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How To Charge What You're Worth (Not What You're Used To)

• Gary Redmond • Season 2 • Episode 16

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Have you ever wondered what's really holding back your income as an entrepreneur? In a moment of raw honesty, I share my recent breakthrough—landing a high five-figure monthly retainer that shattered my previous pricing ceiling.

For years, my fees were anchored to what I thought subscription box founders could afford—a modest $1,750 for my top-tier offering. This wasn't about my value; it was about my "financial thermostat" being set to match my client base.


Everything changed when I began working with an automotive business and had to completely recalibrate my approach to pricing. Rather than basing my fee on time or arbitrary hourly rates, I calculated the tangible value I could deliver: additional vehicle sales per month. By positioning my services in relation to just two car sales monthly, my unprecedented fee suddenly appeared as a bargain compared to the potential returns.

The epiphany wasn't just about charging more—it was about creating an offer with commensurate value. I developed a high-touch service where I took responsibility not just for strategy but implementation.


This experience revealed something profound about entrepreneurship: what's often holding us back isn't our capabilities but the limitations between our ears. As I've discovered through therapy and mindset work this year, once you've mastered the tactics of your industry, further growth depends on addressing those invisible barriers. What would happen if you priced your next offer from your future, seven-figure self rather than your past habits? Your financial ceiling might be more flexible than you think.

Ready to break through your own pricing barriers? Join our community through the link in the show notes and learn how to price based on possibility, not precedent.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to Unbox the Inbox with me, your host, gary Redmond. On this podcast, you learn how to grow your online business using the power of free and mostly automated email marketing, and we'll hopefully have some fun doing it too. I'm a co-founder of BusterBoxcom and also a mentor and coach, helping founders like me and you create their dream life through their online business. Okay, so today I want to talk about a mindset shift that happened for me over the last few weeks really over time but really started to come to fruition this week when I signed a pretty big contract, which was a big win for me in my side business and my coaching business. So what I really want to talk about is the concept of pricing and also value-based pricing and your financial thermostat as well. So a lot of the things that come up in terms of your identity and how much money you're comfortable charging and how much you may have charged in the past and the blocks that you may have to charging more than what you are used to, because this is something that I had a lot of struggle with around around like this got this sort of thing in my previous sort of coaching guys, which is for subscription box businesses, which I'll get into in a second. But essentially what I wanted to say was I signed a high five figurefigure retainer last month, last week actually Biggest one I've ever signed, first time I've ever asked for that much. So this isn't like a look at me, look how great I am. It's every episode of this podcast, particularly going forward, as I realize, in order to just be more aligned. It's just going to be me talking to my past self, because you know these episodes are as important for me to to record and to listen to than as anyone else. Okay, but, um, okay. So, as I said, high five figure a month retainer, um, and it was. It was a pretty big deal for me, okay.

Speaker 1:

So what I want to talk about was, I guess, the background to my previous um coaching business and the kind of prices I used to charge. Like I used to charge $1,000 for my online course and then some people might upgrade to also get some calls along with that. Maybe that four calls, six calls in and around for 750, I think towards the near the end. I was charging for four calls if people upgraded when they bought the course. So the maximum amount of money someone could give me was 1,750. The reason why that was is because a lot of my previous client base were subscription box founders so they were great people, great businesses and stuff like that, but the margins in e-commerce businesses were always quite low. So, honestly, a high five-figure retainer would never have made sense to them, because it didn't make sense to me to offer that either. So that was kind of where I was anchored in terms of how much money I could ask someone for in terms of coaching, consulting or whatever for in terms of coaching, consulting or whatever, and so like. It wasn't really like. It was something that that was around my kind of financial thermostat okay, and I'm going to talk about that in third part of this episode, something called your financial thermostat. But and this client that I ended up working with was a friend of mine who has a bigger business in a in the automotive industry and they have clearly more financial capacity but it really still required me to figure out the value-based pricing. So not in terms of how much time it would take me, not in terms of an hourly rate, but what I was looking at was how can my expertise drive this business forward and how much money will they make at the end Because, again, when I was working with subscription box people, the reality is a lot of the businesses were getting started, probably a long way away from profitability.

Speaker 1:

So it's hard to make that calculation. To be like. You know, it's hard to show a return on investment, certainly a quick return on investment, because what I found was, when I was coaching people, it was difficult for a single person business which we usually was a single founder, a couple of founders to implement what I said to them, and certainly not quickly. So it was hard for them to continue paying after two, three, four months because you weren't. You weren't. Usually the shift in their profitability and growth took more time because of the time it took to implement the changes. Okay, that's how I would describe it. So, and essentially, like the businesses were all struggling for profitability because they weren't that large anyway.

Speaker 1:

So this time I had to figure out the value in what I was offering and actually have the confidence to ask. And the way I did that was to figure out how many, how much was the average profit they made on a car sale? And then I tried to price my services in and around around two cars per month. Okay, so it was. It was a. It was an offer that I managed to put together based on understanding the numbers of the business. Obviously, it's a bigger business, a more profitable business, a more profitable model, um, but, like, I still have to try and figure out a way that I could confidently charge a lot more than I've ever charged before and still make it um, still make a good value for them, and the way I was able to do that was to be able to look at how much extra revenue I could drive with my expertise and what that would mean for the business and therefore make my fee look really small. Okay, so, even though it was the most I've ever charged, I positioned it to be a very small fee based on how much extra money they would make, how much extra sales they would get. Obviously, I couldn't guarantee any of this, but they obviously believed me, all right.

Speaker 1:

So then what happened was I want to talk about the offer that I made, okay, so it's not just about understanding your value and how much financial capacity the business has, but also you want to. I had to really get into the offer that I built. So it's a high touch, high time investment offer, particularly in the beginning, I don't know how much I can systematize and possibly use AI or maybe get some help with a VA or whatever, but what I essentially did was I built a pretty high value offer while I take a major lead in marketing their business. So I knew I was stepping into something that would massively move the needle for them and I price it accordingly. So, even though I did charge a quite a high price, I made sure that I was very thorough in the report that I did in terms of the current situation of their marketing and also the plan that I would do going forward and also the fact that I was going to take responsibility for that plan.

Speaker 1:

So, because of my expertise and being so valuable to them, like I essentially offered to not only lend my expertise but actually give time in implementing the strategy as well, which is not something that I've done a lot in terms of done for you, but it just was such a great opportunity and it was such a great opportunity for me to like I could have charged two or 3K or whatever, or even 2K and said I'll coach you, I'll help you guys, or whatever, but I just had a feeling that if I went in with a high touch offer that I would get a yes, because they're so strapped for time. So that's also I. You know, I used what I, what I knew in terms of their budget and how much money they could, they could make on the back of my expertise. But I also didn't want to you know under under deliver or under promise, or you know under bake, what kind of solution I could give to them. Okay, and so you don't like, I didn't just charge more for the sake of it, I charged in proportion to the outcomes and the value that I could give to them and also in terms of the effort that I was going to give on to make sure that we were going to achieve the goals as well. Okay, so and right. So we talked about understanding and the financial capacity of the business, understanding, creating the offer that matched and I felt was actually worth it for that price.

Speaker 1:

But I want to talk about just finish by talking about something that you know, a mindset thing that you may or may not have heard of before, and you can Google this. It's called the financial thermostat and basically it's the concept that everyone has a financial comfort zone, and for me, for years, mine was shaped by who I work with in terms of the type of clients and what I thought was number one affordable, good value, obviously, but affordable for the people that I was serving. So it turns out that number had nothing to do with what I was worth. It was more just around the people I was serving and the offers I was essentially making to them in terms of what outcomes I could get for someone who had a small, just starting business. You can't promise someone who has a small business just getting going that I can help you make an extra six or seven figures this year. It's just not possible for you to make that promise ethically okay. If someone is only coming from a level of a startup, particularly in an e-commerce business, it's hard to make a promise that you know is gonna justify 10,000 per month or whatever. It is okay.

Speaker 1:

So what I wanna talk about, then, is the mindset work that I've been doing okay. So I've been doing a lot of manifestation. I've been looking at I've been doing a lot of manifestation. I've been looking at. I've been using a lot of AI around my mindset, around how much money I'm comfortable charging, and I mean obviously there was other factors other than just my mindset, the fact that things I've mentioned about the business's financial capacity, but also it made me realize that you know, no matter how good you are at what you do, if you're operating in businesses that either will struggle to translate your expertise and your knowledge into essentially profit you'll always struggle to actually make that higher level of income. Okay, but what I also was discovering that I was really afraid to ask for that amount of money. In fact, I asked for even more and they bagged me down, but I'm very happy with what they ended up going with in the end. But you know, it really started to break my ceiling of what's possible in terms of you know what my expertise and my knowledge is worth.

Speaker 1:

Okay, again, this isn't an episode about how great I am and look what I did, whatever. It's just I want people and you to understand that if you're selling coaching and consulting, usually you're actually able to charge a lot more money than you think. Okay, and it depends on how clear you can make your offer and how much you understand the outcomes that your clients can get and how much either you know if you're not selling something that's going to be business related, you can understand how can you relate the outcomes that you give to them to something tangible, whether it's better health, whether it's, you know, better body composition, whether it's more money, whether it's a better business, whether it's more time. How can we clearly figure out how you are able to give them that result and what that means for them and therefore justify a cost for that? Okay, so, yeah, a lot of that.

Speaker 1:

I don't really know kind of how structured this episode really was, to be honest with you, but I hope it makes sense Just in terms of you know, figuring out. I just wanted to talk really about my win this week and, and just in terms of you know figuring, figuring out, I just wanted to talk really about my, my win this week and what I kind of. You know. It was a really big win for me, basically, and it's a lot more money than I've ever charged before and I'm really excited about it, also terrified that I have to go and deliver on all this now. But, um, yeah, I just wanted to talk really about you know how I kind of tried to figure out how much I could charge from them and then how much effort I put into creating the offer and how much effort I would put be putting into delivering the offer to make sure I didn't just try and ridiculously overcharge. And I want to talk, wanted to talk to you about the financial thermostat that can be holding you back.

Speaker 1:

If you're like, I recently talked with someone who was coaching people on getting better sleep and she was charging 45 pounds an hour. So I mean you know, if you're helping someone with such a big problem, be like and they're under like someone who's unable to sleep and after working with you, they, they then have them and, by the way, it was 45. So just just to clarify again around the second point, around, like it was 45 pounds for a one hour call. So what I'm saying is, yes, you possibly could I said to the client as well, you possibly could just charge two or three times that 45 pounds for the one hour call. But what I, what I was suggesting, was like okay, if you can solve the entire problem on a 45 minute call or an hour call for 45 pounds, that's great. But I mean I doubt that that's actually always totally possible, okay.

Speaker 1:

So what I was kind of getting at was doesn't mean you just necessarily raise your price, but you can also increase the value. So, like I was saying, you know you do your 45 minute call, you do two calls, and you also give them a month's worth of DM access to you. Do you also give them frameworks? You give them and printouts, pds, whatever it is, and you also give them a month's worth of DM access to you. Do you also give them frameworks? You give them printouts, pdfs, whatever it is, and you increase the value of your offer, so it's worth £450. Okay, and make sure that you completely solve the problem for them so they don't have to end up booking another call with you in two weeks or four weeks or whatever. Okay, so that's kind of what I meant by. You know, you can't always just raise your price for the exact same thing, but a great way to give you the confidence is to just build more value into what you offer and therefore it makes it easier for you to raise the price and charge more. Okay, so right, that's it.

Speaker 1:

I've rambled on enough for today and, as I said, the day was more than just about income, was about me aligning, figuring out my worth and the work I was willing to put, put in for it, and the results I can give and the value that I can hopefully give and hopefully continue to break through my previous financial thermostat and earn more and more money, because what I realize more and more in the coaching industry and in the solopreneur industry is a lot of the times what's holding you back is between your ears. And I've been doing therapy this year. I've been doing a lot of things around. You know, I guess you reach a point in your business where you know all the tactics and you know all the strategies, but you still get stuck at a revenue level based on you know some of your mindset and some of your non-tangible things that you know how to do. Because you reach a point in your business where you figure out like in entrepreneurship as well, you figure out how to get the information that you need, but it's not always more information that's gonna take you to the next level, something it's a belief issue, it's a mindset issue or something like that. So it's kind of what I realized and kind of what I've been working on a lot this year and this has been a big win for me.

Speaker 1:

So, guys, what would happen if you priced your next offer from possibility and not what you usually are used to? Okay, so that's priced from your future self, your seven figure self, and not from your past self. So I hope this episode was helpful. Maybe it did ramble on a little bit, but yeah, let me know if there's anything you would like me to cover in a future episode or if this resonated with you. And yeah, if you want to join my skill community, as always, you can find the link in the show notes.

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