In my previous 2 articles, I discussed the communicating your value to prospective clients part of my formula (UV + CV + CA = CW) for charging what you’re worth. So now let’s take a look at the last part of the equation CA – or comfortable asking for fees. This one is a biggie and many of us, me included, have struggled or are struggling with this. I believe it’s for two reasons:
- Our beliefs about money
- Fear of rejection
So let’s take a look at money. Most of us probably heard some or all of the following when we grew up:
- Money is the root of all evil.
- Money doesn’t grow on trees.
- A fool and his money are soon parted.
- Money makes the world go around.
- I don’t deserve to be rich.
Whether you’re aware of these or not, it’s very likely that they have become embedded in your subconscious mind, have become beliefs and are therefore negatively impacting on your thoughts and actions around money. In fact, our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings create our actions and our actions create our results which, in turn, create our thoughts again. So if you start with a positive thought, this will create a positive feeling, which will create positive action which will create positive results. On the other hand, you can work out for yourself that if you start with a negative thought, the cycle becomes negative and the results you get will be negative. It was Henry Ford, the American founder of the Ford Motor Company who said “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” That is how powerful thought is.
For example, if you have a belief that money doesn’t grow on trees – you’ll do whatever you can to make sure that you don’t have much money – it’s not conscious of course, it’s unconscious. But the results are the same.
If you’re struggling at the moment with money, I can almost guarantee that your beliefs about money are in conflict or completely negative. Understand that this situation is present in your life as a result of previous thinking. Every day, you think about not having enough money. As soon as you wake up, you think about it, at breakfast, lunch, dinner and finally when you go to bed. It is a constant thought. So what you are doing is ensuring that you continue to experience a lack of money in the future, as well as the present. So what should we do in such a situation? Shift your thoughts onto what you want to achieve. By doing this, your money situation will, in time, be resolved and your lack of money will not be projected into the future.
The challenge is that we have been conditioned to think differently. We’ve been brought up to think about our problems and be realistic. This means that we are focusing on the effects of our previous thinking, rather than focusing on what we would like. What you focus on is what expands so focus on what you want and not what you don’t want!
Not all of the beliefs we have about money are negative. For example, I have always had the belief that I have plenty of money. As a result of that belief, I’ve always had a healthy bank balance and never once been overdrawn. It’s such a strong belief for me that even when I was working part-time I never had money problems. No matter what happened, I always had more than enough. To counteract negative beliefs about money, choose one of the following affirmations and repeat it throughout your waking hours:
- I’m very capable of making lots of money.
- I deserve to make lots of money.
- It feels good making lots of money helping other businesses succeed.
In fact, it’s best to look at money just as an exchange – it’s neutral – it’s energy – take out the emotion. That’s just learned behaviour. You offer a service and the user pays you money.
Somehow, though, it would appear that people seem to think that it’s OK to ask for a service for nothing, as if that person’s time and expertise have no value. And let’s be honest, we’re all the same – if we can get something for nothing, we will. Whereas would you go into Tescos (or any of the other supermarkets for that matter) fill up two trolleys with goods, go to the checkout, pay for one trolley load and then ask if you can have the other trolley load for free? The chances are you wouldn’t and if you did, Tescos would politely ask you to BOGOF! – and that’s not buy one get one free!
In the next article, we’ll be looking at fear of rejection and how this stops us from feeling comfortable asking for fees.
If you have any questions in relation to this article, please contact me on 01202 743961 or 07957 672335 or visit my Contact Vanessa Page to book your complimentary True Worth Strategy Session.
