Afraid to raise your prices?

The short version This week, say the new rate once, out loud, to one client, with no sorry in front of it.

If a client says "that's a lot" and you freeze, you can say "I know. That's the rate," and then stop talking.

You open the draft, change a softening word, and close it. You have been changing the softening word for weeks. The rate itself has not moved. The adjectives around it have had a whole career.

You rehearse the phone call in the car. You add "I hope this is okay" before you have said the number, and then you hate that you added it, and then you add it again in the real call because the silence on the other end is loud.

You lose sleep over a client who has not complained, who might not even blink, and who in your head is already gone, telling other clients you got greedy. The word greedy does a lot of work at 1:00. It is not a number. It is a character charge.

You discount in the room, live, after you said the rate, because the discount buys the smile back. The smile returns. The rate does not. You drive home feeling kind and robbed, and you cannot explain the robbery to anyone because you handed them the discount yourself.

You look at what other people charge and feel either foolish or fraudulent, depending on the hour. The comparison does not settle the letter.

A loyal client is the one you are protecting. The new ones can hear the rate. The old one knew you when you were cheaper and unsure, and raising the rate feels like charging them for a friendship. Friendship is not the invoice. The old reflex prefers the blur, because the blur keeps the draft unsent and the peace intact.

A true sentence sits in drafts because sending it would let someone be disappointed in you, and disappointment felt like a bill you could not pay. The disappointment, if it comes, is information. The draft is a hiding place. What to charge is yours and your books'. This page is about the second after you say it.

Why does she send it, and why did it wait?

Paige is the bookkeeper at the dining table. The way of coping her old reflex reaches for is Provider, and the tell is the nod. In the two-letters night she circles a sentence that is a fact about a rate she had not moved. She does not turn the fact into a feeling for the room. The room does not force her. Facts count.

Later she says her new rate to a kind client of eleven years, on the phone. Not in a manifesto. In the conversation, out loud, where a nod cannot replace it. If you cannot say the rate to a person, the letter will stay in drafts, because the draft does not have to hear a breath on the other end. The phone does.

In the last week of the book she sends the rate letter. A client leaves. She does not offer that client the old rate. Someone leaves. The rate stands. She does not run after the old price with an apology and a discount. The chase would have taught her that the letter was a bluff.

The book has her read her own numbers every week, in notebook voice. The figures stay hers. The posture is the part you can borrow. A notebook can hold a figure. A gavel turns the figure into a character charge, greedy or foolish or small. If you are reading your own books as a prosecution, you will not send the letter, because the letter would be exhibit A. Put the gavel down. The figure can sit in the notebook without a closing argument.

Why are you afraid to raise your prices?

The draft is protecting you from the second after the send, when you do not know their face. So the old rate stays, and the face stays friendly. The cost is the night you spend rewriting a paragraph that says sorry in six different outfits.

Firm and warm can share a sentence. You can like them and name the rate. You can thank them for the years and not offer the old number as a consolation prize. If they leave, they leave. The fear's ending is a client, not a collapse.

If saying the rate makes you shaky, the shakiness is the old reflex, and it is allowed to be there while you speak. You do not have to wait until you feel solid. Solid is what the reflex withholds so the draft can live forever. Say it shaky. Send it shaky. Do not add the sentence that takes it back.

What is not yours to carry on the call?

Circle 3 is what you cannot control: whether they stay, what they say about you afterward, the market, their budget. You can write a clear letter and still lose someone. Losing someone is not proof the letter was wrong. It is proof they had a choice.

Circle 2 is where you have influence: the way you tell them, the time you give them, the one conversation you offer. A conversation is not a haggle you have already decided to lose. If you go in having pre-discounted, you did not have a conversation. You had a performance of one.

Circle 1 is the rate said out loud and the letter sent. Worth lives in Circle 1. Nowhere else. The worth is in that sequence. Not in being the cheapest person they know.

What do you do on the call, before the blast?

Do not start with the whole list. Paige says the rate to one client, on the phone, where a nod can be heard and therefore cannot hide. One person. The easy client is not the practice. The practice is the face you are afraid of.

Before you dial, read the rate once, out loud, in the empty room. If you add "if that's okay" in the empty room, you will add it on the phone. Take it off in the empty room. Thank them for the years if that sentence is true, and then say the rate, and then say the date it starts, and then stop talking. A silence on the line is often a person thinking, not a no. Let it sit. Don't fill it with a discount. If they ask a real question, answer the question. "I can send this in a letter so you have it" is a fine next step. "I can do the old one for you, of course" is the draft, winning.

After the call, write down what you almost added. Not to punish yourself. To see the hiding place. One is the softeners. The other is the long justification, the market research you do not have, the attachment. Both are trying not to be seen wanting a fair rate. The letter can be two sentences. The rate. The date. A thank-you that is not a sorry. If the work is complicated, the more is scope, not apology. Scope says what the rate covers. Apology says you hope they still like you. Scope can stay. Apology comes out.

Then the other clients, in the same words. One call taught you that you survive the face. Send, do the day's work, and let the replies be tomorrow's notebook, not tonight's trial.

What do you do with the draft this week?

• Read it and delete every apology that is doing the work of a discount. Sorry for the timing, sorry for the change, sorry for existing as a business. Keep a plain thank-you if the thank-you is true. Thank-you is not sorry. The number is yours. The only edit here is the sentence that takes it back.
• Say it once, to a person, this week. The phone, or the next conversation you were already going to have. One client, not a blast. Paige says it on a call before she sends the letter to the list. The call is the rep. The letter is the record. It may cost you a client. That is not the same thing as the draft's catastrophe, and the old reflex pretends they are the same.
• If someone leaves, notice the pull to run after them. Paige feels it and does not chase. Write their name down. Sit with it for a day. The chase is the pattern trying to restore the peace. Peace bought with a discount is the draft, winning after you thought you had sent it.

The after-hours yes that sets the rate at zero is on Clients texting after hours. The reason under the work, if the rate fear is a lost why, is on Small business owner burnout.

The book is the fourteen Mondays between the rate she circled on the two-letters night and the last Monday she sends it, and the client she does not chase.

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