There was a religiously infused knock-off of Lion King that shied away from the little lion’s daddy dying, instead opting to return him to life with the power of belief. While that’s great for the cartoon lion cub, children watching got a horrifying message: if somebody dear to you dies, and don’t get magicked back to life, it’s your own fault for not believing enough. Eeek!
I sometimes get a similar “vibe” from sources that connect higher confidence with the ability to achieve a higher price tag. You may have wondered, as I have, although it’s a nice thought, how does that work, exactly?
Why would a rational client know or care about whether you, the service provider, quietly suffer from imposter syndrome? More to the point, are all those countless poor souls offering their services on Fiverr really just one Tony Robbins seminar away from a decent income stream?
The problem is that by the time clients are ready to pay for an expert opinion they are usually scared and in a hurry, but they have a hard time telling good work from bad. However, pricing is one thing they DO understand. So, being scared, they will get drawn toward higher prices, thinking that if the expert has the confidence to ask for that much, there’s got to be a reason for it.
Higher prices do signal higher confidence, but that’s probably the only reliable way the confidence-pricing link actually works.