Alan Heymann is an executive and leadership coach with over two decades of experience in public, government and nonprofit communications. He has a particular gift for working with introverts and coaching clients through various transitions, be it from individual contributor to leader or from one career field to another.
Challenges
Before enrolling in Hope You Get Rich, Alan struggled to align the value he delivered with the prices he was charging. “Some of that is internal: you have to be comfortable asking for the fee, you have to be comfortable having the conversation with the potential clients. And the other part is external, in that you have a sense of what other coaches are charging in the market, your level of experience, where your clientele is.”
To make things even more confusing, he saw very little transparency about pricing within the coaching industry. “Full pricing transparency is completely uncommon in my line of work. It might be more common with photographers, writers, or editors, but coaches normally don’t ever do it.”
Lastly, he wanted to get away from thinking about and presenting his prices as an hourly rate. He knew that the value he delivered was more than just the time spent in the (Zoom) room with a client, and wanted his pricing to reflect that.
Solution
What finally brought clarity for Alan was discussing his pricing questions with other Hope You Get Rich students who were not coaches.
“I’m always interested in meeting with other practitioners and this one was different for me, and nice, because there were not a lot of coaches in there. We had people in different lines of work. So understanding the challenges they face in their businesses, how they set the prices, the value they place on their work, was very educational.”
While he enjoys talking shop with other coaches, Alan says, “I wouldn’t have had this conversation in my own head and with others about pricing transparency, had I not found [Chief Executive Auntie’s] work, and you’re not a coach, so I can bring some of that outside perspective to bear in the work that I’m doing.”
He also appreciated the tangible but concise process of working out internal and external rates in the workbook. Between the workbook, videos, and office hours, “It was a pretty minimal lift,” that fit into his schedule relatively easily.
Results
After finishing Hope You Get Rich, Alan says, “I’m not feeling apologetic about what it is that I’m commanding these days.”
He now presents his pricing differently. “I don’t tend to talk or think about what I charge as an hourly rate. It’s a package, because the value is delivered over the course of engagement: in the sessions, in between sessions, the connections that you have with your clients, and what they’re learning. Thinking of this in terms of a holistic price for an engagement, rather than a session by session by session approach, has been the right call for me. And my clients seem to be totally on board with that as well.”
He has also begun practicing pricing transparency and found success: “Potential clients appreciate it, and the people who will never become clients appreciate it. I can tell you that since I’ve put my pricing on my website in the last several months, I have had no awkward conversations about price. The issue is out of the way even before we have the initial conversation about whether it’s a good fit for us to be working together. I don’t know whether the awkwardness was on my part or the client’s part before, but now it’s addressed and off the table.”
If you feel confused and awkward thinking about your prices…
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