Gratitude That Shows Up on Your P&L

It's the season to post about gratitude for clients and others who have helped you in your business.

When you sell your expertise, however, I think gratitude needs to move beyond what can sound like a greeting card and into how you run your business, especially how you price. 

Here are four kinds of gratitude I see expert service providers miss.

Gratitude for the trust you are already being paid for 

Every invoice a client pays you already contains a quiet act of trust. They are trusting you with their reputation, their team, their bottom line, and their career.

Real gratitude does not say, "Since you trust me, I will give you a discount." Real gratitude says, "Since you trust me, I will bring my best work, tell you the truth, and structure this engagement so we have the time and space to get you the outcome you hired me for." 

That requires a healthier price, not a lower one.

Gratitude for your years of work

Most professionals say they are "grateful" for their career path, then price that experience as if those years never happened.

If you are grateful for the nights, the failures, the degrees, the mentors, and the expensive mistakes that shaped you, honor that in your pricing.

Gratitude for the clients who said no

Some of the people you should be most grateful for are the ones who walked away.

The prospect who dismissed you as "too expensive" and chose a less expensive option instead. The client who left when you raised prices. The buyer who wanted you to absorb all their risk and you declined.

In the moment, that feels like rejection. In reality, they made room for better-fit clients, clearer work, and engagements where you are not underpaid and secretly resentful.

That is a gift. It just arrives wrapped in discomfort.

Gratitude for the clients you mispriced

You remember them clearly, like fingernails on a blackboard.

The engagement that you let spiral out of scope. The project where you delivered $200,000 worth of value for a $10,000 fee. The client who kept asking for "just one more thing" and ran you ragged.

Those clients taught you what not to do next time. They showed you where your boundaries were weak. Where your pricing was based on fear instead of value. Where you said yes when you should have said no or renegotiated.

It's difficult not to feel resentful toward them or heap shame on yourself when you reflect on them. But resentment and shame keep you stuck in the same pattern.

Gratitude for what they taught you is what lets you price the next engagement differently. What they cost you is simply tuition you paid for learning a better way.

Make a Different Gratitude List

This Thanksgiving, make a different list:

• Ten times a client's outcome was 10x what they paid you. 

• Ten moments when a client's trust changed the trajectory of their business.

• Ten "no's" that, in hindsight, protected you.

• Three clients you mispriced and what each one taught you.

  
  

Be grateful for your clients. Absolutely.

But add these to that list. They are also the best argument you will ever assemble for your next price increase.

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I’m John, author of the five-star rated book, The Generosity Mindset. I show expert-service professionals how generosity creates the confidence, value, and relationships that grow a business and restore joy to your work. Generosity isn't about giving everything away; it means serving in ways that deepen value for clients. Want to start a conversation? Let's talk.