When healers and coaches approach pricing often their goal or intention is not fully aligned yet with running a business. This lack of alignment leads to fear and conflict and ultimately under pricing.

Conflict often shows up as “I can’t charge that much.” “I should charge as little as possible.” “If I price high then some people won’t join.” While your price needs to be aligned with who you’re targeting, it also has to lead to a viable business. People who operate in this space are often missing the courage and confidence to charge a fair price – i.e. a price that’s both good for you as a business owner and good for the clients.

This episode’s guest, Anisa Zafar, shares that what made a difference for her was knowing, embracing that “money is energy.”

In This Episode

I sat down and spoke with Anisa, Founder of Tree of Life Guru, a meditation teacher and coach. She supports women to change their relationship with themselves, bringing more clarity into their lives, building resilience and developing self-compassion. Anisa works with people across the globe to help them connect to their hearts and live more fulfilling lives.

She shares with us her Pricing Journey. How she struggled at the beginning charging a mere 20% of what was a fair price. We hear about her pricing learnings as well as how she evolved her healing business and its pricing into something that’s allowed her to feel more confident about what she charges. It’s been a pleasure talking with her.

Enjoy the show.

Favorite Quotes

Episode Links

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TreeofLifeGuru/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anisa_treeoflife/

Book Recommendations:
Kabbalistic Cycles and The Mastery of Life
Inspired Journeys: Women Rock Switzerland

Other episodes you may find interesting:

• Solocast Episode: The Power of Packaged Pricing

Rate, Review and Follow the Show on Apple Podcasts

“I’ve just found my Pricing Resource!” … “A binge worthy podcast.” … “I learned so much about how to improve my profitability.”

If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing the pricing podcast. It helps me spread the word to more people and ultimately get more small businesses on the path to sustainable profitability and business success. Click right here, tap to rate with five stars, then select “Write a Review.” Last let me know what you loved most about the episode!

One more thing. If you don’t already, follow my pricing podcast. New episodes come out every couple of weeks, plus bonus episode. If you’re not following there’s a good chance you’ll miss something.

Reach Out, Connect and Book a Call with Janene

Linkedin | YouTube | Facebook | Email List

Get started improving your business. Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to begin. I suggest you Download the the self assessment Pricing Scorecard. Get a view of what’s working and what’s not working when it comes to pricing in your business. Figure out where to start making improvements.

Get in touch with Janene, your Business Strategist & Pricing Expert. If you’ve got a business question that needs answering, a pricing challenge you’re facing or you have suggestions for future topics or guests, let me know. Your questions and insights often become episodes. Share yours with me and let’s see where it goes. Contact Janene.

Listen up! Don’t miss out. There’s a lot going on and you’ll want to be in the know. Follow my YouTube channel (rate it too please) so you don’t miss an episode of Live with The Pricing Lady or join my Email List.

Transform your business and life. My mission is to help you build a sustainably profitable business. One where you can confidently charge for the value you deliver. Curious about my coaching and consulting offers, check them out. Let’s see how we can work together. Book a complimentary Call.

Episode Transcript

Janene: Why don’t we kick this off with a few rapid-fire questions. The first question is, where are you joining us from today?

Anisa: I’m in Basel, in Switzerland.

Janene: Yes, me too, for those of you who don’t know where I’m from. We’re both calling in today from Switzerland. Welcome. Now what is your, or how would you describe your superpower?

Anisa: I would say my peacemaker. I try to bring the different opinions to listen to different opinions and my wish and heart desire is to find a win-win solution.

Excellent.

Janene: That must come in handy, especially ‘cause I read that earlier in your career you were a project manager and so that must also come in handy when you’re trying to get people to do what needs to be done for the project.

Anisa: Absolutely. I think that is coming from there.

Janene: Yeah. Interesting. Next question, what’s one interesting thing that most people don’t know about you?

Anisa: That’s a good question. I think the most interesting things that I can share, which is funny as well, that I really like to talk to the plants Ah-huh and to trees when I walk or at home, I just feel their energy, so I can really connect with them and see the life there. You might see me in Basel Street, that I just hug a tree and I just have a conversation with that tree.

Janene: Okay. Very interesting.

Anisa: I’m a nature lover. Yeah. And more than that, I can really connect with nature with trees and plants.

Janene: Okay. Well, we can see you have a green thumb as well, because…

Anisa: Oh, you see?

The Value of Working with Anisa

Janene: Oh, that’s great. Here’s a last kickoff question. What is the value? So first you can tell us a little bit about what you do and what the value is that your clients get from working with you.

Anisa: Very good question. I’m educated as a project manager and then I have, started my career as a meditation teacher, coach, and then healer. I mostly work with women, so what they can get. Let’s say they learn how to slow down in this kind of crazy world, and by slowing down, they can have clarity in their mind.

They can take a better decision and they can change their relationship with themselves. And once they change the relationship with themselves, the whole world around them will change. It’s a transformation that they get when they come to work with me. For better hopefully.

Reason behind Tree of Life Guru

Janene: You were telling me just before we hit record that you’re the founder of Tree of Life Guru, and I made the mistake of thinking you were the guru, but you informed me something else. What do you mean by guru?

Anisa: That’s a very good question. I appreciate that you have asked it.

Because I really like to always explain it. Tree of Life for me is each human being, right? We are like a tree, so we need to be really grounded. In the earth. In the matter and then grow up to the sky, and then we need a guru. What is the guru? It’s the highest self is our soul. For me, tree of Life Guru, it’s kind of a combination that it’s calling it you to ground yourself.

from one side and then connect your spiritual being guru. I’m not a guru. Sometimes people come to me and say, how do you call yourself guru? I was like, I didn’t just Google my website and read about it. It is you, yourself and your higher self. It is each human being that has all of those components.

Janene: Thank you for sharing that. I thought that was interesting and that you all would enjoy hearing that as well. We all have our inner guru that we’re reaching for or towards is that, correct statement.

Anisa: Our intuition, you can call it how you like and comfortable with its soul, spirit intuition, higher self, higher soul. Superpower. Inner Guide. As you like it, as it resonates to you.

Janene: Excellent. You made this big shift from project management into doing what you do now as a healer and a meditation, and a coach, meditation coach.

What Led Anisa to Start Her Own Business

Janene: Why don’t you tell us about what led you to start your own business?

Anisa: I do basically a little bit of both, let’s say like that. The reason that I start my company and let’s say the coaching in a specific meditation.. was that I think it’s mostly for all the coaches and meditations like that, it benefits yourself. You are in a place that you start to ask questions and then you start to practice in different things such as meditation and coaching or healing, different healing. You say, my god, my life has been transformed. How can I keep those things to myself?

It was not something planned. As I plan to study, for example, chemical engineering or project management, or go to the university, it just came because I have seen how it has transformed my own life and I couldn’t keep it to myself. Right? The willing of giving, it becomes so bigger than you that if you don’t do that, you feel kind of you are keeping it to yourself, right?

It becomes an inner fire to share the knowledge, to share the methods, to techniques, and the relief, of course, right? With all the pain that is in the world. Lots of drama. You say, that can solve lots of drama. Why not sharing?

Janene: That’s funny. I mean, for me, and you and I, I don’t think we’ve talked about this, but for a while I was also doing some mindfulness, coaching, and teaching in that area, and I came to that through my own burnout and wanting to find a way to do things better.

And mindfulness has really helped me with that as well. Mindfulness meditation and mindfulness practices. I can understand.

First Pricing Offer

Janene: Anisa, We are here in part to understand your journey and the pricing learnings for coaches and healers you can share with us. What was it like the first time you sat down and had to price what you offer?

Anisa: It’s very interesting. It goes back maybe to 2017. I start in that moment to teach. I had so many trainings and certification. Small experience to teach. When it comes to my first prices, I think I was not confident to put the right and exact price there.

I was like, I’m just starting, I don’t know and I don’t want that people don’t come to me because of the high price. I remember that I put something maybe 20% of what? It was the price. I start with that.

Janene: You say that was 1. because you didn’t want people to not come to you because it was too expensive. Was it also a little bit of fear on your side?

Anisa: Yes because I wanted that people come to me. From the other side, there were different factors. It was first. People won’t come to me if I put a big price. The other things were, how can I charge them a little bit?

Because it’s coaching, spiritual coaching, or it’s meditation. The other part was like, maybe they don’t have money, so I want to give. It was a very mixture of thinking. I didn’t have really the whole picture. I had the picture of that only like money.

Some people, they don’t have it. How can I make sure that I have clients and people come to me and I’m not a bad person because I’m putting price there, right? That’s very, basically describe it with words. It’s like, ah, you’re a bad person because you’re charging. You see it often.

Also, many people comment that, and it goes to your belief system. It was 2017.

You Need to Get it Out

Janene: Interesting. I’ve seen this happen to other people, especially in the space of healing and coaching that, sometimes, people have gotten very aggressive, let’s say on social media and set or directly with the coach or the healer, and told them How dare you charge for something when you’re helping people.

Have you ever encountered that and how did you respond in that situation?

Anisa: Back to that time. I would be very, upset, I would say, ah, you are right. And I would be, for a long time upset. And by the time I really realized that money is energy is like that. You breathe in, you need to breathe out.

I’m giving you something and there is a receiving. Right? You cannot breathe in and keep it. You need to get it out. Money is energy that you’re investing for a transformation that you are also giving to receive the energy of other person. Right. And then I’ve worked a lot on that, and I also have done my reflection to say, Hey Anisa, you have been also a student.

Another Pricing Learning – I Never Questioned Why They’re Expensive

Anisa: You had been to the coaching classes. How had it been? I never questioned why they’re expensive or why they’re charging me. I was paying very happily, also blessing them because they helped me so much and they transformed my life, right? They helped me how to reduce my stress, how to set goals, how to improve my performance.

So I even didn’t think about why they’re charging, so, Anisa, how it has been. I was like, yeah, I paid them the transformation that they brought to my life, so I invest on my future. And that helped me enormously because I was like the change that I have now in my life, thanks to them because they teach me and they help me to discover.

What I’m doing now for people. I’m helping them to have a better future. So how It cannot be an investment, right? We invest on clothes, we invest on food, and this is something that we’re investing for the future. And that helped me really, the different mindset also, right? Have that reflection as an investment that you are helping someone to transform the future and also see the money as energy, so like life of a tree of life guru, right? So that has tree of life, which is you being grounded in this physical world. And then guru. Otherwise, it’ll be only guru, only soul. But we are not souls only. Right? We have the physical body, and that means that we need that physical matters in this world as well.

Investing that in terms of money, that means that, we are investing in our development in our future, in this physical world. So basically, my perspective has changed totally. One of my biggest pricing learnings is that I have to look at what I do in the right way.

Pricing at the Beginning

Janene: As someone who comes from a very, let’s say, logical space in project management and then also has this very say, I don’t wanna say non-logical, I wanna say more spiritual side or aspect to what you do.

I’m curious when you first started your business did you look at the numbers and the figures and understand how much you would have to work at those prices you originally charged to be able to earn the money that you wanted? Was that even part of your thought process or was that just not really at that point in time?

Something that you, you even consider?

Anisa: That’s a very good question. I think I didn’t consider in five years ago, even though, you know, I do it at my daily job, I consider that with numbers and everything, but when it came to my business. It was not a case, I didn’t consider that.

I learned it after I start to take the business course. I was like, yeah, that is something that I already named that. It’s the project management job. It’s very interesting. There are many things that we know, and then we take a course in that specific area, you learn how to develop and how to integrate that. I started doing that later.

Janene: Yeah. I think that it’s very common, especially for people who are working in a similar space as you, that, they just want to be of service. And oftentimes the more you know business, core aspects, you know, are, are not a big priority, let’s say at, at the time.

That also influences what they choose to do and how they choose to do it. A big pricing learning is that you do need to think about the figures.

Anisa: That’s very true. Yes, that’s true. I can only confirm that.

Why Coaches Struggle with the Pricing Topics

Janene: Why do you think that healers and coaches, people working in the space struggle with the pricing topic? Because you, I mean, you must also see it, I would guess, in some of your clients as well.

Anisa: Yeah, sure. I think the main things is the perspective, how we see the money, right? We see the money as something that you have it. I don’t have something physical, and we don’t see it as energy. We don’t see it as an investment of the energy as well, right? We believe that if the prices are low, then more people will come.

I’ve also done some trial to see how it works. I sometimes run the courses for free. Because I have also free, I’d give it with my heart and I have free courses also, so I give it free. very nice courses that they might be thousand Franc. I give it for free.

People come register. The last time I had 200 registration and I want that. You guess, how many people really participated?

Janene: Oh, very few. I guess 10%.

Anisa: 20 people. I had 20 people who really came and use that space. And if it is payment, I will have participation a hundred percent.

You’re committing to yourself. I say that sometimes when, of course it’s, I like to give it sometimes for free to do some testing and I give it with my heart. And from the other side, when it is a payment, you are helping the other person to commit. To commit. How many times? There are so many pricing learnings and for me this was big.

Pricing Learnings – It’s To Be Committed

Anisa: Maybe you and me, I do it. At least I reduce her for something free and I don’t participate because that’s free. If it is paid one, it means to put the alarm, you have a course not running and you paid for that. It’s helping as well. It’s to be committed. Some people ask me, give me a minute, and said that I can be committed to my meditation. I cannot, because something comes, I say register for a course.

Janene: That you must pay for it.

Anisa: Yes, it helps. I did with yoga for myself. Just register course. You pay it in advance, and it helps you. And once it becomes a habit, then you commit your topic. Do something else.

Yes. It’s another point that is very important. Forget that to help the clients to commit to something, right. To study with us, to come and to have that mindset of development because they are committed to them already.

Janene: Yeah. I think that’s an excellent point, that having the right price isn’t just about you and your business, it’s also a benefit to the customers as well, or to your clients.

And when you were talking about the energy, I was, because I come from an engineering background, also very, logically oriented and people think that pricing is super logical. It’s a lot of psychology has it has both elements. But when you were talking about that, I was thinking about every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

You wanted the laws of physics, which is along the same, the same lines as well.

What did Anisa Learn from Her Pricing Journey

Janene: What do you think is the most important thing that you’ve learned from your own pricing journey? And let me follow that, have a second part to that. as it’s a journey, you know, it continues, and it continues.

What do you see as next in your own pricing journey?

Anisa: I think what I have again, to have this in my mind. Money is energy. I’m confident to the fair transformation that I’m bringing. To the third point, which is very important to make sure that we help to people to be committed to take this journey. And they come to come to decisions, and they know that, okay, they have invested, that’s why they need to take time also to building the habits. There are the three things that I always have in my mind.

Janene: Excellent. And what challenges do you have now with your pricing and what is it that you need to do next?

Anisa: What I’m thinking about,

Janene: Yeah. Could also be opportunities, Anisa.

Anisa: Sure that that is better. Yes, that is better for me. I way to say problems. Issues, yeah. Opportunities are good. I like it. What I’m giving also, I’m making different packages for example.

I have alternative offers that can suite everyone, I have a small offers with a small price. I have a middle price, and now I’m just making packages to have a longer journey with people. And what I’m doing also, I’m providing as an investment, right. On providing the rates.

For the payment. I’m adjusting that a little bit. Two rates, three rates, and I see how the people react. I see that many people like and appreciate that.

Evolution in the Maturity of Pricing

Anisa: I think that is the next opportunity to give the big packages like programs that we are together two months, three months, one month. It is another opportunity also for client that they can choose to be longer with me and then we can work together and I’m putting the prices on them.

Janene: Yeah. That’s a say, an evolution in the maturity of your pricing. Let’s put it that way. Yes. When it comes to, so moving beyond just having single prices for things, but then creating offers at different value points.

That’s excellent. Absolutely. I wish you great success with that.

Anisa: Thank you.

Janene: We’re gonna start wrapping this up in a moment. Before we do, I do have one more question I’d like to ask. What would you say to someone who’s just starting out in this space as a healer? As a coach when it comes to pricing their first offers?

Anisa: I would invite them to reflect on their journey and the classes and courses and the teachers that help us, and they paid them. That we paid them really with our heart. We bless them and we say just thank you. So they will be the same for people.

I just invite them to reflect on that. That is very, very helpful for pricing.

Janene: Excellent. Thank you for sharing. I have a few wrap up questions here. I’m gonna skip the first one because I think you’ve answered it very nicely again. Let me ask it again because curious what you say, but what’s the one thing people should take away from our discussion today?

Anisa: Money’s energy. You give it, and you receive.

Janene: Yeah. Money is energy. I love it. Thank you.

Coaching as Transformation

Janene: In general, what’s the best business advice that you’ve been given as an entrepreneur?

Anisa: Think as coaching as transformation. Don’t think that it’s just one hour that you’re spending with someone. I think the transformation and the pain that you’re releasing in life of someone, you’re just relieving a pain, right? Lifting a pain. So broad just your view. It was a coach that gave me that advice and it was very helpful.

Janene: How did that help you?

Anisa: But by thinking of that, you do not think of one hour. How does, how much does it cost, shall I put it? 10 Frank, one, Frank two Franks for one hour, where a transformation maybe is a bigger thing. How much that pain relief of that person might be valued. Right. If that pain is relief, what that person can do in life. where that person can go by having that view, of course with fairness, right?

with fairness. You kind of open your heart and when you put a prize, you are not shame, you do not feel guilty because if you do that and if you do it to the session or when you’re talking to the client, the energies, the right energy of shame and guilt and people will understand that.

Janene: Yeah. Excellent. I love that. That’s a great piece of advice.

Anisa’s Book Recommendations

Janene: Is there a favorite book or tool that you’d like to share with us today?

Anisa: Thank you that you said too, because I have two.

Janene: Oh. Excellent.

Anisa: I brought in here, so, first one. Can you see that? Yeah, I can see that. It’s a Kabbalistic cycles of life and mastery of Life.

It talks about basically of the business. So, okay. How you can look at the different period of time and how you can organize your life. You can take a responsibility, find the causes of your laziness, and start to organize your life. So that is amazing. It’s not about religion.

It’s a spiritual, it’s about business. So that is,

Janene: Super. We’ll be sure to put that in the show notes for everyone. Yes.

Anisa: And the second one, it is Handmade. Handwritten, okay. Inspired Women Rock Switzerland Journeys. Ah, yes. That was one of the contributors. That is the story of 31 amazing woman entrepreneurs, businesswoman, that they have started differently from different steps and they’re telling about their life and why they are doing what they’re doing.

If the people likes to start in a business, I think it’s very inspiring. It’s giving hope and empowering woman basically. So that is the.

Janene: Excellent. We’ll be sure to put both links to both of those in the show notes.

Wrapping It Up

Janene: One very last question for you Anisa, how can people reach out to you if they’d like to know more about working with you and what you do?

Anisa: Sure, my website is the best place to be there, www.treeoflifeguru.com. You can send me an email from there or book a free discovery call. I’m there for you.

Janene: Very good. We’ll put the link to her website and all of her other links as well so that you can reach out for her. Reach out to her in the show notes.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Anisa. It’s really been a pleasure talking with you.

Anisa: Thank you so much.

Janene: I’m sure our healers and coaches out there are going to love listening to this episode.

Anisa: Thank you so much for inviting me in your podcast, Janene. Thank you.

Janene: You’re very welcome.