Be BOLD Branding Podcast - Tonya Eberhart & Michael Carr

In the latest episode of the Be BOLD podcast, business coach Robin Waite, founder of Fearless Business and bestselling author of Take Your Shot, shared his expertise on one of the most crucial aspects of business growth: pricing. With years of experience in business coaching, Robin helps coaches, consultants, and freelancers increase their income while reducing their client load.

Tonya Eberhart and Michael Carr are the co-founders of BrandFace, LLC, a personal branding company dedicated to helping coaches, consultants, and other experts become recognised authorities in their industries. As international bestselling authors, their mantra, “People don’t do business with a logo. They do business with a person,” reflects their belief in the power of authentic personal branding. Through BrandFace, they assist professionals in defining, developing, and displaying a differentiating brand that changes how they are seen and enables them to charge what they’re worth.

This episode dives deep into the strategies Robin uses to help his clients make better pricing decisions, optimise cash flow, and build a profitable business. Here’s what you can take away from this insightful discussion.

What We Discussed on the Be BOLD Branding Podcast

1. Gold Focus Pricing: Robin Waite’s pricing model focuses on reverse-engineering from your end goals, ensuring that your pricing aligns with your business objectives and long-term vision. This approach helps set realistic pricing that supports growth.
2. Strategic Price Setting: Begin by defining your target income and understanding what your service is worth to your ideal client. This helps determine how many clients you need to meet your financial goals without overworking yourself.
3. Balancing Supply and Demand: To avoid burnout, it’s essential to balance the number of clients you can serve with the level of demand for your service. This strategy ensures you meet your goals while avoiding overextending your resources.
4. Avoiding the Sales Cycle of Doom: Constantly moving between selling and delivering can lead to burnout. Instead, aim to reduce your client load by charging higher prices for fewer clients, which improves cash flow and ensures quality service delivery.
5. Optimising Cash Flow: Healthy cash flow is critical for a business’s survival. Strategies like saving 3-6 months of expenses and charging upfront for services ensure smoother cash flow, reducing pressure and ensuring stability.
6. The Power of Niching Down: Focus on a specific niche to become an expert in that area. By narrowing your offerings, you avoid diluting your message and improve your chances of building trust and strong client referrals.
7. Business for Good: Robin encourages integrating philanthropy into your business model. Giving back not only benefits society but also enhances your brand’s reputation and helps build stronger customer relationships.

Why Pricing Matters for Business Success

Pricing isn’t just about picking a number—it’s about aligning your pricing with your business goals. Robin shared his approach to pricing, which he calls gold focus pricing. This method focuses on starting with the end goal and reverse-engineering your pricing model.

Setting the Right Price: The Key to Sustainable Growth

When considering your pricing, Robin encourages you to start with these key questions:

• What is your target income for the year?
• What is your product or service worth to your ideal client?

For example, if you want to make £100,000 a year and plan to sell a service for £1,000, you’ll need to sell 100 units. However, this might not be feasible, especially when considering your capacity and time.Robin's advice here is to balance supply and demand:

• Supply: How many clients can you realistically handle?
• Demand: How can you generate enough interest to meet your goals?

This approach helps prevent overwork while still meeting your income targets.

Avoiding the Sales Cycle of Doom

One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is the sales cycle of doom: the endless cycle of “sell, deliver, sell, deliver”. When you’re in this cycle, it can feel like you’re constantly hustling with little time to focus on delivering high-quality work.

Breaking Free from the Endless Hustle

To avoid this burnout cycle, Robin recommends focusing on pricing that:

• Aligns with your financial goals
• Allows for quality delivery to your clients
• Reduces client load, giving you more time to deliver exceptional results

By charging higher prices and working with fewer clients, you can create a predictable and manageable cash flow. This, in turn, allows you to provide more value to your clients, which leads to better referrals and a more sustainable business model.

Building a Profitable Cash Flow System

Cash flow management is critical for long-term business success. Robin stressed that many businesses fail to realise that just because they’re profitable on paper doesn’t mean they have healthy cash flow.

Key Strategies for Improving Cash Flow

To improve your cash flow and reduce pressure, Robin recommends:

• Saving up three to six months’ worth of operating expenses: This will take the pressure off needing to make a sale urgently.
• Charging upfront payments: For services like a £10,000 package, Robin suggests taking a larger portion upfront (e.g. £5,000) and then spreading out the rest over several months (e.g. £500 per month). This strategy helps to maintain a steady cash flow and prevents the dreaded “Netflix subscription” mentality.

By structuring payments this way, you create a better cash flow cycle and reduce the risk of clients cancelling mid-project.

The Power of Niching Down

A major takeaway from Robin’s conversation was the importance of niching down. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of offering too many products or services in an attempt to appeal to a broader audience. But this can dilute your message and make it harder to stand out.

Why Niching Down is Crucial

Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, Robin encourages business owners to:

• Do one thing really well for a specific type of client.
• Become known as the expert in your niche.
• Create systems and processes that allow you to deliver consistent, repeatable results.

When you focus on a specific product or service, your business becomes more efficient, and your clients are more likely to trust you and refer you. Think of businesses like Apple, which perfect one product—the iPhone—and deliver it to millions of customers consistently.

Creating Systems for Predictable Results

When you focus on one core offering, you can introduce systems and processes to streamline your operations. This will allow you to:

• Deliver the same high-quality results consistently.
• Scale your business without compromising on quality.
• Increase profitability by working smarter, not harder.

Robin also pointed out that businesses that master the art of repetition and predictability tend to be the most successful. While it may sound boring, delivering the same exceptional service over and over again is the secret to growing a stable, thriving business.

Giving Back: Making Business About More Than Just Profits

Robin believes that business should be a force for good. It’s not just about the money—it’s about impact. He shared that he has raised over £5,000 for local children’s charities through his networking events, and every time he enrols a new client, he makes a donation to 4Ocean to help clean up plastic from the oceans.

Business for Good: How to Make a Difference

• Use your business to give back to causes that matter to you.
• Incorporate philanthropy into your brand to build a reputation of integrity.
• Use networking and client enrolment as an opportunity to support meaningful initiatives.

Not only does this contribute to a better world, but it also enhances your brand’s reputation and builds stronger connections with your customers.

Final Thoughts

The conversation with Robin Waite was packed with actionable insights for any entrepreneur looking to optimise their pricing, cash flow, and overall business strategy. His gold focus pricing model, advice on niching down, and tips for improving cash flow are crucial for anyone looking to grow a successful and sustainable business.

By setting the right prices, reducing client load, and focusing on high-quality service delivery, entrepreneurs can build a brand that stands out, attracts ideal clients, and achieves long-term success.