We were lucky to catch up with Rachel Sartori recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachel, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

In the world of Personal Growth and Transformation, I have experienced the biggest challenge to profitability being pricing for services. When you are a coach, you are essentially the product that people are purchasing. THAT in and of itself is an area of deep work, because we are putting our worth on the line.

Too often, we are emotionally attached to the outcome of someone choosing to hire us or not: If people find value in what we offer, they hire us and we feel good about ourselves. If people don’t find value if what we offer, they won’t hire us and we feel terrible about them and/or ourselves.

If we, as coaches, aren’t grounded in who we are, what we do and why it matters, we will struggle to price our services in a way that truly reflects our worth. If we are not able to find an appropriate and authentic price point that is competitive in the industry, we will struggle to be profitable.

On one hand, we may feed an inflated ego which says, “Of COURSE I’m worthy!” This attitude will price at a level that is often aggressive disproportionately to the actual service provided. It may error on the side of making clients or prospects wrong if they don’t hire us, criticizing them as not valuing themselves enough to pay for the coaching service.

On the other hand, we may feed a deflated ego which says, “I am not sure if I’m worthy and don’t want to be presumptuous.” This attitude will price at a level that is often significantly lower and thus disproportionate to the actual service provided. It may error on the side of assuming clients or prospects couldn’t possibly ever pay more for our services. There is self-criticism and we don’t value ourselves enough to charge a more appropriate amount for our service.

Either way, consciously or unconsciously, we experience Imposter Syndrome when we aren’t grounded in who we are, what we do and why it matters. Imposter Syndrome only serves us if we are able to notice that we are experiencing it…and then choose to face it and heal the underlying {false} belief that we shouldn’t be doing what we are doing, that we aren’t qualified or worthy to be doing it (and making money doing it).

As long as you buy in to that belief, on any level, you will struggle to be authentically and sustainably profitable as a coach.

This has been my journey. When I first began coaching, I struggled to charge at all. I gravitated towards the deflated ego attitude of “I don’t want to be presumptuous that I’m actually worth being paid.” I gave away sessions and workshops for free. ..which actually means I paid for people to work with me, because I gave them welcome gifts, journals, workbooks, even food at workshops, and most importantly, my time.

I could hear the internal dialogue of “Who do I think I am to charge people?!”
I listened, I felt the sting of Impostor Syndrome. I allowed myself to be in the inquiry: “Who did I think I was?” Sometimes this questions was PAINFUL to face. It meant I had to look at my shadow parts and face deep insecurities that I’ve carried since I was a little girl. I kept turning towards myself, as uncomfortable as it was at times. I learned to show up for myself in an embodied way, so that the cells of my being could remember the innate value and goodness of who I am.

The question S L O W L Y turned into, “Who do I know I am?”
Which turned from a question into grounded, embodied knowing.

As I continue to explore and inquire within, as I allow to rise up the truth about who I am, what I do and why it matters, I find less and less emotional charge around pricing and whether or not people hire me.

Instead of letting someone else’s decision to work with me {or not} define the value I provide through coaching and facilitation, I know simply know that I do. Some people will be ready to do the work with me. Some people aren’t ready yet. I am still called to provide space for the inner work to be done. I trust that the ones who are ready will join me.

In the end, my focus has been to continue doing my work so that I can show up even more fully for my clients and participants. My coaching if transformational because I will never lead a client or participant somewhere I’m not willing to go myself. It is an on-going journey and I am deeply committed to it. The product I provide – sacred, set-apart space to deepen into the truth of who we are, so that we consciously evolve into our fullest expression – is empowering and profoundly healing. I have a price point that reflects what I believe about myself, the value of the work and the infinite possibility of those who are ready to go deeper.

Entrepreneur.com encourages this “…don’t be afraid to charge for quality. If you spend more time making your product better, people will be willing to pay for it.” (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/284772)

This I know to be true.

Rachel, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a Personal Growth and Transformation Coach + Facilitator. A teacher by trade, with a Masters in Education, I am also a Certified Professional Coach; trauma-informed through Certification in Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy (Embody Lab) and Advanced Leadership and Facilitation Training (COR). I am also in the process of becoming a Licensed Practitioner of Religious Science.

I intersect with people in a place of openness and inquiry, of authenticity and curiosity, where they are safe to come undone, find their true home and realize they already belong within their own hearts.

As the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Exercise Your Soul, I create sacred, set-apart opportunities for people to awaken, cultivate and integrate the truth of their goodness and wholeness so they can live fully from the inside out.

I am in the business of conscious evolution through mindfulness cultivation, self-responsibility, and expanding awareness of the inarguable truth that resides at the center of each of us. To do this, I guide clients and participants to PARE down to what is most essential so they can SOAR.

I facilitate group work through workshops, retreats, and classes, as well as facilitate 1:1 work through private coaching.

I use a variety of tools and modalities, including, but not limited to mindfulness cultivation, visualizations, experiential processes, somatic tracking, parts work, journaling, holistic inquiry, active listening, and non-violent communication.

The work I facilitate matters because our society is both hurting AND longing for more. We are lonely, muddled, hustling, living in fear, avoiding, pretending, proving, grasping, hoping, depressed, anxious…we are alive, but live as though we are struggling to survive.

Baked into us, on a cellular and unconscious level, is a faulty system of beliefs that say we/others are broken, not enough or limited; that the world is broken, that there isn’t enough, that limitations are reality. BUT there is also something inside that says, “This can’t be it! There must be more to life!”

We are ready, as human beings, to up-level our lives; to actually bring into reality the moreness that we sense on an intuitive level, is possible.

Consciously up-leveling invites us to take responsibility for our words, actions and choices and the impacts of our words, actions and choices, by living and making decisions from a place of grounded wisdom and compassion, not fear. It is an invitation to create space between the stimulus of life and our response. It is in this space that we are able to make new choices that will produce new results and move us forward into a future of infinite possibility. It is in this space that we learn how to respond, and we release the need to react.

Clients and participants have the opportunity to BE with the ideas on a personal and somatically-conscious level, in a safe container that is welcoming to all, open, and non-judgmental. This container allows human survival strategies to begin to relax, so that the authentic self may be awakened, cultivated and integrated into the everyday living of each person. This is where we transfer all the amazing knowledge that we have in our thinking brains, into the cells of our being, so that we can ripple out healing and wholeness from ourselves throughout our families, workplaces, communities and world. It begins here, within our own hearts. It is here that we Exercise Our Souls and heal the world.

The Vision of Exercise Your Soul:
Conscious evolution from survival to thrival; from living in limitation and fear to living in authentic freedom and joy.

The Mission of Exercise Your Soul:
To provide sacred, set-apart opportunities for people to awaken, cultivate and integrate the truth of their goodness and wholeness empowering them to live fully from the inside out.

Are YOU ready to Exercise Your Soul?

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Exercise Your Soul is a soul calling that started out as a side hustle. In 2020, I was ready to take the next step and grow it into a profitable business, not just a side hustle. And then I was faced with the unraveling of my marriage and a traumatic divorce.

Although I was ready to take the next step to grow Exercise Your Soul, I didn’t anticipate that it would come on the tail of a painful divorce, a raw heart and high attorney’s fees which drained my bank account. I grieved the loss of support (emotional and financial) but knew that it was STILL TIME to grow my business.

My pivot was willingness to continue moving forward, even though everything externally suggested I should change direction and throw in the towel.

Against all odds, I choose to move forward with my soul’s calling. It has been a profound opportunity to keep doing my work. I am rounded in the truth of who I am, regardless of my relationship status. I know what I do and why it matters, primarily because I am not just surviving but thriving!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Lesson to Unlearn: Figure it all out {cross all the t’s, dot all the i’s, make sure it is perfect} before you roll it out.

I have been known to be a “perfectionist.” I really, really like getting things right and doing things well. However, when you are in the business of conscious evolution, you get to come face-to-face with the very obstacles that prevent your own up-leveling.

What I am re-learning is that “figuring it out” is a process. There are t’s to cross, and i’s to dot, but there is no arrival at perfection. There will be another t to cross. Somewhere down the line you realize there is another i to dot. The key is to be awake, aware, willing to renegotiate how you do what you do, and to keep showing up.

The underlying message in my relearn is self-compassion for the human condition. I’m human and I create space for other humans to be in their truth. We are all doing the best with what we have AND we all have the opportunity to fine-tune, learn more, and expand more broadly into what is possible.

Keep showing up: awake, aware and willing to renegotiate how you do what you do.

Contact Info:

• Website: exerciseyoursoul.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/exerciseyoursoul/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/cominghomewithin
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/exerciseyoursoulwithrachel/

Image Credits
Cactus Fox Photography Chrissy Marie Photography