Charge for Your Expertise: Knowing Which Wire to Cut - Ep 208

Someone asks for your rate and suddenly your brain starts negotiating against you. I’ve been there, and I’m sharing the stories that changed how I price my work as an enthusiastically self-employed consultant, coach, and LinkedIn trainer. We start with the core truth behind value-based pricing: clients are not paying you to “cut the wire.” They’re paying you to know which wire to cut, and that comes from years of experience, pattern recognition, and results.

I walk through how my LinkedIn coaching evolved from a $150 in-person session into a $750 VIP coaching package built for real implementation, including recorded sessions, a profile resource guide, and an accountability call. 

I also talk about what it feels like to raise rates, how to present a clean offer ladder during discovery calls, and why a done-for-you service should cost more when it demands deep focus and intensive time.

Then we get into the messy parts: the moment a prospect told me my training cost “more than our lawyers,” how that objection stuck with me, and how I’d handle it now. We also dig into client boundaries, scope creep, and the “pain in the” clients who drain your energy. 

Finally, we talk about AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, why their advice can be outdated, and why expert access is becoming the real premium in coaching and consulting.

If you want more confidence in your pricing strategy and a healthier relationship with your time, press play.

Subscribe, share this with a self-employed friend who’s undercharging, or message me on LinkedIn with the biggest pricing challenge you’re facing right now.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Pricing Question

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, welcome back, my friend. On today's episode, I want to talk to you about what you charge if you are enthusiastically self-employed. I want to tell some stories that have occurred with me and my business along the years, maybe inspire you, maybe make you a laugh a little bit, maybe you can relate to some of these things and just give you a confidence boost in what you charge for your experience and expertise as well. And I want to start first with something that I saw on Instagram a while back. I wish I could remember who had posted it, but basically the sentiment was as an independent consultant, you have years and years of expertise. So it's not about cutting the wire, it's about knowing which wire to cut. And I want to repeat that. Because you might have people that are approaching you to help them in your area of expertise with your consulting experience, with your coaching experience to do something for you. And I don't know about you, but when I first got started with my business, I wasn't charging enough. I actually had a friend, her name's Amanda. She's a fellow marketer, and I was doing a LinkedIn coaching session with her. And I think at the time it was a two-hour session in person, I was charging$150. And they would bring their laptop, I would bring my laptop. And we would go through their profile from top to bottom. And Amanda was one of the first people that I charged this when I first started my business. This was probably back in the end of 2017, beginning of 2018, when I was first starting to lean into this full time. And I remember at the end of the session, we were at a coffee shop. I think it was at the office coffee shop in Royal Oak, if I'm not mistaken. And she said to me, You're not charging enough for this. You need to be charging people more for that. And I said,$200. And I said it like nervously. And she's like, No, you need to be charging people a lot more than this because this is such great value. And the insights that she said to me, the insights that you're giving me, I couldn't get elsewhere. It's insights from someone who's used the platform for many years. So it's really valuable. Now, since that date, every time I increase my prices for that particular package, I would text or email Amanda and let her know I raised my prices again. And she was always really proud of me. I haven't done that for a while. And this particular package has now evolved into an offering, which I call a VIP coaching package, which is now done virtually. The benefit there being, in addition to getting the expertise, I record the session. I have my coaching client share their screen and they're navigating through LinkedIn. And then the right they have the recording. So a lot of the work we get done in the session, they have the recorded playback that goes along with it. And I also provide them a LinkedIn profile resource guide that goes along with it. It gives them all the instructions and explanations that we cover in the session, but it gives them a review of that. And then we do a 30-minute accountability call as well. But now the same package that I used to be charging$150 for, I'm charging$750 for. And it's been a little while since I've increased my rates. And this is going to be one of the things that I do increase my rates within probably the next six months on here. So I just want to let you all know that I am probably very similar to you. When you first started launching your business, you probably weren't charging enough. You're not alone in that. And as you gain confidence in what you're doing and how you're selling it and how you're positioning it, you're going to feel a lot more confident in what you charge. I want to give a shout-out right now to Amy Porterfield. I was listening to her latest podcast on my walk with Pepper yesterday. And she was talking about early on in her career when she was doing digital courses, when she increased the rate for one of her packages. And I think she went from, I don't know, it was like$397 to$797 or$397 to$9.97. It was a pretty big jump, though. And she confessed that she was nervous delivering that increased rate. And she could probably sense that her clients were apprehensive about it as well. And when she raised her rates, she only sold one the first time. You know, I don't know about you, but I feel very confident in my VIP package for$750. Whenever I'm on a discovery call with someone who might be interested in booking that with me, I have a couple different offerings. One is a power hour. If you want to work with me one-on-one, you can book like it's basically what it is. It's a power hour, and you can book one hour, or you can both book multiple hour increments. The VIP coaching package is kind of like my middle offering, and I always tell them this is my favorite package. And I explain each of the elements of each of the packages. And the top level package is an executive profile rewrite. It's a done for you service. I recently increased the rate of that as well. And I think that one is now at oh, what is it? I think I'm increased it to$29.97,$2,997. I prior to this, I was charging$2,500 for it. And that's intentional because it's a lot of expertise and work that goes into it. It is a done-for-you service, and it's a pretty intensive time commitment that I do to provide my clients that area of expertise. And it's not one of my favorite because I would rather teach a man or teach a woman to fish rather than do the fishing for you. Right. But some people would say, here's my money. I want to buy some fish, right? And I'll take your money for that. But I always go back to, I would prefer to give them the VIP coaching package because I can train you and coach you and guide you how to build and optimize your profile for now. And that way you know how to do that later. Okay. So again, thinking about where you are in terms of value and positioning your products and services, maybe that helps you to understand, maybe it even follows your own journey and how you're doing pricing. And maybe you're at that point in your business where you're trying to determine do you raise your rates? There's a lot of things that are going up in cost in the world, and maybe it's been several years since you've raised your rates, and maybe it's time to do. I want you to pay attention to when you are on discovery calls and working with clients. If you ever get a client saying you're not charging enough, it's time to change your rates, right? So I want to give a shout out to Liz M. Lopez. She just bought booked some coaching time with me. And that was one of the things that she said when she first started working with me. You're not charging enough. You need to be raising your rates. So I want to say thank you to Liz for that for inspiring me. And I will be increasing my rates to make sure that they're better aligned with the value that I offer. All right. Another thing I want to talk about early on in my career, I was doing a variety of one-on-one coaching, as I explained. I was also doing team training. And this was pre-pandemic when a lot of the training was occurring in person. I was doing some virtual, but mainly it was in person. And it was for a client here in Metro Detroit, and I can't even remember the name of the company, but I was doing probably six to ten different team training engagements a year. Some would be like a lunch and learn, like a one-hour session. Others would be like a two-part training session. And then I evolved to create like a two-part training with a dashboard report and one-on-one accountability phone call. So I've done different levels in there as well. And I remember for this one particular individual, and I remember the quote was it was above a thousand dollars. It might have been$1,200 or$1,500. I'm charging more than that now, but I remember at the time it was in the 1,000 to 2,000 range. And I sent him the quote over. And I think even at the time, I was sending proposals out without doing a review call of the proposal. So I send it to him through email. I do it different now. I review it on a Zoom call to get that feedback from them, to see if they have any questions. And it does help with that consultative selling process. But at the time, I was sending it to him through email. And I'm trying to remember, I think this was on the phone. I remember I was in the grocery store. It was like a Kroger or a Meyer. And I remember picking up the phone. And the person said, I just want to make sure I understand the rate. And I explained it and was for 10 to 12 people. I think it was a one-hour session. And they said, that's more than we're paying our lawyers for a one-hour session. And I said, But you're welcome to check out other people in the market and see if the market rate is consistent. But this is very much in line with what I've been charging other clients. And when and if you're ready to proceed, let me know. And I held my ground. I was not negotiating. I was not going to negotiate my rate down. But the way they said that, it really stung. And we left the call. It was a pleasant professional call. We left the call. And I remember walking the store almost feeling like numb, like I was in a daze. Like it really stung to her hear someone saying, we don't see your value. You're charging too much. And I could hear those words still in my head to this day. That's more than we charge, than our lawyer charges us for one hour. And this is an apples to oranges comparison. I am not providing legal advice to people. And in this case, I am training and empowering a whole team of individuals who are going to go and use LinkedIn for social selling to grow their business. So it's more of a sales support function than it is giving legal advice on a contract. Now, we all know how this happens. This is what happens later. In our mind, we think about all the things that we should have said in that phone call. At the spur of the moment, I was just going back to check out and maybe look, shop around, see if there's others in the market. I knew at the time there wasn't anyone else in the Detroit Metro market, and I'm not even sure if there is to this day. I feel very confident saying this. I'm pretty well known as a LinkedIn trainer, and there's many people who are in Metro Detroit who are aware of my area of expertise being LinkedIn. There probably are people who charge a lot less than I do. Do they have as large of a network? Have they been on the platform as longer? Are they focused on social selling principles? I don't know that they would be doing all those things. I feel very confident in what I'm charging. But I can still remember that phone call. And I still remember walking the store and just being very numb feeling about that. And I would treat that situation a lot different for today. So maybe that's happened to you as well. You've had that conversation where someone has questioned your value. Maybe you've moved on from that. And it does show business growth, right? And you make it make you feel more confident as you're moving from places where you understand the value that you're delivering and even how to position that value. And sometimes how to respond to those objections about your pricing as well. Moving along, you may have had some encounters throughout your career working with clients that are a little bit more difficult. And I remember my friend Laura Khalil, she had posted something. I don't know if it was on Instagram or on her LinkedIn. I think it was on LinkedIn. And it was basically client A put together a quote, different iterations back and forth, 10 phone calls to confirm, invoice them for$1,500, and the client responds back and says, This needs to deliver value. I'm making a huge investment, blah, blah, blah. If you can confirm that, we'll proceed. That's client A. Client B, send them a proposal, package$10,000, invoice them, and they email you back, payment sent, looking forward to working with you. Who would you rather work with? And there's been different clients throughout the years, and I've talked to my other friends who are self-employed, enthusiastically self-employed, obviously. And we've had conversations about these clients over the year, and client A, they go into that category of what I like to kiddingly call P to clients, P-I-T-A, pain in the, you can fill in the blank and the last letter there. But they tend to be the clients that drain your energy. They tend to be the clients that question your value. They tend to be the clients that are always looking for more. You probably have experienced this within Scope Creep, right? You probably have experienced this with them asking for a lot of free advice for you. You know that I'm in the season of no more free for free for my business. And I've really limited my opportunities to get that free expertise from me. And I'm also becoming a lot more generous with giving that advice to my paid clients and my paid members. And I've had different situations over the years where clients have approached me and asked me for advice. And I make it a rule of thumb. Once you have been a client of mine, you're a client for life. And I always will tell them you can email me or you can message me on LinkedIn if you ever have any LinkedIn questions. And the likelihood is that the average person who I tell this to, they may email me every once in a great while with a question or two. Usually it's pretty close to the time that we work together. They may have some follow-up questions. And I'll always let them know. If it's a quick question, I'll respond back. A lot of times I'll have resources that are readily available. I might do a blog or a video or have a blogger video that I can send you. And if I don't, I may do a LinkedIn post about it. And I won't identify you by name. I'll remove out any identifying information and I'll publish about it. Or I might do a new video or do a new blog based on it because if you have that question, others will have this question as well. And like most people, they might send the one-off or a couple questions here and there. I've had a couple instances though where clients have, I want to say taken advantage of this. Maybe it is taken advantage of it, but I had one client in particular who sent me a list of probably 20 to 30 questions. And I politely replied back and I said, confirming receipt. Looks like you have a lot of questions. Would you like to book another coaching call with me? You know, if not, I'm happy to respond to your questions, but I'll do maybe once a week, depending on client workload. And they said, let's just do that. We'll do the once a week. And I'll admit, business got busy for me. I had a lot of other paid clients, and I wasn't as quick to respond as I would have been had we done a coaching call together and worked through that list of questions. I've had other instances where people have reached out to me and asked for advice through email. And I've said, what's the source of this information that they're coming to me about LinkedIn? And they're using their favorite AI tools or large large language models, whether it's Gemini or ChatGPT and things like that. And I'm saying, what is your source for this information? And they're telling me it's their AI tool. And I'm saying AI is outdated. In this instance, the advice your AI tool is giving you is outdated. Because again, you're paying me not for cutting the wire, but knowing which wire to cut. You're paying me for my expertise that's in here. So I've had clients reach out to me and ask for me to redo what their AI has given them. And I'm gonna charge a higher rate for that. Because now I've invested the time in going back and forth with you, and I know that you're coming to me for my expertise, and I should be compensated for that expertise, right? So I just I hope this message lands in the right place for you. I'm not here to criticize people nor their approaches for doing business with us. But my goal is to help to support you as someone else who is self-employed. And a lot of us are, because we are self-employed, we don't have coworkers to announce these ideas and situations off of. And that's part of the reason I have two different communities. One is called Marketing with Meller. Marketing with Miller is a membership and learning community focused on marketing. We do talk about LinkedIn as well. But we have in inside our community, we have three live virtual events every month, one of which is an office hours. It's my absolute probably favorite of the three because we get the chance to network with each other, talk about what's happening in our business, our challenges, and we can do a little bit of groupthink and support and help each other out through that. We also do learning masterclasses, we do roundtable discussions, I do member spotlights. It's a lot of fun. But it does give me the opportunity to network with others and almost to create like my coworker network, if you will. And then my other community is my signature program, which is called The Recipe for Social Selling on LinkedIn. And I go super deep into teaching people how to use LinkedIn effectively to sell themselves, to sell their business, but using a social selling approach. And along with the online course instruction, I've also enhanced my one-to-one support with my members in my small group coaching elements as well, because the live access to me is really what a lot of people are looking for. They don't want the Chat GPT route because often it's outdated or it's not giving them the exact answers they need. They want access to an expert. And I've really started flipping the way that I'm positioning the recipe to new clients who are coming in, focusing more on that expert access component, the expert live access component combined with the program library that you get inside the program. So with that, my focus is on serving my clients and serving my members. But I also want to make sure that I am being paid for my value because when you are self-employed, you don't get paid unless you get paid, right? And kiddingly, I sometimes will remind my friends who are self-employed, freelance does not mean that you work for free. Okay. So, not a couple different sound bites that you hopefully have picked up throughout this show. But again, come into the day, I want the focus to be on how this can help and inspire you. I'm not one to focus on critiquing and pulling out those situations. I want to focus on learning experiences that help to drive me and my business forward and that can help you to do the same as well. So, with that said, I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If we are connected on LinkedIn, send me a message, let me know, or maybe email me at Brenda at Mellermarketing.com. I'm curious if this message reached you and if you can relate to any of the stories or scenarios I talked about today. Until next time, my friends, stay enthusiastically self employed, and I look forward to connecting with you and hearing from you on LinkedIn or through email. Take care.