You don’t need to charge high fees. Many coaches charge $75 an hour or less. But if the thought of working with high impact clients and distinguishing yourself in your field speaks to you, I wrote this for you.

Many of my clients don’t start out commanding big fees. But over time they come to realize it’s less about the fee itself—and more about a hidden desire.

Here are 3 reasons to charge bigger coaching/consulting fees—notice if any are true for you:

1) You want clients who are thriving vs. struggling.

If you want to make a lot of money coaching and yet you tend to work with people who are really struggling, here’s a consideration: those two might be at odds. There might be a way to help those people (see #3)—but not make a lot of money.

Take a marathon runner who enjoys running races in their personal time and they want to run even better the next time. Or a leader with an adventure mindset, who has something new they want to do to get to their next level of success.

If you were to be completely honest with yourself—if you had the choice of working with a client or corporation who is struggling or thriving…what would you choose?

If you feel drawn towards the latter, here is an example of what you might say when you meet a prospective client:

“I work with companies where things are really thriving and they’re ready for something more…their next level of innovation and creativity…companies who want to get better at what they’re doing…if that sounds interesting, you and I should have a conversation.”

When you look for clients who are inspired by and excited about their vision, be it for their company or career, health, finances or relationships, and you are too—

Know that they’re paying you for the vision they have, which is usually worth a lot of money to them.

2) You want to draw out a bigger commitment in your clients.

There’s a coach whose clients pay ONE MILLION dollars to work with him. He’s a billionaire and doesn’t need the money. His fee is set with one thing in mind: to draw out the commitment of his clients…

Because the greater the commitment, the bigger and faster—the action. For results-driven coaches focused on impact, this matters a lot.

Whether your fee has 3 or 7 zeros—what will it take to draw out the commitment of your ideal clients?

And is your 10/10 client someone who doesn’t have a budget for coaching OR maybe they’re not resourced but resourceful: willing to go out and make the money required and come back to you.

Draw out their commitment and you’ll find out.

Here’s one way to draw out commitment before a client ever pays you a dime:

“Why are you here? What’s the result that would happen by you being here? You’ve given up time, energy, possibly even money to be here for a reason. If you get 10x the value then you imagined…what’s the result that you’d love to create? How are you going to make sure that happens, no matter what I do? You might be on these calls and something might not land for you…how can you ensure you get this result for yourself no matter what happens here?”

3) You ultimately want to be able to do pro bono work.

Many of my clients are driven to give back—to make their work more accessible and provide their coaching and consulting services at limited or no fee.

What I tell those clients: you’ll get there faster the sooner you become the most resourced and energized version of you.

For example, you can be stretched thin with hundreds of clients paying you $125/hour or you can have 10 clients at $15K or 3 clients at $50K with ample free time to use however you choose. Which sounds most energizing?

What I don’t openly talk about is the fact that I get to support a handful of clients at no charge every year because I have the financial (a handful of clients who pay me well) and energetic means (white space on my calendar) to do so. This is something that is deeply fulfilling to me—and I couldn’t offer it with limited or low resources.

There you have it—3 simple reasons for raising your fees, just in case you needed the push (or justification).

I’m curious, which one struck you the most?