the right client. But don't be afraid to move on, because there's plenty of others out there who are your client, and they're looking for you, you just might not know them yet.

Leah Neaderthal17:29

So good, right? I love everything here. I love everything they said, and just hearing the way that they're approaching this now, it makes me so proud. I mean lots more felling over here. So I want to send a special thank you to the signed members who shared their advice here leadership coach, Dr Susan Bernstein, Kelly coiner, founder of innovation for mobility. Caitlin massengill, founder of full swing public relations, Tara McDonough, founder of Tara McDonough communications, and Lindsay white, founder of high voltage leadership. And we're going to have the links to their websites in the show notes at Smart gets paid.com/podcast

Leah Neaderthal18:04

so I just want to pull out something that you can take from this and apply to your business. And there are a few themes that you heard in what they shared right, things like not making assumptions about what clients can or can't pay, identifying the value that clients are looking for and positioning your work and your price around that value, and instead of lowering your prices because you think clients won't be able to pay, instead setting your prices where you want and finding the clients who can pay those prices, because they are out there. But I wanted to pull out what I think comes before all of that, which they also touched on, which is mindset, the story we tell ourselves about our clients and really about ourselves, which is also the story we bring into the sales process. You know, there's a famous quote from Henry Ford that says, if you think you can and you think you can't, then you're right. And it's really all about how you know your attitude determines your success, because if you follow that thought, your attitude leads you to do things that determine your success or your failure. And I'll sort of take that and run with it to say, if you think your clients can't pay and you think your clients can pay, you're right, and it's the same thing, because your mindset leads you to do things that either reinforce the belief that they can't pay or reinforce the belief that they can because if you think they can't pay, then you're going to start to undervalue your work and under charge for your work. You'll take on any client, even if they can't pay you what you want. You'll do smaller projects or over deliver for not enough money or a greater scope creep, and if you think they can pay then you'll charge what you want. You'll focus on your value. You'll go for the clients who truly value your work, and you'll say no to the clients who can't afford you. So it becomes this self fulfilling prophecy. And of course, there are tools you need to you know, know how to uncover the value. You in sales conversations and build a relationship and write proposals that clients can say yes to and move the sale forward to help a client say yes all of that. Yes, there are tools you need as well, but none of that works without mindset. None of that works if you've walked in the door with a self defeating message or mindset. But there's something else I hear in this woman's email that I just want to touch on and maybe offer to you to explore. Because what I hear is something called defensive pessimism. Defensive pessimism was identified by Nancy Cantor in the 80s, and it's this thing we do where we imagine we're going to fail before we actually do, so that it won't hurt as much once it really happens, you know, because, like, I told myself it was going to happen, so I was ready for it. So, you know, if you've ever thought like, oh, this date is going to suck, or they probably won't like me anyway, or I'm probably not even going to get this job, then you were actually practicing defensive pessimism. And defensive pessimism isn't just about, you know, being a Debbie Downer. It's actually a tool that our brains are using to protect ourselves. So in reading this woman's email, of course, I want to, like, teach her all the things and tell her all the reasons why she shouldn't make assumptions and have this self defeating mindset, right? But then I wonder, instead of just, you know, like going into it with the wrong mindset, could she simply be afraid? Could she be afraid of getting rejected by the clients she really wants to work with? You know, maybe she's gotten one or two no's in the past, and she's afraid of getting her hopes up again about a potential client and then getting a no again. And if that's the case, you know, could anyone really blame her? So I just want to hold space for that and honor that this is hard, and we don't want to be hurt and we don't want to be disappointed. So it's totally natural to try to protect ourselves from disappointments and that vulnerability, and it's okay to be afraid. But the question is, knowing that you're afraid, what do you do next? Because you know, when you run your own business, then going for the clients you want to work with, it does involve being a little vulnerable, right? It's saying, Hey, this is the value that I offer. This is what I'm worth. This is the number associated with that value. And do you want to move forward with me, you know, and that is being vulnerable. And listen, I mean, I get not wanting to be vulnerable, especially if you know, like the type a overachievers that I work with, and I will count myself in that number, type a overachievers you spent your whole life trying to avoid failure. But I guess the question is, is that defensive pessimism, that sort of pre protection from failure, really serving you anymore in your business? So if you find yourself practicing defensive pessimism, then I want to invite you to you know, instead of trying to protect yourself from disappointment, how would it feel if you anticipated the positive? What if you anticipated a yes? And what steps would you take, and how would you move forward, and how would you show up then? And of course, you know the reality is that not every client is going to say yes. That's just a fact, but you have to at least believe it's possible, because the first sale is to yourself. Oh, and as a quick note, one of the signed members that you heard from in this episode wasn't sure she could charge more and didn't know how to do it using the tools mentioned here, she sold her single biggest project to date.

Leah Neaderthal23:39

Hey, everything we're talking about in this episode is part of the system. Women like you are learning in the academy. In the Academy, we help women consultants install the two systems. Every B to B consultant needs a marketing system to consistently attract the right clients and a sales system to lead a sales process to a yes and get paid more for every contract. So even if you've only gotten clients through referrals or word of mouth in the academy, you'll learn how to attract and sign clients outside your network, how to lead a sales process with confidence, and how to get paid for your value, not your time. And there's no cold calling or cold emailing involved, no changing your services or making a course, and you won't use any pushy sales tactics. That's just not our vibe. So if you like what you've heard here, the academy may be your right next step to learn how you can get these two systems in your consulting business and make progress faster and with fewer roadblocks. Head to smart gets paid.com/academy and apply, and we can chat about next steps. All right. See you over there. Transcribed by https://otter.ai