BlogHer - Don't Sell Yourself Short - Comments

Know The Market And Where You Fit

DoingBusinessWhileFemale — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:49:53 -0600

Important post, Paula! Thank you. It is critically important that women understand where their break even point is (in my experience, few do); however, we can run into trouble if we focus too much on that one element. One strategy for pricing yourself is to be as objective as possible. Find out what the range is in the market--in other words, what the market will bear--and price yourself within it based on where you fit in terms of experience, expertise, etc. If you can pretend you're doing it for someone else, it takes the emotion out of it and the task becomes much easier.

Roberta Lachman Jacobs

http://www.DoingBusinessWhileFemale.com

Salary Negotiations and Likeability

RachelElliott — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:37:24 -0600

Hi Paula - Great article, very helpful reminders for me that job inequity is still a factor for women in business, and that having the right mindset is invaluable.

One experience I had with negotiating a pay increase was not successful, but it did provide the direct motivation for me to move on. I had done extensive research, the proposal was reasonable, so when the answer was 'no', I was personally disappointed. I can really relate to Megan's comments about the conditioning I have to grapple with. Now I offer work on a contractual basis, and I have to negotiate salary more often. With frequency comes familiarity - I think I am getting better at it! Getting support and advice on blogher and at other sites like w2wlink.com helps me to refocus. Thanks again.

Wow! That hit a nerve.

CH6251 — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:20:06 -0600

I found myself thinking out loud, "That's me. And that's me, and that's me too." As a freelancer, I often find myself dropping my rates because a potential client can't afford my services. The result is that I begin to believe that I'm not worthy of earning my real rates. It's a vicious cycle. And limiting beliefs are tough to beat, but not impossible. I just read a great article on w2wlink.com about limiting beliefs: http://www.w2wlink.com/Articles/Letting-Go-Limiting-Beliefs-artid174.asp... It was very helpful. I've learned that just by rephrasing what I say to myself, I can correct some of those beliefs. Thanks for the great article! Catherine

Great distinction

paulag01 — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:01:08 -0600

Thanks Wilma, you make excellent examples and distinctions in your comment. I particular agree with

"I am a stand to do business from a win/win model where everybody wins or I won't play, even if I think I need the sale badly. "

Coming from a place of strength and everyone gets served in the highest way possible.

Warmly
_Paula

Paula Gregorowicz
The Paula G Company

www.thepaulagcompany.com

I Love The Car Analogy!

Megan Smith — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:49:50 -0600

I'll have to remember that.

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute
Video Runway

I regard myself as a product

Wilma Ham — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:04:06 -0600

I sooo relate to all the points you make in your post.

The emotional turmoil that surfaced when asking for a sale, going for full payments rather than offering a discount, chasing late payments etc had me well and truley struggling with the whole entrepreneurship big time.
It wore me out emotionally.

Until I learned to see myself and my business as a structure, like a building or a car, like a thing that has elements in it that makes it work.
That took the emotion out of a lot of business practices.

I looked at my skills away from me as a person and valued some as you would extras in a car, I looked at service and price negotiations as a system, I looked at asking for sales and calls to action as a system and all those steps in the business all of a sudden made more sense now the emotions were taken out of it.

Business got kind of detached from me personally, and although it took some doing to get it, once I got that it was such a relief.

And it is a skill to do business.
Learning to become skilled in all the business elements is possible, but you need to commit to that learning as it will confront all the things you are afraid to do.

There has been a lot of unlearning going on for me and a lot of letting go of how I thought the world should look like and how I should behave to stay a woman while in the hard business world and how not to become a female version of a man.

But all that has passed and the outcome is that I refuse to adopt the competitive, non cooperative business model.
I am a stand to do business from a win/win model where everybody wins or I won't play, even if I think I need the sale badly.
I live into the knowing that there is enough for all of us and that I don't have to steal business or keep it all to myself.
I don't go out hunting, I know that the law of attraction and reciprocity works.
However I act of course and market the business, but with integrity and authenticity.

That stand makes my business practices feel good and creates also less emotional turmoil as I don't have to do things I don't feel good about.

Because we women are learning to do business, we have a very unique chance to put our own slant on the business world and make that a better place too.

At least that is what I am aiming for with our on line learning program.

Paula, we have a wonderful opportunity here.

Wilma Ham

www.wilmasblog.com

These are interesting statistics

Vered — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:30:38 -0600

From the Washington Post.

I think part of it is the "good girl" mentality. Seeing negotiating as arguing and as not being "nice."

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My personal blog: MomGrind - a Mommy Blogger

I manage my kids' activities online at UpToUs: Online Groups For Parents

Super Point

paulag01 — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 10:35:06 -0600

Megan thanks for the great comments.

SUPER awareness when you practiced in the mirror. What does the other person see? Respect, confidence, certainty EVEN when inside we feel fear, "not good enough-ness", and lack of confidence.

Paula Gregorowicz
The Paula G Company

www.thepaulagcompany.com

Great Advice

Megan Smith — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:00:46 -0600

Hi Paula,

Thanks for such an important post. Often the problem women have is being too worried about not being liked if we ask for what our services are truly worth.

It's about our conditioning to almost always worry about the other person more than ourselves. That may be fine in our personal lives, but in our professional lives, it does us a disservice. What we often forget is that when we negotiate, we put our business associates on notice that we will be the type of partners or employees who command respect.

One other piece of advice for women: practice, practice, practice! I literally used to practice in front of a mirror before an interview so I could be prepared to negotiate for more money as soon as a job offer was made. What surprised me was that no matter how scared or uncertain I felt inside, in the mirror I looked calm, professional and capable. It was an eye opening experience and one I haven't forgotten.

When it comes to business, we need to worry less about what the other person thinks of us, and more about getting what we are worth. Go for it ladies!

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/Online Video

Megan's Minute
Video Runway

Don't Sell Yourself Short

paulag01 — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:31:42 -0600

A recent discussion among a group of professional and talented women I know reminded me once again about how important it is that we not sell ourselves short. The conversation centered around how one of the members should price her consulting services. Numbers flew around and the range between the highest and lowest suggested hourly rate was several hundred dollars. How's that for a reflection of how different women perceive the value of what they offer! Since I also grapple with pricing strategies for my own business it really hit home how important it is to truly ask for and receive appropriate compensation fot the overall value of what you offer. If you don't, you'll find yourself struggling or out of business and then no one is served. As women, it is time to stop putting ourselves on the sales rack.

Last year when I read Suze Orman's book "Women and Money", I wrote a blog post called "Don't Put Yourself on Sale". In the book Suze explains that the reason so many women struggle with money is because they put themselves on sale. Some of these ways include:

Not negotiating for a better salary

Reducing our rates for customers that say they can’t afford the products/services we offer as business owners

Bartering even when we would prefer the cash and/or don’t want the service we are bartering for (or worse yet, bartering in unequal shares - hour for hour even if our hourly rates are different)

Giving our products or services away because potential customers balk at the price or say they can’t afford what we offer

Not asking for a raise when we deserve one

Volunteering our time and expertise when we can’t really afford to be doing so (volunteering itself can be great and rewarding, but if we do so at a detriment to ourselves financially or otherwise, it is not helping anyone!)

It is no surprise with a list like this that unequal pay between men and women rages on. While we certainly can't control economic forces or every financial thing that happens to us, we can control our mindset. It's time we got more comfortable in our own skin and took a stand for what we're worth.

If you own your own business YOU are in charge of your pricing strategy. Sure you need to get a sense of what the market rate is for the products and services you offer, but don't let that limit you. After all, Starbucks wasn't the least bit deterred by a $.50 cup of coffee from the diner down the road. Instead it added additional value (real or perceived) and quadrupled (or more) the price people were willing to pay for their morning cup of java. The stories women tell themselves as business owners as to why they can't ask for THAT MUCH when pricing something are endless. Some of that thinking comes from society and conditioning. A bigger part of that comes from what we think about ourselves. I work with women on shifting that mindset from the inside out when I offer business coaching. I am intimately familiar with the stories we tell ourselves.

Self-employment expert Karyn Greenstreet offers these excellent suggestions on How to Raise Your Fees:

Don’t let fear and limiting beliefs stop you from raising your fees. If you hear yourself making excuses that you don’t know are true, it’s probably your fears and limiting beliefs raising their ugly head. Some of these include, "All my customers will leave if I raise my rates," or "I’m not worth the new rate."

Have a clear idea of where your break-even point is, profit wise. No matter how tempting, you cannot make a loss on a sale. In fact, it’s not just about what you "need" to make, it should be about what you "want" to make, too.

I personally have a mix between work I perform that carries and hourly rate and that which is a package fee. Both my hourly rate and my packages are built with the idea of pricing for the total value someone receives from what I offer coupled with the results they will realize. In "Hourly Thinking Is a Recipe for Disaster" John Jantsch expands on the work of value based fee setting by Alan Weiss. What interested me most is that as I was searching for articles on value based pricing to share, I had a real hard time finding women writing about this concept. Why is that? Where are our voices at the forefront of this conversation?

Sometimes I think we are so good at what we do that we devalue it. We think, well if it is easy for me, it must not be worth much to someone else. That couldn't be further from the truth. Anyone who has ever had a computer hardware problem solved by a geek whiz knows that this person walks on water. StartupStella puts it this way in "What I Learned About Entrepreneurship From My Dog":

The point is, don’t think that just because you derive pleasure and value from something--writing, painting, web design, landscaping, whatever--that there’s no value in it for someone else, or that it should be given away. You deserve your treats, too.

So what if you don't set your own prices? How can you get paid what you're worth? The answer is similar - adopt a powerful mindset and then be willing to negotiate and take action to ensure you receive a salary that aligns with the value you offer to the organization. Part of the wage gap exists because women are not willing to negotiate and take a stand for what they are worth. Consider this from The Washington Post courtesy of Women News Links "Salary Statistics: Women Vs. Men:

Women, on average, ask for 30 percent less money than males.

Men are four times more likely to negotiate a first salary than women.

Men are eight times more likely than women to negotiate their starting salary and benefits.

Women ask for raises or promotions 85 percent less often than their male counterparts.

20 percent of women (22 million people) say they never negotiate at all, even though they recognize negotiation as appropriate and even necessary.

As a wise woman (that would be my Mom) once told me - "When you don't ask, the answer is always no."

So why don't we ask? Part of it is because we don't know how to negotiate a salary. Most of it revolves around our own perception of ourselves which is often clouded by self-doubt, fear, and lack of confidence. While you may need to "Be Careful When Asking For A Raise" in the struggling economy, that doesn't mean you shouldn't. The good news is that only YOU hold the power to make the choices on the inside and out that will ensure you get paid what you're worth. It starts by not putting yourself on sale.

Paula Gregorowicz, owner of The Paula G. Company, offers life coaching for women who are ready to create their lives and businesses in a way that fits who they are rather than how they were told they "should". Visit http://www.thepaulagcompany.com and get the free 12 part eCourse "How to Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin" and start taking charge of your own success.

Get the latest word on personal finances from an LGBT perspective and Paula's practical coach approach to the topic at Queercents http://www.queercents.com.