Will People Actually Pay Me?
The fear that writes the price and the follow-up
Last night I ran the session, and the replay is now free at the link at the foot of this essay. Of the nine fears I went through, four cost money directly, and I want to spend today and tomorrow on them, because they are the ones that reach into the model and quietly change the numbers.
The first is the question itself: will people actually pay me? Nearly every owner has carried it at some point, and many carry it for the whole life of the business, long after the evidence has answered it. It shows up in the price. The price said quickly, with a softening word either side. The discount offered before anyone asked. The proposal that leads with everything included, three pages of it, before it gets to the number, as if the number needed a defence. What it costs is margin, straight off, month after month, and a business that stays smaller than the work deserves because the owner never charged what the work was worth.
The second is fear of rejection, and this one writes the emails. The message that talks itself down before anyone else can. The follow-up that never went, because silence was taken as a no. The ask made small so that a no would hurt less. What it costs is opportunity, which is harder to see than margin because it never appears on a statement. The doors that were never knocked on cannot open, and a business run by someone afraid of rejection has a pipeline full of conversations that stopped one message early.
These two fears are related, and they share a root. Both treat a commercial no as a personal one. The customer who does not pay the price is not saying the owner is worth less. He is saying his budget is spent differently. The prospect who does not reply is not rejecting the owner. He is busy. But the fear does not hear it that way, and so the price drops and the follow-up stays in drafts, and the model, which said the business needed a certain price and a certain number of yeses, is overruled by a feeling.
The response to both fears is the same, and it is to put the decision back in the customer's hands where it belongs.
On price: this is not you paying. It is them paying. Their budget is their decision, and it is not your job to make it for them by lowering the number before they have seen it. Say the number plainly, as I wrote last week, and let them decide. Some will say no. The model already knows how many yeses the year needs, and it is never all of them. Price so that losing any one customer would not change your life, and the no stops carrying the weight it has been carrying.
On rejection: separate yourself from the business in the moment of asking. The business is something you run. It is not something you are. A proposal that is declined is a proposal, not a verdict. A follow-up that goes unanswered is a data point about a busy person. Make the asking a process, on a schedule, so that it happens whether or not you feel brave that day, and give it to someone else if you can, because the fear is attached to you and not to them.
And in the moment, when the fear arrives as you are about to send the price or the message, use the ninety seconds. Name it, let it run, move, then ask whether it is real or old. Then send it.
The replay of last night's session is free at the link below. If you want the 2027 numbers built with me rather than alone, the details for that are at the same link, and tomorrow I will cover the other two fears that cost money, which are fear of failure and the one that makes the smartest person in the market the slowest to move.
Continue reading: Checking One More Time →
The replay: The Nine Fears session, free →
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A question about this essay, or your own situation. Answered only from Paraag's writing.