EP 302 - The Real Reason Why Selling Your Coaching Feels So Hard | Money Mindset for Coaches
Selling coaching feels hard for many coaches, and in this episode I explain the real reason why selling your coaching feels so uncomfortable or hard. This isn’t just about strategy or scripts - it’s about what’s happening beneath the surface when it’s time to talk about price, value, or receiving money for your work.
If you find yourself hesitating to name your price, discounting your offers, or undercharging for your coaching, this episode will help you understand where that resistance comes from. I break down the beliefs about money, worth, and responsibility that quietly shape how you show up in sales conversations. We’ll talk about how old conditioning, fear of judgment, and stories about money can interfere with even the best sales strategies, making it harder to follow through consistently.
If you are a coach who wants to sell your coaching services with clarity, confidence, and integrity, this episode will help you loosen the grip of old money stories and move forward in a way that feels aligned and sustainable.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why selling coaching feels hard even when you believe deeply in the work you do
The hidden money and worth beliefs that show up when it’s time to talk about price
How undercharging and discounting quietly lead to burnout and resentment
What actually needs to shift so selling feels more honest, grounded, and sustainable
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Website: https://www.debbieshadid.com
Instagram @debbieshadid
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Transcript
If you cringe every time you tell somebody your price, if you find yourself discounting something before anyone even asked you how much it costs, if there's a knot in your stomach every time money comes up in a sales conversation, this video's for you. And I'm telling you, I know this from personal experience. You have to fix your money mindset. It could be the very thing that is killing your business. If you do not fix it, none of the strategies that I am teaching you are gonna help you build a profitable coaching business. My name is Debbie Shadid. I've helped over 10,000 coaches, not only build, but grow profitable boutique style coaching businesses. And I'm gonna be honest with you today, this might be the most important video that I have ever made because I have watched so many talented coaches sabotage themselves over and over again, and I did it too, not because you as a coach are not good enough. It's because you have bad thoughts about money. We gotta clean that up. Let me ask you some questions. Do you believe that if you charge too much, nobody's gonna buy from you? Do you feel guilty asking for people to pay you or feel guilty when you think about charging more for your coaching, do you secretly believe that if you were really good that you would actually help people and not care so much about money? If you said yes to any of those questions, I'm telling you, you are not alone. You have some money mindset work to do, and that is okay. Most of us actually do. When you address those money beliefs that are costing you clients and keeping you stuck, everything can change. So let's talk about what beliefs are sabotaging you. Most of us grew up with some pretty strange beliefs about money that we absorbed without questioning it. We heard people talking about money. Those things just became our money identity. How about this one? Rich people are greedy. I always think that thought like I already have enough. It's greedy to want more. How about it's noble to struggle? I remember thinking that working seven days a week till 2:00 AM in the morning with something that I should feel good about. Changing what you do is gonna change your business. Charging for helping people. A lot of us somehow think that's wrong. None of that is true. But if those beliefs are running in the background of your mind, unconsciously, they're gonna show up. Every time that you have that sales conversation. Here's how it plays out. You're on the consultation call. Everything's going great. The person clearly needs your help. And when it is time to share the price, suddenly you start to hem haw around about the price. Maybe you start talking faster. Maybe you start saying, you immediately start thinking, I need to discount this before they even have time to respond. I've done all these things. I know what it's like. Sometimes you might even add a qualifying statement like, look, I know it's a lot, but you guys, but ruins the whole thing if that is how you are talking. Then guess what? Your money beliefs, the things that you learned unconsciously are taking over. The person on the other end of that conversation can feel it, even if they can't consciously describe it. They don't feel the confidence that you should be displaying. They can sense your discomfort and if you don't believe that your price is worth it, why should they? So let's talk about the scarcity trap. One of the most common money beliefs that I see in scarcity thinking, it's like this, if I charge too much, people won't buy. Now, raise your hand. I know I can see you in the car shaking your head. I used to think this way too. I was terrified that if I raised my prices and charged those high ticket prices, nobody would buy from me. Here's what I learned. The opposite was true when I undercharged. I attracted people who didn't even value the work that I did when I made deals with people, oh my word. Those were the worst people to coach. You end up with clients who cancel on the calls, who don't show up on time, who are not prepared, who don't do the work necessary. They question everything you suggest because they did not invest enough to take your offer seriously. I'm proud of the work that I do, and when I charge money for it, people show up because they've paid. They're fully invested. When you charge appropriately. You become a person who attracts the right people, the people who are committed, the people who do the work, who get the results, and those results will become testimonials that will actually help you attract more clients. There are millions of people in this world who need coaching millions. You don't need all of 'em. You need a handful of those to see the value in what you have to offer and that are willing to invest in themselves. Those people exist. I promise they do, but you will not attract them if you are charging super low prices and if you are acting desperate for clients. Here's the truth about money. Let me give you a reframe that could change everything for you. Money is just neutral. It's just something that is out there that people have thoughts about. What you do with it determines if it's good or bad. Are you greedy? No. Do rich people hoard the money and buy all the cars and not do anything for anyone else? No. Some of the richest people I know also give the most. What if that is true? When you make good money for your coaching business, look at what becomes possible for you. Nearly every woman that I work with, they have this beautiful thing that they want to do in the world. They're gonna do their coaching and make a difference, but they have this passion project, this place where they want to give and serve and charge nothing. You cannot do that unless you are making money. In your business that supports your lifestyle, so you cannot fully show up. I'm telling you for your clients, when you are distracted because you are financially stressed, you can invest in your own coaching. When you invest in your own learning, you become an even better coach. When you become a better coach, you can donate money to the causes that you care about, you can provide for your family. You can build the business and life that you actually want. There is nothing noble or worthy about being broke, and here's the part that really matters. Making money is not at odds with helping people. Making money allows you to help more people if you cannot pay your bills. Your coaching business will not last if you burn out because you are working too hard for too little, you're not gonna serve your clients well. In fact, you might even resent your business. The business that you built. You guys, everyone loses when that happens. Charging well is not greedy. It is you being more responsible with your finances. This will allow you to do the work that really matters. For a lifetime. That's what I talk about, building a business for a lifetime, but you gotta be able to afford to have the business. Here's what happens when you undercharge. I'm gonna paint a picture of how this happens. When you undercharge and you let the fear of money run your business, you set low prices because you're afraid that you're gonna charge too much 'cause nobody will pay. You attract clients who are not fully invested. You have too many clients. To barely make ends meet. You're exhausted. You can't afford to hire any help. You can't afford to invest in marketing. You start resenting your clients for taking too much of your time. I did this. I know what this is like when I discounted things and I charged too small of an amount for what I was offering. I was mad at people for sending me messages, for reaching out, even though I told 'em they could. Eventually you just burn out and you wonder why you ever thought that you could be a coach or wondered how it is that other people can do this, and you can't. You may even quit, not because you weren't a good coach, not because you didn't care about people, but because you built a business. That was unsustainable. I have seen this happen too many times, and I have to be honest and say it almost happened to me until I shifted my mindset. I'm gonna share with you three mindset shifts that you need to clean this up. But before I do, I wanna mention that I am part of House of Manifestation. This is Kathleen Cameron's community. This is where I do the inner work. I'm actually one of the guest coaches in there that teaches about building a profitable coaching business. They teach about all things related to money and health and just living an abundant life. I attend their trainings. They have a book club. I love being part of the community. My affiliate link is below and lemme tell you what, when you join using my link, we're gonna also gift you a $2,000 program. About social media. We teach you to edit videos, make captions, all the things that you need to do to attract clients. So you guys, how do you fix this problem? Let me talk about the first shift that you need to make the first of three. Price from value, not from fear. When you set your prices, don't start to think what could people pay? What should I charge? Start with the value that you provide. If you help someone land their dream job, what is it worth? It's not just worth what they got paid that year. It's worth what they get paid year after year, after year after year. It multiplies. What if you help somebody save their marriage? How do you even put a price on that? How about losing 50 pounds and keeping it off? What is that worth? Think about the health consequences, the joy somebody could have in their life. To me, coaching is priceless, but you have to believe that the transformation that you provide has real value price from that place. Think about your person and what changes for them. Not from you being insecure about being a new coach. That is just a story you're telling yourself. Nobody knows you're a new coach. Don't worry about getting rejected. Think about the value that you offer to somebody and own it. The second shift I wanna talk about is finding the right people who will pay. This is abundance mindset. I recommend that you operate your business from here. You guys, you have to trust that there are enough people ready to buy from you. Remember I said there's millions of people in the world. You only need a few of the right people, the ones who are truly ready for the transformation you provided, who will invest the right price. Did you hear me? I did not say the ones who have the money to pay you. I said the ones who are ready. For the transformation that you provide.'cause I truly believe people find the money for what they want. If somebody is ready for you, they're gonna invest. They might have to go figure out how to pay for it, but they'll find what it is that they need. I want it to be from you. So your job isn't to convince everyone. Your job is to find the right people who are already looking for what you offer and who have the means to invest. The third shift I want you to make is that receiving. Is part of serving, receiving you guys as women, we are not good about receiving. Think about it. People offer you a compliment and what do you say? Like, oh, this old thing. Or somebody wants to help you at home and you say, oh, no, no, no. Sit down, I'll do the dishes after dinner. You guys, we struggle to receive, and that goes with money too. You need to work on this because if you cannot receive, you will not be able to run a sustainable business. Money is. Money coming into your business is not you taking it from someone. It is an exchange. You give value and they exchange money for it. They're investing in themselves. They're investing in their future. They're investing in transformation. They are investing in what it is they need, what you sold them, You're providing a vehicle for their transformation. Everyone benefits. When you get uncomfortable receiving money, you're actually blocking the client from fully committing. You're depriving them from having skin in the game, which is what helps people take action. I can tell you for sure when I have spent the most amount of money on my coaching. The coaching that I have done where I've hired people, I can tell you I didn't miss any calls. I got the work done. I came prepared with questions. I was the star student because I spent so much money, there was no way that I was going to let myself fail. So let yourself be a receiver, not only of money, you guys, but of the compliments of the love of the help that you need. So how to stair-step your prices or your rates. Let's talk about that. This is a practical. Approach because I know some of you guys are thinking, okay, Debbie, but I can't just double my prices overnight. I know you can't, but start where you can believe. This is the key thing that I teach inside of our coaching. You have to start with a price that feels good to you, but maybe stretches you just a little but not a price where you're thinking there is no way, and you know what? That somebody is gonna pay me that. Okay? If you cannot say your price without sounding, I don't know, wishy-washy, without your voice being kinda wobbly, it is too high for now. If you cringe or you feel this sense of tightness in your body, the price is not right. So you've gotta let your belief catch up with the price. So I recommend that you find a number. That is one that you can say like, that is the best dang thing ever. You're crazy for not paying this price to work with me. That's honestly how I feel about our coaching. The coaching that I sell, I'm like, y'all are crazy for not working with me. For what we provide. I want you to have a price like that. Yes, sometimes it feels uncomfortable when you start your coaching business and you make those offers, but get a price where you can still feel confident. You can use a starter package. Even if you wanna start lower when you're first building your business, you can do something that I've talked about often, like the three sessions for $300, or three sessions for a hundred dollars. Whatever works for you. It's a low risk way for you to get people to start coaching with you and for you to practice your pricing, for you to learn how to be comfortable receiving money. This won't be your long-term price. It's a getting started price. You use this to get the experience of taking money in, in exchange for the work that you do, and then you raise your rates with each client. I can tell you that every time you get to a point where you're like, okay, what I am offering is so good. You will naturally want to raise your price. You'll just say to yourself like, I'm not charging that again. What I'm giving these people the results they're getting, it's too major like it's massive results. I'm gonna raise my prices. Then you will be able to get your prices raised gradually and you'll feel comfortable and confident. If you're worried about integrity, here's what I did. The clients who originally signed up at a lower rate, when they renewed, they got to keep the lower rate. It's only the newer clients that joined with the higher rate. You have to price with integrity for me, integrity is key. So practice saying your price. I know this part's gonna sound silly, but I know it works from my own experience. The program that you have, just say it out loud. I used to walk around my neighborhood and say over and over how much it cost to work with me. At the time, my coaching was $3,000. This coaching program that I provided started in 2017. That was the offer that I had and I, I could not say it. I wasted so many opportunities because I could not confidently say that price. I actually had 800 consultation calls and only sold 80 people coaching because the price was not something I was comfortable with. This is why I worked on my money mindset guys. So go around. And say the price out loud. My program is $2,000. Say that 10 times my program is $1,000. Say it until it rolls off your tongue as if you are telling somebody with such confidence. The more comfortable that you get saying the price really casually, the more comfortable potential clients will be when they hear it. Stop discounting. I'm gonna tell you, this is the worst mistake that I made, and when I hear somebody do this on a call, I'm like, what in the world?. It sounds so bad when you are on the receiving end of somebody who just offers you a discount. I'm telling you, I would be on a call with somebody and they would say something like well, you know, I gotta get my car in the shop. Instead of just letting them talk about that, I would say, oh, well, you know, I'd love to work with you. I can take a thousand dollars off you guys. Nobody wants to buy from somebody who discounts their coaching. I would also, in the middle of their conversation, before I ever offered the price, I'd already discounted in my mind before I said it. So I would be in their wallet, that's what they call it. I'd be in their wallet thinking, how much money do they have to spend? I'd be trying to calculate it. What kind of job do they have? And let's see, they have kids at home and they said they're going on vacation. How much money should I charge 'em? Terrible idea. You've gotta teach people to respect you, and that comes with you respecting yourself. Do not devalue what you have to offer by giving a discount. You could do something like this as a founding member or a beta member of my program, this brand new program, You could make a strategic decision to have somebody work with you for an amazing price, or you could offer a scholarship. I've done that too. I've said, look, I have scholarships available, and I use those in rare circumstances, if you have a genuine hardship, I'd love to be able to offer this to, but as a general rule, we do not discount. we give the price, and the price is the price. If somebody can't afford it, that's okay. They're not meant to be your client right now. Somebody else is, and I have to tell you, so many people come back after they could not afford it. They find a way to work with me. Do the math on this because this will set you free. One more thing that will help with your money mindset is figuring out about the prices. Figure out how much money you need to make, Calculate how many clients you need based on the different price points you have in mind. I can tell you when we sell our VIP program, it is so much better for me to sell it. Our higher priced program, not only do I believe in the value and the support we give, but it's a higher priced program. This would be the same for you. When your price is based on math What your business actually needs to be sustainable. It takes the emotion out of it. I know that I can work with fewer clients at a much higher level, which is the way I like to support people. I like to give that handholding support. I can do that in the VIP because they pay more money as VIP clients. Make sure that you are charging what you are worth and what the business requires. When you know that and you've done the math, it's really gonna help you. Here's the bottom line, Your money mindset is either supporting your business or sabotaging it. I wanna know in the comments what you guys are thinking about this. Can you feel that this might be the very thing that is holding you back? Tell me in the comments what is coming up for you if you believe that money is bad, if you feel guilty about charging. If you have discomfort before anyone asks, no amount of marketing that I teach you is gonna fix that. Do the money mindset work. Question the beliefs that you grew up with. List those beliefs down that I said like, are rich people greedy? Is it greedy to want more than what you already have? If you have a good life, no. Do you know what I can do if I make more money? I can do so many things in the world. That I could not do before with more money. Practice that abundance thinking. Get comfortable with receiving. If you didn't hear anything else today, please get comfortable with receiving change. What? Change your mindset around your work. You are worthy, period. Stair step your way up with your prices, right? Stop apologizing for wanting to get paid for the transformation that you provide. That in my mind, is priceless. You're gonna change lives and you deserve to be well compensated for that. So charge accordingly. Do not forget I mentioned about the House of Manifestation that I am a part of. I think Kathleen Cameron is brilliant.. Please connect with her and watch her on YouTube, but join the House of Manifestation. It is such an affordable way to have multiple times every single week for real live classes. I actually teach some of those classes all about your coaching business. I teach strategies there that I don't teach anywhere else. Plus, she's got all kinds of courses in there that you can watch about how to change your mindset. Do not forget. If you use my link, which you can find in the comments here, if you use that link, I'm gonna also give to you our social media program to help you get really good on social media so you can get the coaching clients that you really desire. So I wanna hear from you again. What's the biggest money mindset block that you are working through? How much is the fear keeping you from building your business? Please share those things with me. Make sure you subscribe. I hope this episode was useful for you every week. It is my goal to give you practical, honest advice for building your coaching business. And yes, today's episode was no different. This is a strategy that you have to combine with the other strategies. So hit the bell, subscribe so you don't miss what's coming up next week. Making money and helping people, they go together. When you are paid well, you will serve well. When your business is profitable, you'll keep doing what you are meant to do for years to come. Fix your money mindset, change what you think you're worth, and watch everything change. I'll see you guys in the next video. Have a beautiful week. Bye-bye.
