Hey, it's Samantha and I have a very special episode for you today. One of the topics I get questions about most from my clients and my community is money. There's so much to cover about money, and truthfully, I've covered a lot of it already on this show in over 200 episodes, and that's a lot to sort through. So I wanted to direct you to some specific moments from past episodes that'll give you a feel for what those episodes are about and whether you might want to hop back in and do a deeper dive on this subject. I've got a lot of episodes about money, but I selected just five that I'm sharing with you today for what they're specifically covering.

And before I get into that, I just wanted to say why money, why this compilation? Well, I call myself a revenue multiplier for my clients, and I know that in order to multiply revenue, we have to educate ourselves about money. We have to know it inside and out; all the dynamics of it, and it's so multifaceted. Money, as I've said before, many times, is power, freedom, access, legacy, opportunity access, independence, access. Did I mention access? I mean, when you have money, doors fly open for you. Your life is so different.

And understanding money is required as a business owner because we're dealing with it every day. So there's just fundamental information and knowledge that we need to have. And there's always more to learn about money when you don't have any. You need to learn how to get it. And once you're earning money through your business, you need to learn how to manage that.

And when you have money in your personal life, I mean, you need to learn how to handle it, to spend it and save it and invest like all these things. There's also an energetic relationship to money. It's an energy, and you can really feel that interplay and interaction with it as you're earning it. The strangest way is that you can feel rich or you can feel poor, and the amount of money you have doesn't have anything to do with either of those feelings, the difference in the way you feel will affect how much you attract yourself or send away from yourself. It's just amazing what I've observed with my clients over the years. Money is also core to our identity. It's connected to our value, our worth. We'll make these connections.

Always, when I'm talking about money, I'm trying to encourage you to be healthy about it. I want you to find positive ways to interact with money that are life giving and beneficial to you. This category of episodes from Profitable Joyful Consulting, I call them money positivity.

INTRO

So in today's episode, I'm covering five areas: pricing, stepping into your abundance, transforming your business from the revenue rollercoaster to scalable growth, financial skills, and money boundaries.

Those are the five topics that we're covering, and I've selected episodes from the back catalog that I think best showcase these topics. I'll put links to all of the complete episodes in the show notes. So if you hear something today and you want to know more about that, then I'm directing you where in the back catalog of over 200 episodes you'll find that particular show.

It would be understandable that you've missed it because some of these are going like way back to episode 11 from my very first season. Now that is way far back. That's four years ago, and you're going to hear that in the quality of the audio. So I hope that even though my standards have changed and the show quality has improved, that you'll still travel back there with me to hear those lessons from the early years.

My intention today is that you get five samples that empower and inspire you to think differently about money. And now a topic that I talk about with every single client pricing. This is taken from an episode called Pricing your Consulting Services.  

No matter how sophisticated my clients are, I'm always working on this topic with them. How do I price this engagement? How do I price this engagement? How do I price this engagement? How about this one? How about this one? And one of the hardest things for consultants is a concept of value-based pricing, moving away from pricing by the project or by the hour or other time-based unit, and transitioning to value-based pricing.

Episode 11: Pricing Your Consulting Services

Value-based pricing basically means that the client pays you for the perceived value, right? Not for your value, but for their perceived value. And that your brand and your marketing can elevate the perception of your value. But in the end, value-based pricing can be attached to the value of the deliverables or the outcomes that you get. So let's say it's based on a percentage of growth or a percentage of revenues, a percentage of savings. You can track it based on any of those numbers, whatever is the desired outcome of the client. And I've seen it attached to all of those things. The $800,000 engagement that I told you about was based on what they could save the client, and the client was saving like $35 million or something insane, which is why I felt like that project was underpriced. It should have been a $3.5 million project at minimum, but that was what she could embody. That was reality for her. So that's one of the ways that we arrived at that number. As far as, you know, how do I come up with what I charge based on that value, will you and the client agree on the value, which is a whole other conversation. We'll have another day. Once you know what that value is, you can charge any percentage of it. 10, 15% of that value. That's usually the most common as much of that number as you feel like you can get.I had a consultant that I knew who would go in and save clients $10 million and they would pay him a million dollars.

Could he have charged $3 million for that? Sure, if they felt like that was hard or if he felt like he could stand in that value. If the perception was this is the only guy who can do it and it's really important to us to get this done, it is worth $3 million to us. Okay, why not? So 10/%, 15% of that value is going to be the most common range, and, you know, see where you land in that.

What is also important in looking at value-based pricing is when the value isn't a tangible number. So this is going to be something like executive coaching where it's more life coaching or anything that can't be measured. What I love about working in business is that almost everything can be measured, and honestly, I think you can put a value on anything in life. My brother's in insurance so I know he's putting values on life all the time. But specifically, if you're something like a life coach or an executive coach and you're just helping someone feel better, I suggest only helping them have a better life. Then you can charge a flat rate for that as opposed to an hourly rate. And that's going to be the value. So I would ask someone, Well, what would it be worth to you to feel better in your relationships, in your health, to achieve some of your personal goals? To achieve your professional goals? Well, that's what we're going to work on this year. And they say that'd be great. Okay, so it's a hundred thousand dollars. And I say that because I have life coaching friends who are charging that. I don't think that's too much for a successful person to invest in their own personal development over the course of a year. So that is an option as far as value-based pricing.

It doesn't always have to have a tangible equivalent. It doesn't always have to be a percentage of something. It just needs to be based on the perceived value the client receives. So I'm going to recap those. It was cost, you need to know the cost to you. You can base that on your hourly rate, knowing how much it's going to cost you, your hours, and how many hours you're going to spend on the work needs to be considered.

You want to know a market value relative to what others are charging. You're going to check in with your intuition or your gut, which is where the true truth is. You want to pass it through reality, because if it won't work in reality. It's all fun and games. And then lastly, value checking out that value-based price of what we can get to.

It's absolutely fundamental to know how to set a price for what you're doing. Actually, that first season was called the fundamentals. I wanted to make sure that the most basic information came out in those first 12 episodes. And as you heard, that episode covered six ways to price your services. So if you want to dive more into pricing, then definitely follow the link in the show notes and listen to that complete one.

Next step is possibly my most unusual episode. This is the thing that I've worked with my clients on and it's kind of funny 'cause the most unexpected of my clients have resonated with it. It's called The Million Dollar Dress, and I just want you to hear the clip itself. I'm not going to do too much setup, but I want you to know that men that I've worked with, also people who would never, ever wear a dress and don't have any interest in dresses, have listened to this episode and found it transformative for themselves. So here's just a quick idea of what on earth we're talking about with the million dollar dress.

Episode 88: The Million Dollar Dress

You are a powerful creator, and I know you are going to turn this year into something amazing for yourself. One of the ways that I help my clients to do this is with the exercise that we're doing today. The idea for it came many years ago. I attended a seminar and the person who led it asked the question, What would a million dollar business owner do? And she came back to that constantly as a reframe. If you were doing something in your business and you're trying to make a decision like, should I keep doing this or should I delegate this to somebody, or is this even worth my time anymore? The thing that she would ask is, what would a million dollar business owner do? And it really stuck with me because I was doing plenty of things in my business that a million dollar business owner would not do, as are many of us, even today.

So when I have someone come to me and they say my goal is a million, or my goal is 2 million a year, and we create a plan for that. There are tangible things that we can do as we've been discussing over the past several episodes. We can make that plan and write down those things that we're going to be doing and our intentions and our tangible goals and all of those kinds of things. And energetically, I also just want you to have an experience of what it's going to feel like when you reach those goals.

And so the exercise that I do with my clients is called putting on the million dollar dress. For the actual visualization or meditation, whatever you want to call it, I want you to click through and hear it on the full episode. But I wanted to include this part from the show that actually explains a little bit more of what's happening when you do this

So the business needs to fit you like the dress. It needs to accentuate everything that is positive and strong about you, and it needs to minimize those things that you don't want to spend time on. What I want you to access from here is the things that are possible to you when you are being a different way, when you are thinking as your most expansive self. And there are just things that we can do in certain outfits that we can't normally do, and there are certain things that we can't do in those outfits that we would normally do. And those possibilities and constraints make the exercise powerful.

The million dollar dress exercise is sneaky, and you might find yourself doing it in other areas of your life.

But now for some packaging and pricing. In the internet age, people are accustomed to hearing the what and the why, but not the how. But I get this question how a lot, how do I get off the revenue rollercoaster? How do I grow when all my work is projects? How can I make a million dollars when I'm so busy working right now and I'm only doing 250,000? Well, this episode is the how. It's the answer. The fundamental way that I change my client's business is from being on the revenue rollercoaster, from being exhausted and unable to grow the business because of such intense delivery with your clients.

The how is transformational engagements? This episode is called What's My Transformational Offer?

Episode 93: What’s My Transformational Offer?

So I had a client come to me and she's stuck in the land of one-offs. According to her, this is her language, which means that she goes in and does short-term project kind of work for her clients. And everyone who comes to her will kind of order from her menu of things that they can buy. So a short project here, a short training here. All these short-term things, and what I don't like about short-term work like this is it doesn't allow you to get traction with a client. Meaning you aren't really able to get in your zone and settle in because it's you, you know, you're there for, you know, six weeks or whatever, and then you're out.

Then you have to resell something again and do new work, and it's wonderful when they have this follow on work and you just kind of stay in there and do thing after thing after thing. But that is really requiring you to sell multiple times. And I really like to sell once; sell once, get in there and do your good work for like the next three years if it takes that long. And if it takes one year, then great. But what a lot of us know about consulting work is that it takes at least a year to get any kind of transformation that sticks, right? That's the key piece that a lot of people dispute this way of working and say, well, you know, you don't want to if it takes you a year to get anything done, then you know, how effective are you?

No, no. It doesn't take us a year to get anything done. We can go in and teach these things in a weekend, but you and I know well enough that it won't stick. Those lasting changes take a long time to get incorporated, to get internalized into, not just the people who are there, but kind of the organization that is there, the whole structure, the systems, the processes, all the things that are around it.

So I like these long-term transformational engagements for that reason, because they help you to settle in and do your best work and get great lasting results for your client. And they keep you off the revenue rollercoaster, 'cause if you're like one off, nothing, one off, nothing, one off, nothing, then you have money. No flow - money, no money, money, no money. And that is not a way to run a consulting business. So there is a better way to do things, and that way is for you to ascertain the needs of the client in discovery and then sell in something so that you can make a difference over the course of the next year for them. It is win, win, win. When we work this way with our clients, it's beneficial to us. It's beneficial to the client, it's beneficial to everyone who has been served by our clients.

And now we transition a little bit away from how we're working in the business and over to how do we take care of ourselves? How do we take care of our money? This one is called Financial Skills for Consultants. As I mentioned in this episode, I've worked with many experts. I've even brought in a few and talked to them sometimes on the show. I wanted to just share what I have learned, what I know. I'm not a CFO. I'm not a finance professional. I wanted to share woman-to-woman and consultant-to-consultant, the things that I understand that we need to do in our businesses and why. So I share several financial skills in this episode, but today you're going to hear just the one really important one that is paying yourself a salary.

Episode 122: Financial Skills for Consultants

I think it's an essential idea to pay yourself a salary from your business account. There's a few reasons you do this. The first one is you want to participate in the economy and do things like buy a house and have loans and things like that. So all of the official things that you're going to need to do, you're going to need to show evidence that you have a job and they really love to see a salary. So if you're just pulling chunks of money out of your account and paying yourself, and you're like, well, I made a hundred thousand last year and I paid myself $50,000 when I got the first payment from the client, and another 50,000 when I got the second payment, that doesn't make banks as happy as if you paid yourself $4,000 a month every single month. Now $4,000 a month, every single month, plus all of the ancillary taxes is going to be like 5,792, for example. I'm just making that up. But my point is there's going to be a number like that. The money will be deposited into your banking account, and then the rest of that is going to go to whatever the authorities are and your payroll company is going to pay all of those. They're going to file all those special reports that you have to file, and then you're going to get like a pay stub that you file with your taxes. If you're not doing this already, I urge you to set this up because it's so important for the banking system, but it's also important for you because you get in the habit of having, like, this is a known expense that you're going to have, just like any team expenses you have, you're paying yourself and that salary will come out of the business.

Before I did this, my revenues would be all over the map, and then I'd pay myself all over the map. And once I got in the habit of doing this, and I actually started by paying myself a number that was like sightly more than I felt like I could cover every month. Like I had to do a little work and have some discipline around it to make sure I could cover it, but then it got easier and easier and easier to where that number is actually a very small amount relative to what I bring in in the business.

And that's the thing to take to your accountant. You want to make sure that you're not paying yourself too little, but you don't want to pay yourself too much because of those extra taxes and expenses that come out of that. So there's kind of a right range for that number to fall in, which will prevent you from being audited because it looks like you're paying yourself suspiciously little and to keep from overpaying on all of those kinds of taxes. So speak with your accountant about that and figure out what's the right number for you. But getting in the habit of making a payroll that you are on and paying yourself that check every month is an amazing discipline for your business. And you can hire your family members if they can do some work in the business.

There's a lot of things that you can do to set that up and create this kind of a formality in your business. And then, you're a small business, a real small business, and you have a real salary. You are employed and not just self-employed, but you work for a company and that is your company. So it gives a lot of legitimacy and it creates a lot of discipline. So I love doing that.

Of course, I'm obliged to tell you that that was not financial or tax advice. I'm not a financial advisor or a tax professional, and you should certainly talk to your own and have one, because having help in that area is such a beautiful way to support yourself and your business and in your life.

Last but not least, let's talk about money boundaries. I don't think I would've even known what we were talking about if we'd said money boundaries when I was just starting as a consultant. This was a brand new idea for me like five or six years ago. But wow, have I gotten really educated about it and seen it in my business, but most often reflected to me in my client's businesses?

I just see it come up so often. I'll have the most sophisticated clients doing very high revenues who will have receivables, meaning clients are not paying them and not paying them on time. They'll have late payments, and I'm like, listen, if a client stops paying you, put your pencil down. Stop working and walk away until the payment comes through. Like, what the hell? I don't even understand this. Like, do not have people owing you money. I'm also famous for saying no money, no worky, because you never start work on anything with a new client until the money hits your bank account. Nothing, not a meeting, not sending out materials. Nothing. No money, no worky. Got it? So this is a full episode about money boundaries

Episode 162: Money Boundaries

So how do we set these boundaries? The first thing I want to say is that we become aware of boundaries so often by a violation of them, when your boundaries are actually violated. So somebody steps across it and you go, Hey, here's what I just realized. That's not okay. And one of the big places that you're going to see this in your business is with late payments. Late payments and pushback about price are going to hit you right in the money boundary. So it's not okay to pay late.

You've had somebody do that and now you're like, this is not okay, it's not a good situation. Or somebody who like gets sticker shock in the meeting and has a fit about that or just pushes back on price and says like you're not going to be able to raise the price on this. You're going to have to come up with something.

So those kinds of things are pretty obvious money violations. There's other things that clients can do like scope creep when they ask you to do a lot more work for the same amount of money. Hey, can we just tell it's just one more meeting. We'll often minimize how much it's Hey, just wanted to kind of a quick call with you.

Those kind of things can really like push the scope and that cuts into your profits, and that's a money violation. We also can have those kind of violations ourselves. So overwork is an example of where you're violating your own money boundaries. And I most often see this with my clients who feel like they, it's a big high price and they don't feel super secure about their value.

And they just, in general, they're nice people who like to do good and they want to do good. And so they do too much for the client. So they over give in situations where they don't need to be doing that. So it's the opposite of scope creep or the kind of the mirror image of scope creep when you're doing the scope creeping and it's really on you.

So you've gotta watch yourself for not violating your own boundaries. A couple other examples of this are like not getting your taxes done, not getting them done on time. Not paying them on time. Really, that's a behavior that you need to have some structure around and then paying yourself for goodness sake. How many times have I seen really successful consultants who everybody's getting paid, but not her. She's not getting paid. So you've gotta make sure that you're creating, again, these boundaries around money so that you are prioritizing yourself and your financial wellbeing, your emotional wellbeing, your businesses wellbeing.

In that one, I talk a lot more about how to set and protect your money boundaries. So I hope you'll click through and listen to it. And I hope you have enjoyed our showcase. It's a kind of highlight reel of the money episodes. And as I mentioned, I have so many more about money, which you can find if you go to samanthahartley.com and click on the podcast tab. You can scroll down, you can search for episodes about money, about pricing or abundance. Or you can find the tab for money positivity.

I mentioned at the start that I'm a revenue multiplier for my clients, but I'm an advocate and a warrior for enriching women. I want you to be rich. I want you to be financially free. I want you to have access to whatever you want in your life, and if you choose to do that through your business, whatever ways you're choosing to bring money to yourself, I want that to work for you.

And I know that educating ourselves is a critically important step on the path to doing that. May you be abundantly enriched by what you've heard today. And with that, I'm wishing you a profitable and joyful consulting business.