Ep #127: Premium Pricing in a Trust Recession

Something has definitely shifted in the coaching and the consulting space, and it's not money. Hi, I'm Kendall. And in this episode of The Money Coach School Podcast, we're talking about what a trust recession really is and more importantly, how it's influencing the way clients are hiring coaches and consultants today.

If you've noticed clients taking longer to decide, asking more questions or looking more closely before committing, then this episode is for you. I'm going to break down for you exactly what not to do when trust tightens and what to strengthen instead and how to approach your pricing in a market that is thinking more carefully. Because this isn't about riding out a slow season. It's about rising into stronger leadership in a more discerning world. It's all here for you inside this episode of The Money Coach School Podcast. Let's dive in.

Welcome to The Money Coach School Podcast. To really excel at coaching women, you have to be skilled, confident, and even fearless at money coaching. If you're passionate about women holding genuine money power and love supporting women entrepreneurs, then this is the show for you. Now, here's your host, money feminist Kendall SummerHawk.

Hello, beautiful coach, and welcome back to the Money Coach School podcast. It is no secret that we've been in a trust recession for some time now. And a trust recession isn't about people lacking money. It's not about that at all. It's actually about people being more cautious with where they place their money, what they spend it on. Clients take longer, they ask more questions, and they look for specificity before they commit. It's where people are looking under the hood more. They're asking those questions. They want clarity, they want transparency, and they want to understand exactly what they're stepping into.

So it's not that money has disappeared. That's not what's happening. It's that trust is taking more time to earn, which means for you, confidence, consistency, and specificity matter more now than ever. And I think that this is not just a season. I really don't. I've been in business 24 years and counting. I've been through the ups and downs of 9/11 and the great recession of 2008 and the pandemic. And based on my experience and my intuition, I think that this is actually the new world order of how things are.

So what is so significant about that is that it doesn't mean you ride it out. No, it means you grow. Specifically that you grow into being the business owner who is stronger, more clear, more tightly aligned with the value that you offer now more than you've ever needed to be before. So how does this apply to pricing? A lot of women start downshifting how they price. They get into scrambling or they start adjusting things that were actually never the real issue.

So today I want to walk you through how to price and how to think about your pricing in a trust recession. What not to do. And I'm going to give you a list of what to strengthen instead. So of course we're going to end on a positive note. And I want to share with you how to stay in leadership when the market feels more cautious. Because even in a trust recession, the era of women undercharging, it is officially over.

Now, before we dive in, I would love it if you would go ahead and click follow so that you never miss an episode. I am your money coach and every episode here is designed to strengthen your leadership, your cash flow, and definitely your authority with money. So click that follow button.

All right, so, I divided this episode into two parts. So the first part is what not to do. So number one, don't drop your prices reactively. If someone takes longer to decide and your first instinct is, maybe I should lower the price, that's just fear talking. Slower decisions are not proof that your price is wrong. Please write that down. Very often it's proof that your prospective client is thinking. And thoughtful clients often make the best clients. When you reduce your rate in response to hesitation, you create two problems. First, you train your market to wait. If they sense you'll adjust when things get slow, they'll hold out. And second, you destabilize your own internal authority because now within you, your number feels conditional.

Now you know I am a huge believer in premium pricing. I've been teaching premium pricing since about 2006. So literally for 20 years, I've been teaching premium pricing and the premium pricing model. And I really believe premium pricing is a signal to your market of emotional steadiness and a deeply seated belief in the value that your work creates for clients. It says, this is the level I operate at. So think about it this way. If people were making decisions faster, would you wobble on your pricing? Probably not. Which means you don't want to wobble now.

This is the moment to dig deep into your beliefs about your pricing. And if you want help with that, I want to encourage you to definitely check out The Pricing Room, which is my monthly membership for women who are done undercharging and ready to start pricing in full alignment with the income that you desire. And the link for that is below in the show notes. You can also go to www.KendallSummerHawk.com/pricingroom.

All right. Number two, don't chase trust with more energy. When the market feels cautious, a lot of women respond by increasing output. More posts, more urgency, more explaining why this matters, more justifying. But frantic energy does not create trust. It actually creates a weird dynamic of desperation. And desperation in a cautious market feels unsafe, and it feels unsafe to both you and to your prospective client. When trust is thin, buyers are reading tone more than ever. You do not need to convince someone harder. This is not the time to be overwhelming people with marketing that feels reaching or seeking or grasping, right? It's a time to communicate from a place of deeply held belief and conviction. Trust grows when you convey a tone of belief and leadership.

Which leads me to number three. Don't over-explain your price. When someone hesitates after hearing your number, there's definitely a moment there. There's a pause, and that pause can mean a lot of different things. But the pause is where you may be so tempted to rush in and fill it. And what that looks like usually is explaining the deliverables, listing the bonuses, detailing the structure. But underneath all that explanation is this: you're trying to reduce discomfort in that moment. And I want you to think about it. When you rush to justify your rate, you subtly imply that it needs justification. Yeah, don't do that. Explanation, all that over-explanation can communicate doubt, and doubt then is attributed to you and your offer, and then the client leads into more hesitation.

So the most powerful pricing voice in a trust recession sounds settled, not scrambling. No ad-on commentary, no defense, just presence. Let the other person process without trying to rescue them or rescue yourself. You don't need a speech attached to your price. You probably want to write that down. You don't need a speech, you need conviction.

All right, number four. Don't slip into people-pleasing pricing. In a trust recession, the instinct isn't always just to discount. It's often to soothe, and you start trying to want to make the buyer feel better. And it often sounds like saying things like, well, if this feels like too much, we can scale it back. We can always adjust things later. I totally understand if this isn't the right time. I don't want this to feel like pressure. What would feel good for you? That tone and language. The whole tone and energy and cadence of the conversation in that moment, it shifts from, I've designed something strong that I believe in to, well, let's see what makes you comfortable.

So I want you to write this down. Comfort, yeah, not the same as trust. Comfort is not the same as trust. People-pleasing pricing often looks like adding extra access after they hesitate, throwing in a bonus that you hadn't planned, offering a payment extension that you actually don't feel very good about, or reducing scope just to help. But underneath it is anxiety and buyers feel that.

Which leads me now to part two, what to do instead. See, I told you we'd end on a positive. So let me give you these pieces. It's like I said earlier, I don't believe this trust recession is something just to get through. I really don't. I think this is the way life looks like going forward. And I think that's a great thing because I look at it as a catalyst for improving things in your business and within yourself. For example, improving your conviction, strengthening your belief system, refining and up-leveling your ability to market from a place of authenticity and transparency and authority. And that's going to result in you becoming a more emotionally confident believer in your work and in you signing on coaching or consulting clients at higher rates, which is of course where you want to be.

So what to do? Number one. Make your process visible. I want you to show how you think. Explain how decisions are made inside your program. Describe the journey, the rhythm, the support structure, the boundaries. When someone understands how they will be guided, what happens if they struggle, and how progress is measured, their nervous system settles, it calms down. When you are transparent about your structure throughout your marketing, it creates a sense of safety. So let them see that depth that's behind the price.

Number two, zoom in on your specificity. So vague marketing requires a way too big of a stretch for your prospective client to believe in their potential results or believe in your ability to deliver those results. Specificity creates understanding and it creates reassurance. So instead of broad promises, I want you to speak to very specifically defined problems. Instead of generalized outcomes, you want to describe concrete shifts. So let me give you a real life example of this for The Pricing Room, my membership. So I could say, well, The Pricing Room helps women feel confident in their pricing, which is true. It's very nice, it's very pleasant, it's super generic. That's not going to enroll anybody. But instead I can say The Pricing Room is where women raise their pricing standards, where they align their rates with their transformation they deliver, and they stop undercharging permanently.

Now the buyer knows who it's for, what changes, how it changes. Even just the fact that my membership is the Pricing Room. I mean, good golly, how specific can you get, right? It's very, very specific, which is why we've had dozens and dozens of people enrolling in it just since we opened it up two weeks ago as of the time of this recording. So what happens is when you're very specific is it makes your work relatable and the prospective client does not have to burn any extra brain calories to understand how this applies to them.

All right, number three. I want you to price from depth, not volume. I love this. When trust is slippery, you may be tempted to respond by adding more. I get this. This is something I see most women do all of the time until they coach with me. Then we stop that. So it often looks like more calls, more bonuses, more access, more deliverables, more time, more availability. Oh my god, I'm exhausted just listing that for you. Now the logic here sounds reasonable. It's if I give them more, they'll feel safer. But in a trust recession, volume does not increase safety.

And here's what often happens when you start stacking more and more into an offer. Your offer becomes crowded. It becomes overwhelming. But most importantly, the transformation becomes really hard to see. It's like it gets buried in all of that stuff. So the buyer has to sort through layers to really understand what do I actually need to pay attention to here? And I know for me, when I buy coaching, consulting, courses, whatever, programs, that's exactly where my brain goes. I'm looking at it and saying, okay, what exactly do I need to pay attention? What exactly is this going to give me?

And instead of feeling supported then people often feel overwhelmed. Overloaded offers don't feel stronger. They feel compensatory. They feel like you're trying to prove something. And bro marketing 10 years ago used to be stacking bonuses. Maybe that's still true in the bro world. I don't know. That's not my world. I don't pay attention to it. But it is not true for women clients. Depth on the other hand, it feels intentional. When your offer is designed from depth, every element has a reason. And every thing inside your offer points towards a very specific outcome. Again, I point to The Pricing Room. Everything in there, and we've got great content, great coaching in there, everything is organized to be easy to consume, very easy to take action on, to feel inspiring and enlightening and to feel energetically light. And it all points to a clear outcome every single month.

So inside your offers, every call, every session, whatever it is, has purpose. Every deliverable serves the result. Nothing is there to pad the value. Nothing is there to justify the price. In a trust recession, buyers are scanning for how easy and applicable what you're offering is. And overfilled offer, it feels scattered compared to a focused offer which feels very, very strong. And here's the bigger truth I want to give you. When you add more to calm your own anxiety, what you're actually doing is diluting your positioning.

So here's the mindset shift for you. Premium pricing is not about how much you include. It's about how well you've designed what matters. To really take that in, how well you've designed what matters. And it doesn't have to be fancy. It's just very intentional. So instead of asking, well, what else can I add to make this easier to say yes to? You ask, what is essential here? What creates the result? What would make this tighter, clearer, more powerful? Those are the exact questions that I used when I created the structure inside of The Pricing Room.

Now in a trust recession, specificity is always going to outperform expansion, always. Thoughtful design will always outperform just a bunch of features. And mastery will always outperform adding more as from a place of misplaced sense of generosity that's really driven by your nervous system. You do not need to increase volume. You need to increase precision, and that is what feels safe for someone to invest in.

And number four, last one, you want to extend trust before you expect it. Trust compounds, it really does. It grows through consistency. I've said for decades, I've said I'm the most trustworthy person on the planet, and I've proven it over and over and over again. And not only have I proven it, but it's been proven back to me. It's compounded back to me because clients come back. They stay longer. When they do leave, they come back because they know they can trust me to deliver on my promise.

So trust compounds, and that means you show up the same way repeatedly. You communicate clearly. You answer questions directly. You hold boundaries without being defensive, you just hold boundaries. When your audience experiences steadiness over time, your pricing starts to feel predictable in the very best way. And predictability reduces perceived risk. I really want to give you this here. You cannot demand trust. Trust has to be earned. I have my horses and I work with my horses every day. And you're always up for a vote for leader every day with a horse. And you're also up for vote with trust because it takes a lot of time, a lot of consistency, and a lot of demonstrating that you are trustworthy to a horse, and that trust can be broken very, very quickly. So this is something I've really learned how to do. So you can't demand trust, but you can demonstrate it over and over.

All right, so to wrap up here, a few key points. In a trust recession, you do not drop your price reactively. However you say that. You get the idea. You do not chase trust with more energy. You do not over-explain your rate, and you do not soothe your way into a sale. It's really not possible in this day and age. Instead, you make your process visible. You zoom in on specificity. You design from depth instead of just overloading volume. And you extend trust consistently. In other words, you are trustworthy before expecting it back.

And I want to leave you with this. Women have been conditioned to over-accommodate, to anticipate discomfort and to soothe all that tension, to make things easier for everyone. And I get it. I'm like that too, especially around money and pricing. Hey, it's money. And in a trust recession, that conditioning gets louder. It's like amplified. So you feel that hesitation in your market and then your nervous system wants to kick in and fix it by lowering the barrier, by reassuring harder. But here's the shift. You are not here to over-accommodate your pricing. When you hold your rate with conviction, when you speak about your work with specificity, when your offer reflects depth instead of excess, you are modeling safety. Trust does not grow because you make yourself easier to buy. Trust grows because you make yourself reliable, and reliable women earn premium.

All right, so if you're ready for your pricing to represent the true value of your work and really for you to understand and appreciate and get to the heart of the true value of your work, I want you to come join me inside the Pricing Room. The Pricing Room is where women raise their pricing standards, they align their rates with the transformation they create, and they stop undercharging permanently. This is not about random price increases. It's about looking at your pricing strategically. It's about clearing the emotional blocks to charging more and shifting your mindset about your pricing so that it supports the income that you want to be making.

Now The Pricing Room at the time of this recording is only $38 a month. It may have gone up by the time you hear this. I can't promise that. But right now, founding members price is $38 a month or $380 for the year, which gives you two months free. There's no contract. You can cancel any time. So if you're done earning below your vision of what your income can really look like, The Pricing Room is your next step. So the link is in the show notes or you can head over to KendallSummerHawk.com/pricingroom. And I hope to see you on the inside.

All right, thank you so much for your time, your attention, your loyalty. I appreciate you so much. And I will see you here in next week's episode.

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