Grow Without Hiring

[00:00:00] Ken: You say you want to grow, yet here's a huge decision. You've been dodging changing your pricing.
[00:00:06] Ken: You've delayed it days, weeks, months, maybe even years. You keep what I call survival pricing so that you can close that next deal. Or retain your current clients, your pricing for safety, not for growth.
[00:00:22] Ken: But by the end of this episode, you're gonna pick a number and a date, not a theory. Your number, your date, to finally price to grow.
[00:00:33] Ken: Undercharging is the silent ceiling on your business. You wanna double. Your MRR, you wanna hire less, you want to get out of delivery hell, but your pricing tells me otherwise.
[00:00:48] Ken: Most of the founders, the consultants that I see, including my own clients, that I have to help with this regularly.
[00:00:54] Ken: Stick with safe legacy rates that keep them stuck [00:01:00] in the status quo and are truly built for survival.
[00:01:04] Ken: But you can't grow when every client you land. Puts you deeper and deeper into delivery hell, and that treadmill that you're on, that's on a 45 degree ice cliff, all while you have a boulder on your back.
[00:01:17] Ken: You are not just underpriced, you're in an impossible situation.
[00:01:22] Ken: That's gonna keep you playing small for years.
[00:01:25] Ken: Now, the irony of the situation is that you will obsess over ai, new tools, fads in the feed, everything, and anything that you're willing to test or try. Except for the thing that's actually under your control. Pricing is the fastest way to grow without hiring,
[00:01:46] Ken: And yet it's the one thing that most people never touch, and it really comes down to fear. Comfort loyalty to clients
[00:01:55] Ken: and thinking that if you make a change here,
[00:01:58] Ken: you will not be able to [00:02:00] pay your bills.
[00:02:00] Ken: Let's look at a growth tax audit. Grab your iPhone, a pen or something for notes, and I want you to get down three numbers.
[00:02:10] Ken: The first is your average project or retainer prices. For your last three closes, let's call this P next, a realistic market price for the same result that you are already delivering. Call it a gut feel and let's call this M
[00:02:27] Ken: and then your closes per month. We'll give this the letter C. Your monthly growth tax is very simply calculated this way, M minus P times C. And please do remember the order of operations.
[00:02:42] Ken: So let's do some really quick math on this.
[00:02:45] Ken: let's say you should be charging 5,000 per month, which is M, you're currently charging 3000 per month and you're closing.
[00:02:54] Ken: Three deals a month.
[00:02:56] Ken: so 2000 on each of those three deals, that's 6,000 [00:03:00] a month. All because you're pricing for safety.
[00:03:02] Ken: So yes, you're looking at it from the standpoint of if you raise prices, you'll lose clients or you can't risk your cash flow, or maybe even the quiet one. I'll do it once I'm more established or after you have that case study. But that is not a remote solopreneur mentality. It's a legacy mindset.
[00:03:23] Ken: So let's look at it from this standpoint. Two Tuesdays from now, there are two versions of you and no, this is not the multiverse. I don't want to have infringement from Marvel
[00:03:33] Ken: Tuesday. A, you keep your prices, you're busy, absolutely resentful. Your inbox is full of quote, unquote. Quick questions.
[00:03:43] Ken: Tuesday. B, you raised your price on a new prospect by 30%. One client balked at it. The other said yes. They showed up prepared on time and decisive. They felt like a peer or what I call a lighthouse client.
[00:03:59] Ken: Which [00:04:00] Tuesday are you building for right now?
[00:04:02] Ken: Through the years, I've gotten hundreds of data points from founders, consultants, solopreneurs, and coaches who all thought they were premium until I actually showed them some data and we ran the numbers.
[00:04:14] Ken: One HR consultant. That I spoke with was dramatically undercharging, and within 15 minutes we doubled his rate, reworked his offer. He quickly closed a deal, and by his words, he made more while doing less, and then he did it again, and then he did it again.
[00:04:34] Ken: Or how about someone that I spoke to last week who has household name clients under market by four to five x and they're very proud to keep the same clients on for over 10 plus years, which is really crazy. But also because they're on legacy rates,
[00:04:52] Ken: you saw the expense of the growth tax. I'd rather you have five less clients and make the same amount when you [00:05:00] properly charge the market rates. By the way, this isn't just about exploiting people and taking advantage of your prospects or your clients. It's about getting you to make
[00:05:12] Ken: what you should be making for all the years of effort or the skills that you've developed. I'm only asking for what's fair here.
[00:05:19] Ken: Now. Sometimes I have this conversation and people see the big names online and they assume that audience rich experts charge a lot more. But those people have the exact same problem. They don't have the information, they don't have the confidence in closing or a sales process often because they're really good at marketing, but they're not good at sales. So for those clients, again, ample testimonials. Matt Barker, Lara Acosta, Nick Broekema, and many more.
[00:05:50] Ken: They weren't the ones charging the most. In fact, a lot of people who were not as known were charging more than they were, and they got good at the sales side. In [00:06:00] addition to being good at the marketing side.
[00:06:02] Ken: Part of all this too is the high ticket offer lie that I covered in episode 17 because you hear things like low ticket or medium ticket or done for you. or done with you and all this jargon and terminology confuses you to understand that premium pricing is the baseline that you should be operating from.
[00:06:25] Ken: Premium pricing is normal, not exotic.
[00:06:29] Ken: So the real killer here for you is information asymmetry.It's a large phrase, and it essentially means that one part of the market has information and the other part of the market doesn't. In your case, you're charging something and the people that are asking you to buy that service, they're talking to a lot of others, so they have all the information and you don't.
[00:06:51] Ken: So let's make this micro-commitment. And coming back to picking the number and picking the date where you move. [00:07:00] From pricing for safety to pricing for growth. Write this down. The new price,
[00:07:05] Ken: whatever is that market M that you wrote down earlier.
[00:07:08] Ken: then your first test prospect. if they're not in the queue yet, I want you to name them, maybe even target them. And the date that you will present this new pricing.
[00:07:19] Ken: So say it out loud with me, and it doesn't have to be perfect, but when you say it, your brain treats spoken decisions differently. I will pitch new price to next prospect on date. If you're in a public place, that's fine. They may think you're a little crazy. But I think you're crazy for not charging the prices that you should be and using the prices that you have today.
[00:07:44] Ken: Now, here's why this intersects with so many of the other conversations.
[00:07:48] Ken: AI is going to squeeze margins,
[00:07:51] Ken: so you gotta get really good at the delivery side. More efficient than you are today. But the winners, pair efficiency [00:08:00] with pricing authority. Your 2030 company looks like this. Systems times, demand, times price,
[00:08:07] Ken: and safety is gonna be the most expensive option in 2026.
[00:08:13] Ken: So to get to be that 2030 company, you don't get there by raising prices someday or pricing for safety. You get there by pricing to grow today, and here's what I'm doing to try to help you lead the charge. I'm mapping real pricing data
[00:08:29] Ken: to create transparency in the industry to surface what the top 1% actually charge. And help you see exactly where you stand.
[00:08:39] Ken: If you want access to it and see where you sit, then join the breakdown by hitting the link in the show notes
[00:08:47] Ken: for those that decide to add their name and email address. I'm going to have a live session. That invites you out to going through the report live. Anyone else that gives their information is going to get [00:09:00] early access to the report.
[00:09:01] Ken: And if you've just picked your number and date, now you have a couple of key action items coming out of our conversation today.
[00:09:08] Ken: So I hope that you'll choose to participate in the state of Solopreneur Pricing 2026 report.
[00:09:13] Ken: That's gonna be where we end it for today. I hope this gave you a little bit more fire. To get moving and to price, not for safety, but for growth.
[00:09:22] Ken: If this is an area you want help with, feel free to reach out via connection, request or DM on LinkedIn. Also in the show notes, or if you'd like, you can go grab my briefing where I'll definitely be sharing more about the pricing survey in the state of solopreneur report when it's available.
[00:09:38] Ken: Appreciate your time and attention. As always, I love having these discussions. And I look forward to our next conversation where I can help you grow without hiring.