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The one you push this season, the one you let die
You end up with every service on your list in one of three buckets: price raised, pushed with hours and promotion, or dropped, and you know why it's in the one it's in.
By Yodai · Published September 6, 2026 · Updated October 12, 2026
Once you know what each service actually earns you and you've raised the price as high as it'll bear, there's still the rest of the list: the ones you can't raise because the customer would just go to a competitor, or the ones that bring in so little that five more dollars wouldn't change a thing.
With those, there's no more price lever left to pull. And yet they're still there: taking up slots on your calendar, showing up on your website, asking for your time every week. The question isn't how much to charge for them anymore. It's whether they're worth keeping at all.
The ones still on the table
Each of these services is there for one of two reasons, and mixing them up is exactly what drains your time where it does you the least good.
Some are there because they open the door to something better: the client tries them and three months later buys the service that actually makes money. Others are there out of habit, because you've always done them, and they don't lead anywhere. Put more hours into the first group this season. Let the second group fade out.
- Give it a fixed slot on your calendar and a promotion with an end date
- Feature it first on your website and in the WhatsApp message to your list
- Give it three months, then look at the numbers again, not the gut feeling
- Stop promoting it: no fixed slot, no ads
- Keep offering it if a regular client asks for it, but don't bring in new clients for it
- Take the price and photo off your website once the last client who asked for it moves on
How to choose: Push it if it brings in a customer who later buys your higher-margin service, or if it fills an hour that would otherwise sit empty. If it competes for the same slot as your best service and doesn't bring anyone in behind it, let it go: every hour you give it is an hour you're taking from the one that actually pays.
- 1Who does it bring in?
Look back at the last ten clients who asked for it. Count how many later bought your higher-margin service. If it's half or more, this is a gateway service: even if it barely pays, it's paying you in a different way. - 2What time slot does it take?
The same low-margin service carries a different weight depending on when you schedule it. A Tuesday at 4pm, which would otherwise sit empty, costs you nothing to push. Saturday at noon, when your best-paying customer would fit, is where it costs you: that's where you hold back. - 3Is demand going up or down?
Compare how many times it was requested this quarter against the last one. If it's dropped for two quarters in a row, that's not a rough patch, it's dying on its own. Better to help it fade out than pile more hours onto it.
That's the number you're looking for: a service that eats up more than a third of your hours and returns less than a tenth of what you earn. It doesn't have to lose money to be a bad deal, it just has to be sitting in the slot that should belong to the one that actually pays.
The one you decide to push works the opposite way: it takes up little time, or a slot that would sit empty anyway, and it brings in someone who pays well down the line. That mismatch, the good kind, is your signal to put promotion behind it.
- Every service on your list now has a checkbox: price raised, pushed with a fixed slot and promotion, or retired
- You know which ones bring in the next client and which ones just take up time without leading anywhere
- You've got the message written to notify the regular client of the one you're retiring
- The whole list is settled: there's not a single service left without a decision made