The third Sunday of each month, Megz answers your questions about financial issues. I received this post from Megz yesterday. Are you up to the challenge?
This post is not about money today. Sorry, Jen, but today I am here to shake things up a little bit. The last few weeks have been an eye opener. I have been closely watching how we women react to money and success. And I think we are not ready. Despite having a “million dollar bill” on all our vision boards and being featured on Forbes.com on our wish lists, we are not ready to own success and money.
Why?
Look at this list:
1. Yesterday, I rolled out an offer of free advice for social media and biz planning related issues. While a lot of my female friends shared and passed on the message (and thanks to them), not one - and I mean it – not even one female took me up on it. On the contrary, I was approached by three men – one of whom even wanted me to do complete biz plan for him for free within these two days.
Take 1: We are hesitant to ask for help.
2. I negotiated a fabulous discount deal on the Signature Course of She Negotiates University. The coach Lisa Gates, writes for Forbes, and went all out to promote the discounted deal, including dedicating an entire post, about my negotiation, on Forbes – Rude or Smart? The Anatomy of a Simple Ask. And a lot of women responded, asking for similar discounts, and were sent affirmative responses. Only 2 of the 9 women, who were offered the discounted price, took it.
Take 2: We want the bargain and yet are befuddled when we get it. Sometimes if “too good to be true” deals come our way, we balk and talk ourselves out of taking them.
3. The other day, on the occasion of her anniversary, a female friend offered to treat our entire work group to ice cream. While most of the guys ordered from the most expensive section, the ladies in the group were looking through the less expensive section to not to be a burden.
Take 3: We draw our own boundaries and are scared to over-stay the welcome. These imaginary boundaries might be a lot more constricting that the real actual limits but we won’t ever know that… because we have already tied ourselves down in our mind.
4. I was recently offered a work project, with hardly any value added to my skill set or strategic importance to the organization. My project pipeline is nearly empty and in the past, I have been guilty of picking these kinds of projects up, to keep myself occupied and secure my position. Yes, even I have been risk averse and scared of sitting idle until meatier projects came through. But now, since I have been consciously observing my reactions to money and success, I became aware of the self-defeating purpose of picking such projects. They neither add to my skill set nor to my visibility – they only let me be an occupied resource. This time I said “No.”
Take 4: We are risk averse and would rather take the easy way out. We don’t want to rock the boat.
5. Some of the leading women entrepreneurs like Tara Sophia Mohr and Danielle Laporte have confessed to dealing with mental blocks that makes them give away stuff for free or drastically under their real worth. We are hesitant to ask for our hard-earned and much deserved compensation. Recent research has indicated that, when [women] do negotiate on their own behalf, we ask for, and receive, lower wages than men.
Take 5: Need I say more?!
So, how are you going to deal with your attitude and mental block?
I am laying out a dare here.. if you are raring to go and set your attitude right, I ask you to take this dare.
A. Identify your mental block, observe your actions detachedly (like a third person) and make a note about situations or circumstances which aggravate your adverse reaction. Then, start challenging yourself. Break the pattern.
I have recognized that I have been an escapist in the past and don’t like to face unpleasant situations. So, in the recent Cricket World Cup final, when India was playing against Sri Lanka, and situation was not looking in our favor, I willed myself to continue watching, in spite of my deep urge to switch off the TV. Another example I have shared above is my saying “no” to a worthless project.
B. If your mental block is about money, I dare you to join our upcoming course “Money Mantras: Discovering Your Unique Path to Financial Freedom”. We want to help and to support you; we have made our course “pay what you can.” Sign up now.
C. Make your pact for success with yourself. Quoting Tara’s article – 10 rules for Brilliant Women- “No one else is going to build the life you want for you. No one else will even be able to completely understand it. The most amazing souls will show up to cheer you on along the way, but this is your game. Make a pact to be in it with yourself for the long haul, as your own supportive friend at every step along the way.”
(P.S: If you want to work on a self-paced course, download this excellent workbook by Tara and get started today. )
D. I am also planning to create a facebook-based support group for the success-oriented and committed new entrepreneurs (especially women) to come together to work on excellent self-help courses together. I will also create a distribution list to share all the valuable goodies and precious words of wisdom I receive in my inbox from umpteen blogs I have subscribed to. I want to share only with ones who would like to receive and are committed to making change happen. All for free. If you want to be part of this group, just leave a comment with your email id or send me an email at megz@megzspeakz.com.
I hope you like this post and also make good use of the free workbook by Tara. For any other help and support, you know where to find Jennifer and me.
Take Care,
Megz
9 Comments
Thank you for your feedback and helpful comments, Lisa! I’m certain everyone who reads this post will benefit from them.
I love that you’re offering a “pay what you can” idea for your services, and most of us in business for ourselves have chosen to do so because we’re passionate about helping others.
One of the things we women are also up to is raising the bar for all women. To do that we have to put on our oxygen masks first–to use that tired cliche. We have to walk the talk.
As a coach, I have to price my services with wiggle room, knowing my bottom line. I also have to focus most of my energy on attracting clients who can pay my rate, so that when I do choose to work on a reduced fee basis it won’t break my bank.
I have to tell you, it wasn’t always that way. I constantly undercut myself, negotiated against my self, saying things like, “My rate is $25 but I’ll accept $10.” What the hell is that, I asked myself. How can I put salad on the table that way?
I learned to be flexible, but to know my bottom line so I could say NO when necessary…and what that did was open up the door energetically and practically for clients whose value and values matched mine.
If money were the only item of value on the table, this process would get very weary. But we are all an incredible store of value. I often say to prospective clients with whom I’m having a negotiation (down), “what can you do for me in return for this adjusted rate?” And we brainstorm about concrete ways to expand the value of the relationship.
Having fun playing in your neck of the woods…
“People do not value what they don’t pay for.”
This, I completely agree with. I’ve offered astrological services for free, and the information is not respected, and often, I don’t even get a “thanks for your time”!
“information does NOT want to be free, it wants to be expensive”
The expensive part is what I have trouble with. I don’t want the people making the most money to be the only ones who can purchase top services. Many people chose to be in low-paying fields (teaching, social work) out of a desire to serve others. I want my offerings to be accessible to them as well.
I used to work in the admissions office of a top 25 university. We took a person’s background/environment into consideration when making decisions. The application from someone whose parents did not go to college was not directly compared with the application of the daughter of people with advanced degrees. We wanted to make sure that everyone had an opportunity and that the same opportunities did not keep going to the same small group of people. That’s why Megz and I decided to make our Money Mantras course, “pay what you can.”
Megz, you are a force of nature to be sure. Good on you for creating this new Facebook adventure.
In our endeavors to create viable businesses with viable offers, we all choose what information comes with a price tag and what information needs to be free.
In my experience, and to echo what Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com says, information does NOT want to be free, it wants to be expensive. People do not value what they don’t pay for. That doesn’t mean that you can’t trade for value or devise equal exchanges of value (that’s what Megz and I did for our She Negotiates course). But we devalue our worth by trying to get people to TAKE what they should PAY for.
The question we should all be asking ourselves is “what is the value of my service/product/offer in the hands of my market?” To answer that question accurately it means really assessing if our market wants what we offer and if they’re able/willing to pay for our services. If not, we might need to think about going upmarket.
So what I’m suggesting is that there’s nothing wrong with what you offer, but the value you attach to your offer.
Make sense? Push back? Comments?
Oh, and I wasn’t drawn to put actual money on my vision board. I do have a picture of a lovely ceramic piggy bank, though, and lots of flowers and fruit. Bright colors and sun. Joyful prosperity.
@Tricia – I look up to you especially as I also want to work with women to help them overcome their hesitation and own their life.. its always great to have feedback from you.
@Sylvia – Pouch can wait… send me the mail.
@Jennifer – Cheers to that.. that is why we want women to speak up. They have so much to teach the lesser halves
I want us to be careful to not criticize the very things that make up femininity, however! As I told Megz, when I read her post yesterday, the fact that the man wanted her to write the full business plan in 2 days really irked me. This is where feminine consideration comes in, and is a strength, imho. The trick to is have a balance of the masculine and feminine. Men, obviously, have much to learn from us as well!
Oh Megz, you wonder woman! Yes, I agree, we aren’t ready. At least I am not, signified by my cry for help this week about the pricing of my poetry book. A very simple example but it hit home.
This week I am going to change it. I am going to open my Etsy store. Something I have postponed for weeks now, for some dubious reasons which sounded plausible when I said them.
You give me so much food for thought. I am bookmarking this and sharing it all over.
Funny, I only now saw the offer, even went back on twitter to find and retweet it
I think that the reason why women didn’t respond to your offer of help is that we are natural mullers. We think things over a lot. Men are more action oriented in general. I love that one wanted you to write a business plan!
I am taking you up on the offer though, gosh darnit! Shooting an email off your way soon. After that I am working on your little bag
Hi Megz, I must say this is a well written post and I totally agree with you. Going to share this article. I have also noticed women are afraid to ask for help its as f they are intruding on others time and they feel as if they are a bother. I know I did it. I would never ask for help I was embarrassed to let people know I didn’t have it all together. Today different story.