When Clients "Can't Afford" You

What does it mean when clients "can't afford" your fee? This is such a powerful learning, when you finally get it...
"Can't afford" to hire you means they don't want you enough. That's all. The bottom line is if someone doesn't hire you, they don't believe the pain RELIEF of your solution is bigger than the pain of parting with their money. That doesn't mean you don't provide great value. That doesn't mean you don't deserve to be well paid. They just don't see an urgent connection between what they need and what you offer. Either you aren't giving them what they perceive they need, it's not important enough to them, or you are offering what they need but you've dropped the ball in communication.
When someone tells me he "can't afford" me, I always take the opportunity to point out that it's more powerful-and honest-for them to say, "It's not an economic priority for me at this time" instead of "I can't afford" it. I'm totally cool with not being an economic priority! Nothing wrong with that!
As a coach, I feel it's not right to allow (even prospective) clients to relieve themselves of responsibility for their choices. I will not collude with their self-sabotage. It is PROFOUNDLY dis-empowering to make money or time a scapegoat, an justification for not doing something. This doesn't serve them. And it can be quite LIBERATING to be given total freedom to say "No. Other things are a higher priority."
At the same time it takes enormous self-management to hear someone talk about having trouble coming up with money for food or rent. Everything in me wants to say, "Don't hire me! You can't afford it!" (And I've done that, much to my regret.)
It is ALWAYS their call to make. To discount your work (interesting turn of phrase, isn't it?), to give it away for free, or tell someone they can't afford me is, essentially, saying "You don't have what it takes." Ewwww.
The people I take on as clients want me so badly that they'll do whatever it takes to hire me, and they thank me. The moment I find myself trying to convince someone to hire me, I need to pause and acknowledge we probably aren't a good match, and say so.
Ironically, this hands off approach (trying to "overcome objections" tends to bite me in the a**) is often enough to motivate people to come back and hire me. And if it doesn't, we weren't a good match.
I'll add one last word: I find it helps to be CRYSTAL CLEAR about the specific benefits a client will get, how they'll know, and when. I never promise "you will make money," but I can tell them precisely what I can guarantee. And I stay absolutely in integrity\honest about what I can promise and what I can't.

Morgana Rae, an internationally acclaimed expert on wealth manifestation, is the owner of Charmed Life Coaching, a successful life and business coaching company that guides entrepreneurs to attract more than they chase, market effectively and inexpensively, and to RADICALLY change their Relationship with Money. Grab your FREE MONEY MAGNET MP3 at www.abundanceandprosperity.com. Contact Morgana at www.abundanceandprosperity.com.

Article Source: http://www.c3careerarticles.com

Please Rate this Article 5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5  Not yet Rated

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Articles on Networking Via RSS!