Have you considered shifting away from time-based prices? You should.

It’s quite common for people who offer services like coaching or consulting to use time-based prices (hourly, daily etc…). For most businesses such a pricing model doesn’t serve either the client or the business. From the clients side they’re often tempted to skip important steps. Steps that help them achieve their goal or help make the changes needed stick. They do so to “save” money but make it hard to get the results they’re seeking. And often you’ll find they are less engaged in doing the work. For the business, it means less consistent outcome and more work. Even worse as you get more experienced and efficient (i.e. add value by bringing customer results in shorter time) you don’t get paid for that added value.

If you’re using time-based prices then you’re going to want to listen to this episode and hear about Sandy’s journey.

In This Episode

I sit down and talk with Sandy Kaufmann, Lovecoach. She helps single women identify what stops them from finding love and transform it. She shares with us what she’s learned about pricing along the way. Like many she started out with time-based pricing, it seems safe, but she quickly realized it didn’t serve her or her clients. We talk about why and how she made that shift from time-based prices to package pricing and what it did for her business.

If you prefer, you can watch the video of this episode. Note the highlight timing is different.

Favorite Quotes

Episode Links

• WEBSITE: www.sandykaufmann.ch
• Inst: https://www.instagram.com/sandykaufmann_lovecoach/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandyloutfian/
• Book: Do Less, by Kate Northrup

Other episodes you may find interesting:

• Solocast Episode: The Power of Packaged Pricing

Connect with Janene

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Episode Transcript

Janene: Sandy, we’re going to start with a few rapid fire questions here. The first one is where are you calling in from today?

Sandy: I live in Zurich, but as you might hear, I am speaking French and come from Lyon.

Janene: Wonderful. What would you call your superpower?

Sandy: I love to dig and find the logic within the story and the experience of people that impact the way they behave. And the way they react to experience in life.

Janene: Fascinating. What’s something that most people don’t actually know about you?

Sandy: Let’s say I love iron clothes, but I hate to iron.

Janene: I think a lot of us would agree with you. Ironing clothes is not fun, but wearing freshly pressed clothes is a joy. Okay. One last question. What value ultimately, do your services in this case, bring your clients?

Sandy: I help my clients to find their dream man or dream woman and build their dream relationships. It’s pretty much rewarding because I have people getting married, getting to live together. So it’s quite an amazing reward for me.

Janene: Fabulous. So all of you out there looking for love, Sandy might be the lady to help you with that. I always ask this question because the value that somebody brings in their business is very much related to their pricing.

What was Pricing like when you started?

I’d like you to go back to the beginning when you first started your business and you had to price something, what was that like?

Sandy: At the very beginning, I was offering single sessions as coaching and also single session as therapy for working more into the past, the way you have learned love and the way you will repeat this pattern. Yes, I was offering single session and not any package.

Janene: And how did you go about pricing that?

Sandy: I was using more or less the standard price, but I was frustrated because my customer, wanted to find love, have results, have a good working relationship. And the more I was speaking with them the more I realized they weren’t aware of the quantity of work that was needed to get that result.

Janene: Maybe I’m making a leap here but that meant one session of wasn’t enough to achieve that. And that was where you were frustrated or where did the frustration come in?

Sandy: Yes exactly. I had basically two different kinds of customer. On that says, I am aware that my past influences my present and the way I act in love. And they were willing to work on that task, but they were less willing to work on how do I date? Should I go and act with dating apps or I’m afraid for dating cups were they were not willing to act on it.

I also had people coming who said, Sandy, I want to have a strategy, how to find a guy. I have no problem about my past. There is nothing to do. I just want to act.

I believe that for every person, it’s a mix between two. And that’s why I was very frustrated.

What prompted the change away from time-based prices?

Sandy: At the beginning I started doing with a single session. And after let’s say six months, I was thinking no enough, I don’t want to do that anymore. I was striving to give constant results and to be also to feel confident when I was speaking with a potential client. That what I will bring as a result could work for the majority of the people I would have. After the six months, I decide to not longer offer single sessions and to have really a package.

Janene: Yeah. And how did you go about pricing those packages?

Sandy: So I was really thinking, okay, from the whole experience you had with the customer, what do they need, what do they need to get the result they want? And how can you ensure that they get the result? I went from the value they want to get… to the service I need to offer. I asked myself what they need: we need the “past” part, they also need to work on their behavior and act on it to see the transformation. This is how I set up my package. Let’s say. And make my offer.

Janene: Then it really was rooted in understanding your customer and where they were trying to go or what value they wanted to get out of it. That is what led you to make the shift and the process that you use them for setting up your prices?

Sandy: Yes. Let’s say I position myself more as experts. What do they need to get what they want?

What did changing to time-based prices bring your business?

Sandy: Actually, it went really up. I was afraid to propose such a big package at one time. But I felt then confident about my ability to bring the results they were looking for. I even had the feeling, it was much more easy to sell. There was another advantage. I had people that were really motivated to do the work and to invest in their love life.

Janene: Yeah. That’s excellent. What is it that you think made the biggest difference for you as you made these changes?

Sandy: Is to really stand up for my decision. Because during the calls I had sometimes people telling me, yeah. But you know, I already had a lot of coaching or a lot of therapy. Maybe I don’t need the full package. I had to stand up for what I offer. It’s not always easy, but at the end, I see that people with lots of therapy didn’t need as much work in one area, but still needs the same amount of sessions because they have other parts they didn’t work on. It’s important to be aligned with that and to stand for what you offer. I think this was yeah the biggest lesson.

Janene: I agree with that. For those who offer packages, you have a process that you go through. If it’s five steps, then maybe they need most of the emphasis on three and four. But you should also then make sure you touch on the other ones to make sure everything else is okay there. It doesn’t mean you take it out. It just means that what you spend the majority of your time focused on might be in other areas in that, that process itself.

Wrapping It Up

First of all, what’s the one thing that people should take away from our discussion?

Sandy: I think is to be of service. Think of what you clients need and offer them your expertise. So position you as an expert.

Janene: That is excellent advice. Be sure to position yourself well and offer what your clients really need. Second question. What is the best business advice you’ve ever been given?

Sandy: I would say your energy is your business. As an entrepreneur, the way you feel the status of your energy impacts much more your business that you think so self care should be a priority for you.

Janene: That is an excellent piece of advice. As someone who went through a burnout in the corporate world, I’ve always struggled myself with, you know, not struggle, but I always am aware of what I’m doing in my business now to make sure that I don’t find myself back there again. What’s what business tip you’d like to give people?

Sandy: It’s about time management. It’s really correlated to this energy. I am very focused and I can do the planning. But I realized that it was not always in line with my need of energy balance, but as a woman, we are cycle and we have some weeks where we don’t want to do so much and so long.

I find this book from Kate Norton “Do Less”. She offered a time management based on your energy and cycle. And for me, it’s really much more aligned from how I work and how I can maintain my energy.

Janene: I’ll put that in the show notes and your contact details too. Sandy, I want to thank you so much for being on the show with me today. It was a real pleasure having you here.

Sandy: Thanks Janene, for the opportunity and also what you bring to entrepreneur to there to have a fair pricing.

Janene: Yes. Thank you.