Why Coaches Don't Charge Their Value!

Getting paid for doing what we love

We all love coaching. It’s a great profession that allows us to help so many people. In fact, it’s so rewarding that we most likely came to it because we love helping family and friends with their problems and at some stage decided that it would be a great way to earn a living.

Wow, earning a living doing what you love! How possible it that

The problem is that we love it so much that we’d do it for nothing anyway and most likely have in the past. Because of this, it can be very difficult to make the switch between doing it as a part of being a supportive friend and doing it as a professional by making it into a coaching business.

Don't undervalue your skills

So many people in heart centred businesses like coaches, therapists and healers find themselves struggling to earn a living.  

Now we’ve all mostly heard the hype, seen the webinars and teleseminars about how to earn 6 figure income from coaching. I’m not going there with this article. But I do believe that many of us undervalue ourselves and what we do.

Coaching brings great value to people. I’ve certainly gained so much from being in coaching programmes myself. In fact, I wouldn’t even be writing this article if it weren’t for coaching and the techniques I've used on myself that have drastically changed my mindset about myself and the value I can bring to my coaching.

The value of coaches

So what value do we offer:

1. We change people's lives for the better

2. We teach people techniques and strategies that they can use for the rest of their lives.

3. We educate people about how they can take control of their lives and value themselves.

4. We help people find loving and lasting relationships.

5. We show people how to market themselves in business.

6. We empower people, lead them to success and a way to obtain more freedom and security.

Defining your worth

So what is all of this worth?

It’s virtually priceless. It’s worth more than any of us could really charge.

If we can’t see the value in our own services how are we supposed to expect potential clients to perceive our value.

Asking for money for what we do can be the most difficult thing a coach does. Yet we would fearlessly coach our clients toward acknowledging their own value and if we are coaching business professionals we’d steer them toward charging their value.

But what about our own value? When clients don’t want to pay for our services it’s a sure sign that they don’t value what we have to offer and they don’t value themselves enough to invest in their own transformation. Yet we often drop our prices down so low that we can barely make a living doing it. We loose and so does our client.

Although it’s true that some people can’t afford coaching, there are certainly people out there who can find the money if they really want something that is of value to them.

If we don’t charge our value than we can’t afford to be in business. If we want to be able to help people who are in financial circumstances where they can’t afford coaching (I mean really not be able to afford it) then we need to have a mix of clients. By doing so, we will be able to afford to coach at lower rates or even for free.

Remember there are many people out there who can really afford $100 to $250 an hour for coaching. So why aren’t we allowing them into our businesses?

Why coaches don't charge their value

1. We are doing what we love and are used to doing it with friends and family and not charging for it.

2. We are natural helpers and want to help people. We help friends and family without even thinking in terms of reward or payment.

3. We feel guilty asking for money in return for our services because we feel that if we really care about people then we shouldn’t charge people or seem like we are making money out of their misery. Many of us are programmed to believe that we shouldn’t receive anything in return for helping others.

4. Many coaches have spiritual beliefs that are incongruent with making money. How many of us believe that caring spiritual people shouldn’t be concerned about money.

The difference is that if you’re in business then you have to care about money. You shouldn't think of helping others and money as mutually exclusive. Energy out = Energy in. You give out and receive back.

So how do you change this incongruence between helping people and asking for your value in return. All you have to do is change your money mindset and realise that what you have to offer is priceless.

How to charge your worth

Aside from that, think about the following things when you are hesitant about charging your worth:

1. You are in business. Business is about making a living, end of story. Ask yourself, do you want to earn your living by living your heartfelt purpose. That will require sacrifices - sacrifices of your programmed beliefs around money and your value.

2. Is helping people of value to you? Is it of value to them? Money is a way of measuring value in our western culture. How much value do you give to what you do? If you were to use money as a measurement of what you do for people, how much would it be?

3. People in general don’t value what they don’t pay for. If you are practically giving away your services will your clients really put in the work they need to succeed?

4. Take a hard look at your feelings of worthiness, shame and guilt about what you would like to charge and then challenge those feelings. Find the negative beliefs behind those feelings and question them.

5. Challenge those beliefs around spirituality and money. Is money really the horrible, hairy scary monster we’ve been led to believe it is? Money is just neutral energy really. It’s what people bring to it that makes all the difference. Money can be used to help and it can be used to harm. The choice is always with people and not the object itself.

Since we challenge our clients, we also need to challenge our own beliefs about ourselves, what we do for others and our value and money. It’s the only way we can start to thrive.

Let’s face it, If we can’t thrive helping others then how can we really help them thrive.