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Charging what you are worth is BS

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charging what you are worth is bs

Where in the world has this idea of charging what you are worth or knowing what you are worth has come from?   I see many massage therapists talking about it and high-fiving each other for every little thing that they do explaining that they now know their worth.  It is BS.  Somehow the ides that if you not earning the kind of money you would  like to earn it’s often framed as evidence that you don’t believe in our worth enough.

Your worth has NOTHING to do with money.    No one could ever pay you what you are truly worth – $1,000,000.  How do you put a price tag on something that is beyond monetary value?  What is it worth to have your life back after suffering in pain for a few weeks or a few years?

If you are an employee or IC, the employer will pay you what THEY THINK YOU ARE WORTH.  If you are self employed, the customer will pay what they can afford and will pay for things that they value.  If someone is charging more or less than you are – does that mean that they are worth less as a person.  NO.  Is Bill Gates or Jeff Bezo’s ‘more worthy’ of a person than you because they are billionaires?  I doubt they ever sat around wondering what they were worth or if they were worthy of their wealth.

What you are being paid for is your time and the skills you have learned in massage school and for your experience as a massage therapist.  Massage school is usually a one year or less program that the average cost is $12,000 or so.

Now I know the massage profession tends to attract many people who don’t understand business and would like to give their massage away at low costs and they don’t have cancellation policies in place and things like that. Is that because they don’t know their worth or they don’t understand business and that they would rather be a ‘nice’ person and have low rates so that everyone can get a massage?  Is it because they know that they could never afford to get regular massage at higher rates?  Is it their ‘noble poverty’ idea that it is better to help people than to get paid more concept and not understanding the meaning of money?

Most of our issues with money come from confusing money and love.  We think people will love us more than the competitor with lower rates.  We think we are being generous, giving and nice offering lower fees.  We think we will be loved more.  We give up parts of ourselves to be loved more but it just doesn’t work that way. We caretake rather than take care  which is what I call the Code of the Caretaker. People can feel our neediness.  They can feel us leaning on them.  It makes them uncomfortable.

It is a math problem.

A client won’t pay you what you are worth.  They will only pay you what they can afford.  They will pay you what they perceive you are worth to them.  They will pay more and come in more often when the value the outcomes that massage therapy can bring to their lives.  Your job as a massage therapist – no matter if you are employed or self employed – is to bring value to the table.  This idea that people don’t value YOU is ridiculous.  What they don’t value is themselves.  They don’t care enough about themselves to want to pay for a massage once a week or whatever it is.  It isn’t about YOU.

Setting your fees is about math.  What do you need to make to be able to pay the rent and business expenses and make a living for yourself and family?   Just a math problem.  What is the work worth?  You went to massage school and paid maybe $12,000.  That is nothing in comparison to other fields.  When you attach the idea that pricing is about your worth, you are beating yourself up.  Start tracking your personal expenses to see what you need to make each month to pay the mortgage/rent, groceries, gas etc.  Start tracking what you need to pay your office rent and businesses expenses.  It won’t become a math problem until you do this and just really understand the basics – you need to make more then you spend.  If you don’t have enough clients, work on that.  If you are spending too much – work on that.  It’s just math.

And if you notice all those people telling you that you need to raise your rates so you charge what you are worth usually have some program, book or class that they want you to take to teach you how to ‘charge what you are worth’.  They constantly cut you down and make you feel bad you aren’t making $100k or whatever it is that they think you should be charging – is that so you can pay them for their classes?

Getting comfortable with yourself and money

The things we do need to look at and deal with in the massage profession are the feelings massage therapists get when they think about raising their rates, charging late fees/cancellation fees and confusing that with the need to be a good person.  We charge people less, thinking they won’t pay that or that you need to do that to get people on the table when others are charging such low rates.  Doing that does not happen overnight.  It happens as you gain experience and confidence in your work and do your personal work to learn more about the reasons behind those feelings.  It comes from the old feelings that were ingrained in you as a child that you were not good enough, smart enough, valuable enough.  Those feelings are best dealt with by an experienced counselor or psychologist.

Once you just start looking at the numbers – the rent, taxes, expenses and cost of living – it all just becomes a math problem.  Take the emotions out of it. Take the idea that you are not charging what you are worth and bury it in the backyard.  Stop beating yourself up and making yourself feel bad thinking you are not charging what you are worth.  Everyone can make a decent living in massage therapy. Start where you need to start with your pricing and work your way up to top of the line pricing as your skills and experience grow.

Do your best work.  Show up on time.  Set your boundaries.  Set your prices to reflect your expenses and to cover your needs for living. Work on removing the emotional baggage you have around getting paid for what you do. Stop with the get paid what you are worth and sleep easier knowing that your value has nothing to do with money.

See also:  The Business of Caring

How to raise your rates

Climbing out of the money fog.

The Meaning of Money

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noblepoverty1Money and how to create a solid massage business that keeps making money is one of the biggest challenges for massage therapists.  The thing is that the meaning of money is so filled with so many old beliefs and emotional ties that it makes money look like the bad guy.  People equate making money with being greedy, having to sell your soul to make money and undervaluing their time and work.

The process of taking a look at your money autobiography and learning about money and just what it is can take the emotional projections out of dealing with money.  Keeping financially balanced (out of debt and not spending more than you make) is just another form of self care.  Most of my career I was in debt and always behind.  It wasn’t until I realized that business is just a math problem and it doesn’t mean I wasn’t doing something right or wasn’t good enough, the money started coming in.

The process of taking a look at what is coming in and going out and combining it with a plan for things you want both in your personal and professional life can take the stress out of dealing with money.

Harv Eker author of the Millionaire Mind put it clearly in his book.  He was talking about how someone was saying “It isn’t about the money” in relation to their business.  He replied “So you don’t have any right?”  That really hit the nail on the head for me and I would think for many massage therapists.

While I am not a financial expert,  I do share some tips and hints for taking a closer look at the meaning of money and how it plays into being successful as a massage therapist.  There isn’t any reason why you can’t make $100,000 a year as a massage therapist or be a wealthy massage therapist.

Some of the things I hear massage therapists commonly say are things like:

  • I don’t want to charge a lot.  I want to make massage available to everyone.
  • I don’t need to make a lot of money.  I don’t have many needs
  • I don’t want to charge much because massage is such a meaningful and beautiful thing.
  • I just want to help people.

While these things are all well and good, they really are big indicators of much bigger things in how you value yourself as a massage therapist and how you value your time.  As a massage therapist you are charging for your time.  How much is your time worth to be away from your family and your life?   How much time have you put into learning about massage and learning about business?  The caring part is actually free.  You aren’t being paid to care.  You are being paid to be of service and for giving your time to the service.

Learning to set your rates and ask for what you deserve to make in order to stay in business and make a good living is a process.   It is also one of the highest forms of self care to have the money that you need and deserve.

Noble Poverty

Noble Poverty is the idea that it is better to be broke and live without because it is a ‘better’ way to live.   Mikelann Valterra speaks of it in her book  “Women and Underearning” which really could be called Massage Therapists and Underearning. Why Women Earn Less: How to Make What You’re Really Worth

To have money is somehow wrong.  In fact, it can be corrupt and immoral.  Hence I would define Noble Poverty as the continual practice of earning less than one needs based on the belief that there is virtue in not having money.

Because of the belief that not having money is Noble, people who live like this will often make false assumptions about people who have money.  That type of thinking will limit people from making more money.   We acquire these beliefs from growing up and seeing how other people treat money and talk about money.

Living simply is not the same thing as Noble Poverty, but it is often confused by people who choose living simply.

Financial Recovery.

The Main part of financial recovery is really about taking a deeper look at the beliefs you hold about money and how they influence your decisions or lack of decisions.  It is also about creating a Spending Plan rather than a budget.  Budgets are so restrictive and limiting.  A Spending Plan is about planning for your expenses (which includes savings and getting out of debt) and then figuring out a way to make that amount that you plan on spending.  It is coming out of the money fog and becoming aware of your daily/weekly income and expenses.  It may be about cutting back but not always.

The book, Financial Recovery: Developing a Healthy Relationship with Money  by Karen McCall says:

Meeting our needs is a vital aspect of a healthy relationship with money.  Spending money on wants is often how people get themselves into and keep themselves stuck in the Money/Life Drain.  When we sort out our needs from wants (and this is a much more subtle operation than you might at first think), we can address deprivation at its core.  Deprivation is the wound that develops when our most essential needs – physical, emotional, social, or spiritual are not met, particularly when these needs are not met for a long time and even more so when this happens to us early in life.

 

See also:  The Code of the Caretaker