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Booked out, exhausted, and still wondering why the money you’re making doesn’t match the effort you’re putting in? You’re business is not broken, you don’t need to go back and get a 9 to 5, your pricing is just lagging behind reality… and this episode shows you how to spot the signals before burnout forces your hand. Drawing on real client stories, behavioural economics, and neuroscience, Deirdre Martin, quadruple-certified, award-winning neurostrategist and international bestselling author, breaks down exactly when it’s time to raise your prices and why waiting “until January” is often the most expensive mistake you can make. You’ll walk away knowing the clear, practical signs that your value has outgrown your rates, how pricing acts as a filter for better clients, and how to increase prices without guilt, guesswork, or blowing up your cash flow.

For the full list of timestamps, key takeaways, and all resources mentioned, visit the full episode page here: https://deirdremartin.ie/blog/when-raise-prices-service-business

Want to talk to Deirdre about scaling your business? ⁠⁠Click here.⁠⁠

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If your diary is jam packed and you're literally booked out weeks in advance,

and if your brain feels like it's buffering by mid-afternoon and you're

wondering how the hell you're this busy.

Without feeling like you're being properly rewarded for it.

We need to talk about your pricing, not in a just charge more money way

or not in a pluck number from the sky kind of way, either not one of

the founders I work with is afraid of work, but they're all fricking

terrified of becoming that person.

The greedy one, the out of touch one.

The one who forgets where they came from and what they're actually

supposed to be doing for their clients and their businesses.

And I get it.

I really do.

But staying underpriced doesn't make you virtuous.

It makes you exhausted and eventually resentful or worse burned out, and

that doesn't serve your clients or your business or you or your loved ones

or the goals you're working towards.

Before we go any deeper, if this is your first time tuning in here.

Hey there.

I'm Deirdre Martin.

Quadruple certified award-winning neuro strategist and

international bestselling author.

I help coaches, consultants, and service providers hit their first six or seven

figure months or years through coaching and mentoring with neuroscience.

Welcome.

So let's get back to why you're here.

Pricing.

And I wanna ground this into a real life scenario for you.

I was running a Millionize strategy day a couple of months ago with one of

my amazing clients, Sean, and we were doing proper deep work on the day.

We were looking at revenue prioritization, business structure where the real

growth opportunities lay for him and his business so that he could scale it.

You know, two x three x times over.

And of course one of the things that we landed on was pricing.

And when it came up, he said, I'm planning to raise my prices in January.

And I was like, why are you waiting till January?

And the reason I said it like that was because he'd just told me he'd

recently added new certifications.

Like, this guy has so many qualifications and certifications,

he's like highly skilled.

Highly experienced and he's adding more, which gave him an extra

differentiating factor from his competitors as well, like massively.

And that in turn was already improving how his clients moved

through the work with him.

But his prices were still anchored to an older version of himself, the one that

started the business a few years ago.

So I challenged him on that pricing for two reasons.

First, increased capability and improved service, deliverability.

Are great reasons to increase pricing.

And second, why the fuck wait until January?

So here's what we decided on the day.

He was gonna move new clients to the new price immediately, and we also adjusted

pricing models for his different offers.

Now if you're like, what are the different pricing models,

Deirdre, let's put a pin in it.

I'm gonna circle back to that in a few minutes.

But for now, the second thing we did was for his existing clients, the plan then

became that they were to be informed.

The price increases in advance.

And the prices would be adjusted in January.

And here's what happened.

The very first new client he signed paid enough to cover the full cost

of Millionize and then some, and not because he got lucky, because the

price and the pricing model finally reflected his worth and value, plus

the value the client got in return.

Now when he increased the prices in January, he did lose one or two of his

old clients when those prices went up.

But he admitted that was kind of like a blessing in disguise because he hadn't

increased prices for quite some time for several years, in fact, and the people

who complained and left were the type of people who were time and energy vampires.

But with the increased pricing already applying to new clients, he'd bridge

that cash flow gap to make sure if he lost clients, he wouldn't be in

bother from a cash flow perspective.

So when you decide to change your pricing, it's really important

that you manage your cash flow.

So if existing clients are a bit peeved by the price going up, you have got your.

Buffer there to help make sure that you're not in cashflow.

Bother.

So today you can probably guess I'm walking you through how to know when

to raise your prices strategically without guilt or guesswork or blowing

up your business in the process.

All very important.

My absolute favorite reason, increased prices.

Is when you're consistently operating at around 80 plus percent capacity

or more because the market is already giving you the feedback.

It's telling you you're in demand, but you know yourself, like

at 80% your supply is limited.

Like there's not much more of what you can do.

And often at that point in time it becomes for people where you're

literally trading time for money.

And that combination supply and demand always points in one direction.

It's simple economics when supply is short and demand is high,

that results in price increases.

Yeah.

You got it.

And yet, this is where I see so many founders hesitate.

They tell themselves they're being responsible, that they wanna stay

accessible to their ideal clients.

'cause their clients can't afford a huge price hike.

That charging more somehow impacts their identity and or their purpose.

Now I get all that.

I've been through all of those things and feelings and emotions and stuff.

So I can tell you hand on heart, it doesn't.

It changes who shows up in a good way.

Because price isn't just a number, it's a filter.

It not so subtly removes the people who are tire kickers, who want unlimited

access to you, who want endless reassurance, and you end up doing the

fricking emotional heavy lifting for them.

And it attracts the people who are ready to engage in the work

that you're guiding them through.

Fricking grown ass adults who are decisive, prepared and invested in

every way, physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, you name it.

And when you think about it, this is the Parato principle playing out in real time.

And what I mean by that is the Pareto principle is the 80 20 principle, right?

It's where 80% of your friction almost always comes from the lowest

paying segment of your client base.

That's nuts.

And it's not because they're bad people or bad clients or anything, but because the

relationship is very possibly mispriced.

And here's a quick little exercise that's more like a gut

check that you can do right now.

Look at the last three months of your business.

Were you booked out?

Were you pushing things then into the evenings maybe, or starting

early in the mornings or were you mentally negotiating with yourself

about to take on just one more client?

Just one more.

If your answer is yes, your price could well be lagging behind what

really you should be charging.

So fix that first and then move on, because the other reason increasing

the price at that stage is good is because it creates some margin for

you to potentially buy back your time by hiring support for your business.

So there's loads of pros for upping your price.

Okay, so I've mentioned for Sean, new qualifications, incredible expertise,

not rising prices for several years, but I've also mentioned being almost

fully or totally oversubscribed.

Great reasons to increase your pricing.

So now let's look at a few others.

Speed and why cheaper is a wrong direction.

So speed first, let's start there because this one can get a little

bit uncomfortable and can be a bit confusing for people as well, because

often as buyers when we're consuming something, we might think if I get

results faster, shouldn't it cost less?

Hmm.

That logic sounds reasonable until you follow it through.

And think of it like this.

A surgeon who finishes the operation quickly isn't cheaper.

Or a pilot who lands the plane smoothly, doesn't result in the airline discounting

your ticket price or giving you a refund.

What the fuck?

Like, no.

What most people miss is this experience actually compresses time.

And that's where the value is, so getting the result faster, fricking

amazing if you have the experience.

You are increasing value if you can get the result faster, that's like a triple

threat and is it's fricking amazing.

And I wanna share this example.

I think it's really relevant here as well because it's to do with behavior.

And like I said, as buyers, this is how we tend to think.

But I want you to understand a little bit more around the neuroscience

behind this for your buyers.

And why, again, when you're increasing your pricing, that this might be

just a way for you to look at it.

So, there's this guy called Dan Ariely.

He's a behavioral economist and he explains it really simply.

And how he describes it is that people don't pay for effort.

What they actually pay for are outcomes.

And the neuroscience backs this up in a way that's really.

Almost annoying.

And there's a study that proves this, and you may have heard about this study.

It was Caltech and Stanford came together and they did this research like years ago.

I remember hearing about the study years ago, and all of these participants

were given some wine to drink and as it was being served to them, I

think it might have been in bottles with different labels on them.

And one bottle, they were told, oh, was $90.

Instead of the $5 that it actually was.

And then what happened was the pleasure centers in those people who were drinking

the wine when they were told it was $90.

The pleasure centers in their brains lit up, and more so than those who were told

that this is actually a $5 bottle of wine.

Right?

So nothing changed, like nothing.

It was the exact same fricking wine.

Nothing changed except the expectation of the outcome.

Their brain didn't just perceive the experience and the flavors that they

were experiencing in their mouths from the wine, their brains, and

their whole experience constructed what the perceived outcome and

value was based on the price alone.

That's a bit nuts, right?

But also that's why underpricing kind of slowly subtly.

Under the radar sabotages your results and your overall success.

Because people don't perceive the outcome to be as good, so they don't work as hard.

They don't do the things.

And I know a lot of you listening your coaches, consultants,

and service providers, you may have a variety of offers.

Several of you probably even have low ticket offers, but get this

related to that same point, which is that low ticket offers tend to have.

Completion rates in the single digits, meaning that people

don't consume the thing fully.

They start and then they stop because they don't perceive the value of

it because they didn't pay as much.

Whereas high ticket offers or containers, retainers, whatever you offer, they

regularly see engagement north of 60%.

That is a nuts statistic to me.

I dunno if you think that's a bit crazy.

I absolutely think that's so nuts.

And the reason, like it could be the exact same fricking content.

The content is not magically better in the high ticket container.

It's because the client's commitment is, and what's nuts is.

When somebody is ready, like really ready to commit.

And like I, I've seen statistics on this from a coaching perspective too.

When somebody's really ready to commit to that outcome and that change,

they're nearly 40% more likely to actually achieve success just because

their commitment is at that level.

When they're ready, like really ready.

So.

They pay more, their commitment is higher.

They tend to put in more effort because they've paid more and

they're literally all in, and they're way more likely to get results.

So, Hmm.

It, like, it all lines up, right?

So pay more.

You commit more, you put more effort in, and guess what?

You get better results.

It's kind of like a no brainer now, you know?

And, earlier I mentioned about different pricing strategies and models, and

there are multiple different ways that you can charge people as well.

So if you're thinking like, oh, what could I do differently

around my pricing or my charging?

How could that work?

Well, I have previously recorded an episode on that, so if you wanna

proper breakdown of how to move away from time-based thinking and pricing.

Go and listen to the pricing strategy that helps you close more deals faster.

I'll link it beneath this video and episode as well.

And really what that episode does is it shares different pricing strategies,

but it gives you a little bit more of the science behind it as well.

So it lays the foundation for that shift in pricing models as well.

But for right now, do this, stop asking what feels comfortable to charge.

And start asking instead, what this result replaces for your client.

What does it eliminate?

What does it protect them from or help them avoid?

Or what does it unlock for them?

That's where the sweet spot for your pricing is hanging out.

Okay, so not only in my mastermind and programs do I share and

hear about these next few points related to pricing, but also in the

masterminds that I am paying to be in.

This comes up as well, and I mean for five years I have been talking

about this and it's still comes up.

So regularly, and this is niching.

Niching.

Have you heard of niching or niching as you might say in the

us A lot of you listening are in the states because yes, my friend,

the riches are 100% in the niches.

The riches are in the niches.

If you are a regular on the show, you've definitely heard me say this before

because and here's how it relates.

To pricing specifically generalists get paid for their time and their effort.

Just think of like a go a general operative on a building site, or think

of your local GP versus a brain surgeon.

I know which one drives around in the fancy cars as the fancy home.

That fancy holidays and all the things.

And so there are specialists, the surgeons, the brain surgeons, the

cosmetic surgeons, the whatever types of surgeons, they're specialists.

They get paid for outcomes.

Whereas the GP that you go to is like paid for relief usually.

Right.

So it's kind of general relief from anything, whereas the

surgeon is really specific.

The moment you narrow your focus, your positioning as such, the market

actually recalibrates how it values you.

So right now, as I record this, it's January, 2026.

I think this is really so important for 2026.

If you want to cut through all the BS that you see online,

attract your ideal clients.

It's gonna be more important than ever, and this is Cialdini's

principle of authority at work.

The more specific the expertise, the higher the expected fee.

Let me say that again.

The more specific the expertise, the higher the expected fee.

And whether that's a sales conversation or a sales page copy,

or on a website or a proposal or even your social media content,

you need to prove your credibility.

And your expertise, and you can do this by layering on real proof that

you're shit hot at what you do.

And no, it's not about blowing your own trumpet.

You can do this in a way where you weave it into a story, or if you share a strong

case study or if you show documented results from a client, or you have proof

from clients who've already crossed the milestones that your next buyer wants.

Now another thing that grounds all of this in reality for us here is this,

the cost of living and inflation.

Now maybe the tools you're using to deliver your services have increased

prices, and it's likely that you're paying for a VA or you have a couple

of people on your team and you're not doing everything yourself, and

perhaps they've upped their prices.

But if you haven't adjusted your prices for a while, know that inflation

hasn't skipped over your business and moved on to your competitors,

my friend, it is impacting you too.

So let's say if you haven't adjusted your prices in the last couple of

years, two years, maybe specifically, you've effectively taken a pay cut here

in Ireland of a minimum of 3.5 to 7%.

Now in the us.

That is higher.

It's like six to 10% at a minimum.

So one more thing is if you're a service provider and you create

deliverables for your clients, I want you to watch out for scope creep.

Because scope creep is where you extra for your clients.

Without getting paid for it.

It's like just one more little thing.

Just one more little thing, and we've got five minutes here.

All those little things are scope creep and it's not a personality

flaw, it's a pricing issue.

But I also wanna say that it is a boundary issue and that having a clearly mapped

out customer journey and contract.

At the outset can help you avoid that, but also when you're adjusting

your pricing, your pricing is a good time if you have longstanding

clients to recontract with them.

But that's probably a whole other episode, so I won't go too

much down a rabbit hole there.

So let me just add here.

That when legacy clients are still paying legacy prices for an expanded version of

you, resentment will absolutely creep in.

Maybe not the day or tomorrow, but eventually it will.

You'll get so pissed off and if you're pissed off, showing up for work to

do, the work that you're supposed to love to do in your business that

you set up to do work that you love.

Well, then you're gonna end up being burned out, and that's not good.

So I want you to think about upping your prices as repricing

for your ideal clients.

You're repricing.

And that doesn't mean that you're being greedy or disloyal to them.

It means you're being fiscally responsible in your business.

So price, the business you're running now, not the one you built years ago.

So let's simplify this and recap quickly.

If demand is high, your prices need to respond to that.

If your expertise compresses time for clients, your value goes up.

If your positioning, proof and costs have evolved, your pricing has to catch up.

And here's the one thing to do today.

Open your pricing and ask yourself honestly without any judgment or drama.

Does this price today reflect the transformation I actually deliver now?

And if you want a complete list of all the different things that warrant a price rise

and whether or not you should increase your prices, you can download the premium

pricing matrix at www Deirdre Martin, IE. Forward slash premium pricing matrix.

It will help you anchor your pricing and value instead of guesswork.

So there you have it, folks.

If this episode resonated with you, please do me a favor and send it on to your

business bestie who's possibly overworking and not charging enough, and then grab the

premium pricing matrix at www dot Deirdre Martin, ie slash premium pricing matrix.

Rate the show.

Leave a review, and until next time, keep mastering your business.