Chickens Aren't Money.
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Your clients need you to charge (profitably) for your services.
Most service providers (in fact, every one I've ever worked with) have issues around charging optimally for their work.
We undercharge for services or give them away for free. We hesitate to submit proposals. We assume clients can’t afford to pay our rates, so we lower the price before even talking to them.
It's such a common problem, there’s a whole industry focused on helping us solve our money issues. Most solutions at some point involve looking at how we were raised to figure out our specific hang-ups around money.
Do we feel unworthy because of something we were told as kids? Was money in short supply, so we feel like it will always be? Do we lack confidence because our business is new, or because we're women, or [fill in the blank]?
While any of these may be true for you, I just heard a different take that I found freeing.
I believe that a ton of what we experience is locked in our DNA. From generational trauma to inherited temperaments to simply being human animals, we're all subject to what's baked in.
I was just listening to Sam Garcia's Regenerative Business podcast, an episode called "Deep Nourishment for the Modern Business Owner" with Julia Albain.
Sam directed the conversation toward the difficulty of people in healing-related businesses to make money. Extending that to service businesses generally, why is it that so many of us back up like a pony from a ravine when it comes to charging for our services?
Julia Albain:
"There have always been systems of exchange. The current one happens to be money. [Imagine] a time when you were living in a tribe [as] the village healer. People came to you for healing. They didn't pay you with money. Maybe they paid you with a chicken. Or maybe [if] your roof needed to be thatched – it got thatched! You were … taken care of. There was a mode of exchange … it was just a different [one]."
Sam Garcia:
"There's probably even a more like a DNA-level remembrance of a time where the … spiritual people ... were taken care of by the community. They didn't have to work; they were just taken care of. There's probably like an echo of that, like, 'I shouldn't be paid for this. I should just be taken care of!' But it's not part of our current reality."
This rang so true to me! It feels so normal - not that it's something negative that happened in the past; it stems from a desire to help, to contribute what we're designed to be good at and delighted to give.
I wanted to share this in case anyone feels that you don't have so much a negative money story, but that your work feels like your contribution. It's your joy. Your passion. And it feels weird taking money for it.
Now I'm not encouraging anyone to start taking chickens (or chicken stratch!) in exchange for professional services. Far from it!
Let’s face it: Money is super practical. I'm guessing you don't want to be paid in chickens or have your roof thatched.
But it’s critical to the whole ecosystem that you charge profitably for your services. The more you live in abundance, the more you can keep living out your gifts in ways that only you can do.
So maybe you don't need to hunt and peck for that negative money story. Or even if you've got some (and I do), maybe your desire to serve is the thing that's in your way, just because it's how you're made.
Here are three of my favorite tips for overcoming the urge to give away services.
1. Your family is your biggest client. Charge profitably for them.
2. Clients feel better when they're given the opportunity to pay for the value of the service they receive. Give them the opportunity to participate with you fully and equitably.
3. You will have time to perform to your BEST if you charge enough to be profitable.
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If you are a consultant or entrepreneur who wants to find your Shortest Path to Profit™, or if you'd like to develop a relationship of mutual support:
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