quit? Never! according to Mike Gordon. I met Mike a few months ago to do his publicity shoot for his new book "Should I Quit? Resilience for a Turbulent World". Last night I had the pleasure of being at his book launch to support him and celebrate his success. His book is a Number 1 best seller on Amazon.
It is important to me to support my clients in whatever way I am able. I have a deep interest in my clients' success, business and or personal stories. I believe that the better I understand my clients, the better I am able to serve them. I believe in that serving them, I am giving myself opportunities to grow personally and as a business.
It was interesting today, as I was flicking through Mike's book to see a section dedicated to giving value. In those moments in life when I have personally struggled, like for any of us, my sense of my value and worth diminished. As a consequence I often found it difficult to negotiate a fair exchange of value in both personal and business relationships. In the past, I was willing to accept an unfair exchange to my detriment and would justify a whole host of internal reasons for why I should be OK with it. Like many of us that provide a creative service or product, I used to find it difficult to put monetary value on my work.
With my current circumstances, I have had cause to re-establish, clarify, re-frame and fine tune my inner values, and to bring those things that are truly important to me into all aspects of my life. I have previously written about the specific work I have done in recent times regarding money matters, which has been a very critical step for me to come to terms with what my work is worth but also as a statement about what I am worth. Today, I realised how far I have come on that front when I turned down a job opportunity because what was expected in the exchange was not in line with the value I place on my work. The client just didn't have the budget. When they asked if I could deliver just the unedited images to reduce the price, I was able to stand firm. I place a high personal value on delivering quality images - as they are my reputation, my business card so to speak. In the past, I would have acquiesced, accepted the extremely low payment but still delivered the same results as if they had been a client paying fair money for services rendered. In the past, I would have fretted about losing a customer. We parted on good terms, and one day in the future when they have the right kind of budget they are keen to work with me.
This is in contrast to an earlier conversation today with another about-to-be client. They had accepted my proposal for some work. Within minutes of talking to this client they were talking about how they want to create long term mutually beneficial relationship, as they succeed they want those that they collaborate with to also succeed and receive fair monetary payment for services rendered. This mirrors my approach to building customer relationships. My vested interest in my clients is not altruism. It is driven by a belief that if I am able to contribute to my clients' success then in exchange my business will grow and succeed. The exchange to achieve that is not always an exchange of money but it can be achieved through referrals, networking, or sharing of information and knowledge, What i have noticed is that the clearer I am on my value or worth, that I am attracting a different kind of clients. More and more, my client list is filled with clients whom I connect with at even deeper levels, with an alignment of either attitudes towards life, views about spiritually, or personal values. I appreciate this synchronicity. I am learning that in saying no and sometimes having to walk away, that the opportunities to say yes and to build relationships where you can comfortably negotiate a mutual and fair exchange of value quickly emerge to fill that gap.
Mike suggests that in order to get value from our lives there are a number of key factors :
To know what value means to us
To balance the cost of getting the value against the outcomes
To understand that everything's a negotiation
To accept that walking away isn't quitting
To navigate change with resilience and adaptability.
Flying Solo Tip 057365 : In order to spread our wings, we have to understand what we value, why that is important to us and then learn how to negotiate a fair exchange that is aligned to our values.