Happy Monday!
I want to talk about something that took me an embarrassingly long time to learn. And I suspect I am not the only one.
When I started Protean Med, I did what a lot of new business owners do. I priced myself low. Not because I did not believe in the value I was bringing. But because I was new, I was unknown, and I was terrified that if I charged what I was actually worth nobody would say yes.
So I discounted. I negotiated against myself before the client even pushed back. I cut my fees to make deals happen that probably would have happened anyway at a higher number. And every single time I told myself the same thing. Once I build the relationship, once I prove myself, once I get established, I will raise my rates.
You can probably guess how that went.
Here is what I learned the hard way. Underpricing yourself does not just hurt your revenue. It hurts your positioning. It signals to clients, sometimes unconsciously, that you are not confident in what you are delivering. And in a relationship-driven industry like healthcare staffing, confidence and credibility are everything.
When you charge what you are worth, something interesting happens. Clients take you more seriously. They invest more in the relationship. They show up to conversations differently because they know they are working with someone who knows their own value.
I also learned that the clients who push hardest on price are often not the clients you want anyway. The ones who respect what you bring to the table rarely lead with “can you do it for less.” They lead with “can you solve my problem.” And those are the conversations worth having.
One is a business decision. The other is a confidence problem disguised as a business decision.
If you are a woman building a business, and I know many of you reading this are, I want to say this as clearly as I can. You are probably worth more than you are charging. Not maybe. Probably. The instinct to make yourself more accessible by making yourself less expensive is deeply ingrained and it is costing you more than money. It is costing you the positioning, the clients and the respect that come with knowing your worth and holding it.
The real cost of underpricing yourself is not just the revenue you leave on the table. It is the version of your business you never get to build because you started from a place of not enough.
You are enough. Charge accordingly.
See you next Monday. Rajee
Rajee Hari | Founder, Protean Med www.proteanmed.com | rajee@proteanmed.com