1. Do the simple body-gut check in and see what number you get- for your hourly fee…
Explore that a bit through fantasizing about charging for that, wrestling with your inner de-valuer, just going out and asking for that fee, or doubling that fee, etc. Experiment here.
Do some work with a therapist or a dear friend who can support and challenge you here.
2. What is your family’s monthly and yearly nut?
Do the math on what your family’s lifestyle is currently on a monthly and yearly basis. Is this $2,000, $4,000, $8,000, $15,000 per month, etc.?
The last exercise that we do in this course is called the ‘Basic Needs Budget’.
I like to teach budgets in 3 tiers: Basic Needs, Comfortable Lifestyle & Ultimate Deal. I understand these are all relative terms and experiences.
We need to start with the basic needs/bottom tier first to make sure we are cover that and then moving on from there. I will be giving a lot more detail on how to do this exercise towards the end of our course.
3. What do you need to be charging hourly to meet your family’s lifestyle?
Based on current family lifestyle, What do you need to be charging hourly to meet that? Figure out what your hourly fee needs to be if your were working 40 hours per week… or 30 hours (or whatever you choose) and needing to bring in XX amount of dollars each month to cover your families basic nut.
4. Research other colleagues in your field… (at your level, a bit ahead of you, a bit behind you) – What is happening in your market place and where do you want to fit in relation to your colleagues/fellow artists, consultants, therapists, coaches, etc. ie: My fees are at the higher end of the scale in the Therapy world. Lower end of the scale in the Coaching world and in the middle to lower end of the scale for the accounting-consultant world.
5. Which community do you want to be serving?
Are you fine with the wealthy purchasing your art or can you have a few tiers of pricing to accommodate a few different income brackets. ie: I chose to serve the middle bracket with my fees and services. I have thought long and hard about this. The Conscious Bookkeeping community are people that are committed to living a ‘conscious’ life and this includes people who are bringing in $30,000 – $500,000 of revenue per year and everywhere in between. I know art is very different…though.
6. Do you want to change anything because of the current economy?
I have seen many people having huge financial challenges right now and I have seen many others that are continuing to do well and some who are thriving in this economy.
My team and I all asked ourselves this very question at the beginning of 2009. Do we want to change any part of our fees due to what is happening to many people in the economy?
We each asked and answered that individually. For me, after charging $500.00 for my course for a few years (and after increasing the fee gradually over the years to that amount), I felt that this was an area that I could decrease my fee and in doing so, hopefully have more people register for my course and benefit from the work.
And, this has been true, since I lowered my course fee $100.00 (and sometimes offer an additional 48 hour discounted window), I am having more people take my course. So, it has turned out to be a win-win situation for all us.
Now, I also decided that I was going to increase my private Financial Therapy fee because my individual time was even more precious now that I have a son that I am mothering. So, I decreased my course fees (& increased the participant numbers overall) and increased my Financial Therapy fee for my private services.
7. Watch yourself in all of the little moments, when you feel your value stable and increasing and when you go to the other side and walk into de-valuing land. Watch this, learn from this, listen to your de-valuer and at the same time, start decreasing that voice and showtime and replacing it with the other side. ie: leading up to speaking in public my first time 9 years ago and giving a presentation, I had a few months of hearing my intense inner voice screaming: ‘i have nothing to say, not smart, not articulate, etc. etc.’.
And, for months, I chose to hit the ‘delete’ button on those thoughts and beliefs and kept telling it that it wasn’t true anymore and then I would replace it with, ‘I am smart, I am articulate, I am clear, etc.—this went on for months, but by the time I presented, I had basically destroyed the old stuff and was determined and ready for the new – which was that I had so much to offer the world and it was time! And, I am also starting to increase my capacity to feel and experience my value and work in the world…which would just continue to grow presentation by presentation and course by course :). And, public speaking has become one of my most favorite things to do and one of my best skills~
These are some initial, basic exercises to help you explore how much to charge and how you value your time, energy and work. Always important to me to explore it on a few levels.
Please let me know your thoughts, questions or any comments that you may have.
Hope you are enjoying this beautiful Sunday with your family, Bari
