When Your Dream Client Says “I Can’t Afford You”
6 Solutions for Consultants, Coaches and Content Creators
There’s a delicate balance between charging what you’re worth and hitting that sweet spot in your ideal client’s budget. And there comes a time in the life of every consultant, coach or content creator when you look at what you need to be charging to create a solid sustainable business (one where you cover your business expenses and pay yourself enough to thrive) and you think to yourself, “there’s no way my client is going to go for that.”
This situation is especially frustrating for people in helping professions who know that they can deliver real benefits and change but can’t figure out how to charge enough to get the business to support itself. But before you decide to live on ramen noodles or give it all up, there may be ways you can adjust your offer and/or your business to let you do the work that’s important to you and still get paid enough to thrive.
Rethinking Your Product and/or Pricing Strategy
Here are six ways you might adjust your business if you discover your ideal client can’t afford your prices.
- Get some data
- Adjust the way you deliver your offer
- Expand your niche
- Offer pricing tiers of varying levels of service (some could intentionally be free or very low cost)
- Create payment plans
- Consider pro-bono packages
1. Get Some Data
If you’re trying to sell a $10,000 product into a multi-million dollar company, you might assume they can afford it. If you’re trying to sell a $10,000 product to families with children you might assume they can’t. However, in the case of the corporation, it might be that the manager you’re trying to sell to doesn’t have signing authority for that amount. Or in the case of the family, if it’s an affluent community and we’re talking about elite coaching, $10,000 might not be a problem. Make sure you ask the question to a real person and get honest feedback about budget. Don’t just guess.
2. Adjust the way you deliver your offer
If you’re trying to do private 1:1 work and you’re running into the affordability problem, think of other ways you might deliver the service that would lower the cost. Would it be possible to do it in a group setting? Could you deliver an automated version of it? Could you train a more junior person to deliver the service?
3. Expand your niche
I’m usually a big fan of being very specific about your customer, but this may be a counter-example. If you want to help people with big needs and not a lot of money, it may be that you need to offer something similar to an audience who has more money. For instance, let’s say you want to work with early stage startups who are on notoriously tight budgets. Perhaps you could create a similar offer for larger companies and then use the money from that to offset your lower prices to startups.
4. Offer tiered packages
This is similar to adjusting the way you deliver your offer. Perhaps there’s a way to have multiple packages where you have lower involvement at lower price points and higher involvement as your price increases. In fact, there’s nothing that says that you can’t create a package of free products or resources that address the most common problems of your audience.
5. Payment plans
Content creators and consultants who work on large projects often use the model of charging part of the price up front, another chunk at a middle milestone and a final payment at the conclusion of the project. But this can work with online courses or other types of offers too. Often the way this is presented is that there’s a lower price for paying in full up front and then a higher price for the payment plan. There are also digital tools like Klarna where you get paid up front, but the customer has the option of spacing out their payments.
6. Consider pro bono packages
Doing pro bono work is good karma. It can be great for creating community and portfolio building. It can also be a differentiator for your brand. However, make sure that when you do pro bono work it is intentional, and that you’re not just giving away a lot of value because you’re afraid to ask people to pay.
Building Ideal Client Relationships for Future Opportunities
Sometimes the client who can’t afford you today, will become a significant portion of your business down the road. So it can be advantageous to keep communicating and maintain your relationships with budget-constrained leads.
One way to do this is to recommend alternative solutions or resources that do fit with their current budget. They will remember that you helped them and that you are a valued expert in your area. This will help position you as their future go-to resource when their budget allows.
Start By Asking Questions
Figuring out how to charge enough to make your business work if your ideal client doesn’t have a lot of money is a complex business problem. And to be completely honest, sometimes there isn’t a for-profit solution. Depending on who you’re trying to serve, you may be in a better position to help if you consider a non-profit structure.
However, in many cases, some combination of the six solutions I cover in this article will enable the business to generate the revenue it needs so you can get paid enough to keep helping your ideal client.
The best place to start is with the solution at the very top of the list. Talk to your customers or the people you want to be your customers. Brainstorm about how you might offer something that fits in their budget while allowing you to get paid enough to keep doing the work you care about. Everything else will grow from there.
If figuring out how much to charge is a struggle, my pricing toolkit with a fill-in-the-blank pricing calculator can help.
