Leading H.E.R. Way Podcast

72: How To Confidently Raise Prices And Improve Sales As A Creative Entrepreneur

• Nikisha King | Certified Life & Business Coach • Season 3 • Episode 72

Share episode

If you’re working nonstop and still wondering “Why am I not making more money?”—this episode is your wake-up call.

In this episode of Leading Her Way, Nikisha King gets raw about her early years in business, how she undervalued her offers (thinking she was “just selling paper”), and what finally changed everything.

You’ll learn:

  • The mindset shift that helped Nikisha go from $1K to $15K+ proposals
  • Why low prices + high volume often keep you stuck and burnt out
  • A proven path to create offers that clients happily say yes to—without burnout

This isn’t just about “charging more”—it’s about recognizing your value, getting clear on your process, and learning how to sell with confidence so you can grow your income, not your exhaustion.

If you're ready to stop undercharging and start booking premium clients, don’t miss this episode.

Want more juicy tips like this to grow your income with less stress?
Follow @nkbizguru on IG for real talk, confidence-boosting sales strategies, and behind-the-scenes shifts that helped Nikisha go from $1K bookings to consistent $15K sales.

Ready to book with confidence?
Get access to Nikisha’s 5-Star SCALE™ System and other free tools that will help you stop second-guessing your prices and start selling like the CEO you are.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Leading Her Way with your host and business guru, nakesha King. This podcast is the ultimate destination for women, creative entrepreneurs, who want to break free from burnout. If you are overwhelmed by client demands and feel like you're doing this all alone, you, my friend, are in the right place. Now let's dive in for steps to take back your time and simplify your workflow. All right, nikisha, take it away.

Nikisha King:

Hello, gorgeous Welcome to Leading Her Way podcast. I am your host, nikisha, and I am excited to be here Now. When I started Leading Her Way podcast, I started out with an experiment I wanted to know where and how to serve the people. I love creative women, entrepreneurs who are coming into being an entrepreneur for the first time without family history, without knowing where to start and even when they become seasoned five years in, 10 years, in still struggling because there is something that they feel like they're missing. So I exactly understand that, because I was there. However, in 2021, during COVID, I went through a transition of discovering how to. You know what I mean, the how to and I thought it was the actions, but I realized it's the mindset. So, in starting this podcast, I discovered a really good gift of mine when I meet people, I can connect, I can hear them really well and I can come up with the strategies and actual tasks planned to implement the strategy, and not by using the smart technique, not by using goal setting. That, for me, didn't work and for my clients, it sometimes don't, because they feel like they're not having momentum. So this is why I am here. This is why I show up every Tuesday to speak to you, and this is why I take time off, so I can replenish all of the creative ideas. So when I come here, I can answer your questions, I can speak to you, I can give you an aha moment or I can plan a C that you didn't see. So if you're listening to this episode today, I just wanted to tell you that, so you understand why you're showing up. And if you know someone who needs exactly that another women entrepreneur, another woman entrepreneur, a creative entrepreneur no matter their agenda, sometimes we just need to hear a word that will set us on fire. So if you know someone, please share this podcast with them.

Nikisha King:

And for today, I'm still in the how to make money series. Because here's the thing If I can't help you rise, if I can't help you earn and produce a life for yourself through currency, then I have no point of being here. So we're still in the how to make money series. I will be in that series for a long time because I've come to realize we think making money is about the actions. We call it the A-line in my world, but it's not, and there's something a little bit more in that action that we need to take it kind of, is thought, work, mindset work, reframing the beliefs that was once given to us. That no longer serves us. So I want to speak about why we're not making money and I add myself in there, not because that's something that's happening to me today, but I want you to know that happened to me and this is why I can relate to you. When I started my company, the Nikisha you see show up today is so not the Nikisha that was in that time, and in that time I struggled in making money and I want to speak about why I struggled, what I did to get out of that struggle and what was the result of getting out of that struggle. So when I started in 2009, I was brand new.

Nikisha King:

My dad was an entrepreneur, but him being an entrepreneur, he never made it look good. It wasn't like he was making millions. That encouraged me to be an entrepreneur. He was also struggling as an entrepreneur and in the time when he was, there were no I didn't know because I wasn't in the market looking but my assumption is there were no other tow truck companies who were coaching other tow trucks how to build their companies. So every struggle he went through, he had to discover a lot of mistakes to get where he needed to be, and you really believe that that's what he had to discover. But I'm going to be honest with you from the day he stopped and he retired, he still didn't find that solution. He didn't find that answer. He had to retire because he got into an accident that was so life-changing for him that he decided he no longer is going to do that. He had to find himself, his real purpose in life. Right, and I'm grateful for that moment, because my dad's still with me and a lot of us are in a business doing what we love, and somehow everything we do it still doesn't feel like it's working out and there's a lot behind that.

Nikisha King:

So when I started my company, I didn't start from a place of. I wanted to be an entrepreneur all my life. That's not true for me. I was on the road to becoming a thoracic surgeon. I wanted to get into surgery. I wanted to go to med school and when I worked for some physicians in private offices, their family life did not support my dream of what I wanted to be for my family. So I cut that dream short. I pivoted into healthcare administration. I worked there, got my master's in public health, got my master's in business administration. I did the actions, I did the work. Then I got pregnant and my life changed again. I stopped working.

Nikisha King:

After working, for what? Over 13, 15 years since I was 13. Now to 31, inverted numbers. I stopped working and my life didn't know what to do with itself. I didn't know what to do with myself, so I started a business. Now, when I started my business, I didn't know what to do with itself. I didn't know what to do with myself, so I started a business. Now, when I started my business, I didn't have any clue what I wanted to do, because I did not associate my healthcare to entrepreneurship, because all I've done was work in another company. So there was no healthcare health advocate entrepreneurship.

Nikisha King:

But what I did discover when I was getting married is how to be creative, how to be present. So I started a creative company, which was a wedding invitation company, and starting that company. No clue where to start, no clue how to do anything, and I had to discover it on my own. Yes, I wanted a partner. Yes, I tried. That Didn't work because my partner was already thinking about making money or taking money out the company when we were not making money. So I was like this is not going to work for me, because if we're not making any money yet, how are we in a position to think about what we're taking for your family, wealth, generation and creation? And it just didn't make sense. You know, I don't know if you've ever experienced that. So what happened is I started to do it on my own.

Nikisha King:

I started with a company that made things for me and I would sell them we call it Keystone Selling or you kind of affiliate you have different names for it today and that was as good as it can get. But my clients demanded more of me by doing custom and of course I rise to the occasion, because that's what entrepreneurs do we find the problems that we provide solutions for it. However, in doing that, I started to minimize my value. Now I'm going to stop here and we're going to talk about minimizing your value and I'm going to share my experience, and either you're going to see your story or either you're not, and I'm being really share my experience, and either you're going to see your story or either you're not, and I'm being really open and vulnerable, because it's the only way I can literally help you on your journey. So, being or seeing your value, I knew I was an amazing human being. I've never had a problem with understanding that. But being an entrepreneur, I didn't understand the value.

Nikisha King:

When I was selling wedding invitations, I believed solely in my heart and my gut. I was selling paper, and selling paper is not like the best job on earth, and in that thought that I had, I figured people didn't want to buy my invitations. And here's what made it a little worse. I stepped into communities where you would hear people talk about what their clients were saying about paper. Paper is just invitation is just paper. It's something I'm going to throw away. And I kept hearing it and hearing it, and the more I heard it, the more I started to believe I was just selling paper and no one's going to really want to buy that at a expensive, high price. So, of course, what did I do?

Nikisha King:

The best thing I knew in that moment I sold low, and we usually have a model for that where you sell at a lower price so you can get high volume, and then in the other side of the market is you sell at a higher price and get low volume. This is usually a supply and demand situation. The market has different tiers and that's what was happening. So, of course, if I'm just selling paper, I'm going to go for a lower price and hope I get higher value. And what happened is in the beginning I was getting a low value, but I kept putting myself in places to rev that volume up. I kept going on websites and places where people were coming bidding on my offers. Do the lowest bid so you get more offers right, more people. And it was working until it wasn't and I want you to know when I valued myself, as I'm just selling paper, I did the bare minimum and still got paid. But the bare minimum was giving me a really challenging moment because the quality of work was low and people complained.

Nikisha King:

Now let me share this too. The complaints were really nothing because when I was selling low, I was attracting the people who wanted to pay low, so their expectation of what I was doing wasn't high. So there was some people who had really bad experiences who came to me at a low price and had an amazing experience. I didn't have a lot of bad reviews. I didn't have any complaints. The one time I had a complaint was that growing moment where my quality was low. I wanted high. Someone booked me with high and they didn't get one thing and they kind of made it a big thing. But I realized it was never about me. They had a lot going on in their life. Their mother was taking everything over. They got Lyme disease in the process. They were going under treatment for that. So they took a lot of their anger out on me over some wax seals that were not perfect and that were meant to be perfect. So I just want to share that with you.

Nikisha King:

But I was attracting people like that because I didn't value myself. I didn't value not myself but the entrepreneur in me, the understanding of what skills, what value I give my clients. And I was giving them immense value. I would take care of so much custom and presenting three mock-ups and three designs and giving them my all for beer minimum. Now let me explain to you. Even though I was charging a thousand for a hundred invites, you would assume I was getting a profit on that, but I wasn't. I was losing money because all the mistakes that was happening through me printing in my home, printing at the print shop, having extra costs. So I think I lost my moments and times and this is what I was experiencing.

Nikisha King:

So what happened is I had stepped into a conference in 2019 and I learned a lot about someone's way of doing things. I stepped into a community where I saw someone else in how they did it, how they sold, how they produced, how they priced. And when I stepped into this community, that was more uplifting than telling me that invitations is just paper and this is what all their customers are complaining about all the negative individuals and negative mindsets. In those communities. I couldn't rise, but in this community, I had to pay to get in. There was something different and in seeing this difference, I discovered that there was hope, that invitations weren't just paper. There was something that this person implanted in me another way of seeing the value I have in the experience and skills that I had obtained in starting my business in 2009.

Nikisha King:

This was 2019, so 10 years later. And why was it long? Because I didn't value myself enough, so I never invested in myself until that day. And that's when my life changed and I want to tell you, as an entrepreneur, how did I fix my selling low, high volume and I didn't even tell you. With the high volume and the low quality, there was a lot of pain and high volume didn't make my bank account bigger. What it did was it allowed me to show up, give my all break, even or less.

Nikisha King:

And when I was giving my all to my company, I was losing money, or I was losing time. I should say not money, I was losing time with the people I love my two kids who were born, who were brand new to the world, who was under five would get me but not at my fullest. There was a moment in time we were going on a vacation and I remember the night before we left, my husband and I were packing invitations. He was helping me because I wanted to get the order out, because they needed it, because the wedding was coming. And why was all of this happening to me? Because I didn't know how to systemize. I didn't know how to create workflows and have timelines and get what I needed to get things out. Before I had to go on vacation, before I had to do things, I was the bottleneck in my company.

Nikisha King:

So, yes, you too can have low prices 30, 40, 50, 100, 700 clients a year to make your money, but at what cost? And if you don't believe there's a cost, that's fine If you have a team. If you don't have a team, you are the cost. Your life is the cost, your time is the cost, your health is the cost. That is what you are willing to exchange for. Low price, high quantity.

Nikisha King:

Now, it wasn't a model without a team that served me, so I had to fix this. I had to find another way, and finding another way came to me when I saw someone who hardly had a team but was making multiple six millions because of their understanding of the value they bring to the relationship in selling wedding invitations. And when I sat in that seminar from nine to five or nine to four on a Saturday and Sunday, I gained so much knowledge and in that moment I didn't know I was gaining knowledge, but in that moment there was a fire ignited in me that when I went home, sunday, the last day I knew, my life changed forever. And it did. It really did. I came back home.

Nikisha King:

I hired a coach for systems. My coach and I worked nine months and she got me to understand who was I selling for, who was the messaging, what was happening? How was I doing this? She never even showed me the how, because I already knew the how, although all of my business life I kept asking everyone how, how, how, how, show me, show me, show me, show me. And I kept doing that because I kept thinking I didn't have the answer. But when I was working with my coach, she would ask me questions. I would answer her because I did have the answers, and I would get clearer and clearer and clearer. And the more clear I got, the more confident I became.

Nikisha King:

And when I became confident, I would try things, I would experiment. I would go out there and like to planners. I wanted to work with planners, so I would go out there and tell them my offer starts at 4,000 for invites. But once again, I was speaking to the wrong people. I was speaking to people who were like me, who didn't find value in their services. So they can't sell planning services for maybe 4,000 and then want to sell me my invitations for that 4,000. It didn't compute, it didn't work out for them, especially if they were a planner who charged less than 4,000. I was speaking to the wrong people because this is my circle and I thought these people were good enough, but I was speaking to the wrong people.

Nikisha King:

However, I didn't give up. I kept my systems. I got so good with them. I got people to come in. I had forms when they filled it out. Things were moving. When they come in, they would just keep flowing in, and that started to help me.

Nikisha King:

However, the companies I were using right Low price, high volume use companies that are low price as well. Omg, they were messing up every time because the volume started to increase. So, of course, the messing up, the mistakes, started to increase too on their side. It wasn't like I was their only client. They were a big company in my eyes, but they were always jacking it up. They were going through their own struggles. This is what we don't realize when we collaborate, we use vendors. It's amazing, but we have to find the partners for us.

Nikisha King:

So when I went to this conference, the seminar that weekend, she had provided us with a printing company she uses Guess, who called them. I did. I called them and at first their prices were like three times what I used to pay and I was like how am I going to make this work? And the only way I could make it work is I had to increase my prices. So what I did is I put it out there. This is what I'm doing now. I told people and someone reached out to me and we started working and I remember, in 2021 of December, I booked my first $8,500 client and I booked another client for 5,000. I kept booking more clients at a higher number and, of course, what I did was I took my family out.

Nikisha King:

There's a show, an Asian show I forgot what his name, but it might be Jishan. It's a beautiful ballet, asian style. It's something and it's amazing and I always wanted to see it and I paid for our tickets to go and I took my family with me and this was a time where I got to spend with them enjoying something I love. Now, them, they didn't see the beauty in it, but I did because I'm a dancer and I love it. But I was able to pay for the tickets through my business and I felt like this was a great reward for the work I put in. From that day, things changed. I started to be comfortable writing a proposal that was $15,000, even though that client said no to another $15,000 proposal. I was comfortable charging $21,000. And I didn't get here by just a snap of a finger. I got here because I started to do things differently.

Nikisha King:

Systems are not about holding a creative back. They're not about giving creatives boundaries. They're not about boxing you in. They're about helping you create capacity where you can have high volume. I don't care if you want high volume, but you need something to help you. They also are in place to help you become clear about your process, so that the client experience is even better, where they're going to pay you for the value you give. This is what I am here for.

Nikisha King:

When I work with my clients, I promise you they are buying into my offer and the first thing they're telling me is that they're struggling with pricing, they're struggling with sales. And when we work, even in the first month, you have to understand there is no magic. I don't have a magic pill. I don't have a magic anything. We do a couple of things in their company and the next thing I know they just made their money back. They're making sales their highest sales to date because they choose to work with me, because they choose to do the thing I ask of them and listen, I'm going to rephrase that because I don't ask them to do anything. I have a conversation with them.

Nikisha King:

I so disrupt every beautiful brain molecule, neuropathic way happening, and then they have moments to think about something and they take an action. They take this step. I don't care what kind of step. It's not big, small, steps are not any size. They they take this step. I don't care what kind of step. It's not big, small steps are not any size. They're just a step. And when they take the step, something happens all the time and that's where their growth begins. Now my clients get to work with me six months, so if that's like the first month and five months, they're not going to come out the same way they started. It's not even possible and I've seen it many, many times. But I understand the fix, the repair, the thing that's going to help my clients, help you get going.

Nikisha King:

Business is not about the A-line, it's not about the actions. It's about the way you see things, the way you think about things, and one of the ways when I was selling wedding invitations, I thought it was just paper, and that feeling of, oh my God, this is just paper. No one's going to buy this from me made me feel in like a small number. It made me feel small as an entrepreneur. No place in the world. I can't do this. I can't make it. This is not going to work. Everything I said created it not to work. If it's not going to work, I'm not going to show up. I'm not going to give value. I'm not going to figure out how to make this offer irresistible. I am not going to do the things I need to do to bring value to my clients because I'm in my pain. I'm here complaining it's never going to work because invitation is just paper.

Nikisha King:

You are doing possibly the same thing. You right now have a high volume, I promise you. You're making money Not enough, not enough for what you desire. And with making money not enough, not enough for what you desire. And with making money, you have a high volume because your price is a little bit low. So the volume is there. You're making 40 to 80,000, or maybe 40 to 60,000 a year, but you like this is not enough and you just don't know how to get to the six figures, the first 100K, and that's where you want to be.

Nikisha King:

But what story are you telling yourself? What are you saying that is holding you back from making progress, that money? I want you to tell me that. I want you to think about that, and if there's a thought right now that came up for you. I'm going to give you an exercise. I want you to write it down on a piece of paper, on the top, and I want you to put a Y in front of it why am I thinking X, y and Z? Then put a five to seven minute timer on your watch, your phone, wherever you have a timer, and then every thought that comes to your mind answering that question, write it down. Don't stop. Just keep flowing until that timer goes off. And when it does, you're going to start out with all the possibilities on top. It's going to be like well, it's because no one wants to buy from me. There's a recession, there are tariffs, these are increasing prices. No one can to buy from me. There's a recession, there are tariffs, these are increasing prices. No one can afford me because there's a recession.

Nikisha King:

But by the time you get down to the seven minute, you're going to realize the reason I'm not making money is because I don't believe this is good. My offer sucks, this could be so much better. This is what happens in this exercise. The first time the logic comes into place, the brain spews all the things that are outside of you Victim game. Everything is making it, the reason I'm not making money. Everything outside of me is the reason I'm not making money. Then, when you get down to like that six minutes 30 seconds your heart starts to speak. Your heart goes. No, it's not true. You don't believe in yourself. You don't believe what you have is good. Every time I did this exercise, the pain I would feel in that last minute before time came to an end would hurt. But it was true. I struggled with understanding my value as an entrepreneur.

Nikisha King:

And here's the thing I had to go through that to be the person you see today. See that name Nikisha King Business Essentials. It didn't just come from the freaking ear, it came from understanding there is essentials to being an entrepreneur. There is something you need in order for you to become the freaking best in what you do, like Gay Hendricks say the zone of genius, the big leap. These are two books that I read and I loved and I share and I enjoy when people get the aha moment from those books. I loved and I share and I enjoy when people get the aha moment from those books. You are special. You are special.

Nikisha King:

I want you to know that you have a gift Right now. Your business might not even be the thing you're supposed to be doing because you don't really love it. That was how I felt as a wedding invitation designer. I did it for creativity, but it wasn't my love. But what became my love is the business, the art of business. That's what is my passion. That is why, when I get with my clients, I'm a freaking machine. I help them from building their website, copy, content creation, content curation, content placement on their websites. You know why? Because I'm a creative designer. My wedding invitation gave me that gift. Now I use that gift in a value state position to help my clients rise. Everything no more PDFs, all could be done on a website. You have no idea how much I love what I do for a business owner, but the only way I could have learned that is by going through the journey of an entrepreneur.

Nikisha King:

This is why I'm here today. I'm here today to teach you exactly what I've learned through my failures, through my pain. No, I don't want you to do 10 years of pain. You might have done two or three years, and that's fine, because you needed the pain to know what the pleasure would be after when you receive it. But I want to tell you you don't have to go through it for long. You can opt in for 10 years. I swear I didn't want to opt in, but I didn't know any better. But today I do.

Nikisha King:

And today's where my life changes, and it changed so much consistently, because I'm always hungry not for more, but for helping others, for giving, for pouring into the other people that I see, who are freaking, phenomenal, and there's a lot of creative entrepreneurs who are women, men, non-binary people out there. The reason I work with women is because I'm a woman sorry, because I'm a woman, and as a woman I feel like I can help so much better because there's no fight. As women, we don't fight to learn from someone, we don't close our ears down, we don't think we know more, we don't let our pride get in our way. When it comes to men, you have men who will not let pride get anywhere, and there's some men who won't ever hear you. You know, it took a while for my husband to hear me and he still sometimes don't hear me, and it's okay. I've come to that place too. That's just because I've gotten better with everything in my life. But when he does, he gets a moment. When he doesn't, he'll figure it out on his own, and I'm okay with either. I'm okay with anyone wanting to figure it out on their own.

Nikisha King:

But why? Why, when you have a hand like ready to hold your hand and walk with you side by side on your journey to help you win, why would you say no? And normally, when I used to say no, because I didn't value myself, I didn't believe I could do it. But once I did, my whole life changed. Yours will too. But thank you so much for listening in, thank you for being here with me. Thank you for understanding that this journey of being an entrepreneur is serious and if you're really into it because you want some form of freedom, the freedom is not your motivator. You need a lot more than that. If you think about freedom of time freedom to be with my family when I'm sick, I could do things. Listen, I started on that same playing field too, but that wasn't a motivator for me. That didn't push me. What pushed me was you Knowing you existed, knowing you would come after me and wanting to help you. Thank you so much for being here on Leading Her Way podcast.

Nikisha King:

I will see you next Tuesday. I'm going to constantly be here for you, cheer you on and help you reframe the thoughts you're having about your business. See you soon. And PS, if you're listening to this, go to the resource link. And PS, if you're listening to this, go to the resource link. I have my more profit, less chaos masterclass on May 14th. You're invited and everything I learned to fix my company. I am teaching on that day. So I hope to see you soon. Bye.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining us today on Leading Her Way. We loved having you with us. Remember each action you take, no matter how small, adds up to big results. If today's episode fired you up, hit subscribe for more insights and visit our resource hub, which is linked to the show notes. There you'll find tools to streamline, organize and grow your business. Keep moving forward and we'll be right here to cheer you on next week.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Nikisha King-Hidalgo

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.