Three Ways People Stall After This Course

Imagine a wedding photographer named Wendell Graves who finishes the course over the winter. On March 1, he raises his price in stages. Couples who book from that day pay $5,200 instead of $4,500, and couples already booked keep their price. His website still offers eight hours of coverage and 600 edited photos, as it has for four years. Only the figure has changed.

In March and April, nine couples write to ask about dates. Wendell sends each one his price. Two of them ask whether it is flexible, and the other seven do not write back.

In May, Wendell decides that the course works for other trades but not for weddings. He puts his price back to $4,500. The couples who write in June are the ones who wanted the old price.

Suppose instead that Wendell sits down on the first Friday of May with his sent emails and his price page. He sets the quote he sent in February beside the one he sent in April. They match word for word, apart from the figure. His April quote is a new price on the same offer, and that tends to bring silence instead of new clients.

So Wendell leaves his price at $5,200 and rewrites what he sells. He now offers the whole wedding day, for couples who marry at a family home. It starts with a walk of the house and grounds a month before the wedding. It ends with an album delivered by the first anniversary. His page says what is included and what is quoted on its own.

In June, Mrs. Alcott writes about her daughter’s wedding at the family’s farm. She asks which Saturdays in September Wendell has free, and she books the 14th at $5,200.

Wendell finished the same course both times, and he raised his price on the same date. What changed was what he did when the couples went quiet. In the first version, he took the quiet as a verdict on the course. In the second, he looked in his own emails, and they showed him the one lesson he skipped.

So when a change you made after the course brings little, do not give up on it yet. Look for the sign of a stall first. Here is why a stall happens, and the three kinds to check for.

A stall is a change that stopped at the part a client meets first

Here is the course’s view of why people stall. A word on your page or a figure on your price list can be changed in an evening. The change shows at once, so it feels like progress. The part underneath takes longer. Rewriting an offer can take weeks, and so can practicing a new behavior until it holds with a client pushing back. Nothing on your website shows whether you did that part.

So it is easy to change the first part and stop there. A client meets both parts, though. They read the new word, and then the sentence after it. They see the new price, and then what it buys. A change that stopped at the first part brings little, and it can look as if the course failed.

Each kind of stall leaves a sign in what you did. So check for a stall once a month, in your sent emails, your quotes, and your notes. Those are the records that the check of your last three clients used too. A quiet month tells you that bookings are slow, and nothing more. Only the sign in your records tells you which part stopped.

New words stall when the sentences around them still ask for approval

Imagine an event planner named Clementine Rourke who goes through her replies after the course. She swaps “package” for “fee” and “book” for “retain”. In April, Mrs. Vandermeer writes to ask about a dinner for 60 to mark 40 years of marriage.

Clementine replies between two site visits. “My fee to plan the dinner is $8,500. I know that may be more than you expected, but it covers everything from the venue to the day itself. If you’d like to retain me, I’ll send the agreement. I hope that works for you!” Mrs. Vandermeer writes back to ask whether there is any room in the fee. Clementine agrees to $7,500.

The words in Clementine’s reply were the new ones. The sentences around them were the old ones. “I know that may be more than you expected” apologizes for the fee. “I hope that works for you” asks Mrs. Vandermeer to approve it. An apology tells a client that the price might be open to discussion, so Mrs. Vandermeer asked.

The sign of this stall is in your sent emails. Find the ones that use your new words, and read the sentence before each word and the sentence after it. Look for an apology, a hope, a question such as “does that make sense?”, or reasons nobody asked for. Any one of them is the sign.

The fix is to take the softening off each end of the statement. Leave out the defense of a fee nobody questioned, too. Clementine’s reply is then two sentences. “My fee to plan the dinner is $8,500, from the first venue visit to the last car home. If you would like to retain me, I will send the agreement tomorrow.” Mrs. Vandermeer asks whether Clementine is free on October 18, and retains her at $8,500.

A new price stalls when the offer under it stays the same

Wendell’s stall was this one. His April quote was his February quote with a larger figure, and it still offered eight hours and 600 photos. The couples had nothing new to pay for, so they went quiet.

The sign is on your price list and in your quotes. Find the date your price last went up. Then write down what else changed that day. It might be what you sell, the words you use for it, or the clients who see it. If the answer is “nothing,” that is the sign.

The fix is to leave the price where it is and change one of those three first. Wendell chose the offer, and he rewrote it as one whole result with its limits written down. If you have not raised your price yet, write the new offer before you do. Then hold the price through the months before new clients arrive. Cutting it back, as Wendell did in the first version, brings back the clients who wanted the old price.

New behaviors stall when they were practiced only where nothing pushed back

Imagine an interior designer named Augustin Lyle who writes his three behaviors in January. One is for the moment a client says another designer charges less. He will say that the comparison is fair, name what is different about working with him, and say his fee again. He says the answer aloud in his studio until it comes easily.

His notes from the Friday checks in February show four first meetings. Three clients ask about the fee politely, and each time Augustin does what his card says. The fourth is Mr. Calloway, who wants a designer for a whole house. It is the job Augustin wants most.

Mr. Calloway says that another designer would do the house for a third less. He looks at his watch while Augustin answers. Augustin hears himself list the magazines that have shown his work. Then he offers to waive the fee for the first room. Mr. Calloway accepts, and Augustin designs the house for less than his fee.

The answer held with the three polite clients. With the client who pushed, the old performance came back: the list of credits, and an offer nobody asked for. That is what tends to happen to an answer practiced in a quiet room. Augustin’s studio had no Mr. Calloway in it.

The sign of this stall is in your Friday notes. Look at the times a behavior’s moment came and you did not do it. If those misses fall on the clients who pushed hardest, or on the jobs you wanted most, that is the sign.

The fix is to practice with a colleague who plays the client and makes each round harder. Start with the push that broke the answer. For Augustin, that is a colleague who names a lower quote and checks his watch. After four evenings, the hardest round his colleague can give him shows no habits, twice in a row.

In March, Mrs. Sutherland says that another designer quoted less for her apartment. Augustin’s heart is going fast, as it often does in a meeting where a client can judge him. He says the comparison is fair, names what is different, and says his fee again. Mrs. Sutherland asks when he could start.

Why taking a quiet month for a stall goes wrong

Imagine a dog walker named Fergus Doyle who does the course’s work in order. First, he rewrites his offer as a month of weekday care for households near the park. Then he raises his price in stages. New households pay $900 a month from March 1, and current households move to it on June 1. He sets August 1 as the day he will check how the new price is doing.

In March and April, no new household signs. Fergus decides that he has stalled. He rewrites his website again, and he offers new households their first month at $700. In May, two households sign at $700. In June, one of them tells a neighbor what she paid, and the neighbor asks Fergus for the same.

Fergus’s mistake was taking a quiet month for a stall. He had changed his offer before his price, so there was no sign to find. He was in the gap after a price increase, which is real and usually passes. The discount gave his new clients a lower price to remember.

In the version that works, Fergus checks for the three signs on the first Friday of May and finds none. His emails carry no apology, his offer changed before his price, and his Friday notes show no misses. So he leaves the price and the offer alone until August 1. In May, a household on the park signs at $900, and in June, two more do.

How to check for the three stalls

1. Choose the first Friday of each month for the check, and put it in your calendar. The course suggests once a month because a stall shows across a few clients, and one week may hold only one. Open your sent emails, your quotes, your price list, and your Friday notes.
2. Find every email from the month that uses your new words, such as “fee” or “retain.” Read the sentence before each word and the sentence after it. Mark any apology, hope, request for approval, or reason nobody asked for. For example, a home organizer might mark “I hope that’s all right!” after “My fee for the garage is $2,200.”
3. Find the date your price last went up, and write what else changed on that date. If the answer is “nothing,” mark it. For example, a tutor might write that her term price went from $2,800 to $3,200 in January. She still sells the term as 12 one-hour sessions.
4. In your Friday notes, list each time a behavior’s moment came and you did not do it. Next to each miss, write whether that client pushed back, or whether it was one of the jobs you wanted most. If most of the misses fall on those clients, mark it.
5. For each stall you marked, read the lesson that fixes it that week. For the words, that is the lesson on taking the softening off a statement. For the price, it is the lesson on rewriting your offer, with the price left where it is. For your behaviors, it is the lesson on practicing under pressure.
6. Do the steps of that lesson before the next first Friday. For example, a coach whose stall is in her behaviors asks a colleague for two evenings of practice.
7. If you find no sign and the month was still quiet, leave your price and your offer as they are. Wait for the check date you set when you raised your price. For example, a florist who raised her price in March leaves it alone through a quiet May.

Next: You will see what the next six months, the next year, and the next three years can look like.