“Branding is the art of differentiation.”
Discovery call questions can tell you a lot about your business.
The good ones ask about your process, what kind of clients you work with, whether you’ve handled a situation like theirs before, how long you’ve been doing this, etc.
Price comes up eventually. But not right away.
The ones that open with, “So, what does this cost?” are there for a completely different conversation.
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It’s easy to assume those folks are just being cheap or wasting your time shopping around.
Totally fair.
But sometimes, they’re asking the only question they’ve been equipped to ask.
Everything else — how you work, what makes you different, what changes for them after they hire you — is nowhere to be found in your messaging. So they default to the one variable they know how to compare: COST.
Even worse, once they’ve landed on a number, the entire call turns into you justifying it. Explaining what they get, why it works, why you charge what you charge, how you’re better / different / more special than someone else, or pre-committing to out of scope add-ons.
And most of the time, they still don't buy. Because the entire conversation was framed around a dollar amount; not whether the outcome is worth having in the first place.
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The fix isn’t slapping a “Starting at $XX” line on your services page, or writing an elaborate value-justification checklist to weed them out.
It’s proving that your rate makes sense before anyone thinks to ask.
Here’s three things your website has to do on its own, before the call:
State the problem you solve. Not a category (“strategic consulting”). Describe a specific situation ideal clients can immediately recognize.
Show the outcome you deliver. Not a choose-your-own-adventure menu of services. What is legitimately different about their life and/or business after working with you?
Dress to impress. People slot your business into a pricing tier within the first 5 seconds. And they can spot AI-generated “slop” a mile away (hello, LinkedIn right now). Your website needs to reflect your value in both design and messaging.
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If most of your discovery calls revolve around price, stop right there. You don’t need a sales script rewrite.
You need to fix what happens before.
Positioning first. Messaging second. Design to tie it all together. All three matter, but the order matters most.
Which is exactly what I’m teaching next week:
Filtered Out: Three Brand Signals Costing You Clients
Wednesday, August 19 @ 3:00 PM ET
Free >>> 30 minutes >>> Live Q&A
Three specific signals people look for before they ever reach out. Most websites miss at least one.
So, if your discovery calls keep opening with "What do you charge?" — that’s a brand signal disconnect showing up in real-time.
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Make it a great week! 🙌
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