July 11, 2025

Do you have to guarantee results when you value price?

A student of mine recently asked a great question that I bet a lot of you have wondered about:

If value pricing means you price based on the client’s desired results... does that mean you have to guarantee those results? Should you keep working until the outcome happens, no matter what?

This question raises a critical distinction that almost nobody intuitively understands about value pricing.

In almost every case, you CAN’T guarantee the client’s ultimate desired outcome.
But if you’re good at what you do, you can almost always guarantee something that the client believes will contribute to their desired outcome.

I’ll use myself as an example.

Let’s say my desired outcome is to double my annual revenue.

And let’s say you are an expert at growing mailing lists for thought leaders.

You can’t credibly guarantee that you could double my revenue.

Why?

Because no matter how good you are, I could do a thousand things to tank my annual revenue.

BUT!

If you are confident that you can double my mailing list subscriber count

AND

I believe that doubling my subscriber count would lead to doubling my revenue

THEN

You can set your price based on my doubled revenue, but only guarantee you’ll double my subscribers.

Here’s the thing...

If a buyer is talking to you about the possibility of working together, THEY BELIEVE THAT WHAT YOU DO CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR DESIRED OUTCOME.

If they didn’t believe that, THEY WOULDN’T BE WASTING THEIR TIME TALKING TO YOU.

So...

Price based on desired outcomes, but only guarantee the parts you can control.

Yours,

—J