I can tell you almost exactly what a fractional leader is going to say when I ask why they have not raised their rates.
My clients cannot afford more than this.
No one in this market will pay that much.
I am not worth that yet.
I have heard all three so many times that I can practically finish the sentence before they do. And every single time, I want to ask the same question back.
How do you know?
On “my clients cannot afford it”
You are making a financial assumption about another person’s business based on nothing. You do not know their margins. You do not know their budget. You do not know what they spent on the last person who tried to do what you do and failed. You are deciding for them before they have had the chance to decide for themselves.
I have watched fractional leaders quote a rate they were convinced would be rejected and have the client say yes without hesitating. The client did not hesitate because the rate matched the value. The fractional leader’s assumption was wrong. It almost always is.
On “no one will pay that much”
Someone is. Right now. A fractional leader with your background, your years of experience, your results, is charging significantly more than you are and has clients paying it. The market is not the ceiling. Your belief about the market is the ceiling.
The fractional market has a wide range. The difference between who is at the top of that range and who is at the bottom is almost never the quality of the work. It is the clarity of the positioning and the confidence of the delivery. Both of those are fixable.
On “I am not worth that yet”
This one is the most honest. And it is the most expensive.
Worth that yet. As if there is a threshold you have not crossed. A number of clients, or case studies, or years, or certifications that would finally make it legitimate to charge what the work actually costs.
There is no threshold. The fractional leaders who charge what they are worth do not do it because they finally accumulated enough proof. They do it because they stopped waiting for permission.
Your rate is not a reflection of what clients can afford. It is a reflection of what you believe about your own value. That belief is the thing to work on.
The number is not the problem. You probably already know the number. The problem is everything that happens between knowing it and saying it out loud.
Related: Why fractional leaders underprice themselves, and how to stop
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