It’s a difficult problem for a new business – what to charge for your services. Price it too high, and your audience may not be willing or able to pay. Price it too low, and people may not value it enough to buy.

For me, and others like me, there’s the added problem that the clients we want to serve may struggle to afford our support. I know how hard it can be to spend money on yourself—especially when you’re feeling tired, stretched, or supporting everyone else. I’ve given this tricky issue a great deal of thought over the last few months, and I recently had a long chat with my friend Sharon, who also often serves those with less disposable income.

Her suggestion, which I’ve gladly taken, was to offer my services on a ‘pay what you want’ basis. Given that my menopause courses are for small groups of women, I can already afford to charge less for these than for a series of 1:1 sessions. And there are so many people out there who I want to serve. So many women living lives of quiet – if not silent – desperation; anxiously trying to hold everything together, even while they feel they are falling apart. Or who know things are changing within and around them, but don’t have the time to navigate these changes with intention.

I fully intend for the introductory course, Coping to Confidence, to remain on this pricing basis for as long as I offer it, so I can support as many women as possible through it. The other courses I’m designing may or may not end up using the same strategy.

When I asked Google about this idea, I was only seeking advice on plug-ins that I could use for it (WooCommerce was insistent on having a set price for everything). But it not only suggested options I could consider, but also reasons why pricing this way could be helpful. In fact, having chosen one, the developer’s website gave its own suggested reasons for choosing this option. They include:

• Reaching new customers with accessible and affordable prices

• Broadening your customer base by encouraging customers to propose prices

• Understand what prices customers are willing to pay

• Strengthening connections with clients

All of the above appealed to me, so I’m running with it. Of course, having paid for my chosen plug-in (Advanced Pay What You Want for WooCommerce by Addify), paid the nearly £60 for a 2-year licence, and added it to my site, the actual process of setting up the ‘pay what you want’ options for each service wasn’t as straightforward as I’d like. Even now, it insists on having a baseline price to display, but after some half-hour or so of frustrating messing around – and after watching the somewhat helpful video on the subject – my techie partner and I finally got it working.

For now, all my services are advertised on this basis, with the aim of achieving some or all of the points above. As well as three new cohorts of Coping to Confidence, I’ve added a Donation option, so that anyone who signs up for my services can, if they so wish, pay more for it if they decide it’s worth more than they paid. Sessions for the new course will be on Saturday mornings, Tuesday mornings and Wednesday evenings, starting in late June/early July.

I’m quite looking forward to seeing how this pans out.

In other news, the new Session 4 is looking good. I asked Copilot to suggest thought-provoking questions from the slides to create a workbook and went along with its suggestion of a 4-week planner/journal to go with it, and it’s done a pretty good job. Needs tidying up of course, but again, it’s saved me a lot of time. Whether saving time will feel so important once I have more of it, of course, remains to be seen, but for now, it’s a great help in staving off overwhelm.

I’m now into the wonderful period of ‘less than a month until I retire’ – or rather, until my last actual working day, given I have holiday to take at the end of my employment. It’s felt like a long time coming, but today went really quickly, and if every working day goes like that, I’ll be freed from the 9-5 before I know it. I had confirmation that my retirement form was received today, so the process is proceeding!

Anyway, now that I have courses available to buy, I’m starting to put the word out to friends. While, of course, not all of them will be interested in my services themselves, I’m hoping some will be, and that some may be happy to mention Embrace Coaching to their own friends and family, should the subject arise. My plan is to grow by word of mouth, recommendation and review, as much as through my Substack publications and LinkedIn, etc. A neighbour who used to be in the marketing business, and whose husband still runs a well-respected local marketing firm, suggested that Insta is the place to be, but she also warned that it’s a lot of hard work to research the people you want to follow, and to get noticed, so that might have to wait until I have the time … in less than a month.

The next important task on my list (apart from continuing to edit/update my session material and create workbooks for each session) – is insurance. If I’m going to be paid for my services, I at least need the basics of public indemnity and legal fee cover, though coaches and therapists aren’t big claimers, so luckily the premiums are low. I also need insurance to join a professional body, which I intend to do, as another way to get noticed. More on that next time, perhaps.

If you have any recommendations for a suitable insurer, drop me a line. In the meantime, I’ll keep my ear to the ground and see what the jungle drums are saying. I have one recommendation, and I’m attending an event on Friday that may net me a few more. Shop around, find what works for my business, and get that duck lined up with the others. One day, the whole shooting gallery will be set up and ready, and then … watch me go (while still happily mixing my metaphors!).