Mental Maths Every Prospect Does Before They Buy From You
If your value is “hard to measure”, your buyer has a problem — and so do you.
There is a sentence I hear a lot from people who sell services.
“What I do is hard to measure.”
It usually comes up when I’m helping people build their offer and we discuss the outcomes of their services. Sometimes it comes up when a client comes to me after no closing any business for a while, despite having leads.
At the moment someone decides whether to buy, they are not asking deep questions about philosophy or meaning. They are trying to determine one thing. They are asking something very simple.
Is this worth $X?
They may never say it out loud. They might talk about timing, fit, or confidence instead. But that question is always there.
This is where things get uncomfortable.
We like to think that some kinds of work sit outside money.
Things like confidence, clarity, leadership, or support feel different. Softer. Less direct. Almost exempt. We think aspirational marketing can bypass that mental arithmetic. You can’t.
Buyers still weigh the price against what they believe will change. They think about whether this will help them make better decisions, save time, avoid mistakes, or stop problems from repeating.
Those things already have a cost:
Bad decisions waste hours.
Confusion slows work down.
Weak leadership leads to people leaving.
Low confidence shows up in lost sales.
So when someone tells me, “It’s hard to measure,” the real issue is not measurement. It is that the value has been left vague.
And vague value creates risk.
When the value is unclear, the price feels risky. It feels like a lot of money for something nice-to-have. When the price feels risky, people hesitate. When people hesitate, they delay or walk away.
This is not because buyers are unfair. It is because they are trying to protect themselves. They don’t want to invest their money for a low return.
The Mental Maths
Let’s say I offer mindset coaching - totally intangible.
Let’s say It’s $6k for 12 sessions.
People will not pay $6k unless their expected transformation outweighs the investment.
At the point of making a decision, your clients will go through their own mental maths.
They’ll weigh up…
If this works, what gets better?
How often does this problem happen right now?
What does it cost me each time it happens? (time, stress, lost money)
If this reduces that problem, how much does it really save me?
How long before I notice a difference?
What happens if I do nothing for another 6 months?
What else could I spend £X on instead?
Which option feels safer?
If this only half works, is it still worth £X?
If it does work, will I regret not doing it sooner?
They’ll assign numbers to this and compare it again your price. Then they’ll weigh it all up.
For you to sell successfully, you need to think about how your marketing, messaging and conversations can help frame these better.
The work, then, is not to defend the price or argue that you shouldn’t compare it against the price. The work is to make the change clear.
It doesn’t matter what you sell, when it comes to exchanging money, you’re offer will always be put through your clients mental maths. They’ll compare the price against the expected change.
What is different after someone works with you?
What problem does that difference reduce?
What does that problem cost if nothing changes?
The answers do not need to be perfect. They just need to be honest and visible.
Because in the end, everything gets compared to money. Not because money is everything, but because it is how choices are made.
Nothing is exempt from that.
And the sooner you accept it, the easier selling becomes.