When we start our coaching businesses, we tend to fall into one of two extremes with our pricing. We either charge ridiculously low fees because we’re ‘not experienced or qualified enough yet’, or we pick a high figure based on what we want to earn, divided by the hours we want to work.
Neither approach is based on reality, because neither approach is based on the thing that should determine our pricing – the value we’re offering to our clients.
The Starting Point
A professional starting figure is £125-150 per session, although charging per session isn’t recommended. Packages are much better because they allow for the depth of work that coaching requires and they create commitment from both coach and client.
However, that starting figure is just that – a starting point. The real litmus test is the value that we’re offering to our clients. Providing that the fee we charge is less than the perceived value to the client of working with us then, once the client has recognised that we are the person to help them, they will not quibble about the price.
One of the areas of confusion around this is that we as a profession are notoriously bad at articulating the value of coaching in a way that non-coaches can assimilate. We talk about transformation and breakthrough and reaching potential, and our potential clients have no idea what any of that actually means in practical terms.
How To Actually Determine Your Fees
The question isn’t “what do I want to charge?” The question is “what value does my coaching offer to my chosen client?”
If we don’t have a chosen client, if our clients are ‘anyone who needs coaching’ or ‘anyone who wants to reach their potential’, then we can’t articulate value and pricing becomes a guessing game. We end up either charging too little because we’re not confident in what we’re offering, or charging a number we’ve plucked from thin air based on what we think we’re worth.
If we know exactly who we want to work with, what they’re struggling with, and crucially what the cost of not resolving that struggle is to them, then we know what to charge. When I talk about the ‘cost of not resolving it’, that may be a monetary cost, but equally it could be an emotional cost, a relationship cost, a status cost, a health cost, or any number of other costs.
For Example…
If we work with people who are burned out and facing the next 15 years with dread, the cost of not resolving that might be their mental health, their relationships, their physical wellbeing, and their sense of purpose and meaning in life. What’s that worth? Certainly more than £150 per session.
If we work with people who are continually overlooked for promotion despite being excellent at their jobs, the cost of not resolving that might be years more of frustration, watching less capable colleagues promoted above them, feeling invisible and undervalued, and potentially never reaching the career level they’re capable of. What’s that worth?
If we work with emerging leaders who are drowning in responsibility and terrified they’re going to let their team down, the cost of not resolving that might be leaving a job they worked years to achieve, losing confidence in their abilities, and potentially leaving the profession entirely. What’s that worth?
When we can clearly articulate the specific problem our specific client is facing and the cost of not resolving it, pricing becomes straightforward. The value of our work is obvious because we’ve made it obvious.
The Cost of Charging Too Little
Several things happen when coaches charge too little. They’re not taken seriously, or they end up selling one-off sessions for ‘mates rates’ simply to get some work. Ending up in a race to the bottom in regard to pricing is not a situation which helps anyone.
The main cost is that coaches who start off charging low rates, do so in the belief that they can start charging a little and build up over time. They think they’ll gain experience and confidence, and then they’ll be able to charge professional fees.
The truth is that until they learn how to articulate the value of what they do in a way that non-coaches can assimilate, they will always coach for free or for low rates. The problem isn’t their experience or their qualifications. The problem is that they can’t explain why what they do is valuable, so potential clients have no reason to pay professional fees.
Low fees aren’t a stepping stone to professional fees, they’re a symptom of not being able to articulate value. That doesn’t change with time or experience – it only changes when we learn how to do it properly.
Why We Can’t Articulate Value
We can’t articulate the value of coaching because most of us are trying to articulate the value of a process rather than the value of an outcome. We talk about the coaching itself – the powerful questions, the holding space, the exploring beliefs – rather than the specific result our specific client can expect.
The reason that we all default to this is because we don’t have a specific client in mind. We’re trying to market to everyone, so we can only talk about generic coaching benefits. The problem is, that describing generic coaching benefits don’t help anyone understand why they should pay us £150 per session, let alone £1,500 for a package.
When we have a specific target audience and we understand their specific challenges deeply, we can articulate value clearly. We’re not talking about coaching anymore, we’re talking about the difference between spending the next 15 years in a career that’s draining them versus finding a way forward that actually feels sustainable. We’re talking about the difference between being continually overlooked versus finally being visible and valued. We’re talking about the difference between failing in a role they fought to achieve versus thriving in it.
That’s articulating value, and that’s what professional fees are based on.
What Professional Fees Are Really Based On
Professional coaching fees are not based on what we want to charge. They’re not based on what we think we’re worth and they’re not based on our qualifications or our experience or our credentials.
Professional coaching fees are based on the value of what we do to the individuals we help, but there’s a caveat. We have to be able to articulate that value in a way that our specific chosen audience can a) understand and b) relate to.
That’s why two coaches with identical qualifications and experience might charge completely different fees and both be absolutely right. One works with entrepreneurs who are about to make a business decision that could cost them hundreds of thousands if they get it wrong. The other works with new parents returning to work who are struggling with identity and confidence. The value – and therefore the appropriate fee – is completely different, even though the coaching skills being used are the same.
This is also why charging per session is problematic. The value in coaching isn’t in a single session it’s in the outcome that the coaching package delivers. Someone who finally gets promoted after years of being overlooked doesn’t value a single coaching session in the way that we hope they will, but they absolutely will value the shift in visibility and influence that led to the promotion. That’s worth far more than £150 a session and packaging our work allows us to charge accordingly.
The Mindset Shift Required
We need to stop thinking about what we want to charge and start thinking about what our work is worth to our specific client. That requires us to know exactly who our client is, what they’re struggling with, and what it costs them to continue struggling. It requires us to learn how to articulate value in concrete, specific terms that non-coaches can understand, not in coaching jargon about transformation and potential. We need to talk about specific outcomes that our specific clients care about achieving or avoiding.
Once we can do that, professional fees stop feeling scary or arbitrary. They become obvious. Of course someone would pay £1,500 to resolve a problem that’s costing them their mental health, their career progression, their confidence, or their sense of purpose. The fee is less than the value, so it’s not even a difficult decision.
If we can’t articulate that value clearly however, if we’re still talking in generic terms about coaching and transformation, then £150 a session feels expensive to most people. What I’m saying is that the fees aren’t the problem, our inability to articulate value is the problem.
Professional coaching fees are based on the specific value delivered to a specific client, they’re packaged rather than per session, and they’re presented with absolute clarity about what problem is being resolved and what outcome can be achieved.
What About Ethics?
Marketing must be based in ethics as much as our coaching is. If you’d like to understand how ethical marketing works, may I offer you an opportunity to spend some time with me exploring that?
My Nail Your Niche challenge runs several times a year and it’s free to join. During the 4 days of the challenge, we not only explore where we might find the audience that we are best suited to serve, we also talk about the ethics of marketing and how to keep your marketing authentic.
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