Have You Put Yourself on the Sale Rack?
August 5th, 2011 // 5:24 pm @ Janine Elias
When you walk into a store what do you do first? Do you look around at what you like or do you go directly to the SALE rack? If your anything like me you make a beeline to the back of the store to the hidden corner toward the coveted 50% off SALE RACK! In fact I had a realization yesterday I won’t by anything that isn’t on sale! The only exception is food and entertainment. If it’s not on sale I’m not buying it!
I’ve always thought of myself as quite the frugal shopper getting all the best deals. I once bought a pair of patten leather boots for a penny at Macy’s! I was and still am so proud of myself. BUT a funny thing happened in the past week I realized, for all these years I thought I was quite the shopper when in fact I was actually shooting myself in my own foot!
Check this out, I’m a small business owner and have been for over 10 years. And for the most part I do pretty good with getting clients by referral and word of mouth. All the clients I have, or at least 9 out of 10 simply rave about my business and services and are constantly telling all of their friends… but my business hasn’t been growing at the rate is should be growing based on the results I have with my clients and my client satisfaction. So what am I doing wrong?
I went to an independent panel of experts to find out and do you know what they told me? They told me that I’m not charging enough for my services or programs. In fact they recommended I increase my fees by 600%! I was floored! Apparently they did an analysis of other programs that were comparable to my programs based on education, expertise, experience, materials, and results and I should be charging thousands and thousands of dollars.
I gasped! I can’t charge that much! I darn right refuse! I would be ripping people off! For those prices a person could go back to school and get a masters degree! The response of the independent panel was, “They don’t need an masters degree they need your programs! And they won’t even look at what you have to offer if you don’t raise your fees. People attach value with price tag and the lower the tag the lower the value!” Then the very astute young woman said, “Janine you BETTER change your thinking!”
That rang a bell for me! DING DING DING! I know all about changing my thinking that is what I teach everyone else to do! So I sat on the new information, and I sat on it, and sat on it some more until my juices began to flow. It took about a week to be perfectly honest before it slapped me right across the face! I’VE PUT MYSELF ON THE SALE RACK!
It hadn’t tied it together until that moment. How I was viewing my purchasing decisions was effecting how I was pricing my goods and services and I was selling myself short in both arenas. WOW talk about a POWERFUL experience. And then it occurred to me if I’m doing this then I bet there are thousands of other people doing this too! And the longer I thought about it I thought of all the experts over the years that have been telling me this but I just didn’t quite comprehend it or for whatever reason was unable to apply it to myself. Again if I’m having this problem, and I’m a trained change specialists, then I will put money on the fact that you are probably having some similar issues too! So lets tease this problem out together so we can all benefit!
In fact lets make this a series of three blog post and this is the first one! First we must identify the problem so lets go through a list if you are doing 3 of these 10 things then you have probably placed yourself on the sale rack!
Are you putting yourself on the sale rack in your personal life?
- Do you only purchase items that are on sale?
- Do you buy items you don’t need or more then you need because it’s on sale?
- Do you value the time of other people more then you value your own time? Example you have scheduled time to do something for yourself get a massage, your hair done, or spend time alone but you give up your “me” time because someone else needed you to do something for them.
- Do you spend hours of your time searching for just the right bargain, either through digging through piles of sale items, searching online for the best deal, or going form store to store looking for the best price?
- Do you settle for one item when you preferred another because it was on sale?
- Do you need or want something for yourself but don’t buy it because you are spending your money on someone else in your family?
- Do you feel guilty when you spend money? There is a slight discomfort at the register when you give it up, you still spend it but it just doesn’t feel right.
- Have you not taken a vacation in years because you say you can’t afford it? When in reality you could afford a vacation if you made some minor adjustments in your spending but you feel guilty spending the money on a non tangible item?
- You give someone else, a family member, money that you don’t have to give but you feel guilty saying no because you think they need it more then you do?
- Do you often question your personal value? Do you wonder if you are good enough, if you are doing it right, if there is someone out there better at it then you?
Are you putting yourself on the sale rack professionally?
- Do you know you deserve a raise but your afraid to ask for one?
- Do you not charge what you are worth in your business?
- Do you question your delivery of your goods or services and think you don’t deserve to charge more? Be honest with yourself.
- Do you wonder how other people, providing the same goods or services, are getting more money then you when your goods or services are actually better then theirs?
- Are you not respecting your time and letting your clients and coworkers encroach on your time?
- Do you give away too many free services?
- Do your clients go to you because of your price point instead of your services?
- Are you doing the job of three people but getting paid for only one position?
- Do you cut back on marketing because you think can’t afford it?
- Do you avoid what you need to get done and fill your time with busy work instead of the task at hand?
How’d you do? I don’t know about you but at different times over the past few years I might have scored a yes in all 10 for both sections. I bet now your wondering what do do and what does this mean in the overall scheme of things.
Well the first think you need to do is to acknowledge you are selling yourself short and make a decision that this is NOT ok with you! I’m going to give you three simple things you can do to begin to work toward taking yourself OFF the sale rack for good! And I’m going to write two more post over the next two weeks going into more details about how what it means in your life and your business when you put yourself on the sale rack, how to take yourself OFF the sale rack, and how to get top dollar in all areas of your life!
Now remember I’m a coach so I like to give homework. I’m going to give you three options and you can do one or all three. Pick which ever exercises resonate with you that you think will be fun and helpful then post your results here at the blog and then look back next week for the follow up post of how to take yourself OFF THAT SALE RACK!
Here’s your Homework;
1. Go through both question segments listed above and write out one sentence of how you are doing that question in your life and make a list of three things you can do to change your behavior TODAY to begin making an intimidate difference in your life. And reply to this post with your action steps.
2. Print out the 20 question listed above and sit down with someone you respect and feel comfortable with and ask them to tell you where they think you are doing any of these things and if they have any suggestions of how you might make changes in these areas and then post them here on the blog. Make sure you get at least three immediate action steps you can take TODAY to begin to move your toward taking yourself off that sale rack?
3. If you feel like you have put yourself on SALE in your personal life but not in your business life I want you to write out three ways that is it actually effecting your business life. If you can think of any ask a friend or your spouse if they have noticed how it is effecting your career. And vice versa if you feel your not doing this in your personal life but you are doing it in your professional life write three ways it’s effecting your personal life. The odds are if you are doing this in one area of your life there is a significant effect in other areas you just haven’t tied the two together. When you do you will be amazed at how powerful the realization will be and how it will change your perspective. Please share your outcome by posting to this blog.
Remember to check back next week for The 5 Steps to Taking Yourself OFF the Sale Rack!
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