Hey, welcome back to Selling Your Expertise podcast. This is your host Renee Hribar, and today I am talking about something that kills more sales than any high price ever. Will. Here it is. You ready? Sending just the pricing instead of making a real offer. So I wanna walk you through a private coaching session I had recently with my client.

Let's call her, uh, Beth. Now that is not her real name. I will never call my clients on the carpet, but as you listen to this, if this rings true, I want you to go to ask me coach.com. That's where I keep all of my freshest, coolest stuff just. For you, my beautiful and amazing podcast listeners. So let's back to Beth.

Beth woke up in the middle of the night spiraling about an email she'd sent. So this is the message she sends me. I shouldn't have sent it. He didn't reply. He probably thinks it's too expensive now. If you've ever stared at your inbox, waiting for a reply to a proposal, refreshing rereading. Second guessing every sentence.

This episode is for you. So she sent me this message late night, and she was really feeling like a lot of emotion around it because it was a big proposal and this is a long time client. She's, you know, not. She had been on and on and off with projects, right? He paid her, she delivered. Time went by, we reengaged, yada yada.

So it was on and off. So she was in an on and off period and she wanted to get back to an on period as we do. So what my question was is send me a screenshot. I did this all the time. There are little nuances in everything you do that can smooth out the process. In other words, clear the path for Yes. So when she sent me the screenshot.

What I realized is that she hadn't actually sent an offer. She just sent numbers, and when you only send numbers, you only leave the person with exactly one thing to consider. The price. So in this episode I'm gonna talk about and walk you exactly through three things. Number one, the difference between pricing and a real offer.

Number two, how to build a results first offer for your clients so that they actually say yes. And number three, how to stop overthinking the tech like Stripe links, agreements. Just clear the path to payment. one of the things that my clients always say they love about working with me is that they finally are able to confidently and with ease, with grace, accept payment on the phone.

So if you've ever wondered how do I charge more and feel confident sending it, grab your notebook. This is your episode. All right, back to Beth. She had a great conversation with a potential client. He wanted her brain on his product descriptions, his funnel, his website leads, all the good strategic stuff that she is uniquely great at.

Her background and experience make her a unicorn in this space. And after the call, he said, just send me your pricing. We'll go from there. What did she do? She went into her inbox, opened a blank email, and basically wrote, here's are two options. Option A for X and option B for You know, whatever. A thousand bucks.

Let me know which one you want. I'll invoice you. No context, no results, no value stack, no agreement, just not even a payment link. Just numbers. Then she wondered why he didn't reply. So here's the thing, she's absolutely brilliant at what she does. She has her 10,000 hours and at least five disciplines any of us would kill for.

She has LED teams and product launches for some of the biggest names in the industry. Her skills are not. Selling her expertise however, and that's okay. She is sharpening that saw every single day with me. And here's the key truth I shared with her, and I want you to write this down. The customer is not always right.

They are not your boss and they definitely do not understand the value of what you do and how you do it. You do not have to just send the price even when they ask you to. That's a huge one. Well, He asked me to. She said, I get that. I do get that. They do ask those things. Hey, just send me the price.

When they are saying, just send me pricing, they think that's what they want. What they actually need is your leadership. They need you to connect the dots for them between what they told you they want, the results you'll help them work toward. So the bigger picture. How you'll work together explicitly timeline.

And yes, eventually when it's all added up and anchored into what they already value, then share the investment AKA price. And when you only send pricing, here's the only conversation they can have in their head. Is 9, 9, 9 too much. Could I get this cheaper somewhere else? Maybe I'll deal with this later.

That's what they're thinking, right? Like that's the thought process. Of course, they're going to push back on the price. It's the only part you gave them to react to. So what I'm guiding you through is how to lead the conversation without leading with the price we lead with the result. And that is always going to get a better response rate.

So I had Beth open my standard consulting offer template, which I give to all the people that I work with, including my permission to sell students. You've heard me talk about this before. It's the one I created after creating thousands of offers and, and hundreds of thousands of different situations.

And we started at the top, not with ours, not with tasks, not with jargon, but with, these are the results we would focus on. Results first for her client. Those results sounded like resolving the confusion with leads that he was losing on his website. Number two, improving the user experience so leads are captured and nurtured.

Number three, identifying funnel leaks and establishing a clear sales workflow. Now notice we didn't write set up tracking. Configure GA four. Work with your dev team to fix tags. Those are actions, not outcomes. Your client doesn't want 10 hours of consulting. They want, I'm not losing leads in a funnel, I don't understand anymore, right?

Like they want to not lose leads, they wanna gain more traction, they wanna gain toward something, they want some sort of result. Talk about that first. So here's my first assignment while you're listening. Think of one lead right now who's waiting on pricing from you, or they're wondering how much it might be to work with you and ask yourself, what are the top three results we would work toward together?

Not tasks, not deliverables. R-E-S-U-L-T-S, right? Aretha Franklin might have, uh, sang. R-A-S-B-C-T. I'm singing R-E-S-U-L-T-S. Results, ladies results. If you only changed that part and led with those results at the top of your offer, you'd already feel different sending your pricing, and they'd feel different reading it.

All right, back to the offer I created with Beth. Once we led with the results, then we moved into how we'll work together. This is where we lay out the container, right? For example, 360 minute consulting sessions with your team or email support between sessions for questions, decision support, and implementation over 30 days.

Based on our agreed start date or a 20 minute success call at the end to review what has been implemented and map out the next steps. Like here's how we're gonna work together. there's so many ways to do this. There's so many different containers. Just think about your own cupboard, right inside your own kitchen.

How many containers do you have? I feel like I have endless, doesn't it suck too? And the container doesn't have a lid. Where'd the thing lid go? Or you have a lid? No container. The lid almost fits but not quite. 'cause it's sort, sort of similar, but not the exact same. Oh, these are the, these are the lost socks of the dryer in your pantry, right?

The lids. Alright. Total sidetrack. Okay. Each of these pieces gets a quantifiable, numeric value next to it. That's the other part. Quantifiable, numeric values. Where do I come up with that? Well, you can. Look it up. Perplexity is fantastic for this. I did a whole workshop on pricing and every single person that was in that workshop was like, oh my goodness.

That's what people would pay for my services. Yeah. When you lay out your actual background and experience how fast you can get things done, or in the timeline that you set out for the results you're gonna give somebody. Yeah. It's worth a lot more than we think it is. so many of us, including me, I'm not immune to this, my friends, we undervalue what we do.

We think everybody knows that. I mean, how valuable can that be? So here's what I mean though. Specifically in this case, for this specific example of a container, the three consulting sessions. $750 value, 30 days of email support, thousand dollars value, 20 minute success call a hundred dollars value, total value, 1,800 $850.

Then and only then do we write for you because we've already worked together. I'm willing to offer this to you as a one-time payment for only $999. Do you see how like that is so different than before? And I did make her put the word only in there. Not because we're trying to be cheesy, but because compared to the results, compared to the total value, compared to the cost of continuing to lose leads every single day, which is what this particular person was experiencing, and why he needed her to just send the pricing, even though that's not what he really needed.

It is only for that specific client that, that this specific context is going to apply. We also did a little under, you know, a little line underneath to guide the decision. So what she wrote here was, I strongly recommend this option versus paying for single sessions primarily because of the email support between calls.

Overall, this is a better value. So again, this is not manipulative, this is leadership. You know what will actually serve them best. So say it. Then we added a simple consulting agreement right there in the same document. Clear language. That payment indicates agreement. And a deadline. A deadline. I have done entire keynotes on this throughout my sales career without a deadline, eh?

I'll get back to you anytime. No, you need a deadline. Everything has a deadline. You have a deadline. I have a deadline. We're not here forever. We're not gonna live forever. Did you know that? We're not gonna live forever, so, so we got a deadline. We might not know it, but we got one. And just like a bag of lettuce at the grocery store or milk, you wanna like look at the expiration date, right?

Because it makes a difference. There's a thousand reasons why this is a good idea. Like I said, I've done done tire talks on just. Deadlines. But for you in this specific scenario, I'm gonna share with you what we did with Beth, and that was this offer at this price is valid through this day, date, and time.

So let's say the day, the date, and the time. The time is 5:00 PM Well, on that day and date by noon, she can send another email or message or wherever she communicates with this particular person and say, I'm reviewing my files. Do you have any questions about the invitation before the offer expires? Now she can say before it expires at five, before it expires later, before it expires in a couple hours or just before it expires.

Most people, when they receive proposals, they uh, they go off into another place. They're doing other things. They forgot there was a deadline. They forgot. They forgot about their proposal. They'll get back to it later. Right? So deadlines again. One more thing I love about them. It brings the conversation back to being a priority, not just something, one of the many somethings that are important.

So now instead of a vague, here's the number, let me know. We have a clear path. These are the results we'll work toward. Here's how we'll do it. Here's the total value. Here's your special price. Here are the agreement details. Here are the deadline. Here's the payment link. That's what I mean when I talk about an offer stack.

It's not some complicated funnel. It's not a 37 page proposal or report. Wait, don't get me started on that. It's simply lining up the yeses in the right order so their brain can say, yes, I want those results. Yes, this structure makes sense. Yes, I see the value. Yes, this price feels good. Yes, I'm comfortable with these terms.

Yes, I'll pay Now. You are clearing the path for Yes. Instead of hoping they find the right way through the messy inbox chain to get there. Right. We all have a messy inbox. Even if you get the inbox zero at the beginning of the day, you still got a messy one in a couple hours. So everybody's like that. So now we're gonna go through one more missing piece.

in Beth's process, she didn't have a way for him to pay her original email literally ended with, once you let me know, I'll invoice you. Sounds harmless, right? But here's what I told her, and I want you to hear this loudly. You are up against the law of depreciating intent. Every minute that passes after your initial conversation or call, whether it was email or on a call or however you were communicating this, the urgency they felt, the clarity they had, the motivation they expressed, it all starts to fade.

If they get another email, their kid gets sick, their team slacks them, their brain moves on. If you send just the numbers and then ask them to let you know, and then you'll create an invoice, you just added friction. At every single step. So I had to hop on a screen share, um, zoom call and with her, and we opened up her Stripe account and I literally just guided her through creating a new payment link.

And again, she's brilliant. She's amazing, but how could she know how to do things until somebody tells her, right? I mean, like, yeah, she could asked Chad GPT, but I've been there a thousand times. So I helped her out real quick and she had never done it before, and that's the reality. She had always used QuickBooks for invoicing.

is fine. She had named it. She type a simple description. This is all on Stripe now, and she said a one time payment for 999 bucks. Click, click, done right. Copy link, drop into the offer document under link to secure your spot. And when he opens it, it's, here are the results. Here's how we'll work together.

Here's the value. Here's your price, here's how to pay. No waiting for an invoice. No. Circle back later. No, I'll do this when I have time. If he wants it, he can act right then. And if he doesn't, there's also a clear when this is due by day, date, and time, right? So here's my mini challenge to you. Before your next conversation, create a one page.

Offer stack with a payment link. Even if you don't send it, even if you never make the offer because they don't qualify. Knowing it's ready will change the way you talk about working together. Even after the doc was already sent, Beth wanted to add in her branding. She wanted to bold this change that fix this orange hyperlink, and I'm telling her, you, you don't, you know, you don't need all that.

That's not a today problem. Make it pretty. Later. Making it pretty now is not what's gonna get you paid. Sending it gets you paid, right? So all that to say, create that one page doc before your next conversation with someone, it will help you guide the conversation toward that. Don't worry about branding, don't worry about this or that yet.

Get paid and then use the money you're making to reinvest in your business. And yeah. There's gonna come a time when branding is important, but if you don't have at at least six figures of revenue coming in, it's gonna be difficult to justify that. And so I really want you to think about how you want your business to look a year from now.

I. You can make a lot better decisions when you've got money coming in, and there are people out there right now who need you. They don't need a pretty website yet. It's going to be important eventually. It's not never gonna be important. Eventually it will be, and eventually, if you use these processes, you'll have the money to do it.

So let's bring this home from that one client this past week. Here are the big takeaways I want you to keep in your pocket. Number one, pricing on its own is not an offer. If you only email a number, they only judge the number. That's why it feels like it's always about the price. Number two, lead with results.

These are the results we'll work toward. That's what I want you to say. These are the results we'll work toward. Turn their words from your conversation into those results. Think outcomes, not tasks. Number three, stack the offer. How you'll work together, what's included, the total price, their special price agreement, deadline, payment link.

Clear the path, or yes. And remember the law of depreciating intent. Respect it. The longer you wait, the colder they get. Have your document and payment link ready so you can share a meaningful offer. Right on the spot while you're talking. If you're listening to this thinking, oh my gosh, I have at least one person I owe a real offer to.

Good. That's your next step. Here's what I'd love you to do after this episode. Number one, pick one opportunity, A current lead, a past client who circled back, someone who you just wants to send pricing to. And here's what you're gonna do instead. Write a simple one page offer. Stack three results that you would work toward.

Three or four bullet points on how you'll work together, right? How many sessions? Is it access to email access to a portal, you know, vault of resources? Is it Voxer access? What do they get? what are you gonna do to be able to contain your brain delivering that offer? What's the deadline?

What's that value versus the investment, and what's the payment link? And then send it. No three hour font fixing session. Just send it. And then if you wanna share one with me, I love hearing these screenshot your offer minus the sensitive issue. I don't, you know, and I don't need to know who it's for. tag me on social, send it to my team, or just send me a D end that says Renee, I sent the thing I wanna hear from you.

And I, of course, always like to chat back. So this episode helped you feel more grounded about pricing. Creating offers, it would mean the world to me. If you hit follow and subscribe wherever you're listening, leave a review because that is how we're able to get more people to see and hear what's happening in their own expertise, to get that confidence, to sell their expertise.

If you share this episode with a friend who's undercharging, overthinking. That would also be super helpful. my mission is to get more people to hear this. This is free content. I'm not even asking for your email. I'm just saying here is the deal. Run with it. The more women we have confidently selling their expertise with simple, clear offers, the less we all have to hustle and the more we all get to live our actual lives.

All right. Go there. Go out there. Go there. Go out there and get that results first offer written. I am cheering for you. Check out all the most current opportunities to work together and who I'm promoting at. Ask me coach.com. Can't wait. Talk to you soon.