When a prospective client asks for a discount, you don't lower your price. You bring her back to what she wants to achieve, restate what the programme does for her, then offer flexibility on payment or scope, never on your rate. The decision gets made without anyone losing face.
Why does a leadership coach hear "can you do something on the price?"
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A discount request is a request for reassurance dressed up as a negotiation. The person in front of you may run a team and negotiate budgets all day. Asking for a gesture is a professional reflex. It says nothing about your price. It says she's interested: nobody haggles over something they don't want.
Remember who's paying. A leadership coach works with people who fund their own coaching, not with a company signing a purchase order. The money leaves her personal account. "Is that negotiable?" comes from a moment of vertigo right before committing, not from cold arithmetic.
If you give in straight away, you send a precise message: your price was padded. She'll wonder what else she could have had. And she'll start the programme believing everything is up for discussion, sessions and deadlines included.
What do you say without justifying yourself or digging in?
Don't launch into a defence of your fee. A price you defend looks fragile. Turn back to her with a calm question:
"Before we talk about the amount, tell me: if in six months you run your meetings without that knot in your stomach, and your team comes to you instead of going around you, what is that worth to you?"
You're taking her back to what she told you at the start of the call. She named the problem: feeling illegitimate next to longer-serving colleagues, dreading speaking up in the leadership meeting, the exhaustion of carrying everything alone. Your programme answers that. The price compares to the problem, not to a single session.
Then set the frame: "My price is the same for everyone I work with. What I can do is look at how to make it work for you." You've just closed the conversation about the rate and opened another one, about the how.
Where can a leadership coach actually be flexible?
You have three levers that leave your rate untouched.
- Payment rhythm. The same total, paid in instalments, matched to when her money comes in. For someone paying out of pocket, this is the real question behind "it's expensive": not the total, but paying it all at once.
- Scope. If the full amount genuinely doesn't work, offer a shorter version of your programme, with fewer sessions and a tighter goal. A client pays less because she gets less, never because your hour is worth less. A client who finishes a short version comes back for the next one.
- Timing. If it's a cash-flow issue this month, push the start date back a few weeks rather than cutting the price. You hold her place, she commits, and the first payment lands when she can manage it.
What you never do: the same programme, cheaper, "because it's you". It damages your offer and creates an inequality between your clients that always comes out eventually.
How do you close the call when she's still hesitating?
Once you've offered your gesture, stop talking. Let her think out loud. If she comes back to the price a second time, a doubt hasn't been voiced: about you, about her ability to see it through, about what people around her will think. Ask her: "What would make you say yes without hesitating?" The answer is rarely about money.
If she says yes, confirm in writing the same evening: the price, the payment rhythm, the date of the first session. If she says no, thank her and keep in touch. Someone who has negotiated with you has already pictured herself in your programme. She comes back when the time is right, and she doesn't ask for a discount twice.
Holding your price doesn't mean being rigid. It means knowing where you can move and where you never do. Your client feels it, and it's exactly what she's looking for in a leadership coach: someone who holds her position calmly.
If you'd like to work on how you present your price and close your calls, you can book a call.
