For a while now, I have only worked with my “ideal clients”. I politely refer out people who don’t fit my ideal client profile. What a difference this has made! I love my work more and I find I get more done in sessions in an easier manner. Ideal clients are also happier with our work. I noticed that when I had disgruntled clients, or people who were slow to pay, they were inevitably the type of clients whom I didn’t enjoy working with anyway.

I was thinking about this when I read virtual assistant Danielle Keister’s latest 10-day e-course installment: “Ramp Up Your Billable Hours” (you can get this by going to www.therelief.com) This stood out:

Unideal clients take up twice, even triple, the space of ideal clients in your practice. When there isn’t a fit, clients become needy and demanding. They will seem hard to please, constantly changing their mind.
Unideal clients will nit-pick your hours and rates. They will disrespect your work, and stress you about payment. They increase your administrative hours, and prevent you from paying equal attention to other clients.

It is so true! We may think we can’t afford to turn someone away. But the cost of taking “unideal” clients is simply too high.

What does it take to be a truly successful woman? At the top of the list is the ability to take risks. But if you risk, it may not always work out. So to be truly successful, women must have the ability to not only tolerate, but learn from their mistakes.

I’ve made mistakes and had some whopping failures. Like when I rented seminar space at the Hilton for a big seminar and then failed to market it adequately. (Looking back, I don’t think my mailing list was large enough to support a seminar of that size. There is a learning!) When I ask women about their business failures, they often look at me blankly, or they simply recoil. Failure! What a loaded word! We don’t want to talk about them, let alone brag about them. But failures are simply mistakes—and we all know logically that you can’t really learn anything without making mistakes. Mistakes can be our greatest teachers.

The bottom line is that often times women don’t risk enough to make any big mistakes in the first place. If you can’t easily come up with some whopping failures—things you tried and didn’t work—that is a sign that you are not taking big enough risks to begin with. We should all have failures that we are proud of. They are badges of honor that show we are out there taking risks and trying to move forward.

In a recent business support group I ran, we did a “failure circle”. We all went around and shared a business failure/mistake we made, and what we learned from it. Someone volunteered that she had heard of the “goddess of mistakes”—that you HAVE to feed this goddess or she gets very hungry. So as we went around the circle, several of the women began, “Here is how I fed the goddess of mistakes….” By the time we finished our circle, we all felt lighter, and inspired by what each other had shared.

Are you risking enough? If you would like to make more money, you will have to risk, and risking is uncomfortable. But you must be willing to be uncomfortable. And you must be wiling to endure making some mistakes. With mistakes come experience and a sense of “well, let’s try it this way.” Women who are successful are perseverant. They make mistakes and they learn from them, and then keep going.

So go ahead, brag about your mistakes! Feed the goddess of mistakes. Otherwise, she will get very hungry….

Here is one method that is respectful of your clients and feels may feel more comfortable to you.

Decide how much you are raising your rates and when the new rates will go into effect. Let’s suppose that it is September, you currently charge $100 per hour, and you want to increase your rate to $110 per hour the following January.

As soon as you decide to raise your rate, prospective clients are quoted the new price immediately. Do not give new in-coming clients the old rate and tell them that it will increase in January. Start charging the new rate as soon as you set it. You may have to work through some discomfort at stating your new rate to prospects.

To your existing clients, say this: “I want to let you know that I am raising my rates, but since you are a current client, I will not raise your rate for three months. My new fee is $110, and new clients are already billed this amount. I really value our work and enjoy working with you, so I am going to wait until January to raise your rate.” You are telling them that they are getting a deal and that others are already being charged more.

I have always followed this process when raising my rates. Because of the ongoing relationship, I give my existing clients about three months’ notice. When I tell them that I’m raising their rate but not for three months, they often thank me, especially when they know that others are already paying more.

I announce a rate-hike in a letter that doubles as a marketing opportunity. I send my clients a letter that has other information (new schedule, hours, services, and so on), and in the letter, I inform them that I’m raising my rate.

A colleague of mine sent out a letter to all her past clients, informing them that she was raising her rates. (She had asked for my advice on how to do this.) She had not seen some of these clients in a long time. She was nervous about announcing a rate hike and wondered if she would lose current clients, but she made herself send the letter anyway. She also used the letter as a reason to inform her clients of some of her expanded services and other news items. Imagine her surprise when two old clients, whom she had not seen in a very long time, called her the week they received her letter and booked appointments with her! The letter had, in effect, reminded them about her and her wonderful services, and they couldn’t wait to get back in!

If you want help with this subject, check out www.ratesettingtoolkit.com. I’ve had so many people ask about this subject that I finally bundled the workbook and audios together.

Want more help transforming your relationship to money? Check out all the eBooks, audios, and more robust products Mikelann has created. Are you ready to break free of the “money fog” and step into earning what you are worth? Are you are ready to get in touch with your emotions so you never feel out of control around money again? Are you ready to love your financial life? Let Mikelann help you get there. Free items are at the top of the page.

Want to know one secret to feeling more deserving of money? Go to lunch with a woman who makes great money! (I’ve written before about spending time with the “upper third”.)
Two things to keep in mind:

It must be a woman. It doesn’t really help to spend time around men who make good money. We often times have issues with high income men. And we don’t need more examples of them anyway. But spending time with WOMEN, that is different. Because if they can do it, we can do it too!

It must be a woman you like and respect. So many of us have issues around “noble poverty” and the belief that there is some virtue in not having a lot of money. We sometimes assume really good people shouldn’t be too attached to making money. But when you spend time with people you like and admire, who earn good money, this affects you. Maybe you CAN make great money and still be a good person!

I recently went out to lunch with Kristen Schuerlein, of Affirmagy. (She sells affirmawraps – blankets silkscreened with powerful affirmations—and she gives some of the money back to the community.) She is a superb business woman who isn’t ashamed of her money. She worked hard for it! And she wants other women to do well, also. Spending time with her was like a breath of fresh air. We laughed and laughed, while comparing notes on being women business owners. I left feeling optimistic about earning the big bucks. If she can do it, I can too! And of course money is a good thing, and yes I deserve more of it! (I already own her “abundance” blanket!)

Make that your assignment this month. Find someone you like whom you think is successful, and ask them to lunch. It is very powerful!

There has been a lot of talk lately about women and negotiation in the workplace. But I want to point out that the most important negotiation women need to do is actually on the home front. The greatest inequality between men and women is in the home, not in the work place. Full time working women still put in DOUBLE the number of hours in the home than men do! (Cooking, grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning the house, supervising the kid’s homework…) So if you want to earn your worth, you have to contend with the dreaded “second shift”.

When I increased my own work hours, I sat down with my hubby and had a talk. We negotiated the dinner schedule. He now cooks dinner three nights and I cook dinner three nights. (We seem to wing Saturday.) This really frees up my energy and allows me to work more effectively. We also had a talk about homework—who was supervising it etc.

Do you need to sit down and negotiate some things on the home front? Here is a four minute TV interview I did for women re-entering the workforce where I discussed this. (Go to the Press Room at www.womenearning.com if you have trouble with the link.)

I did an all day seminar on How to Set and Raise Your Rates, and have been thinking about the feedback. (The next seminar is November 9th in Seattle.) People loved learning the formulas and the true cost of discounting etc. (This stuff is just not taught!) But I love this comment:

One of the biggest benefits I went away with is the realization that I have been setting my rates based on MY perception of what I’m giving (which seems so simple to me), rather than charging my clients for THEIR benefits or results received. What an eye-opener! That awareness, alone, gives me the confidence to raise my rates and to quote them to prospects and existing clients with my head held high!

Don’t charge your clients for what you are doing. Charge them for the results that they get. You may be quite used to your work. It might even be simple and easy to you! If you charge according to what you do, your rates might be all over the place, depending on how you are feeling. But what do they get from working with you? More peace and less stress perhaps? That is worth a lot of money. Charge for the results you deliver– not for how you do what you do. (By the way, I just put up www.ratesettingtoolkit.com.)