Today’s episode is pull from the archive, it’s one of the more important conversations we’ve had over the last year and after a recent CEO Debrief inside The BRAVE Society I knew it was time to share it again.
Hey, hey everyone. Welcome to episode five of the Bold Leadership Revolution Podcast, and I am your host Tara Newman. It’s my mission to develop leaders in this world to be bold and brave, be on their belief so they can do big, purposeful and profitable things without burning out.
As an entrepreneur, I believe that money is a renewable resource and there is more than enough to go around. Regardless of if you work for yourself or someone else. I also believe that money is a powerful energetic exchange and a way of demonstrating commitment to the things that we want the most in our lives.
If you want to know what someone really values, look at how they spend their money and their time, but that’s for another episode. Want to know how someone values themselves. Look at what they earn and that’s what we’re here to talk about today. Ways to know if you’re undercharging or even if you’re working in someone else’s business, if you’re under earning.
Now, I’ve spent most of my adult life undervaluing myself and for most of my adult life, I’ve earned significantly less than market rate for my skill set. Most of this had to do with, an either or mentality, that I embraced when I was working in corporate. A head hunter would call me and try to recruit me for a higher paying job and I would think, “Nah, I won’t be able to have the flexibility that I have with my current job. That’s really why I’m paid lower because this employer allows me to work from home one day a week.” And you know what? That was a really BS belief. If I believe that I could work from home one day a week and make x amount of money, I probably would have found something that allowed me that and created it for myself like I eventually did by starting my own business.
So since we’re talking about undercharging, let’s talk about when I first started out at the end of 2014 beginning of 2015 I had almost 20 years experience developing leaders, strategically growing businesses and developing high performing teams. I had also been in and out of entrepreneurship for 10 years and had been working in businesses since I was 15 years old. I know what works. I know what doesn’t work. I know most people better than they know themselves. It’s my gift and my training in organizational psychology.
At this point I had coached hundreds of leaders and you want to know what I was charging? I was charging less than my babysitter. I was charging about $10 to $20 per hour and that actually hurts my heart to say that out loud now. Needless to say, I got a crash course in undercharging, burnout business models, and a whole new level of mindset work every week.
I helped my clients moved past the mental and energetic hurdles that go into raising their rates, asking for raises and communicating their value in a way that is clear and ultimately sellable. This is not easy work and usually requires flipping the switch on decades worth of programming by society from ourselves, our families, which usually is on a generational level, so things that have been handed down to us, beliefs that have been handed down in our families for generations.
My purpose here today is to present information that might get you to shift your perspective or catalyze you into action. I also want you to realize that this is normal while hitting an income ceiling is frustrating. It happens often and it could happen to you. Even though you do this work on your mindset or with your energy, this can continue to happen and it just makes it easier to spot when it’s happening. Once you’ve been through it once and created the awareness, so it’s normal and yes, it’s frustrating. So here are three signs that you might be undercharging.
ONE, ENERGETICALLY YOU CAN’T SHOW UP FOR THE RATE YOU’RE CHARGING WHEN YOU’RE NOT BEING FAIRLY COMPENSATED.
It’s hard to be present. You’re more prone to goof off, be distracted and not fully engaged with the task or people in front of you.
NUMBER TWO, WHEN YOU LOOK AT HOW MUCH MONEY YOU NEED OR WANT TO MAKE IN YOUR BUSINESS SO YOU CAN KEEP, KEEP THE LIGHTS ON AND MAKE A HEALTHY PROFIT, YOU CAN’T GET THERE FROM WHERE YOU ARE.
The numbers literally don’t add up. Raising your rates isn’t the only way to get the numbers to add up. You’ll most likely have to do other things as well, but looking at how you’re valuing your service or product is a good place to start.
NUMBER THREE, YOU’RE WORKING WAY TOO HARD FOR YOUR MONEY.
You’re hustling hard, but at the end of the day, you have nothing to show for your hard work. You tell yourself you’re paying, you’re paying your dues, and this is what it takes. You think, they don’t call this the grind for nothing, but all you’re doing is really making excuses for the inevitable. Eventually, you’re going to get burned out and want to quit. Eventually, you’re going to have to raise your rates or go in and ask for a raise. You have a belief that this is working for everyone else, but it won’t work for you, which is ultimately a bullshit story. You tell yourself to keep you playing safe and small.
NOW I HAVE A BONUS SIGN.
If people are telling you that you’re cheap and should charge more, I would highly consider listening to them. Don’t stand there in disbelief. Don’t stutter and stammer. Go back to your notebook and design a program that costs more money.
Raise your rates or ask for the raise or keeping it short and sweet this week because I really want you guys to sink into these three ways that you can know if you’re undercharging.
Okay, so one energetically you can’t show up for the rate you’re charging anymore too. When you look at how much money you need or want to make in your business, the numbers aren’t adding up. You’re working way too hard for your money. You know what? I remember this time where my husband John, he was working for somebody else and he looked at me and he said, you know, I think with all the hours that I’m putting in and what I’m being paid, I would make more if I was working at Mcdonald’s. Right? I Dunno if you’ve ever felt that way, but you’re working way too hard for your money then and the bonus before thing and the bonus. If people are telling you you’re cheap, enter, charge more, do it.
As always, I want to continue this conversation with you so please hop on over to Instagram. That has become my favorite all time, place to hang out these days. I love creating insta stories. It fuels my creative heart, so go on over there, check out my insta story, send me a DM and I totally get it. If you’re not on Instagram, I think you should be, but if you’re not, you can go on over to Facebook. I’m over there as well and you can give me a shout out over there. I would really love to hear your thoughts on this episode. I’d love to know are you undercharging, have you undercharged in your life and how did you know? How did you know you were undercharging? What were some of the signs that you see?
So let’s get some additional signs and symptoms in here so we can share them with other leaders so they know as well.
I OFTEN SHARE LESSONS LEARNED ON THIS PODCAST.
It’s one of my favorite things to be able to do and I’m able to do this because of his strong commitment. I have to radical self reflection. This commitment means that every week I’m looking at what’s happening in my business and in my life. The good, the bad, and yes, occasionally the ugly. Doing this work allows me to look at my months and even my years with real data, even for the less tangible parts of my business and life. I call these weekly meetings, CEO debriefs, and I do them twice per month inside the brave society. We do them together. I have pulled together some of the highlights from CEO debriefs that I’ve done inside of BRAVE and I’m sharing the best of the best with you.
You might have heard a couple of these on the podcast, but I want you to take it a step further and feel what it’s like to do these with us inside of The BRAVE Society. So head on over to the my show notes and sign up now to receive 10 CEO Debrief questions you will want to ask yourself. Plus, listen in on some of the most popular shares that I’ve made. Listening to someone else’s debrief is a great way to find the language for what you’re experiencing. Get a concrete example of radical self reflection and learn how to grow your business because it’s oftentimes not what we think.
If you found this podcast valuable, help us develop more bold leaders in the world by sharing this episode with your friends, colleagues, and other bold leaders. Also, if you haven’t done so already, please leave a review. I consider reviews like podcast currency, and it’s the one thing you can do to help us out here at The Bold Leadership Revolution HQ. We would be so grateful for it.
Special thanks goes to Stacey Harris from Uncommonly More, who is the producer and editor of this podcast. Go check them out for all your digital marketing and content creation needs.
Be sure to tune into the next episode to help you embrace your ambition and leave the grind behind.
Important links to share:
Listen in on CEO Debriefs and Get 10 BOLD Questions for your own debrief.
Help more Bold Leaders find this podcast by leaving a review on iTunes
