How your mindset impacts on your pricing

by Andrea Beadle

I was part of a talk at Women in Business the other night where we discussed pricing issues in our businesses.

Clinker Little Accountants did a great session on the maths behind your pricing and showed us how reducing your prices was the absolute worst thing you could do unless you wanted to work a LOT harder for the same money.

Sian from the Ruby Marketers showed us a quick method to work out what your hourly rate needed to be.

And I discussed how your mindset could impact on your pricing.

Our subconscious beliefs impact on everything including our personal life and our business and I led a discussion which was designed to show people how it can show up.

Our brains are very complex and a lot of the time we operate on auto-pilot without even realising it. Our brains control all manner of bodily functions some of which we couldn’t possibly be trusted to control ourselves! For example our heart beats without any conscious effort and our breathing is something we don’t give a moment’s thought to unless for some reason our attention is drawn to it.

Our subconscious mind works in the same way and sometimes we don’t realise just how powerful it is until someone asks us to take a look at the way we think about something.

The Reticular Activator

There is a part of our brain called the “reticular activator” which acts a bit like a filter. If we took in every single piece of information that was around us our brains would go into overload. Each of our senses is bombarded on a regular basis but the reticular activator screens out most of it only allowing through what it thinks is important – and it bases much of that on our beliefs a great many of which are subconscious.

The easiest way to see how this works is to think about any time you have bought something new for example a new car or were (or knew someone that was) expecting a baby.

All of a sudden you see your make and model of car everywhere! Or everywhere you go someone is pregnant and prams with small babies are everywhere…

It wasn’t as if all of a sudden there were more of those cars or more women were suddenly pregnant…. your reticular activator has decided that it will allow them through your filter because they are more important to you now.

So suddenly you notice them everywhere!

Your subconscious mind is at work all the time. It decides what it will allow you to see based on the beliefs that you have.

The trouble is that many of those beliefs were formed during childhood and are very strong beliefs that no longer serve you or are not in alignment with how you would like you life to look now.

So what does this have to do with you pricing your services in business?

Everything!

Many of us end up with limiting self beliefs that come from our childhood experiences and very often they are around the issue of money or our own self worth. Many of these beliefs come from parents and our families.

Even simple phrases that you heard as a child are indicative of the beliefs you have around money, abundance and prosperity.

Ever heard yourself repeating phrases your parents said? “Money doesn’t grow on trees”, “You have to work hard to earn a living”, “Money is the root of all evil”

Maybe you have beliefs around what money does to people? Rich people are not very nice or when people come into money they don’t treat people very nicely. Perhaps you have a belief that if you did come into money that everyone around you would want to “take” it from you somehow?

They might sound strange things to think but such beliefs are very often programmed into us as young children.

Beliefs about our own worth also have a similar effect. It is why we often see people who win the lottery having lost it all a few years later.

They just can’t handle having money because it doesn’t fit with their subconscious beliefs about how much they deserve.

To see whether your subconscious beliefs about money and your own self worth are getting in the way of your pricing or growing your business, consider some of these pointers.

The little voice

Notice if you have a little voice in your head that shows up sometimes. It might say things like:

• Who would pay me for doing that
• I can’t charge THAT much

Perfectionism and Procrastination

Perfectionism and Procrastination are both fear in disguise! It is often a fear of success or a fear of failure which is rooted in your belief about what value you offer. It may show up as:

• Avoiding giving prices
• Avoiding sending things out because they aren’t perfect
• Not following up on leads or quotes
• Scared of picking up the phone

Hidden Undercharging

• Doing too much work for the money you charged
• Charging errors
• Not banking money
• Money issues

If any of these ring a bell for you, it may be that there is some work to be done on money or your self-esteem.

The good news is that you can change your beliefs

Just by looking at where they came from and seeing them from an adult perspective you can decide that they no longer serve you and choose a new belief.

In order for you business to grow you often have to do a great deal of personal growth. Your business will only grow as far as your subconscious mind will allow and sometimes we need help to spot where it is holding us back.

If you need some help with this, feel free to contact me for some help. I’ve been known to spot beliefs that need changing with a 10 minute conversation that has had a massive impact.

I personally had a great deal of help dealing with this from my good friend and healer Lisa Dorey. If money is one of the issues holding you back, Lisa’s digital course “Bring Money into your Life” may be just the thing you need. It certainly helped me to transform my own beliefs.

 

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