Price the work, not your worth

_{[Read time: 1.5 minutes]}

Sometimes it feels like we’re pricing ourselves, not just our work.

The closer you are to the value exchange (delivery), the sharper that feeling gets.

What I mean is…when you’re both the person who sets the price and the one who delivers the work, every dollar feels like it’s tied to your self-worth.

I’m calling this the Pain of Charging.

I sketched it in a quick doodle.

What’s really happening here?

• Judgment feels personal. Pushback hits like, “They don’t value me.”

• Self-worth leaks into the math. One “too expensive” and you’re reconsidering life choices.

• Zero buffer. You’re inside the deal. No distance. No shield, just a raw reaction.

It’s the twin to the buyer’s Pain of Paying (that micro-flinch when money leaves the account).

Both pains revolve around loss and exposure.

Both shrink the minute you add even a sliver of space.

But is the answer….just add distance?

Hire a salesperson. Productize offers. Build invoicing walls.

That’s the obvious answer, right?

I’m not so sure that’s correct.

Confession: I’m still testing ways to build distance without killing the ‘closeness’ clients hire me for — especially when they also price and deliver their own work.

And that’s okay, because I’m finding awareness of this pain (itself) rewires behavior

• You hear the inner ‘discount’ voice before it hijacks the call.

• You label the feeling as “Pain of Charging,” not “I suck at pricing and sales.”

• You test micro tweaks (like time-delaying the proposal email until a time you’re not at your desk to revise one more time…)

Like the Pain of Paying, awareness cuts the sting in half. The rest is gradual experimentation.

Got your own trick for easing the Pain of Charging?

Hit reply. Tell me about it. I’ll share it in a future issue (names removed, reputations intact).

Thanks for reading

See you next week.

— Peter

P.S. If you often end a project thinking, “I should’ve charged more,” let’s fix that.

Start here and we’ll make your pricing as strong as your delivery.