Episode 40
Playing with pricing
Bringing play and experimentation into pricing can lead to more positive and valuable conversations with clients. Approaching pricing with ease helps us create a space for dialogue, rather than showing up with tension or desperation.
This is an invitation to challenge your limiting beliefs and fears around pricing, and to start experimenting to see what unexpected results you can achieve.
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Transcript
I, I'm a early bird rather than a, what are they called again?
Carlos:ah, can't
Ben:You're a worm catcher.
Carlos:A lark.
Carlos:are they in the morning?
Ben:Early bird catchers the worm.
Carlos:Oh, course.
Carlos:Sorry.
Carlos:I'm a bit slow today.
Ben:That's good.
Ben:It's the afternoon.
Carlos:For some people pricing is very serious.
Carlos:It actually brings quite a lot of anxiety.
Carlos:Um, talking about money is pretty uncomfortable.
Carlos:Yeah, talking about play around this stuff might feel a bit, ugh.
Carlos:Why, how?
Carlos:And for you anyway.
Carlos:Why, why is play important here?
Ben:Um, it's not, actually, I was just talking about it cuz Frances mentioned it.
Ben:Um, that aside, I think that play is important with this because, because talking about money and money can feel like a bit of a heavy, heavy topic, you know, what we're really talking about with pricing is, is how we sell.
Ben:And when we're talking about selling, we're talking about how we are relating to the people who we want to, want to work with.
Ben:Uh, and so I think acknowledging that talking about money can feel like a heavy thing.
Ben:I think actually a bit of the, a bit of the game, a bit of the, the task, a bit of the journey is to try and find a way of being able to sell what you do with the lightness.
Ben:To be able to speak to the people who you want to work with, with that kind of lightness.
Ben:And so kind of trying to bring the spirit of play in, maybe particularly where there is some heaviness, uh, might lighten that and actually might make those conversations, those dialogues a bit easier, a bit smoother, uh, and a bit sort of two-way.
Ben:Cuz that's ultimately what we're aiming for is that there is this sort of, there is a kind of two-way journey that you go on with your prospects on the road to them buying the thing that you, you provide.
Ben:And so this, this spirit of pray, the idea of planning, it resonated with me just because it, it suggests a lightness, and ultimately, if we can bring a little bit more lightness into the dialogues we're having with prospects, actually I think the more valuable those conversations and those relationships will grow to be.
Carlos:The word that sprang to mind as well is experimentation.
Ben:Mm.
Carlos:actually the other that spanked mine was purposelessness because one of the things that when I think about play, you just do it for the fun of it.
Carlos:It's something you enjoyable, you're not heading towards a a particular outcome or goal.
Carlos:And while it might be a bit incongruent for someone who's thinking about price, and then when we fixate so much about getting a certain number or achieving a certain amount of money, There's a, like you said, a weight, a pressure, um, even a self-judgment if we don't get that goal.
Carlos:And when you are still trying to explore, and this is again, experiment, explore, play, you, you not, you haven't got to this state where you've got this clear process of, alright, this is how much I charge and I'm gonna charge that for everyone and I'm gonna scale up this motherfucker, is a case of like, Ashley, I have a bit more freedom here.
Carlos:And whether that's how you wanna run your business all the time, which is that more freedom and ability to express yourself in different ways than play, for me sounds like an important word, or you're trying to get to that holy grail of scale, but you still haven't quite found the price that works for the business model that you are, you're work you're working towards.
Carlos:And so being in that space of not being too rigid and not being too fixed is super important.
Carlos:And the other thing I think for me, this is interesting stuff.
Carlos:Why talking about it more generally is, is, is interesting for me cuz then it broadens out.
Carlos:It's like what makes us so rigid?
Ben:Mm.
Carlos:And what makes us so fixated that there has to be a right answer or we shouldn't do it that way.
Carlos:Or we can't go against the grain, we can't do things that other people might, well we think other people might find a bit uncomfortable or shocking or not the right way?
Ben:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:And particularly I think for, for some of us who are seasoned professionals, seasoned freelancers, people who've been doing the work for a while, it's harder to think about play, would you say?
Ben:Uh, yeah, I guess it probably is, because I guess we kind of rushed through things, don't we?
Ben:So we don't give space.
Ben:So there's a couple of things I think which came up when you were talking.
Ben:I, I like the reminder that actually lots of play doesn't have a, um, a kind of specific outcome, a specific endpoint.
Ben:And it is, you know, it is kind of enjoyed for, for what it is and it goes where it goes.
Ben:So I think that that is a really useful reminder.
Ben:And, and I guess lots of the time we, we are quite rigid and I guess there can be a number of reasons for that.
Ben:We can be sort of scared or kind of fearful about what the other person or the other company or whoever is on the other side of the table, you know that somehow that they say no or that these things are a judgment on us.
Ben:So we kind of, we maybe kind of habituate ourselves a little bit to following the track, which of course there is also some value in.
Ben:Following the track, which kind of minimizes those instances where we feel that rejection or we feel that loss.
Ben:Uh, so we kind of, we play out the same things over that have worked for us in the past.
Ben:But again, yeah, so you know, I guess there's kind of pros and cons in that, like I'm saying.
Ben:There's so, you know, there's some kind of familiarity or some, uh, some knowledge that that works.
Ben:So those people are happy buying at that.
Ben:But equally then we are creating potentially over time a little bit of a kind of container that means we are not playing with that because we're just defaulting to the thing which worked before.
Carlos:it's interesting there when you said that sense of loss, maybe that sense of rejection.
Carlos:Uh, and I wanted to link that to, if you are feeling like any kind of existential threat around money, that's really hard to get yourself into a mindset play.
Carlos:When you feel like, actually, if I don't get this next job, if I don't get this next client, I'm not gonna be able to pay the mortgage and I'm not gonna be able to buy the food, then of course, it's gonna be super hard to even think about the word play.
Carlos:So then the invitation would be, is like, Are you really in that situation?
Ben:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:How much is it?
Carlos:Is, is someone going to die if you don't get into the next job?
Carlos:Is, is it really true that you won't be able to pay the rental mortgage?
Carlos:Is it really true you wanna put food on the table?
Carlos:Because whether that's just, uh, a perception or whether that's reality, I think is gonna be important for you to work out if you're gonna play with pricing.
Carlos:And the other reason is that If you do need to make more money because you are struggling with some of these expenses and the things that you want to do, then you really do need to play with your prices.
Carlos:You really do need to experiment and push yourself out, uh, or try different things if what's happening now isn't working.
Carlos:Uh, and so it's, I wanted to acknowledge that play for some people might feel very frivolous and inappropriate because there's this feeling of fear.
Ben:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:But then the question is that fear based on a reality or a perception.
Carlos:Because if you can shift that, then maybe it'd be more acceptable to use the word play.
Ben:Mm.
Carlos:In pricing.
Ben:Um, and that this all then kind of opens it all to the, the money stories thing, which is a lot of these ideas, you know, the, the, those fears that we have.
Ben:And there's the line, which a line which was coming up as you were talking there, there's the meditation teacher, Tara Brack, and she has that, that good phrase, that the, the thoughts are real, but that doesn't mean that they're true.
Ben:Uh, and so, you know, the, the, those thoughts of, you know, I need this because x y Z is gonna happen, or if this doesn't happen, then x, you know, all of the, these kind of cascading series of nightmares, uh, which will unfold, which may be more or less true, but yeah, are oftentimes they, you know, they are kind of flavored the lens through which we see those, or imagine those are kind of often sort of deep rooted.
Ben:Uh, and so yes, I think kind of just acknowledging that, that sort of first point that, you know, the, one of the first things to get a handle around is yeah, how, you know, whilst it may feel like a matter of life or death, Is it, how have things gone in the past when you felt like that?
Ben:Because there will be other scenarios where that played out before and maybe in those other scenarios, the thing that you thought desperately needed to happen didn't happen, but then something else happened.
Ben:And that's not to say that it all always necessarily works out that way, but oftentimes, you know, those kind of worst things that we imagine don't actually tend to come to pass.
Ben:And then the other paradox, of course, with all of this, with the selling generally, which is actually when we do really need to sell something, We do oftentimes inadvertently push away the person who we're trying to, who we would like to buy the things that we have.
Ben:So, you know, there is a kind of need even, you know, e especially again in those situations where there is a very high, high need, I do need to make these sales for this to happen or, or whatever the kind of level with that is, we do need to try and find a way of coming to those conversations, of coming to those situations with as much ease as possible.
Ben:And I appreciate that this needs to be as realistic as it is for you at this time, but we do need to come to it with as much ease as possible because the, the more tense we are, we will create a resistance in the person who we are trying to talk to.
Ben:So we do need to just, you know, the more we can just, I get you play with playing, the more we can experiment with experimenting, actually when we're in those, you know, the kind of, you know, the, the real extreme situation where it does really count, it does really matter, maybe we've had a little bit of practice experimenting already, so the spirit of experimenting will be more easily found even in those kind of higher stakes situations.
Carlos:I think it's really important for people to hear, um, here as well, because we wanna make sure, we wanna help people get to that space where they are ready to play and they can really understand that they're ready, they're in the right place, and they know how it's gonna serve them to do this rather than would try to preach to people who are still, you they feel too much fear about doing this stuff.
Carlos:And I, and hopefully if you're listening to this, you'll know, you'll be able to know in yourself, like, actually the thing that's holding me back isn't the fact that I'm not gonna make enough money.
Carlos:It's the fact that I, it's a, like you said, the thought or a feeling that isn't necessarily based in, in reality.
Carlos:Uh, and then to give your per self permission to actually start stepping into doing things differently.
Ben:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:And trying things differently cuz you know, it could lead to a different path or a more positive way to, to do run your business and to price and all those things.
Carlos:Is curious about this thing about when you are, and Frances seems to be resonating with that statement about the more you are in fear or you need, you have this need to sell, the more likely you're gonna push people away.
Ben:Yeah.
Ben:Or, or maybe it's ref it's worth reflecting on what is potentially happening in the head of the person who you are trying to sell to.
Ben:Because I think that that's the important thing with it is.
Carlos:Yeah.
Ben:When you come look, my sort of feeling little bit is so when you come with this intensity, it's right, all roads lead back to playground data.
Carlos:God, that's trauma for me.
Ben:Right.
Ben:And likewise, right?
Ben:So, boys chasing girls, A bit too enthusiastically.
Ben:Girls, in my experience and maybe sort of the women here, can officers shed some light on this.
Ben:You know, that that's not a good attractor.
Ben:The chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing.
Ben:Create a little bit of space so people can sort of safely step into, uh, the relationship, the delight, the dialogue, just so adding a bit more kind of space, a bit more kind of ease in a sense, just makes it easier for everybody, everybody to come to the table a little bit.
Ben:And I think if you kind of translate that in a very kind of loose and sort of curly kind of way to the situation where you are trying to sell something or you are wanting somebody to, to buy something, uh, I think that's a kind of one first important point.
Ben:Oftentimes we talk about all of these things as we are selling something, but actually that's not really what happens.
Ben:The other person buys something.
Ben:Uh, because, you know, if you think about the last thing that you bought, you don't say oftentimes, oh, I was sold this today.
Ben:You say I bought this today.
Ben:So, you know, the, the, the, the kind of the, the, the action, the transaction, whatever is you acting.
Ben:And I think the thing is, you need to create some space.
Ben:You need to create some ease so that somebody feels safe buying something because like one of the things we always, you know, buying anything is fraught with risk, right?
Ben:And it may feel like big risk, it may feel like little risk.
Ben:It may feel, we may be very conscious of the risk, we may be pretty unconscious of the risk.
Ben:But there's always a little doubt, a little kind of voice, a little gremlin, which is sort of chirping away, you know, is this going to do the thing that I want it to do?
Ben:And, um, so, so there is risk in buying things.
Ben:So we will be looking for signals which either tell us it's safe to do or it's unsafe to do.
Ben:Uh, and the kind of, if we, if we, if we are inadvertently coming with tension to that, uh, to that, in to that conversation, we are going to be sending a signal to the other person that, that, in a way, maybe we are doubting something about ourselves.
Ben:And where we are doubting something about ourselves.
Ben:It is harder, it's not impossible, but it is harder for the person on the other side of the table or the other side of the conversation to step into that with ease.
Ben:To step into that with confidence.
Ben:Uh, and so it kind of feels to me that that kind of tension rolling into the situation just creates a bit of a wall.
Ben:It creates a bit of resistance, and that resistance is inadvertently giving a signal to the person you are wanting to speak to.
Ben:Actually, it's kind of pushing them back in a sense.
Ben:It's kind of holding them a little bit at bay.
Ben:So I think that's what it kind of feels like
Carlos:So we still talk about pricing on my love life as a tool.
Ben:They're all the same thing.
Carlos:Oh my God.
Carlos:Yeah, you're just like creeping into my heart and just picking at the library of trauma.
Carlos:Oh, killing me softly with your words.
Ben:Poetry, lovely.
Carlos:Um, okay.
Carlos:So It feels like the contrast here is this tension and desperation that we're, approaching this conversation with, and how can we be not so much cool as, uh, Frances was saying, which like, uh, just too cool for school, but more she says funny, kind, tenacious, romantic.
Carlos:But there's this thing of like, actually I, I want to, I don't feel this, uh, unworthiness or desperation.
Carlos:I'm just here to just have a conversation and just be open.
Ben:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:I think there's openness around this.
Ben:A lot of everything that we've, everything that we've spoken about in these previous, uh, 24 minutes and 55 seconds, uh, know it kind of, it feels quite sort of important actually because it's sort of deeply personal, um, and pretty emotional.
Ben:So pretty kind of charged and, you know, it's kind of challenging I think for, for kind of lots of people.
Ben:And so in a way, actually in contrast, the kind of few things that we sort of suggest you kind of play with in a way, you kind of feel a little bit sort of light compared to those things.
Ben:Uh, and so I guess in, in the one hand, what I, you know, what would be a kind of great thing for people to come out with is, you know, is, is a kind of an intent just to kind of connect with this idea of playing, uh, as the most important thing, in whatever way that kind of means for you.
Ben:Whether the, the kind of playground analogy with kind of Frances' direction feels like the right sort of spirit to take on board.
Ben:You know, if that's the kind of most important.
Ben:Uh, or if some of the kind of sort of specific things that we've kind of highlighted here kind of points to things you might play with then that is great too.
Ben:Uh, but I think the, the first thing, which is again, how this sort of conversation came about, uh, actually kind of Frances' suggestion from last week that maybe, you know, every now and then one in 10 sales conversations, one in 10 conversations with a prospect, you just sort of experiment with, um, with kind of dropping in a much higher price than you might usually do.
Ben:Uh, and you know, again, that would feel a bit challenging.
Ben:It would feel a bit difficult.
Ben:But you also, you also don't really know how that's gonna play out.
Ben:In fact, my whole route into this, I'm trying to understand what was happening around money and pricing really came as a consequence of accidentally putting our prices up by 20 times.
Ben:Uh, and of course the thing that happened is our client in that situation did buy.
Ben:Uh, and so, You don't actually know what's gonna happen.
Ben:And also it is a kind of good way of sort of, you know, stepping into the weeds of this a little bit.
Ben:So the, the kind of first thought we might, you know, one in 10 times, just experiment with quoting a much higher price than you might typically do.
Carlos:The benefit is, while it might feel risky at first, and there's that good chance or there's a feeling there's a good chance someone's just gonna laugh in your face or judge you.
Ben:Well, there's not a good chance, but there's a, there's a real fear that someone is gonna do.
Carlos:Fear.
Carlos:That's true.
Carlos:There's a fear that, that someone's gonna do that.
Carlos:There's also the upshot that if someone then does pay that amount of money, what that does to your confidence about what you offer.
Ben:Yeah.
Carlos:And, and the, your understanding of the value that you're creating.
Ben:Yeah.
Carlos:So there's something here of if, for anyone who's really fearful about this, trying to give them something to hold onto as to, well, again, you wanna play with it, but there's a good chance, well, the very good chance that if someone does buy it, then that's gonna shift how you think about your business.
Ben:And, and I guess the one thing I'd sort of add to that, so in the time we've been doing Happy Pricing, we've gotta work with, I don't know what 50 people, companies, whatever, uh, on the, on the program.
Ben:Since then, I would say, everybody who's on the program, who's done, who's done, who we've worked with through the programs, everybody could be charging more than they are charging, without any of the sort of tactics, approaches, things that we get into the course.
Ben:Just straight off the bat, everybody could be charging more than they are.
Carlos:It could include the listener who or what, if you are right now.
Carlos:It could be you.
Ben:It could be you.
Ben:Um, so yeah, so that thing around confidence, yes.
Ben:But also just start moving it, start changing it a little bit and, you know, dropping in some higher prices, uh, is a, is a great thing to play with.
Carlos:So, What was the second one that you were thinking about that you wanted to share with people?
Carlos:And
Ben:this, this starts to get into some more of the tactical things that we talk about on the program, but playing with payment terms.
Ben:So again, you know, I.
Ben:Whatever it is that you sort of might quote or suggest that people pay for the things that you do.
Ben:And, and maybe this links a little bit with the, um, with, with the, with the point previously.
Ben:Um, but you know, there are different, lots of different ways that, uh, clients might pay for your services.
Ben:You know, they might pay over a period of time, they might, might pay in installments, all of those sorts of things.
Ben:They might, uh, depending on the thing that you provide or sell, they might license the thing that you have.
Ben:There's lots and lots of different ways for you to think about how clients might give you money for your work.
Ben:Uh, and we kind of publish some of those.
Ben:I think maybe what we can do is we can take some of those.
Ben:Points that we've got out on from the, from the course and drop them into the next, uh, newsletter so people can see some of those.
Ben:But I think people don't play enough with payment terms, different ways of paying for the things that you do.
Ben:Um, you know, whether it's donations, whether it's suggested amounts, you know, whether it's over a period of time, whatever it might be.
Ben:There are lots and lots of different ways that you can play with payment terms.
Ben:And, um, those things all kind of will resonate and appeal with different clients, different prospects in different ways, but again, might be a thing that you can play with, uh, to experiment with pricing.
Carlos:And it is something that we found quite useful with our programs and there's a lot of technology these days that allow you to, create, simply automated payment plans.
Ben:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:That doesn't mean you always have to chase people up for the next payment.
Carlos:Sometimes there's a fear of like, oh, what happens if they stop paying after certain period?
Carlos:But more often than not, it's, it's not a massive issue.
Carlos:And then also, yeah, like the idea then being able to just offer different ways.
Carlos:If it, if you are not desperate for the cash flow in a sense, and it doesn't need to be all the money all up front, it, it can open you up to many more people.
Ben:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:If you can be a bit more flexible.
Carlos:And then it's also finding what, what maybe there are when you go, the way I'm hearing that is that if you start with this playful approach, you find the, the kind of terms that most of your customers are most comfortable with.
Ben:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:And then it, you can start settling into a bit more of a pattern if you want that level of certainty.
Carlos:I'm curious around also in terms of this payment terms, I think, um, this idea of pay what you want, is that included in that bucket, would you say?
Ben:Uh, yeah, I think that is included in that bucket.
Ben:And, um, we, we, we played with that on my, the, my platform provides meditation courses.
Ben:Uh, and there's a whole range of different things that we kind of learn in doing that how, you know, how much you know, does it create resistance in the kind of heart mind of the person who's buying?
Ben:Because actually they don't really know.
Ben:And actually, uh, one, I interviewed somebody who runs a restaurant here in Brighton called, Happy Mackey.
Ben:And it's a, a gift economy restaurant.
Ben:So she said it's a sushi restaurant.
Ben:Vegan sushi restaurant.
Ben:And she sets it up with the pure intent.
Ben:You would pay what you want, right?
Ben:But of course, that's tremendously fucking difficult for people to get their head around because they don't really know what they want.
Ben:They don't really know.
Ben:And, you know, money's complicated.
Ben:And so people feel like you are just, you know what, what for her was a kind of a generous gift, right?
Ben:No, no.
Ben:You pay what you want for the, for the customer was then fraught with all of this kind of traumatic sort of stuff.
Ben:Well, I don't know.
Ben:I dunno what it's worth.
Ben:What should I be doing?
Ben:And so there were lots and lots of sort of complications around it.
Ben:Uh, she ended up, uh, kind of flipping her model so that you can actually pay what you want, but they tell you what the actual cost is based on some things that they sort of publish.
Ben:And then they tell, you know, you can pay that, you can pay more.
Ben:They give you a pay, 20% more pay, 40% more pay, 20% less pay, 40% less.
Ben:And people can choose, and you can do all of this at the restaurant when you are paying.
Ben:Uh, and interestingly, most people pay less.
Carlos:So another thing around terms, and I'm not sure if this cata falls into the idea of terms, but there's this idea of, I think maybe linked to the donations.
Carlos:I attended a retreat recently and they had three options.
Carlos:One was, uh, I think if you like, it's like a student rate or lower rate if you found it difficult to pay the full rate, which was 75 pounds, you could pay 25 pounds or something like that.
Carlos:75 pounds was the normal rate, and if you wanted to gift a place to someone who couldn't necessarily jump on board, then you paid 150 pounds.
Ben:Yeah.
Carlos:So there was this interesting, again, another way to, to play.
Ben:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:And see how that also how people respond again.
Carlos:With all of this, it feels like understanding or trying to see how people respond.
Ben:Yeah.
Carlos:So give you a signal as to, all right, what, what do they perceive as value and what, what's acceptable here, meaning any.
Ben:Um, questions.
Ben:So the, the final one was, yeah, experimenting with questions.
Ben:One of the things that we bang on about endlessly on the course in a very informative and engaging and playful way is, uh, questions that you might ask of your prospect over the, the kind of process of helping them buy more than, uh, selling to them.
Ben:And so the, the kind of questions that we ask, the conversations we have are all important because I, that goes all the way back to what we really started talking about at the beginning.
Ben:It goes back to how playful you are.
Ben:It goes back to how light you might be.
Ben:It goes back to how kind of, uh, how open, how easy it is you are making it for your, your prospects to buy The questions that you ask, you know, reveal a huge amount about what your client wants.
Ben:It reveals a huge amount, a huge amount about what the client is actually buying.
Ben:And the point around that is, you know, clients are not ever buying the what of what you do, they're buying you because the thing that you have, because they're trying to change something else.
Ben:And we really do need to know the thing that they're trying to change, a, to be able to serve them well, but b, also because that will start to reveal what the value of what you do might be to them.
Ben:Uh, so the questions that you ask are kind of all important.
Ben:And so always trying to play with different questions, different things.
Ben:Uh, I would say is a, is a kind of, is a, is a practice that you should kind of build in as much as possible.
Ben:And I kind of had this in mind a little bit cause I was talking to, uh, someone who was on our last cohort this morning.
Ben:Uh, not the last cohort this morning.
Ben:I was talking to 'em this morning.
Ben:They were on the last cohort before, uh, and um, they were starting to, they were trying to experiment with this idea of, of kind of offering a kind of range of prices.
Ben:Cause one of the things we sort of talk about is, you know, rather than just saying, oh, it cost x, you sort of, you suggesting to a client that it could cost between that and that because you're trying to, you're trying to draw out more, more of a, an idea about what their actual price sensitivity was.
Ben:And I was kinda reminded of, of lots of the many questions that have come up over the time where everybody's kind of worked on this.
Ben:They've all come up with different questions which have worked for them or, or different questions that they would be confident trying.
Ben:And so we've got this whole big kind of sort of pool and resource of these questions, again, maybe we should drop some of those into the next newsletter.
Ben:But I was thinking, yeah, if you basically just start practicing playing with the idea of asking some more questions in the process.
Ben:Of helping somebody buy your things.
Ben:Uh, and you know, there could be sort of two or three different questions you kind of play with.
Ben:Uh, some of the things that we kind of always sort of talk about is, is getting people to ask their prospect, the, the people that they want to buy their things, you know, what is the cost of not doing this?
Ben:Uh, and so when you ask a question like that, you're kind of, you're starting to get the person to reveal what their motivation is.
Ben:You're starting to get them to reveal what's important, and you're starting to get the, you know, you, you are opening the door to being able to talk about money in a, in a kind of easier way.
Ben:A kind of an extension of that is, you know, what will happen if you don't do this work?
Ben:Now, what will happen if you don't buy this now?
Ben:Uh, and again, so you're just, you're trying to get them to sort of tease out what their motivation is.
Ben:You're trying to get them to share with you, to trust you, uh, enough so that they can share the thing that they are really wanting to change.
Ben:Uh, and again, another question which we kind of use, and again, these are sort of a bleak questions that point to money, because what we're actually trying to understand is motivation before we get to money.
Ben:Although the first one, uh, may touch on it a little bit.
Ben:The, the, the third question is this idea of kind of saying to somebody, you know, if we were having this conversation three years from today, what would've changed for you to be personally and professionally happy with the progress that you've made?
Ben:Again, having them paint a picture of what the future that they want looks like, because that's the context for your work.
Ben:That's the context for why they will buy the thing that you do.
Ben:So these are all the kind of foundational things.
Ben:That start to kind of bubble up, start to point towards what's important to the person who you are wanting to serve.
Ben:Because when we know what is important to the person you want to serve, then we have the start point to start talking about money.
Carlos:And I what I wanted to add is if, if any of you might be thinking, oh, so this is a way of me kind of like reading their minds and kind of like hacking into the system so I can then know what number to drop, another, a reframe for me or I found helpful is actually what you're helping them do is actually get more clarity.
Carlos:So don't assume that they know exactly what they want or where they want to get to or they're, it's a hundred percent sure.
Carlos:Maybe taking on them on this journey with some playful questions.
Carlos:Get them to a better place of ease about, ah, yes, that's what I'm trying to do.
Carlos:That's why I really need to do.
Carlos:And then you are also through this building a relationship rather than just trying to see what's, how much you can charge for something.
Carlos:And so there's, there's a service element here.
Carlos:You're being of help as well, or you can think of it as well as the being of help because you will be if you're asking the right questions.
Carlos:And that's why many of the people that we, we talk to are either coaches or consultants because they have these skills already that they use within the job.
Carlos:They're just not applying it to selling and pricing.
Carlos:next week, do we have any thoughts about what we wanna talk about next week?
Ben:The only, the only thought I had, Was, um, whether it would make sense, and I dunno if we're gonna be able to organize it by next week, to, uh, start talking to some of the people who have been on the previous cohorts, uh, about some of the things which are kind of coming up for them now, some of the things which have changed, some of the things which are not changed, some of the things which they are wanting to kind of work on more, whether that would be a useful thing.
Carlos:Awesome, We'll tap some people up.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:But yeah, I think it would help actually.
Carlos:Well I think for anyone to identify with this journey.
Ben:Yeah.
Carlos:Of like, okay, if I was gonna start thinking about pricing for myself, where am I now, where could I get to?
Carlos:And what is the stuff that happens along the way?
Ben:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:Um, so Awesome.
Carlos:Thank you very much, Ben.
Carlos:Thank you everyone else.
Carlos:I'm looking forward to seeing you next Wednesday.
Carlos:And until then, have a good rest of the week and a lovely weekend.
Ben:Bye.
