PP 185: Knowing Your Value… And Sticking to It

This year, I made the most substantial investment in my business ever – a mastermind. Within just the first month, I’ve been reminded/taught the importance of valuing my time and charging appropriately. Listen in as I share more!

Do you know the value of your services? And, are you sticking to your value in your sales conversations? @thekimsutton explains how she's had to shift her mindset for the sake of her business' success: https://thekimsutton.com/pp185Click To Tweet

Episode Transcription – Knowing Your Value… And Sticking to It

Are you stepping into your true value?

Do you know what your services and products are worth? And are you charging the appropriate amount for them? For as long as I have been in business, this has constantly been a struggle for me. However, in the last month, I made one of the largest investments ever into myself and into my business. I say one of because in the past I’ve paid for my Infusionsoft certification as well as my certification for other products. However, this investment was a little bit different.

Knowing Your Value… And Sticking to It

It was a mastermind, and not a mastermind hosted by me, but actually a mastermind hosted by Cliff Ravenscraft. You can find out more by visiting the show notes page at thekimsutton.com/pp185. After only a few sessions with my mastermind group, I realized that even after five years in business, I am still greatly under charging for my services. But not only that, I was undervaluing them myself.

Knowing Your Value… And Sticking to It

Last night I went to bed a little bit early. My husband had gotten home from work and crashed on the bed as soon as we got our children asleep, and I went and laid down next to him. Now, don’t worry, the story is not going to get inappropriate, however, after taking a short nap myself, I woke up and realized I really wasn’t tired enough to go to sleep yet.

It was amazing not having a night in front of the computer, minus the time that I normally spend reading or journaling before bed. But being just a little bit tired and quite honestly lazy, I was looking around my room trying to find something to do that wouldn’t require me getting up and coming out to the office to read one of the books I’m currently reading.

Just so you know that book is Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins, I looked at my bedside table and I found Worthy by Nancy Levin. And I decided, you know, it’s been sitting here long enough, it’s time to start reading. I’m only a few chapters in but immediately she starts talking about net worth and self worth, and how the two are directly related and connected and not necessarily connected to money at all.

Yes, there is the financial component running through this whole book however, I found myself, three hours later, yes, at one o’clock this morning, engrossed in this book, and I realized I needed to force myself to shut it and go to sleep.

Going back to the mastermind, all the mastermind members are very helpful. However, sometimes we require a little bit more than what we can have answered within the phone call. I offered to help one of my fellow members with a copywriting need. I wasn’t planning on charging for my help. However, he became insistent on paying me for my time. While I initially said no, I started thinking about how if the table was turned, I would never expect anybody to give me a product or service for free.

And then the light bulb went off.

Knowing Your Value… And Sticking to It

If I don’t expect anybody to give me a product or service for free, how can I expect myself to do the same? Now I do have to admit this member actually ended up giving me two choices. He told me he was paying me one way or another, and I could either take a smaller sum of money or he was going to tell Cliff that he was paying my next month of the mastermind, which was more than he was planning on spending at the moment. However, we would make sure to work together in the future.

Well, that just did not feel good to me. Don’t get me wrong. I love having bigger amounts of money sent to me, however, when I was resistant to taking any money at all, how could I possibly say “Yes, you can pay the next month in my mastermind.” So now, I will graciously accept the smaller amount of money and am going to start saying no to requests for free help in the future.

Actually, just recently on Cliff’s podcast, he had an episode about why it’s so important to say no, and I’ll put a link to that episode in the show notes, which again, you can find it thekimsutton.com/pp185. And I just want to tell you, it’s definitely worth a listen.

If you’re not already familiar with Cliff Ravenscraft, please head on over and subscribe to his podcast. As I was listening to this episode, I realized that although Cliff is five years further along in his business than I am in mine, he went through the same struggles in the first five years is I am hopefully wrapping up right now.

We need to know the value of our time and our services and products. Because if we don’t charge adequately and responsibly, and by responsibly I mean to us, then we’re going to continue to struggle financially.

I know that we may be doing what we’re doing, because we want to make an impact and not for the income. But income is important. We have to keep a roof over our head, food in our bellies, and pay all the other necessities so that we can continue spreading our brilliance with the world.

Don’t look at the income that you’re making as a way to buy luxury items because sometimes it’s a lot simpler than that. There are the necessities that we need to survive. We shouldn’t have to struggle to get them. When somebody offers to pay you for the help that you have provided to them, don’t say no.

Know that your time is worth something. Always go into a phone call with an expectation of whether or not you will be charging and if you will be charging, what your time is worth.

I am not saying that you need to say no every time somebody asks if they can pick your brain. There will be times that you will definitely want to say yes. I still probably say yes more often than I should. However, Cliff’s podcast on why we need to say no actually gave me a lot of insight.

By saying no to some of these requests, I can say yes to the bigger opportunities not only for me, but also for my clients.

I challenge you today to figure out the value of your time and to stick to it. Your time worth something because my dear, so are you.

Now with that said, go forth and make it a positive and a productive day.