Hey Reader,

Real quick thought. I think the whole "charge your worth" narrative that we hear all the time isn't really helpful.

Last Friday night, I had the opportunity to be the featured presenter for a gathering of the Fabulous Female Fundraisers, Christal M. Cherry's organization to connect and advance Women of Color in fundraising so they grow their careers, increase their earning power, and expand their leadership influence.

At one point, the question of pricing came up.

Folks were interested in hearing my take on, how do you make sure you’re pricing what you’re worth?

We hear some version of this all the time:

“Charge your worth.”

“Know your worth.”

“Don’t undervalue yourself.”

And it led us into a really interesting conversation because I actually don’t think your worth is the most useful way to think about pricing your services.

I mean, I know you're likely fabulous and you know you're brilliant, but "your worth" is subjective.

The value of the problem you’re solving is much more concrete.

So instead of asking:

What am I (or what is my experience and expertise) worth?

I want you to start asking:

How valuable is the problem I’m solving?

Because here’s the game:

Expertise alone isn’t valuable. Expertise attached to an expensive problem is.

You can have 20 years of experience, multiple degrees and be exceptional at what you do.

But if you’re applying all of that expertise to problems organizations typically spend $2,500 to solve, there’s going to be a ceiling on what the market will reasonably pay for that work.

Now think about this from a fundraising perspective, as an example.

“We need someone to write this grant.”

is a very different problem from:

“Our largest funder is sunsetting its support next year, we have $750,000 in revenue to replace, and we don’t have a strategy for doing it.”

Both are fundraising problems.

But they don’t have the same stakes.

One has significantly more revenue, risk, urgency and organizational consequence attached to it.

That’s a more valuable problem to solve.

So if you’re trying to increase the value of your consulting engagements or increase revenue for your practice, don’t only ask how you can charge more for the work you’re already doing.

Ask:

What higher-value problems am I qualified to solve?

What problems are connected to significant revenue?

Growth?

Risk?

Cost?

Organizational capacity?

A major strategic priority?

(And one of my favorite questions to directly ask prospective clients:)

What happens if the client doesn’t solve this problem?

Because that tells you a lot about its value.

I’m not suggesting you arbitrarily charge $30,000 for a $5,000 problem.

I’m saying something different:

Think about how you can "package" your expertise toward more valuable problems.

And then price (and even talk about in your communications) the work based on the value of the problem you’re helping solve...not some subjective calculation of your personal worth.

You are priceless, obviously. 😉

Your consulting engagement is not.

Create the foundation of your work to be able to sustain yourself. Price accordingly. Thank me later :)

Kamilah