Lisa Rodriguez is a business owner who started out like so many others, undercharging for her services. But then she had a lightbulb moment that gave her the courage to realize she was worth a lot more.
This post is the story of that lightbulb moment, a story I’m calling “Not Gonna Take It Anymore.” Lisa related it to me during a Sales Wounds™ interview she and I did recently.
Read more about the Anti-Selling Wound™ here.
Lisa:
One of the things I struggled with the most when I started my own business was that I felt almost like I wasn’t worthy. I didn’t know enough, I wasn’t good enough at what I did … because in my mind, I felt like a newbie. Even though I had the administrative and project management background, as well as some of the technical aspects, I didn’t have a lot of money for formal training because I still had to support my household. So I taught myself everything. I didn’t have any kind of a degree.
So I almost felt like a fraud. Here I’m hanging a shingle telling people I’m an Online Business Manager, but I’ve only been doing it a few months and I’ve only got two clients. There was a lot of that kind of self-doubt, in the beginning.
It made it really hard for me to sell my services. And because of that whole internal thing I had going on, my pricing was completely ridiculous. I was doing websites for $250 when I started out. I told myself I didn’t know enough, even though they were happy with the end result. I once did a full-blown membership website for $1,000 and it was an absolute nightmare because I needed help, but I couldn’t afford to hire any help because I wasn’t being paid enough.
It was a huge wake-up call. I basically tripled my prices. And yeah, the phone stopped ringing as much, but it was almost like I started finding the clients I really wanted to work with. This one woman told me, “I’ve been looking at your website for months but I didn’t think you could be any good, based on the prices you had on your website. Now that you’ve raised your prices, I decided to call you.” So that was a really big turning point for me.
While it’s good news that Lisa eventually got to the point that she felt comfortable charging more for her services, it actually wasn’t a mistake for her to charge so little in the beginning.
If you’re struggling with your pricing, read When Is It OK to Discount Your Prices? for help deciding when it’s time to increase your prices.
Lisa’s story didn’t end with the Anti-Selling Wound™. As our conversation continued, we discovered that she had also suffered at one point from a Love & Money Wound™, but that her primary wound at this point was The Money Wound™.
Read about Lisa’s Love & Money Wound™, When A Woman Wears the Pants.
Read about Lisa’s Money Wound™, The Evil Corporate Mogul.
Finally, to read more about the Anti-Selling Wound™, as well as several other case studies of people who suffer from it, click here.
Hi, I’m Julia Kline. For help accessing your self-limiting beliefs, aka your Sales Wounds™, and to get started healing them, consider hiring me for private coaching. I offer packages starting as low as $5,000, or up to $25,000. I also offer affordably priced group coaching.
To start the conversation, email my assistant Rosie@JuliaKline.com. She'll send you my coaching brochure, describing all that I offer.