4.1 The ceiling, and what moves it

Do this sum once, and it stays with you.

$180 a session. Twenty sessions a week, which is a full week for most people. Forty-six weeks a year. That’s $165,600. Before tax, before costs, and with no week off sick.

That’s the ceiling. The most your hours can ever earn. Raise the price and it lifts a little. Work more weeks and it lifts a little. But it’s still a ceiling, because there’s still only one of you.

What moves it is selling something that isn’t an hour.

A file is the first. A workbook, a template, a checklist. You write it once. Somebody who can’t afford a session buys it, and a client uses it between sessions. It sells while you’re asleep.

A group is the second. One hour, several people. Take a course of four dates, ninety minutes each, eight seats. Price a seat well below the same hours one to one, at forty percent of what four sessions would cost. That’s $288 a seat, and $2,304 for the course.

You teach six hours. Each one earns $384. That’s more than twice an hour with one person, and every person in the room paid less than they would alone.

And something monthly is the third. A retainer, or a file that renews. It turns the clients who keep coming back from bookings you hope for into income you can plan around.

You don’t need all three. You need the one your clients already ask you for. The next lesson is about finding it.