Is Charging More Unethical?

Transcription

Everyone, how’s it going? Yuri here with the crew from Healthpreneur. Jackie is not with us today, so we’ve got Steph and Amy. We got the split screen and so this is going to be a really interesting topic – is charging more unethical?

I want to talk about this today because we have a Facebook ad running right now that’s getting a lot of controversy. This is probably one of the most active Facebook posts that I’ve been a part of, at least in our business.

Apparently, a lot of people get pissed off when you talk about charging more as a health or fitness professional. I want to talk about this today because this is a really, really important point and I think is also a reason why so many health experts suffer in their businesses, because they can’t wrap their heads around this. I think this is extremely important, I mean this might be part one of ten in this series because it is so important to get this guys. So Steph, Amy, welcome to the call.

Stephanie:                          Thanks. Hi guys.

 

Reviewing the post and its comments

Yuri:                                       So let’s talk about this. Actually, I think it might be helpful if I bring up some of these comments from the actual post.

Stephanie:                          I would actually love that because I was just thinking, “Man, I want to see this post.” Want to see what people are saying.

Yuri:                                       Yeah, totally.  Okay. So the post is essentially says ‘health experts, how to find clients who can afford you”.

As you guys know, we’re all about helping people at a very high level, you don’t deserve to be working with people for pennies on the dollar. Part of our health business accelerator program is helping you build out your perfect client pipeline, to work with people at premium prices.

I’ll just read some of the comments there. All right, so people talking about how Western medicine is unaffordable health care. So turned by this post, this is too sad to me. All should be able to get healing help. What else? I hate to see health be made all about money. This hurts my hearts. Then others were saying, doctor yourself with free information on the Internet.

Then somebody who actually guessed this jumps in and says, “A lot of people are totally missing the point of this post, and it’s probably much the same people that are overweight, unhealthy and unhappy with their choices. It’s easy to say, well, if it was free we can do it but I ask you, does it cost any money to go for a run? No. Does it cost any extra money that simply change the food you buy? No. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can absolutely lose weight and get healthier without spending money but you don’t.” Just goes on. No need to leave nasty comments for your aid to sift through, scroll on. Another person saying unethical to charge top dollar, how about a fair price to help fellow human beings? Okay. So anyways guys, it goes on. Like on and on and on and I’m actually encouraging this discussion because normally, I don’t bother getting into debates and discussions like this online, but this is actually a Facebook ad.

So the more discussion, the better off it is for us as we get more sharing and cost is less. So I’m just like hey guys, keep it going. Keep the discussion going. In our Seven Figure Business Blueprint, we talk of the five benefits of premium pricing. One of the ones that I just want to touch on here is that premium pricing benefits everybody. Okay. Is that when you get people to spend more money with you, actually is better for them. As this one person who allude to it’s like, listen, we have all the free information you could ask for online, but no one is any better off because of that. The one distinction before I open up to you guys that I want to make is, so it’s okay if you are an internet marketer or a business coach, or a realtor, or any other business. It’s okay to charge top dollar right? But as soon as it has to do is helping people lose weight and get fit and get healthy, we can’t do that.

Apparently that’s unethical. So I want to open this up to you guys. Steph, Amy, we’ll start off with Steph and get your two cents on this.

 

Why premium pricing benefits everyone

Stephanie:                          Yeah, I mean you hit the nail right on the head that it’s everyone benefits when we charge higher price points. I started out my business, so I’m a mindset coach now but for many, many, many years for about 10 years I was an exercise physiologist specialized in nutrition, and I cannot begin to tell you how many of my friends and family used to reach out to me. I specialized in weight loss too, so they would be like, “Can you please help me with this or that?” I sat down with people for hours about diabetes and teach them about their blood sugar. Do you think not even one person did anything with any of that? I mean, I wrote out workout plans, I wrote out eating plans. The thing is that they have had no skin in the game, and so the more people invest in their health and wellness, the more likely they are to receive benefits. It’s just a fact and that’s just one example, there’s so many other examples.

I even ran a group coaching program where I was like, “Let me make it cheap so everybody can join.” It’s a Beta and then we had people not showing up for the calls, not showing up, not doing their homework, but I had people that didn’t even come to not even one thing. They paid the full price, but it was such a low price. They were like, “I’ll skip it.” If I were to charge triple, they would have gotten so much more out of it. The thing is that it’s not like we’re saying that giving back to the community and doing volunteers and things like that aren’t beneficial and something that we respect, and think you should do. The fact is that the more money that you make, the more you can then on the back end help more people. So that’s something that you just have to wrap your head around to.

 

Attracting clients that’ll invest in themselves and you

Yuri:                                       Yeah, it’s great. One of the things that I want our listeners to really remember is that it’s almost say, I don’t want to say like a Robin Hood type of approach where you’re stealing from the rich giving to the poor because we’re not stealing from anyone, but here’s the big distinction. I know that Amy, Shannon talked about this at HP live as well, is when you can work … Again, not everybody can afford premium prices. We’re not saying everybody should, okay? There’s obviously people who are living on food stamps, and people who don’t have the means to afford your prices but here’s the thing is that you decide who you want to work with. You can refuse business or attract whoever you want into your business, because it’s your business.

The distinction is that when you can work with people at a high level and transform their lives, you are able to fill up your cup. You can fill up your cup, you have more, let’s say more profit, more income. You don’t need to worry about selling $7 eBooks just to make ends meet. So when you have more coming in, you can give everything away for free to help those who can’t afford your services. So how is that not being of good service if we’re talking about free information and all this kind of stuff. The challenge is when people are trying to sell low end stuff to make their business work, and then they’re trying to get people who can afford that stuff to buy it, but it’s not helping them. So what we’re saying is work with people at a high level who can afford it, who really want to change, who really want to see an outcome. Then this is exactly what we do at Healthpreneur.

We have our workshop and our mastermind and that is it. There’s no lead magnets, there’s no $97 offers, there’s nothing. So people ask us, “Well okay, how do you help people who can’t afford it?” We give everything else away for free. So if you’re on our email list, we give away some of our best trainings every month for free. We give away so much amazing stuff on social, on YouTube, and we don’t need to worry about that stuff because we know if people really want to transform, they’re going to work with us at the highest level. So I want you guys to really clue into that. Amy, I know you were really transformed by Shannon’s talk at HP live.

Amy:                                     Yeah. That was incredible.

Yuri:                                       He totally agrees with to this. So I’ll let you jump on that.

 

Charging what you’re worth so clients will do the work

Amy:                                     Yeah, I loved meeting Shannon and he’s super down to earth. I didn’t even know he was a speaker when we were chatting, and you came over and was like, “Did you meet Shannon? He’s a speaker on leadership.” He blew my mind. I got his book as well because meeting you, Yuri, and charging higher prices showed me that the people that I’m working with, their lives are being transformed. This is in the six or eight week program even though it is right, it’s not. These are lasting results. When people pay $97, forget about the $7 eBooks, even 97, 197, 247 for a month or six weeks, it’s limited. When people invest in themselves and they see the value and they’re at that point, they are going to get the results that they want. Yes, everything’s on the Internet. They don’t need us truly, but they do, because it’s not about the workout. It’s not about the meal plan, it’s about the accountability and being in community with someone who’s going to care enough to hold you accountable when you want to quit.

When you are feeling that little place, that’s why we have our entire coaching team in place. What Shannon talked about really is what you just said Yuri, stop selling cheap shit that makes you resent yourself to broke people, who makes you resent them because now the people can’t really afford it. They’re buying into something because that’s where they’re at mentally, but they don’t do the work. Then you’re frustrated as a professional because you want to help people. So just like you just said, Yuri, what we want to do is work from that overflow. We want to bring people in and when you sit with yourself and really think about the transformation you’re able to make for someone, think about what that’s truly worth and go back to if you are a current client, either in the workshop or the masterminds, you invested in yourself. All of this information is out there.

You watched a Webinar, you can listen to Yuri’s podcasts. You can go on to the Healthpreneur Facebook group. You can go onto YouTube and piece it all together, but you invested in yourself so you actually do it because you need that support and guidance. You want someone to say, “Hey, am I on the right track?” Be able to have someone say this looks really good, but you know what? You can’t say this because it’s not going to get approved by Facebook, or this is coming across the wrong way to people. So that’s why people invest in you. They invest in you because they believe that you are the person that can help them get there, not do it for them. They’re really invested and then when you get to that place like Shannon said and you said Yuri, where you’re operating from overflow, you can decide if you want to give some scholarships.

It’s just like I just shared with Yuri and Stephanie in my town, there is one partnership of doctors and they’re concierge doctors. I can’t remember what the pricing is, I’ll find out but they do not take insurance here in the U.S. You pay for the year and you get to go in and sit with them. You have something going on that’s concerning you, they’re going to run all the tests and they’re going to sit down with you and go over everything. Create a custom protocol for you. So that’s what you’re doing. You have a group program that everybody goes through, but then each individual’s situation comes up. You can answer that either in a group session or a one-on-one. So charge what you’re worth, because it’s really incredible and charge those prices and meeting people where they are, and actually being able to help them instead of they do it for four weeks, and they’re done. So that’s what I see as one of the main benefits is just people actually do it. They actually do the work.

Yuri:                                       Let me answer this for another question. If you guys are in the Facebook group, you can always jump into this discussion too. We speak with quite a few practitioners who come out of school, hundreds not tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, but that’s okay, right? That’s okay, but God forbid you should go out there and charge premium prices to maybe recoup some of that money and actually make a living. So it’s okay for schools to gouge you, but it’s not okay for you to go out there and I’m not saying gouging other people. It’s not okay for you to go out there and make a living for yourself. I mean, that doesn’t make sense to me at all in the slightest. It’s a sick system in a number of ways. It’s a sick system and we’re not trying to say like this thing with money, like hangup with money. Like if you’re charging more, you’re a criminal, you’re gouging people. It’s not about that guys.

We had another comment here by a friend TB who works with Sachin Patel, an amazing functional doctor in Toronto. He said just because some people can’t afford first class doesn’t mean tickets shouldn’t be for sale. It’s such a good way of looking at it. He says you get what you pay for in life, and this includes healthcare services. Then this other ridiculous comment comes through in response to that, I know thousands who paid premium rates and are still as sick as before. Clearly, you know nothing of chronic illness yourself. I’m like wow, you don’t even know this person. It’s just ridiculous because guys … So here’s the thing, just because someone’s charging premium prices doesn’t mean they’re going to get the results, because they still have to show up and do the work. They still have to show up and do the work.

Listen, if that person’s not willing to make some adjustments to their diet, or follow a specific protocol, that’s not the practitioners’ fault necessarily, right? It’s the person, you have to look guys, if something isn’t working, it’s on you. You cannot blame the system. You cannot blame Obamacare, or free healthcare in Canada, or whatever else you want to call. It’s no one else’s fault but your own, and you have to step up and you have to take control of this and responsibility. Sadly, how many diet books are there? There’s thousands, tens of thousands. I actually got a royalty statement from Penguin Random House, which I didn’t even know they actually bought out Rodeo. So anyways, I got the statements yesterday from 2018 and I’m looking at this I’m like, “Wow cool, 26,000 books sold.” I don’t even know about that. How many of those people’s lives have been transformed?

Maybe a handful. I don’t even know, but we think that putting out a book is the way to do it. Putting out a book is the way to transform someone’s life, and I’m all for writing a book. I think we’ve all been touched in some way, shape, or form by a book and maybe we followed it for a little bit of time and got some results or didn’t. At the end of the day guys, if you’re not paying, you’re not paying attention. If you’re not invested, you’re not fully invested in yourself and that’s what it comes down to. The last thing I’ll say about this is, this actually really, I mean with Healthpreneur, our goal is to impact lives of 1 billion people on the planet. We can’t do that if we’re just giving stuff away for seven bucks. We’re doing this because we really believe in our core that health professionals are the most valuable profession, I believe in the world.

Doctors are amazing. I mean you have a lawyer who charges 500 bucks an hour. That’s okay, right? But if you’re a health professional, you can’t? How is transforming someone’s health not more valuable than drawing up a contract? Apparently, it’s criminal to do that. So guys, we have to own the transformation critic people’s lives. It is the most valuable thing on this earth. You cannot discount that.

 

What happens when people aren’t invested

Amy:                                     That is the other reason that we’d qualify people. So I have a $19 ebook on ClickBank and it still sells, but you know what’s really sad to me is that the percentage of people that actually open and download that $19 ebook, they were drawn in. They liked my sales page, they resonated with my story and my own health journey. That’s all great but you know what? If they don’t open that ebook, they’re not getting help. What I found with my clients, because I did have a couple of people that joined my [inaudible 00:17:19] for your program that wouldn’t pay the lower prices, and I know I’ve talked about this before. I had to ask them, “Why were you willing to pay the premium prices, but you weren’t willing to pay $97?” One of them said she wasn’t committed for that price.

She would never have come. I had a brick and mortar studio prior. The other woman said that she didn’t think she would get anything for $97. What could she really get for that? So it was, she’s was like okay, well I’m not going to, I’ll pay nothing because what am I going to get for that? How much transformation could I really get? They both came on board and were committed, and they did a great job but I wanted to find out why. So when we’re selling something for a low price and no one’s even opening it, we’re not only not helping them, we’re not creating an income. From my own experience, when you’re feeling broke and strapped, you can’t help anyone because you’re so uptight about your own situation that that comes through in your coaching. So you do have to do the work and know that abundance is there, so that you can operate from overflow even before it’s happening.

I know that sounds, we talked a lot about those things and I’m sure we will some more, but really knowing that it’s coming is important and so that you can operate from that where you can really help people. You can’t really help people as a healthcare practitioner, we speak to so many people in the health field that are strapped because they just spent hundreds of thousands on their certs, which are valuable but let’s get you earning that back and then working from that place of overflow so that you can help people. I’ll tell you this quick thing, my mom was just here this weekend. The guy that she lives with is a doctor, they’d been together for years. There was, I don’t remember the whole situation, but to make a long story short, he just unexpectedly came into a couple of hundred thousand dollars. He’s a boat guy, he’s loves … They’ve got a motor boat, they’ve done a sailboat. They do a lot of sailing.

He’s 76 years old and he decided this, he came into this money. He invested well over the years. He’s having a custom boat built, it’s over 100 grand. My older brother was here going, “Why are you spending that kind of money? I had a boat for whatever.” I was like, “He’s got the money. He wants everything he wants in it, and he’s worked hard and he can and he sees value.” They went to the boat yard. They’re seeing the thing, they met with the people who are custom making it. So would I probably spend my money on a ski trip if I was going to do that, but this was important to him. So he was a doctor for his entire working life. People came, and he’s an oncologist, a urological oncologist. He served people. Serve people and it’s like Zig Ziglar says, “Help people get what they want, and you’ll have what you want.” So people are out there, they want to spend their money.

Yuri:                                       Then they’re probably like he’s a greedy doctor. He probably made a ton of money on people’s pain, and now he’s buying a boat.

Amy:                                     That’s what my brother said but the rest of us were like, “He’s helped so many people and why not? He’s 76 years old. How cool is that that you’re buying this custom, you’re having this boat built.” It’s so awesome.

 

Stepping up and making a change if you’re unhappy

Yuri:                                       Guys, if you have an issue with this, it’s your issue. You’re never going to attract the money you want, or the abundance you want because you have this mindset. It’s as simple as that.

Stephanie:                          I will, about to say that really, I think some people have these, I call them contracts. It’s almost like you made this contract with yourself that making a lot of money is greedy, or charging a lot for services is greedy or bad, but really it’s just a thought that you have. It’s just like a belief that you have. What if you were to change your mind? What if you were to believe something different, and then how would that help the world help yourself? What would evolve in your life based on just that simple fact of changing this, I call them contracts? That there’d be like that’s how people treat them. It’s like I signed this contract that this means this, and that’s how I have to live my whole entire life is thinking that people are greedy, and that this is bad and you’re wrong. It’s not true.

Yuri:                                       It really is a plagues healers. Light workers, healers, whatever you want to call us. We’re all the same. We’re all teachers who want to empower the people, and we have these gist like it’s incredible but for some reason, most of us feel like we’re not worth charging more, or we just want to help everyone. We’re like Mother Teresa. Listen, Mother Teresa had quite a bit of money that most people don’t recognize, and you don’t have to be a martyr. You don’t have to be a martyr and being poor serves nobody. Being poor is selfish. Just imagine if this world, if health experts and professionals were earning the income that they really deserve, there are so many things they could transform globally in terms of what we could give back, and how we can empower people even beyond having people pay for your services.

So there’s just collective good that can happen if you’re an overflow, that can’t happen if you’re strapped for cash. I mean Amy, how many people do you speak with come on the phone and they’re like, “I just want to make an extra couple thousand dollars a month because I have zero coming in pretty much.”

Amy:                                     Yeah, there’s a lot of people like that. Then it’s interesting because then you run into people like after I heard Shannon speak, and I was saying, I didn’t even hear myself. My husband heard me saying and he was freaking out, because I said that the payments were like four times 24,000 instead of 2,400. I just want to figure out a way to make this happen. So when you’re thinking in that, like you said, there’s all these people that are like, “I just want to make a grand a month or two grand a month.” I don’t know where you guys live that want to do that, or like really because think bigger. Think bigger. What can you do? It’s okay to want to travel. It’s okay to want to take another certification. It’s okay to want to do that, but you’ve got to serve people. So a ton. I can’t even count.

Recently it seems like there’s a lot, a lot of people in that position. I think schools are letting out now. People are finishing certs and there’s a lot of scary, people are coming in scared. I’m like, “Gosh, I just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and how am I … I only need a grand or two.” So it’s a lot.

Yuri:                                       Well this goes back to certification students. I think, I’m actually going to put something a little more formal around this together. I have nothing wrong with certifications, I think they’re great professional, development’s awesome. I think in the health space especially, there are more certifications than probably any other profession and I think it comes back down to health experts don’t believe they’re fully worth what they might charge. So they have to get all these letters and degrees and certifications to justify charging a little bit more, and you don’t have to do that stuff. I mean yes, continue growing, continue developing your skills, but you’ll never get all your docs in a row. You’ll never have enough letters to overflow a business card to justify your worth, because we’re worth it already.

You’re always several steps ahead of those you want to serve, and you can help them. You don’t need thousands of degrees to be finally okay with charging more. I think this is a huge problem in this space because everyone’s waiting, they’re getting ready to get ready.

Amy:                                     I think you’re right because I spoke with somebody the other week that was asking me. She was very nervous about that piece. “What about my certification?” I said to her I’ve been in the industry for 25 years. I don’t even think I’ve been asked for my certification. Maybe once when I worked in a Big Box Gym, that was it. Then I asked her, through the whole conversation I finally said to her, “Have you yet asked me what my certification is?” She started cracking up. She was like, “I know you can help me.” I said, “There you go.”

Stephanie:                          I have this like super high level certification that I have never once been asked for. I had to have it to apply for certain jobs and stuff, but I wouldn’t, I remember I got out of college, I got my masters. I had this awesome certification from the ACSM, and I went into a gym to get a job and they were like, “What’s that?” I was like, “Oh, oh.” Because I had to study for years for it and do all this stuff, and it’s just like yeah, certifications.

Yuri:                                       At the end of the day, people just want to know you can help them. You don’t need to tell people your certifications are, you just listen. Like you’ve got this problem, I happen to have the skill set that can help you. They don’t care what it’s called. No one knows what the ACSM is anyways, unless you’re a professional. So guys, I hope this conversation, just let it sink in. Really let it sink in and this is not … I mean hopefully this is you listen to this one, some of it we’ve actually done and I think one or two other episodes in between the years just on pricing as well. So listen to those back on the podcasts, if you’re listening on the podcast. Guys never feel bad about charging, because you should feel bad about charging a lot if you’re not providing an amazing experience, or value for people. That’s the problem, right?

Is if you’re charging a lot and providing shitty service, and no outcomes for your clients, you should feel terrible about what you’re doing. What we’re saying is by charging more, you are forced to show up at the highest level possible. You cannot mess around with people when they’re giving you thousands of dollars. When someone gives you $27 for an eBook, I mean we know a lot of people in the info marketing space who don’t give a shit about helping people’s health. They just care about selling numbers of books, and hitting numbers in EPCs in product launches and stuff, and there’s never been a discussion for the most part that I’ve been a part of in that circle where it’s like, “Man did you hear about Joan’s transformation?” No, no, no. It was what’s the average order value of your funnel. Right? It’s just really disturbing. That’s the problem. Like I think that’s the problem.

Charge more, help more people really transform their life and guys like just that’s where it’s at. Again, either you agree with this or you don’t. We’re not going to try to convince people to change the way they think. It’s a matter of are you willing to step up and are you okay living where you’re living? In the situation that you’re currently in. If you’re making the money you want to make, and you’re helping people in a great way, terrific. Keep doing that but if you’re poo pooing, what we’re talking about and you’re struggling financially, and you have a tough time generating new leads and clients and you’re barely paying the bills, you need to wake the F up right? Because you’re not helping them and you’re not helping yourself. There’s no, you’re not going to finish this life on earth and get some kind of plaque for being an amazing servants to … That’s bullshit, right?

Be a servant now, charge what you deserve to be charging. Help people at a high level and that’s where it’s at. So guys, I hope this conversation has opened your eyes, has little light bulb, a little bit of fire under the glass a little bit as well. If you want to work with us, you’re not going to come in and work with us and charge 100 bucks, right? First of all, we’re not going to allow you to the program. Second of all, if you are struggling with that mindset, we’re going to help you through that but at the end of the day, if you don’t have confidence in yourself, you’re going to have a tough time charging more. You have to look at yourself, what you’re offering people but understand that you don’t … We had actually a question in the group the other day, like can you look in my program? I just want to make sure that what I’m giving is valuable enough because I see other programs that are charging three to 500 bucks.

I’m like, don’t compare yourself to anybody else in this space. Nobody, because what you are charging, what you’re doing has no relevance to them. Just make your stuff as amazing as possible, and the right people will step up and invest with you. So guys, this resonates with you, that’s great. If it doesn’t, that’s too bad. If you want to take the next step, I invite you to check out our online training over at Healthpreneurgroup.com/training, it’s called the Seven Figure Health Business Blueprint. I’m going to walk you through exactly how we help our clients. We’re going to talk about the five benefits of premium pricing.

I’ll show you some very specific case studies of low pricing, high pricing, what makes the most sense for you. If you’re listening to this on the podcast, well great job. If you’re listening to this inside the HPA group or on Facebook, then leave us a comment below what you think about this. It’s just an interesting discussion.

So again, we’re bringing this up because we’ve got a Facebook ad running right now that’s generating a lot of controversy, and maybe we’ll have a followup episode about this in the future. For now, thanks so much guys for tuning in. Hope this has served you well, and we’ll speak next week.