Entrepreneurs struggle to value themselves. The trending attitude in culture says that selling is stealing. To charge for what you sell is to take advantage of the buyer.

Here are 8 reasons that attitude is dead wrong.

1. Your own Value and Ethics

If you are doubting the value of your products or service, or if you’re having difficulty charging for them, that is enough evidence that you’re an ethical person. You’re not the type of person who will take advantage of your customers or your team.

That’s good, but you can still probably charge more for whatever it is that you sell, and still be fair while doing it.

2. No Exchange is One Dimensional

There is no such thing as a sale that benefits only the seller.

There are people in the seller’s life who benefit from the money. For example, my wife and daughter benefit from our mortgage being paid, and having food in our refrigerator. Meeting those needs requires that I sell something. Beyond family, there are the people that I am able to help when I have resources to spare.

There are people in the buyer’s life that benefit from the purchase. My wife and daughter benefit when I pay for food and shelter.

If you aren’t charging enough for what you sell, you’re assuming that only you benefit from the exchange.

3. Your Independence Depends on it

We have a wrong headed concept of independence. We think that it means not needing anyone. In reality it is the freedom to choose when to pay for someone else’s skills, or to do it yourself. I am a chronic do-it-yourselfer, and that tendency has been the complete opposite of freeing for me. My DIY habits have lead to more stress than most other things in my life.

No matter how much money you have, you only have 24 hours every day, 7 days every week, and 365 days every year. Fear of charging for your goods and services steals your independence because:

You have to spend more time at work to bring home the same amount of money.
You get cornered into Do-It-Yourself projects that you don’t have the time for.
You loose time DIY-ing because you’re slower than a professional.
You can’t hire new team members so that work takes less time.

If you aren’t charging enough for what you sell, you’re losing your independence.

4. Your Family Depends on it

Your family needs you to conquer the fear of charging. They don’t just need the benefits of food, shelter, and safety that money brings. They need you. They need your time. They need the investment of your energy into them. If you’re stuck at work or stuck DIYing something that you shouldn’t be, your family is losing.

If you aren’t charging enough for what you sell, you’re stealing from your family.

5. Your Customers Depend on it

Past profit is what helps you hire new team members today. Past profit is what helps you survive financial droughts. But you won’t make a profit if you don’t charge fairly. If you’re here to meet your customers’ needs today but out of business tomorrow, you let your customers down because you didn’t charge enough.

If you aren’t charging enough for what you sell, you’re failing your customers.

6. Your Confidence Depends on it

There’s a strange chicken and egg relationship between confidence and pricing. You’re confidence empowers you to charge more, and your fee builds your confidence. Charging too much makes you cocky, charging too little…

If you aren’t charging enough for what you sell, you’re destroying your own confidence.

7. Your Growth Depends on it

Profits made today allow you to expand your team tomorrow. As your team grows, so must your leadership skills. Kind of like in weight lifting, you have to lift heavy if you want to get stronger. You won’t be a leader if you have no one to lead.

If you want to grow personally as a leader, you need people to lead. If you want people to lead, you need to grow your business. If you want to grow your business, you need to charge more.

If you aren’t charging enough for what you sell, you’re hampering your own growth.

8. Your Dependability Depends on it

You may have noticed a theme in the way that I labeled the sections above. Your family, customers, independence, confidence, and growth depend on your pricing.

If you aren’t charging enough for what you sell, you’re not dependable.

Add Your Voice (comment below)

What is holding you back from charging more?
Which of these reasons to charge more is most impactful for you personally?

Like this article?

Click here to subscribe to my email list to get articles like this every Monday.

“Could it possibly be any more about you?”

I had to stop and give it some thought before I answered.

There are always critics and always people who will balk when you tell them you’re going to try something new. The trick is knowing which critics to listen to and which critics to ignore.

Critics you should listen to have your best interests in mind, and their interests are aligned with yours. You do well when they do well, and visa versa.

Critics you should ignore have no shared interests with you, and don’t have your best interests in mind.

Not long after I bought this domain (Daniel T Stephens dot com) and set up the email to go with it, my wife overheard me give my new email address to somebody. Her immediate response was to ask that question, “could it possibly be any more about you?”

That gave me pause. Skylar is a critic that I need to listen to, because what is good for one of us is usually good for both of us. Our interests are aligned, and she has my best interests at heart.

Was I being narcissistic? Was I being arrogant?

Pride goes before the fall, so we need to be careful not to be prideful when we start something new (Proverbs 16:18).

Setting up a blog or website under your own name is prideful, isn’t it? No, it isn’t. Not if you’re doing it for the right reasons. So here are my reasons for setting up this site under my own name instead of some other name or title.

Facing Poser Syndrome

Sometimes I feel like a poser, a fraud, a fake. Usually when that happens it is because I am helping someone in a process where I am only one or two steps ahead of them in my personal or professional life. Other times it happens when I am one or two steps behind the person I’m helping.

When I was in the Marine Corps, we practically worshiped guys like Dan Daily, Smedley Butler, Bradley Kasal. They were war heroes. They were the guys who had gone and done it. They were the ones we wanted to be like. The distance between them and us seemed massive. I was just some reservist poser, right?

No. The title of Bradley Kasal’s biography is “My Men are My Heroes.” I haven’t read it, but what that title says to me is that Sergeant Major Kasal is incredibly humble. When new Marine recruits and SGTMAJ Kasal look at the “heroic gap” between them, the recruits see an impassable chasm, but he sees a small valley.

If I am here publicly processing, or just being vulnerable, transparent, and authentic about what I am learning right now, then I don’t have to worry about poser syndrome. This way, I don’t feel like a fake, and you don’t get a fake.

To borrow SGTMAJ Kasal’s biography title, “my clients are my heroes.” Additionally, I am sure that SGTMAJ Kasal deeply appreciated the junior marines that carried him out of that house in Fallujah.

Building Relationships Instead of a Resume

Getting a job or securing customers in today’s economy is not about having a great resume. Resumes can be faked, relationships can’t be. Granted, blogs and most of social media are primarily one-way relationships and relationship surrogates. Even so, if you leverage them in the right way, you can get face to face relationships out of them.

Here are a couple of book titles from my wish list about this very topic:

Your network is your net worth – Porter Gale
The fortune is in the follow up – Heidi Sloss

When you leverage modern technology to grow your network (start new relationships), and facilitate follow up (maintain old relationships), you will have a higher level of financial security and freedom. You’ll receive job offers instead of sending resumes.

It’s not about money for money’s sake, the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). We all have bills to pay, mouths to feed, and unique ways to help others with our resources.

It’s also not about using people for positioning. It’s a tool to build relationships, and being honest about what some relationships might bring.

Shortening Others’ Learning Curve

If I can share my thoughts and the lessons that I am learning right now, and help other people to learn what I know faster than I learned it, then this project has been successful. That goal isn’t selfish, it’s generous. It’s not about my successes or failures, but your success and chances to avoid my failures.

Tying Everything Together

What do I want to do when I grow up? My answer is different every day. I could be a pastor, a counselor, a coach, a consultant, a web designer, content marketer, project manager, or nonprofit program developer and make a great living at any one of those things.

But something deep down tells me that I am not being a faithful steward of that eclectic skill set if I don’t find a way to tie them together, or find the vocation and service that is at the intersection of each those practices.

This website is not about me. Its about you, and how I can help you feel better, function better, and live with intentionality and intensity, so that you can make a deeper impact on more lives. Or how I can help your company or nonprofit to simplify, streamline, and scale your products or services to make a deeper impact on more lives. I hope this blog is your impact multiplier.

Add Your Voice (comment below)

What are your reasons for starting something new?
Who are you helping?

Like this article?

Click here to subscribe to my email list to get articles like this every Monday.