Breaking Into the Luxury Wedding Market: How Nikisha King Raised Her Prices and Attracted Premium Clients

In this episode we’ll cover:

• How Nikisha knew it was time to raise her prices
• What shifted in her mindset before she booked her first luxury client
• The biggest differences between serving mid-range vs. high-end wedding clients
• How to position yourself as the obvious choice for premium couples
• Why pricing for high-end weddings isn’t just about adding zeros
• How to stop second-guessing your value when raising your rates
• What to focus on if you’re ready to transition to luxury weddings
• How Nikisha structures her offers and services to support her higher-end clients

Breaking Into the Luxury Wedding Market: How Nikisha King Raised Her Prices and Attracted Premium Clients

0:00:00 – Heidi Thompson
Do you ever wish you could break into the luxury wedding market or simply charge more? In today’s episode, I am taking you behind the scenes with someone who did just that, going from charging $1,000 per client to $15,000, and what it took to get there.

0:00:22 – Intro
In a world where wedding professionals are struggling to market and grow their businesses and what it took to get there podcast. Here is your host, Heidi Thompson.

0:00:59 – Heidi Thompson
Welcome to the podcast. I’m your host, Heidi Thompson, and I help wedding professionals make their marketing easier, book more of the weddings they really want to work on and build a business that gives them freedom and flexibility. And today I have an interview with Nikisha King, who you may have learned from in some of my previous summits she’s done some phenomenal presentations, but she also built a stationery company where she started off charging about $1,000 per customer and decided, yeah, no, I don’t want to do this, I want to raise my prices, I want to get to $15,000. And in this episode, she’s going to take us through how she did that.

A couple things I want to call your attention to. There is the fact that you can just change your price at any time right, but there are so many other things at play. You have to really be able to communicate your value and why paying that much is worth it, and that’s probably clear to you. You’re probably like, yeah, I mean yeah, I’m going to have to up level my brand, I’m going to have to up level my marketing. But what you might not realize is that you’re going to have an internal battle as well, and we talk about that in this episode. The money, mindset, the things you need to realize your thinking and unlearn and get over in order to charge more and deliver a more premium, a more luxury experience. So, with that being said, let’s get into this interview, where Nikisha is going to share how she took that journey from $1,000 a client to $15,000 a client in her stationary business.

Today, I’m joined by Nikisha King, who you may know as one of our fantastic summit speakers. She is the founder of NK Business Essentials and she has over 16 years of experience in this industry. She is working to help business owners reclaim their time, increase their capacity and grow their income without burnout. She’s also taken quite a pricing journey herself in her business, so we’re going to dig into that today. I think this is going to be really interesting to get some you know behind the scenes of how you made that happen, because that was a pretty big shift. So, Nikisha, thank you so much for being here.

0:03:40 – Nikisha King
Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here, it’s a pleasure to serve and a pleasure just to share the journey of my business growing.

0:03:50 – Heidi Thompson
So tell us a little bit about that business and where you started out in terms of what you were offering and at what price.

0:04:00 – Nikisha King
I started out in the wedding invitation design area, so graphic designs, custom wedding invitations I started in 2009 and between 2009 and 2019, my 10 years was the struggle. That’s where everyone who’s listening to this, who find them placed that they feel like they’re not growing, they’re not making enough money. Those 10 years were my years of struggling, and the reason for me hindsight is 2020, that I struggled was because those were the years where I was in my head I didn’t have any external help. I didn’t seek any external help because I kept saying to myself I can do this, but what I was really saying is I can’t afford anyone, so I’m going to do it by myself. And as much as I said I can’t afford it, somehow I still found money to buy, like machines or things, or paper or materials. I still was spending money on things that I had no plans to do with. So it was a little lie and this is all hindsight in it. I didn’t have that idea. The same amount of money I was investing in materials and assets, like equipment, I could have invested in someone who had the upper hand and who could have helped me progress quicker.

And in 2019, the light bulb finally went off and I was in a community, a Facebook community, and I was invited to go to a weekend seminar and the reason I wanted to go was because she spoke my language. She said I will show you how I do my pricing. And I knew this person. I didn’t know for sure it wasn’t a fact, but it was an idea that she was making money. She worked in Manhattan. I was like I’m going to go and she did invitations.

So 2019, I went Saturday and Sunday and I remember Saturday, her doing mindset work, but I wasn’t aware of it. I knew what she. I didn’t know what she was doing, but it was like, okay, I understand this, but why I’m here is I want to see how you do quotes. I want to see what. What are you charging? I was all into that. That was on Sunday and when I found out this human being was charging $10,000 for save the dates, invites and day of, and I was charging like $1,000 for invites, maybe $1,000 for day of, and hardly ever did save the dates, saw her charge that much and I saw her process, which she hardly did any production. She got it in the mail and then send it out in the mailbox and that’s all she did for 10,000. And I was doing backflips, front flips, side flips can’t sleep assembly, in-house printing and making only 2,000. And I really didn’t make that because my profit was eaten by all the mistakes that my printer, you know, did. I was like, oh hell, no, this is not, this is so not working. So that ignited a fire in me and I just got really annoyed with myself. I got annoyed with everything and I remember, coming home it was Sunday evening and the next day I was on Craigslist looking for a space so I could rent, so I can have clients come there, I can do more shows, and I just went for it. I didn’t think about anything.

Now, doing like bridal or open house, wedding, open house shows, showcases, whatever the case was, was fine. It was getting people leads in the door. However, I might’ve went from a thousand to maybe two or 3000. And I think at one point I started selling wedding planners a $4,000 offer to do stationary for their clients. Now here’s this thing there’s a place that’s called no man’s land or a dead zone, and what that means is, if you price yourself between like four or five in my industry when I was doing stationery, it’s too high for people who are budget friendly and it’s too low for people who are quality or value looking, they’re like that’s too cheap. If it’s too cheap, that means they’re going to have not a good experience in their minds and the people who are budget friendly are just like that’s just too much, I can’t afford it.

So there was a moment where I lived in that space and there was also a moment where I was speaking to the wrong planners. You know, the planners who were also struggling with money mindset and didn’t think they could bring in clients who would even pay $4,000 for an invitation suite. You know, and that’s part of the process, right, it’s an experiment and I would just speak to people, I would just offer them and they’d be like you know, this sounds great, but my clients right now are not paying for that and unfortunately, when they said that I thought it was, people weren’t paying for this service. But then I was like that’s not true, because I just saw someone sell invitations for 10,000, like five and all these numbers.

So I decided to invest in myself. I went into a community where they taught about mindset, working with luxury clients, which was good. For the time being that I was there, I also invested in a selling community where they teach you about value rather than features. That was good. But in those communities, as they taught you, they didn’t really teach you the how. They kind of gave you the how and you did it on your own. But there were moments that you still had questions and you had to figure that out through experimenting in your own company, by trying things. So I recall going through my sales community and I was just like I’m going to, I’m going to figure this out, I’m going to do this.

So I was taking everything everyone was telling me, I was applying it and I was testing it. Of course, when you’re in testing, what happens is when you do it the first, two or three times and it doesn’t work the way you envision it. It’s not that you’re feeling, it’s just that You’re learning how to do it better, and this is part of the process. And then there were moments I didn’t feel like that. There were moments I would just feel like I’m never gonna get this.

0:10:06 – Heidi Thompson
Oh yeah, I meet so many people in that position who, like they, will maybe raise their price and try to sell at their price like a very small handful of times, and it doesn’t work, and so they automatically default to. Well then, what I did was wrong, the price is wrong, I can’t do that, yes, exactly.

0:10:29 – Nikisha King
And when that moment happened for me and I’m going to tell you what led to that moment I didn’t go back. I went even further, I pushed forward. So instead of four, I went to eight. So I didn’t go backwards, which was the part that I was grateful that I could do so. I didn’t go backwards, which was the part that I was grateful that I could do so.

At 4K, you would get all the no’s and okay, maybe a consider, but what I started to do is tell people in my community. I’m looking for partnerships. I want to be able to sell invites. This is what I want to do work with planners. I want to be an asset, I want to be part of your team and helping you out. And people wanted that because they got tired of people ghosting them as stationers.

There’s so many conversation about stationers and communication and all the things, because creatives are not really great with business. They’re great with production, but sometimes the business part is the hardest part for them, where for me it was the easiest part because I love systems. That’s what I was gaining in all of my journey the systems, how to make this easier, how to make it where I’m not in it and I can have people help me and do the things. So there was a moment where I wanted to get my systems really well. So I hired a coach a one-to-one coach for systems, and I remember when I had to do that, she was 1800 for three months and I was just like God, this is so much because I wasn’t really making money.

But I came to that crossroad again where if I didn’t invest in myself, I wasn’t going to move forward. I was going to stay here. I didn’t want to be in another 10 years stuck, because that’s just a waste. That was just too much for me to be like I’m going back to the old ways. So I invested in her and I did three rounds with her so nine months and in working with her, we were working on the clarity of my systems. But as we were working on the clarity of my systems, we were also building the dream that I had. I wanted to go to engage. I wanted to make a certain amount of money and as we’re clarifying this, fine, you can want these things, but what will you have to sell to gain that? So I remember in 2021, fourth quarter working with her, and I started to get comfortable figuring out what my pricing looked like, what it includes.

I also moved from the inexpensive, cheap in-house design working with companies that literally would give me they didn’t give me ulcers, but they were so close to giving those to me because you would send a job out and it would come back and there’s always a mistake, and do you not know how much that adds more time. You’re not meeting your word. That would always put me in a jam. So I had to leave all of that to go to a company that was a little, not even a little bit more. They were a lot more, which would then force my price to go up. But I knew when they did the job, the job was really good and they took a lot off my plate. They took off my layouts, my design, like they’ll do everything for me. I would give the direction, they would do it, print it and send it to me, in other words, the same company that woman used. I started using Amen, hallelujah, okay.

So I had to increase my price and I remember I had someone another planner come out to me who was in my sales community, and she spoke to me and we said you know, we will work together on something and she had a client and I created a proposal that included save the day, the invites and day of I think around 7,995. And I remember December 2021, the person saying yes to my offer. First for me to even write the offer, I had to believe in it. I had to know that what I was offering was worth it. And I believed in it because the quality of paper, the letterpress printing we started with, I believed in it. I knew the company would definitely blow it out the park and I knew that I made money and it wasn’t a loss, it was a gain.

I wasn’t sitting home, I wasn’t printing, I wasn’t taking time from my family. I was actually getting time back and doing something that was going to serve someone at the price point that that person would get a win out of it and I would get a win out of it. And I remember that was the first yes and it felt really good and I rewarded myself. I went to go see I forgot if it’s Ying Shen or Yi Shen. It’s like a theater work and it’s this beautiful dance and I wanted to see and I took my whole family because they were in my area when they were performing. That was my reward, my gift to myself, and, yes, you can gift yourself things when you succeed in what you want to do. That’s how you attach the joy in it. That’s just my take on it, and I love that.

0:15:12 – Heidi Thompson
I have to ask you at that point, when you were like, okay, I’m pricing this out and this is what it’s going to be, I mean, I imagine, just from like a mindset and second guessing and anxiety perspective, you got to be like shit and bricks a little bit at quoting something so much higher than you’re used to.

0:15:32 – Nikisha King
Yes, but you know what? I skipped the part where I was working on my scarcity mindset to becoming abundant. So 2021 was that journey for me. There was one moment where I was in my sales group and we had a personal like we had a group, a mini group call with people who were in the group and we were trying something. And we had this one last call because it never went anywhere after that and I met a young lady. She’s a photographer and she had recommended a book to me called Happy Pocket, full of Money. It’s a book like the Secret, but it actually tells you how manifestation works. It doesn’t tell you about only manifestation, but how it works.

I was really intrigued and I remember putting it in my cart. The next day I was using an app called Noom, where it was about eating right or eating better, and I would refer it and I would just make money off of that so I would get a gift card for Amazon got the book. I started reading the book and the first chapter was about energy. It was about quantum physics and how we connect we’re all energy and how we connect. So it lightened me up. It started to help me see, in small ways, things that I didn’t know was even a thing. And this book became a book that I read four or five times, and the more I read it, the more gifts it kept giving me. But that was the year that I had to start going from the conditioning that I received when I was younger Money doesn’t grow on trees.

0:17:04 – Heidi Thompson
You can’t have everything.

0:17:06 – Nikisha King
You know what I mean. That’s expensive, that’s cheap. Those words are so subjective. So I had to recondition. And here’s the kicker the book tells you that where you focus your energy, that’s where it goes. That’s where you attract. So if I start thinking money is abundant, I will actually see money everywhere around me. So there was one day I got a letter in the mail looking for my address, my new address, and it was from my old company that I work with. That I stopped working with in 2011 when I had my first daughter. And when I got the letter, I was like why are they looking for me? Because when I left that it was a nonprofit, it was a hospital.

I took out all my 403B, whatever my retirements were. I took the accounts that I knew existed. So when I got the letter, I called them and I was like why do you need my new address? And they was like because you have an account with us. And I was like what? And I was like how much money is in this account? And it was like it was over $8,000. So there was an account over $8,000 in my name 10 years. I didn’t know existed and Just falls in your lap one day Exactly Love that.

Falls in my lap one day because I stopped worrying about not having and I started focusing on what I had. Money comes in the mailbox. It comes all the time now. But I had money comes in the mailbox. It comes all the time now and I’m grateful for it. And that’s. That was the beginning. That was my biggest aha moment.

The second aha moment it was that I was sitting at my desk and I think someone told me no to $4,000. And I was just like for the last 10 years I lived in this beautiful home. I have space, I have green grass outside, I have two kids, I’ve been succeeding on my husband’s income, we’ve been safe. And I’m thinking to myself if we’re having all of this and for me not really contributing because I’ve been doing a lot more losing than gaining why the hell am I playing it so safe? Why am I not going full out? Why am I sitting here wasting all of my time doing these things? That doesn’t give me any benefits? It didn’t make any sense, Heidi. It was like oh my God, I’m sitting here, safe as can be, and I want to contribute, but I’m like asking for nickels and dimes. It didn’t register and it got me so upset I was like I’m done. I literally said I’m done with this. I’m going to freaking, risk it. I’m going to play it big. If someone doesn’t want to say yes to it they don’t have to, I’m just going to keep going.

So when I had to write that proposal, that’s what I was doing. It was no more playing it small, Heidi. So I wasn’t. I wasn’t like worried anymore. I was like this is what it is and I was okay with them saying no. But they said yes. And I think that’s the most like when I got that yes. That’s why I got the reward, because I was just like finally, and remember, the book was part of the foundation. So when I showed up to that call, I was so confident and when they said yes, they said yes right on the call.

So when I showed up to that call, I was so confident and when they said yes, they said yes right on the call. There wasn’t no, let me think about it. The parents was there, the couple was there and they was like yeah, and they went into painful. I was like no, because things get added on and I don’t want people to feel like I’m like nickel and diming them. So I said no, let’s just take the retainer and start, and I think at that moment it might’ve started around seven and we made it up to 21. But this is what was available to me when I stopped playing it, scared. When I stopped playing it small, when I stopped thinking my life would end if I asked for $7,000.

There were so many thoughts before that I was having from a scarcity mindset of no one’s going to pay me, that I kept attaching the money, the payment, to my worth. And they’re not attached. They’re not my. What I get paid has nothing to do with my worth. What I get paid is the value I bring to the table and the problem I solve and how good I’m at solving the problem. But it’s not my worth. I’m just really good at what I do and the more I understand that, the more I show up and confident in what I do. So that, for me, is what made me do the proposal, figure it out, submit it, but also tell them what the value was and convert them.

0:21:52 – Heidi Thompson
I love that you’ve underscored the importance of confidence there, because that is so crucial. Nobody wants to buy something from someone that doesn’t even seem convinced of it themselves and, whether or not you know you’re trying to do your best to put up a front, people can see that. People can feel that if you don’t really believe in it or you’ll start doing things to undermine it, like well, we can take this out, we can take this out, you know to undermine it Like well, we can take this out, we can take this out, you know. So tell me more about that confidence you got to. Where do you think that really came from? Was that just a product of investing in yourself and doing the things that you were working on?

0:22:39 – Nikisha King
So let me first tell you, even when I did my proposal for that seven thousand dollar gig, there was no line items. I learned that. So stop line item. If you’re line iteming you I mean you guys can, but there was no opportunity for someone to be like, let’s take this out, let’s take that out because then I can’t do the job.

0:22:56 – Heidi Thompson
I think people think they’re being helpful when they do that, but I think it can be incredibly overwhelming to see all of these things listed out and all these different prices. It’s so much more to internalize than just here’s what it costs.

0:23:12 – Nikisha King
Yeah, yeah. So for me it wasn’t line items, don’t get me wrong. I still showed them what they got in the offer. So invitations came with these things. I did not line item, it was just like the invites or the invite and envelope, whatever the case is. But I didn’t go in details of what that would be. They knew it was letterpress, they knew the basic, but the design we didn’t talk about that. That comes after. But I did it in a way where all of that was for that $5,000 price. All your day of started at $2,500 and that was it. All your day of started at 2,500 and that was it. They said yes to it and then we figured out as we go.

But the confidence, let me tell you where it came from. The confidence, I can honestly say, came from my coach, Gretchen, and why it came was because of clarity. Every time she asked me questions I had to go deep. You know when you ask people questions and it goes surface level. What’s your dream? Well, I just want to be able to have this many people or help this many people. Okay, what does that mean? What does that look like? I’m not sure. And.

I get that. I’m not sure, and I get that. And every time we got together for two hours every week, this beautiful human being would challenge me. She would challenge my thoughts. She would allow me to have time to think, she would allow me to get uncomfortable. She would allow me to figure things out on my own and I would work on my stuff all week. She’ll give me homework, but I would just want to figure things out on my own and I would work on my stuff all week. She’ll give me homework, but I would just want to do things because I wanted to be ready for my next call. And those nine months of doing that is what caused the confidence. When I got on that call because that was the first one For the whole first quarter of 2022, I was booking like a mad woman.

It was just easy. It was just like it was easy. It was five, it was all above my 4,000. It was nothing. I made over 60,000 that first quarter easily. And it was because the clarity, the time that someone took to be with me to ask me questions that I couldn’t even ask myself because I had no idea, no answer. When she gave that gift to me, I just became really clear and I was like, oh, this is what I want, this is exactly what I want to do, this is how much I’m going to charge, this is what I’m going to create. And it just opened me up and it’s part of the part where I became a coach, because the value she gave was so much more than I invested in myself. But that is the process, that is what we do, and if you find someone really great who understand it’s not about them, it’s about you it literally can change your life, and that’s what I experienced in that moment, literally can change your life, and that’s what I experienced in that moment.

0:26:09 – Heidi Thompson
Thank you for explaining that, because I think sometimes we think confidence comes from faking it until you make it, but what you’re saying here is no confidence comes from working on those unseen pieces that are keeping you in this loop of undercutting yourself and taking losses and pricing yourself too low. You actually went into the root of that and figured out okay, why am I doing this and how do I move past it? What is it that I want to get out of this? A question I don’t think we ask ourselves near often enough. And it took you to this place of yeah, it’s 5,000. Yeah, it’s 9,000. Yeah, it’s whatever it is.

The price is the price, and I think you know what you said there you were okay with a no. I think anytime you go into a sales conversation, you have to be okay with a no, and I think anytime you go into a sales conversation, you have to be okay with a no. And I think sometimes we hang so much on that, so much of our worth, of our value, of our can I do this, you know, like I’m giving myself this one shot, and if it’s a no, that means I’m terrible. That means they hate me. This means literally anything other than it’s just a no, and I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of people do that themselves.

0:27:34 – Nikisha King
Yeah, of course, so many people do it. It’s normal behavior because we always go to the negative and we always think it’s about us, because we’re human. So that’s always the situation. I had that many times and when I started to learn one, I had a shift where I was in a group and someone mentioned a no is an opportunity for a yes, and not from the same person, but from another person. When you get a no, that space is still open for someone else who might’ve been a better person to work with, a better value to work with. So many opportunities can be in that new yes. And that’s what I started to realize. So I was totally fine with no’s, I was okay with no’s.

No’s also means something else as a sales coach today. For me, when someone says no, they’re saying no because they don’t understand how this is going to help them. They’re very clear. When someone tells me no, I don’t think it’s about me failing. I just go. Man, how can I?

There’s two things. How can I make it clearer and easier? Or, the person I’m speaking to is not my client. Yeah, they actually may not have the problem I’m solving is not my client yeah, they actually may not have the problem I’m solving and that is totally fine. But if I was speaking to them and I’m thinking, oh my God, the problem that they have, I can solve it, and at the end of that call they said no, I usually go something about. What I’m saying is not connecting. So I’m going to look at my call, I’m going to review it. What went well, what didn’t go well and how can I do it differently? That’s what I do, but that’s how we get better in ourselves. We don’t get hard on ourselves and think we’re failing and think they’re saying no because our price was too high. Everyone uses pricing as an objection. It’s an objection, so why are we not prepared for it is the question.

0:29:27 – Heidi Thompson
It’s a good point. Yeah, you have to be ready for that, because that is a key part of selling anything Exactly.

0:29:34 – Nikisha King
And that’s what I teach my clients right. How do we get ready for the objection of no, this is too much. Nothing is too much. The question is, what is the cost, or what are the challenges that they have and how much it’s costing them? And in my design or when I did wedding invitations for my clients, the cost is that they didn’t have time to do this. They wanted someone they can trust to do it, someone who communicated well, someone who was like them. So they saw themselves in me, we connected and once they saw all of those attributes, they said yes. And at the end of it, when I did my evergreen testimonial call with them, the yes got even stronger because they was like, oh my God, it was so good, like they enjoyed everything about it. They enjoyed the designs I did, they enjoyed the experience of communicating. They just knew that their decision was enforced and that, to me, was everything. And that was it. That was their transformation.

Sometimes we don’t think of our purpose. For wedding invitations when I first started, I didn’t think I would have a purpose of for wedding invitations. When I first started, I didn’t think I would have a purpose of transforming someone’s life. I thought I was just selling paper. Hence the reason it was just $1,000. But as I grew and understood the value I was given and the value I was giving was the investment I made in myself. Every time I invested in myself, I got better. Every time I got better, I would show up better for my clients. And if I show up better for my clients, I was different from the people they were speaking to. I presented differently and I provided and executed differently. This is why investing in myself has been the number one gift to myself From that day, remember, I told you guys it was 1800 for three months.

That day, remember, I told you guys it was $1,800 for three months. Now I invest like five figures in my education, to the point that it gets me quicker where I want to go and then it helps me get my clients quicker to where they want to go, because I’ve invested in the value of information from the people who are doing it on a higher realm. It’s freaking phenomenal and I don’t sit here and go man, that was expensive or that was a waste. Oh my gosh. If I looked at it like that, I would promise you I wouldn’t be where I am today. But I look at it as it’s my responsibility.

When I invest in anyone, it is my responsibility to do the work and get what I need out of that relationship. So I don’t ever pay someone $20,000, $30,000 and go they didn’t deliver what I wanted. I go in knowing exactly what I want and I go this is what I’m looking for. Show me how to do this and when they show me how to do this, they’ve just boosted me like 10x times. I’m no longer doing work as 2x and 2x. I’m like done with that. The day I sat at my desk and I said I’m done that’s when I was done with 2x in my life. I was like this is going to take eons and I’m like I don’t have eons. I want to have fun in this life at this moment. So now when I invest in myself, it’s to 10x myself to get places quicker, and I love it. It feels like a roller coaster ride. It’s the best gift to myself.

0:32:58 – Heidi Thompson
I feel like it’s a cheat code. Honestly, once you get into the habit of looking for someone that is further along than you in whatever aspect it is, whether it’s sales or marketing, or your mindset or the business strategy on the whole, or you know anything, you can work with someone on getting to glean from them what would have taken you like 10 years to figure out is the best.

0:33:24 – Nikisha King
Yes, it is Sometimes. I got to be careful because it’s addicting Like.

0:33:28 – Heidi Thompson
I’m ready, I’m just always ready.

0:33:30 – Nikisha King
My husband’s joined me. That’s the best part. He has joined me in this journey and I love it, because when he does things, I’m like go, go, but like there is no, no, you shouldn’t do that. Like you know, in a lot of relationships is no, no, you shouldn’t do that. Like you know, in a lot of relationships the person wants to go, but sometimes their partner’s like we don’t have that. And it’s sometimes sad because when your partner’s saying that to you, they’re willing to tell you not to do something for yourself, but when it comes to them, they’re willing to do it for themselves.

And I’ve seen that so many times and I just go oh man, that hurts. But with our relationship we are in a place that we are constantly 10Xing our opportunities and it has given us so much gifts. We now do real estate investment, we do real estate syndication, we purchase property as like a hundred units and more, but that all comes from doing things that are risky, but knowing how to calculate the risk and how to learn about it, but using the opportunity of a coach, a mentor, a consultant to get there quicker. So when I’m talking about my confidence, my confidence was built because I invested in someone who literally helped me get there.

0:34:49 – Heidi Thompson
You weren’t guessing, you weren’t trying to just like throw spaghetti at the wall to get there.

0:34:54 – Nikisha King
No, I didn’t. I don’t think I had. I think the 10 years from 2009 to 2019 was my spaghetti 10 years. You know that was a waste, but it really wasn’t, because that’s when I had my kids, that’s when I finished my master programs, that’s when I was like doing that. So it was slow. But after all of that I was tired. I was tired of just spinning and not moving. That is the most tiring thing in the world. Can you imagine being on a wheel spinning and you’re not moving anywhere? If you move, it’s like a little jump and that’s it and you’re still here and I’m just like I don’t know how long I could do that.

For me it just didn’t make sense. I desire progress as a perfectionist, as a type A individual I love achieving, and to achieve is not to stand in my same position after doing 10 million jumping jacks or running. It just doesn’t make sense for me. So I had to do something different. I had to shake it up. I had to say Nikisha, this is it. I had to say Nikisha, this is it. And when I said Nikisha, this is it, I was making a decision that I no longer will play it safe and complain about this being too expensive.

When it was about giving something to me to grow, I would no longer spend money on people or things and had nothing to do with me and thought that was fine, but then turn around and be like you’re not worthy of that. That’s what I was doing. I was literally hurting myself and I found that out one day and I was like this doesn’t make sense. I can buy a gift for $400 for someone else, but I can’t buy myself something for $14. It’s the most dumbest thing, but a lot of women do it all the time. We put others first, we put ourselves last and then we complain about it others.

0:37:06 – Heidi Thompson
First we put ourselves last and then we complain about it. I think that comes up a lot with pricing too, where we feel like, oh, I can’t charge that much, so I’m going to charge less and I’m still going to work as hard, if not harder, than I would, for the higher price, and then I’m going to get burned out, and then I’m going to complain because no one is willing to pay the higher price, and it’s like this really terrible self-perpetuating cycle.

0:37:32 – Nikisha King
It is, and you said it so perfectly, because that is the cycle. That is exactly it. And the funny thing about it is we honestly we honestly in our hearts, in our being, believe someone will not pay for it. But what we fail to realize they will. But we have to rise. We have to be the people who actually elevate the experience. We have to clearly work on how to state that value. We have to show them why they’re hiring us.

Not because of the features, not because of this, this and this, but because when they work with us, something’s going to happen at the end of this experience and they’re going to know what that is. When I’m on the call with them and when I’m energized and I’m confident and I’m firing off, they get energized because that’s how all my sales calls go, and then they’re like I’m in, that’s it, they’re in, that’s all we need. But you don’t have that because it wasn’t given to you. If you’re conditioned to have scarcity, I promise you, you don’t have it so easily. And a lot of my beautiful, iconic women CEOs, that’s their struggle.

0:38:42 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, I think that’s kind of the default mode for, I would say, probably most people, and you may not be aware of it, but that is what’s going on and, like you said, so many women are so willing to give to others and not to themselves, and it took you getting to that breaking point of just like this is dumb, this doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Why am I doing this to myself? And hopefully today it can wake someone up, make them realize they’re doing this too and get them to the point where they realize their worth isn’t so entangled with their pricing. I think that is. That’s such a tough thing when you hear people talk about, like charge what you’re worth.

0:39:29 – Nikisha King
Yeah, it’s so messy. No, that’s one comment charge what you’re worth. That’s one of the ones I’m not fond of. The other one is and it slipped my mind in a second, there’s charge what you’re worth and I forgot the other one. But there’s another financial one that, oh, I would never pay for my services, the amount of money my clients pay. I used to say that too.

0:39:56 – Heidi Thompson
I know many people who feel that way and they’re like hey, okay, I’m not my client.

0:40:03 – Nikisha King
And when I used to say it, it was from a place of scarcity. And today, when I think about what I do, I know for a fact I would pay for my services double. Because I would definitely pay for my services double. I would definitely pay myself $15,000 for what I do and how I can do it.

0:40:22 – Heidi Thompson
It’s no longer- it’s funny too, because I think we can’t be objective about it. If you look at, oh, I would never pay this amount for what I do, yeah, because it’s like the easiest thing in the world to you, it comes so naturally, it’s this thing, whereas someone who’s buying that from you they don’t have that ability, they don’t have that talent, they don’t have that time, they don’t have the resources that you do. There is a painter I know and he said, like you know, being in like the fine art gallery world, just like completely did his head in because he’s like I would never pay that much for art. It’s like, yeah, well, because you can make it. Like so easily.

In like a couple of hours you can create this masterpiece. Of course you wouldn’t pay 10 grand for it. Why would you do that? You can just easily whip it up and to you it’s the simplest thing in the world, but to everyone else it’s not how that works.

0:41:20 – Nikisha King
That’s true too. But at the same time, there’s something he would pay $10,000 for, right, it may not be his art, but why shouldn’t it not be his art? Um, I love what I do, and as a coach and a sales and systems coach, today I there is nothing more of a gift than seeing the person I work with, in a month or two, transform. And they only transform by the action they take, and that’s all they needed. Sometimes, the actions we’re not sure of, so we can’t take it. When we’re indecisive, we really can’t move because we don’t know where to go, what to do, how to do it.

We really can’t move because we don’t know where to go, what to do, how to do it. But once we get that, there’s something that opens up in us because we understand we can do it. The question of not being able to do it is not a question. We know we can. But for me my struggle was like how and when I invested in things that showed me how and I kept working on it, practicing it and experimenting with it, I got better. But I had to take action.

If I sat down, which I did for 10 years in no action format, I didn’t get far. I didn’t make decisions because I was scared. But all of that changed. And when I scared, my clients did not benefit. So when I said I would never pay the moments when I used to say that I wouldn’t pay because my service wasn’t where it could be, it could have been better, it wasn’t the best because I wasn’t investing in me. But once I started investing in me and started doing the work, I was like I would pay for this because it was worth it. And when I bought into my offer, trust me, I could sell it so easy. Anyone could buy into it, because I bought into it first. I’m responsible for buying into my offer first. If I don’t buy into it first, there’s no way I’m going to sell it with confidence.

0:43:21 – Heidi Thompson
I love that and you’re so right. Confidence I love that and you’re so right. If you don’t wholeheartedly believe it, how can you possibly convince someone else that that’s what it’s worth? So if someone is listening and they are in that position where you know where you were and they’re thinking I can’t charge more, you know I wouldn’t be able to do that, what action would you give them?

0:43:49 – Nikisha King
So this is the best one. So if you’re charging a certain, let’s use a number like a thousand. Today you charge a thousand, you’ve been charging it, you’ve been selling at a thousand. What’s wrong with going up to 1100? That can’t hurt you. No one’s going to, no one even knows. And if they didn’t know 1100, it’d be like that’s a hundred dollars more with what’s going on in the world. They’d be like, totally fine, so go to 1100.

After like three to five sales at 1100. And you’re like, oh, this feels comfortable, go up to $1,400. Climb the ladder if you need to ring by ring. And if you go up to $1,100 or $1,400, that does not mean you need to throw something else in. Remember those are features. Talk about the value. If you’re selling and people are buying at 1100, you got five more sales. They had a transformation. The next person comes along. Tell that person about the transformation all your prior clients had, how great, whatever they said about you, and be like this is why the offer is 1400 today. That’s fine. Go up in increments of what you feel is comfortable for you. Go up in increments of what you feel is comfortable for you.

0:45:04 – Heidi Thompson
That’s great advice. And it’s so funny because we get in our heads so much about the littlest changes and then you do it and then someone buys and doesn’t say a word and you’re like what? Why did I make such a big deal out of this?

0:45:22 – Nikisha King
Yes, another tilt. Another tilt sign is if you get booked and then someone pays you a tip that’s outside of what you were expecting. That’s one way of knowing you’re underpricing.

0:45:37 – Heidi Thompson
Because that’s an extra.

0:45:39 – Nikisha King
Yeah, if they give you extra at the end, they could have gave it to you in the beginning. They would have been happy to, and I just want you to know if that’s something that you see a lot in your business that they’re telling you you’re undercharging by giving you the extra tip because they felt like you undercharged. That’s all that was. That’s all that’s happening in that moment.

0:45:58 – Heidi Thompson
I like that. That is a really good tip and it can show you exactly what to raise your price by to compensate for that.

0:46:08 – Nikisha King
Yeah, there’s a lot of things people communicate.

They don’t have to verbally say it, it’s by their actions and you need to stop taking it personal. It’s not about you. Nothing about business is about you, Heidi, the one thing I’m going to tell you, the one thing that people might get really disrupted because I’m a disruptive coach Anytime, as a business owner, you do anything with business. You need to take yourself out of it. This is not about you in any form. Selling is not about you. Marketing is not about you. Copy on your website it is so not about you. No one cares about you. They don’t. They just want something for them. Everyone I know and I sell to is not about me. I don’t need to tell them all the great things I do, but I tell them how my clients are transformed and how they can have that possibility too.

0:47:04 – Heidi Thompson
Yeah, it makes them want to buy. It doesn’t make them need to be sold to.

0:47:08 – Nikisha King
No, exactly, it’s an invitation. Selling is not selling for me. It’s an invitation for a transformation that they want to opt into. That is how I know. So I just present. What is it you’re looking for? Tell me more, get curious.

But for a fact, it’s not about me. Someone says no, it has nothing to do with me. Maybe they’re not ready, maybe I didn’t communicate it well. Me communicating it well has nothing to do with me. It’s just like. All right, let me go look at my like I said I look at my video. What am I saying? What am I hearing? Maybe I didn’t hear them well, maybe it wasn’t me. Maybe they really believe they have no money, but I know they do. That’s a fake objection. Maybe it’s not their priority yet that’s okay. You know what I mean.

So many people have been talking about people coming later or like six months before their wedding date, and when they first came it was maybe 12 months, but they didn’t book you. Then the question is why? Why are people not booking you then? Why are they waiting six months out? What are we saying to them in the first call that makes them feel like I have extra time when I’m closer to the event date? What is happening? That’s creating that? What are we not offering them so that they can get a win out of it if they book today? There’s so many opportunities and all of those ideas has nothing to do with us.

0:48:32 – Heidi Thompson
We just have to create these ideas and experiment with them and I think if you do that like, you allow yourself the freedom of distance. It’s like oh okay, that didn’t work. Let’s tweak this and see if it works. Yes, and that’s all it is. When I learned it wasn’t, huh, okay, that didn’t work.

0:48:41 – Nikisha King
Let’s tweak this and see if it works? Yes, and that’s all it is. When I learned it wasn’t about me. It was easier to do things? Yeah, definitely. It was easier to take risks? Yeah, it wasn’t. Because it’s not about me. Business is not personal. I love it. It’s not personal at all. It’s just business. You have a conversation, you create a win or experience and that’s it.

0:49:02 – Heidi Thompson
Thank you so much for all of this. This has been a fabulous conversation. Where should someone go if they want to connect with you and they want to get more of this good Nikisha-ness in their head?

0:49:16 – Nikisha King
The best place is on Instagram. It’s N-K-B-I-Z-G-U-R-U.

0:49:24 – Heidi Thompson
I will be sure to link to that, for sure, and you guys definitely DM Nikisha, let her know what you took from this. Were there any light bulb moments for you, because we definitely love to hear about those. So, Nikisha, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it so much. Thank you for having me, Heidi.

0:49:46 – Nikisha King
I appreciate sharing all the knowledge that I paid over $100,000 in with you.

0:49:53 – Heidi Thompson
I really hope that opens your eyes to what is possible, what’s going to happen along the way, what to even expect on this journey and what you can do to make this kind of transformation to either break into the luxury market for yourself or to just raise your prices to where you want them to be. There’s so much more that goes into it than just the price right. So I am going to link to everything we mentioned in the show notes, including that book. Nikisha mentioned Happy Pocket Full of Money over on the show notes at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/319.

Just recently, by the way, if you are a member of the Wedding Business Collective, we had a workshop on confidently communicating your price, because raising your price is one thing, Communicating it is something entirely different. So if you are a member, you can find that on the courses page in your account. If not, head over to evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/invite. That’s where you will find the opportunity to join and get your first month, your first 30 days, for just a dollar for being a podcast listener. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in today and I will speak to you again very soon.

About Nikisha King

Nikisha King is an entrepreneur and strategist who’s a true force in the business world. As the founder of NK Business Essentials, she’s dedicated to helping creative women entrepreneurs transform chaos into streamlined success.

With over 16 years of experience, Nikisha empowers business owners to reclaim their time, increase capacity, and grow their income without burnout. She’s known for uncovering hidden opportunities and helping entrepreneurs implement a 7-figure system and game-changing strategies they never imagined possible.

Beyond NK Business Essentials, Nikisha is a Managing Partner at JNH Equity Partners, where she educates individuals on achieving financial freedom through multi-family real estate investments. As a Partner with several companies, she oversees over $60MM in assets and creating wealth-building opportunities.

Nikisha’s passion lies in guiding entrepreneurs to step outside their comfort zones, discover their zone of genius, and 10x their opportunities—all while keeping joy at the heart of building their businesses.

Website: nikishaking.com
Instagram: @nkbizguru

---

Links & Resources:

The Wedding Business Collective
A Happy Pocket Full of Money
From Limiting Beliefs to Luxury Wedding Bookings with Aislinn McKenna
Episode 240: Building A Healthy & Wealthy Money Mindset with Erinn Bridgman

Want more? To subscribe to the podcast, please use the links below and be sure to leave a review:

Click Here to Subscribe via iTunes (You’ll just need to click the blue “View In iTunes” button and then click the Subscribe button when your iTunes opens.)

Click Here to Subscribe via Stitcher

And please take 2 minutes to leave me an honest rating and review on iTunes by clicking here. It will help the show and its ranking in iTunes immensely! Thank you – I appreciate it!