Why Undercharging is Killing Your Growth

Janine: [00:00:00] Okay, this week, my friends, I want to talk about why you have to quit undercharging your worth. And I might get a bit ranty because I'm fed up. I've been having so many conversations over the last few weeks with clients that despite [00:01:00] their five years, their 10 years, their two decades, three, four decades of incredible Experience that pricing themselves at a level that they might as well be flipping burgers in the local drive thru.

You see, here's the thing, right? You've had experience till here. You've had decades of, acquiring skills of learning how to influence. You've had years of experience of winning and failing and succeeding and celebrating. You've probably picked yourself up off the ground so many times over the last few years where things haven't quite gone wrong.

You've learned to connect. You've learned to lead. You've learned to inspire. You've learned to motivate yourself. You've won. You've been promoted. You are not the person now that you were when you [00:02:00] first started work. You have experience, you have craft, you have mastery. And yet, when we go out on our own, we don't price ourselves accordingly for that experience.

We start questioning our worth. And more often than not, we end up working really, really, really hard But we've got nothing to show for it. And so I wanted to just quickly jump on and record this podcast about why you're undercharging yourself is not serving you in any way. And why you've got to quit undercharging.

Now I'll be really honest. I was there too. I had 20 years over 20 years of experience. I used to be the group marketing director of incredible global brands. I've got over 20 years of building brands, launching brands, rejuvenating brands, not just here where I live now in Australia, but on a global scale, [00:03:00] starting life in the UK, managing brands across Europe, and then coming here and building brands here in Australia and launching those brands into Asia, into New Zealand.

I've got experience of negotiating with media, of managing multiple stakeholders of working with boards of building teams and running teams of, creating incredible impactful award winning events. And yet when I went out on my own, I didn't think I was good enough. And I felt I was starting all over again.

How many of you resonate with that? When I went out on my own, it was like, Oh, haven't done this for myself. And so I have to start off as if I'm a freshie, an early 20 something or other, and I must price myself accordingly, not price myself based on my decades of work and experience. And here's the thing I'm seeing the same thing happen with so many Clients that I end up working with.

[00:04:00] For me, it was only when a mentor of mine actually called me on it and actually said to me, Janine, you're never going to achieve those goals that you have for your business. You're never going to hit those revenue targets that you're, trying to achieve. You're never going to get to that point of financial freedom or creating the space in your family to have incredible experiences together.

Yeah. It was only when I was called on it that I started to rethink it. and this is what I'm doing for you today because I wanna call you on the undercharging and I wanna share with you today in today's, podcast, why undercharging for your services is not going to help you build the business success of your dreams, and here's why.

First up. When we start questioning our worth, like how many of you are constantly challenging yourself on what your hourly rate should be, or you're constantly rewriting [00:05:00] proposals and changing your pricing and questioning what your pricing should be. Here's the thing, when we're questioning our worth, When we are going round and round and round in circles of if we can price that would people pay for that?

Oh my gosh You've checked out the competition and the competition of pricing at this level and show you've got a price at this level When we're going round and round and round in circles, it's actually taking up a significant amount of time Energy that constant questioning is taking up a whole heap of energy is fueling self doubt is fueling procrastination and is actually fueling your lack of self belief.

So we've got to stop it because if we're going to have conviction in our pricing, we've got to Believe in ourselves and we've got to price ourselves accordingly. So, so when you're questioning your worth, you're actually fueling that lack of belief, that lack of confidence, that lack of conviction.

The second thing that happens is when we're questioning our worth and we're spending all that time and energy [00:06:00] talking about price, questioning our price, what our proposals should look like. It's taking up space. Too much energy and too much time. We're spending way too much time in this pool of questioning our pricing.

And that time actually needs to be spent going out there, meeting your A grade clients, talking to those clients, delivering through on those clients. We actually want pricing to be off the table. Timing is important. You have to put time nurturing and delivering to your clients. Now let's talk about clients.

When we undercharge, we actually are at risk of attracting the wrong clients. For me, over these last decade of running my own business, every single time I have agreed to a price point less than my worth, every single time I have discounted my pricing, every single time I have priced really low, I've been undercharged.

Those clients become a pain in the ass if they are [00:07:00] painful at the sign of, process, they always become painful clients to work with. You hearing me? So there's no love there. There's no love there. And so when we underpriced, we are actually at risk of attracting. The wrong clients. We're at risk of attracting the clients that do not value our worth.

We're at risk of attracting the clients that will never pay what we want to be charging. And we're at risk of attracting clients that actually we end up not loving working with. More often than not, we end up resenting working with them. So quit under charging. And. When we undercharge, we are actually negatively impacting our brand and negatively impacting our market positioning.

I want you to think about restaurants. I want you to think about restaurants that you're dying to go [00:08:00] to, that you'd love to eat in. I want you to think about flying first class. I want you Think about sitting in those real luxury seats in the cinema. I want you to think about the car that you'd love to drive.

I want you to think about buying a white t shirt and what springs to mind. If I say to you that that t shirt is priced for target. Versus that t shirt that's priced for a mid level brand. Like here in Australia, we have country road or that price of that white t shirt that is priced, but it's actually in Louis Vuitton.

Which one do you want? Now here's the thing, right? And when you think about that, what do you think? What's your perception of first class versus economy? What's your perception of that Michelin starred restaurant versus going to a fast food joint? What's your perception of going into Target [00:09:00] to buy a white t shirt versus the desirability of being able to walk into Gucci, Armani, Louis Vuitton to buy a white t shirt?

This is what I'm talking about when it comes to our own pricing, wherever you want to be positioned in the marketplace. If you want to be seen as the best in the business, if you want to create demand for you because of the work that you do, if you want to be positioned as the authority in the marketplace, you have to price yourself accordingly.

You have to price yourself, not necessarily as. Target as mass market, where everybody is at that price point. And suddenly the pool of competition is huge, but price yourself at the higher end, where the perception is you are quality, you know, your stuff. You have your craft, you have mastered it over your 10, 000 hours, your decades of experience.

You got to start charging what you are worth. [00:10:00] We want to take price off the table. Pricing will build your brand and it will build your positioning. By the way, this reminds me of, I was running a workshop recently, and my very good friend, Gabrielle Dolan was presenting at that workshop. She's a therapist.

Thought leader in the storytelling space. And we were having this debate about pricing and she went, I loved it. She literally said to the audience, cause everyone was going, I can't charge that much, I'm going to lose clients. She actually turned to the audience and went, someone has got to be the most expensive.

And then she added, and I'm sick of it being white 50 year old men. So hence why she charges accordingly. So think about your positioning, because what I want you to think about, does your pricing reflect how you want to be positioned in the marketplace? Now, finally, when you undercharge, you're actually having a negative [00:11:00] impact.

On your future growth opportunity, because what tends to happening, you're overworked and you have no time. you're overworked and your energy levels, you're at fatigue, you're tired, you're risking burnout, you're undercharging. Yes. You might be busier than ever, but you've got no time to think. You've got no time to go out there and attract your A grade clients.

You've got no time out there to actually work on your business because you're so busy working in your business. and you've got no space, you've got no space to strategize and plan and to do the work that is needed to turn your business around and to unlock those opportunities. You've got no time to change anything because what tends to happen is you hit this threshold, you hit this ceiling of growth opportunity.

So we've got to quit undercharging. We've got to quit undercharging because it impacts our time and our energy. Because [00:12:00] undercharging forces us to question our worth versus valuing our worth. It negatively impacts our positioning. We attract the wrong clients and it really stalls and puts a massive full stop in your future growth strategies.

Quit undercharging and instead have conviction around your pricing. Have conviction around your worth. Own the experience that you have. Own your craft. Quit wasting time negotiating about pricing and take pricing off the table. And instead have a conversation about output. About the work that you're going to do and how that is going to help your clients.

Quit negatively impacting your pricing, negatively impacting your positioning. Sorry. And instead ensure that your pricing reflects the value that you are bringing and your positioning in the marketplace, make sure that your pricing is [00:13:00] pitched to attract those A grade clients and the clients that you want.

And ensure that this pricing, I have a strategy, by the way, everything I'm all about is about, dollars. Up. We want to earn more money, but we want to work less. We want dollars up, dollars down. We want the space and the time to be able to strategize and put in place the right strategies to elevate our businesses to the next level.

Now, if you need some help on this, I have done a little bit of training, and on the pricing formula that I use in my business. And also I do have a pricing calculator. Stick it in the show notes, might have heard it in terms of the mid reel, download it, jump on board and have a look at that pricing calculator and see whether you're actually, undercharging and see the opportunity that exists.

When you start elevating your pricing. I'd love to hear your thoughts. [00:14:00] I'd love to hear what you're doing. And if this has been helpful to rethink what your pricing should be, or to give you that kick up the butt that you need to quit undercharging and instead start charging them your worth, then that was my intention for today.

Thank you for listening. Take care. Let's go out there, let's charge our worth and let's start attracting the right clients so that you can do the work that you want in the way that you want to do it with the clients that respect you and respect everything that you are bringing to their business. Have a truly fabulous week.

Thank you for listening. Make sure you leave a review. Pass this episode on to anyone. Anyone that you think would find it useful. And if you take a screenshot and share it out there on the socials, make sure to tag me so that I can give you some love back. And until next week, have a truly awesome week.

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