You Are The Magic
You Are the Magic helps high achievers reignite their passion by tapping into the power they already possess—without adding more hustle to their plate. Hosted by Christine DeHerrera, a seasoned business coach, PR pro, and writer with over 20 years of experience, each episode blends mindset, strategy, and a dash of woo so you can create success that lights you up and makes your wildest dreams feel like your new normal.
You Are The Magic
Undercharging Is Costing You More Than Just Money--Free Your Magic Challenge Day 3
Undercharging may feel safe, but it’s one of the fastest ways to cap your growth. In this powerful episode of the Free Your Magic Challenge, Christine DeHerrera dives into the real reasons business owners resist raising their prices—and how those fears secretly drain energy, attract the wrong clients, and keep you stuck at yesterday’s level.
From busting the “too busy” excuse, to facing worthiness head-on, to finding courage for difficult money conversations, Christine offers fresh insight and actionable journal prompts to help you finally break free. If you’ve ever wondered why raising your rates feels so uncomfortable—or what it’s costing you not to—this conversation is the wake-up call you’ve been waiting for.
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Welcome to the Free your Magic Challenge. We're on day three. I know you've really been enjoying days one and two because I've been getting some pretty amazing feedback. You really resonated with the toxic positivity and the toxic excellence. Today we're just going to jump right in to the next toxic trait undercharging. If you're undercharging, you're working twice as hard for half the reward. Today we're going to talk about why you're afraid to raise your prices and what it's really costing you. Maybe, just maybe, the biggest reason you're stuck isn't your marketing, it's not your offer, it's not your clients. What if it's your price tag? Undercharging doesn't make you more accessible. It makes you invisible. Let's talk about why you might be keeping your prices low and why it's holding you back.
Christine DeHerrera:I find there are three reasons that toxic undercharging is such a common issue among business owners. Number one you're busy. Being busy is one of the biggest reasons you're not raising your prices, but busyness is often just an excuse. It's easier to stay in the weeds of day-to-day work than sit down, look at your numbers and ask yourself the hard questions. Raising prices requires reflection and strategy, but if you're always too busy to pause and think deeply, you'll keep spinning at the same level, which is a real problem because busyness becomes the ultimate shield against growth and, unfortunately, being busy is not the same as being strategic. If you look at the inflation rates from 2016 until now, I'm just going to read you a few In 2016, the inflation rates were 2.1%. In 2019, they were 2.3%. In 2021, they were 7%, 20%, 2022, 6.5%, 2023, 3.4%. I tell you this because if you're charging the same rates year after year after year, you're not even keeping up with inflation. That's a problem, because it means you're actually making less money doing the same amount of work. Even though you're busy, you have to block time in your schedule to look at all your numbers and raise your prices accordingly, which brings us to reason number two. It's really easy to be afraid you're not worth it, kind of like imposter syndrome in disguise, but also a worthiness issue that comes from being in our society and constantly being challenged what is your value? What is your value? What is your value? What is your value? Which leads us to say things in our mind like who am I to charge more? Or what if nobody pays? But the thing is, if you're listening to this podcast, I can almost guarantee you're already over delivering more value than you give yourself credit for. Undercharging doesn't make your offer more accessible. It makes your energy unsustainable. You can't step into your next level if you're constantly undervaluing your current one. Undercharging is just imposter syndrome with a price tag. Which brings us to the third reason. Undercharging is a toxic trait and that is simple.
Christine DeHerrera:People avoid raising prices because they don't want to have the hard conversations. People avoid raising prices because they don't want to have the hard conversations. Talking about money can still feel uncomfortable, even though it's becoming more of a thing we're allowing ourselves to do. The fear of rejection, the fear of hearing no, or even the fear of disappointing somebody who's been a longtime client these reasons keep entrepreneurs quiet. But here's the thing Every great business owner has learned that uncomfortable conversations are the doorway to growth. When you avoid these moments, you're not protecting your business, you're capping it. If you avoid hard conversations, you avoid big opportunities. That's what it really comes down to.
Christine DeHerrera:So what happens if you don't raise your prices? Number one you're going to burn out faster. When you don't raise your prices, you end up working harder and harder just to keep up. More clients, more hours, more hustle, without more income that's the reality of not even keeping up with inflation, and that's the fast track to exhaustion. If you don't raise your prices, you are the one that pays the difference with your energy. Number two you attract the wrong clients when you're undercharging.
Christine DeHerrera:Low prices often attract clients who don't fully value your work. They nitpick, they drain your time, they don't follow your boundaries and then therefore, they don't get the best results because they're not really invested. Undercharging is like putting up a magnet for the wrong clients. Number three if you don't fix your toxic undercharging, you stall your growth. If you keep charging yesterday's prices, you lock yourself into yesterday's level and if you're listening to this podcast, you are not about that life. Your skills, your experience, your results they're still growing because you're committed to learning and changing and bettering yourself. But your bank account cannot catch up if you keep undercharging. Keeping your old prices keeps you stuck in the old level.
Christine DeHerrera:So what do we do about this? Number one we have to look at our numbers and be honest with ourself. I'm going to give you some journal prompts to help you get started wrapping your head around this. Ask yourself where am I using the busy excuse to avoid looking at the true value of my work and what I should be charging? What would open up for me if I slowed down and made this a priority With this question? You have to just slot, just slot in 10 minutes sometime in the next week to answer these questions. Number two if you're using the worthiness component to avoid raising your rates, ask yourself this If I believed, without a doubt, that I was worth it, what would my prices be today? How would I show up differently if I trusted my value fully? Third way you might be avoiding raising your rates is, of course, having the difficult conversations. Ask yourself this what difficult money conversation am I most afraid of having right now? Is that with yourself? Is that with your clients? Is that with your family? What is that conversation? And follow that up with what could become possible for me and my business if I chose courage instead of avoidance around this issue.
Christine DeHerrera:I've been in business for more than 20 years. I have definitely gone through the ringer with all of these things being too busy, not wanting to look at my numbers, wondering if I can raise prices, being afraid to have the difficult conversations. I have literally been in the trenches and every time you sit down to have the conversation with a client or you just raise your prices across the board. With all the new people coming in, it's like such a weight off your shoulders and the universe responds to that energy by bringing you new and better clients. It's happened to me every single time.
Christine DeHerrera:I'm not a huge fan of the book Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, but one thing that she said in there that really flipped the script for me was charge like a man, and what she meant by that was if you're doing hourly work for a client and you get on the phone with them for five minutes, you have to bill them for that. So that was the one bright point of that book for me, and I challenge you to that as well. If you're still feeling squirmy around undercharging, just charge like a man. I thought that was so funny, but it really stuck with me and it gave me a lot of courage.
Christine DeHerrera:This is one of the things I work with my own clients on. I even work with this on some of my vendors. I'm like it is time for you to raise your prices. So if this is something you need help with, you can book a free consultation to talk about how I might be able to help you, and be sure to tune in tomorrow for day four of the Freer Magic Challenge, because we just keep getting deeper and deeper into it and I know you're going to love this next toxic trait. See you then.