Ideal Practice
Ideal Practice
#70. Recognizing Your Worth: Why That Matters and How It Impacts Your Practice
Question or comment? 🙋♀️ Send me a text message!
Ever felt that you're just not getting paid what you're worth, despite having real expertise in your field? We've all been there, I suspect - but why? Where does this common problem come from?
Well - some folks may not like this, but I think it starts with us.
When we undervalue our own skills and undersell our authority, it sets up all kinds of barriers to our success. So, let’s take a closer look at what my guest last week, Ryane LeCesne, called the “personal confidence gap”, and see if we can flip this.
In this episode, I’m going to walk you through the unseen value you bring to the table, and how to leverage it to your advantage. As a bonus, I’ve got a little worksheet that will help you with this too. You can find that in the free resource link below.
My hope is that this episode will inspire you in a way that guides you to greater confidence, greater profitability, and overall success.
Enjoy!
~Wendy
P.S. Have you left a review yet? If not, give a girl a hand. Take a minute to share your 5 star review and a few words over on Apple Podcasts or even Spotify. And thank you soooo much!
_______________
THIS WEEK’S FREE RESOURCE:
Click here to get your free copy of a worksheet I’ve created to help you get more clear about the TRUE value you bring to the table. You have soooo much to offer. This will help you see that.
What Should I Charge: An Ideal Practice PRICING Worksheet
_______________
MENTIONED:
- Episode 69: Ditch Perfection and Claim Your Worth: A Deep Conversation with Ryane LeCesne
- Episode 33: Why Understanding the Enneagram Will Make You a Better Therapist: An Interview with Elaine Bailey
_______________
EVALUATE your PRACTICE with the IP 360 SCORECARD
As a coach of mine used to say, running a business is a full contact sport. There are SO many different parts of it to keep up with, manage, think about, and create - at every step of the way. How do you know what to work on first or where to focus your energy? How do you tell where your weaknesses are and where you're solid?
Well I’ve got you covered! The IP360 Scorecard, based on the 7 Pillars of an Ideal Practice, is designed to give you a practical, actionable, big-picture review of your practice as it stands. And you can complete it in less than 10 minutes.
Click on the link below to get your free copy today.
The IP360 Scorecard
And would you like to support this show? That's always welcome, and thank you! You can find a link to do so below.
You're the bomb! 🙏
Wendy Pitts Reeves, LCSW
Host, Ideal Practice
Private Practice Coach and Mentor
www.WendyPittsReeves.com
Wendy@WendyPittsReeves.com
You're listening to Ideal Practice, episode number 70. Today, I want to follow up a little bit on the conversation that we had last week when I interviewed Ryane LeCesne. Have you heard that? It was such a great conversation, and she talked a lot about what it means to quote value your value, unquote, right? So I want to explore that concept a little bit more. Oh, and I've got a free download for you too, a little tool you might like. So stay tuned!
Wendy Pitts Reeves:Hi, I'm Wendy Pitts Reeves and, with over two decades of experience in the private practice world, I've built my six-figure business while learning a lot of lessons the hard way. This is the first podcast that shows you how to apply the principles of energy alignment and strategy to build a practice that is profit-centered, but people forward. This is the Ideal Practice podcast. Hey everybody, and welcome back. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Ideal Practice. This is your host, Wendy Pitts Reeves, and I am thrilled to be hanging out with you guys today. We are in the winding down days of summer, aren't we? Yeah, we are it, as we've had some blazing hot, but I have to tell you it's been really kind of sweet where I live and I have been thoroughly enjoying it as I am recording this. We have been in the middle of an incredible full moon week, and it has just been so pretty at night the clouds. I just love the way clouds look at night on a full moon night right, it is. It's really special. So if you live somewhere where it's pretty outside at night, I encourage you to get outside and enjoy the evening, because winter will be here before you know it.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:So I wanted to talk about something today that just was on my heart after listening to the conversation that I had with last week with Ryane LeCesne. Did you hear that? It was so much fun? She had so much, so much wisdom to share and in our conversation she talked about what she called the confidence gap. She at one point she used the phrase the shadow side of owning a practice, which is this part of us that we don't bring completely into the forefront, this part of us that we do not own. That is our value, our expertise and the fact that we actually want to show up as somebody who's got something to offer in our practice. I want to talk about that today. A lot of you will hear the phrase imposter syndrome. We talked about that some last week as well. That's a real common way that this tends to show up, but it's more than that. I actually think it's kind of a complex issue. So I just want to take a stab at discussing this a little bit and see what you think. Now, if you haven't heard last week's, go back and listen to episode 69, because it was a good one and I think you will enjoy it.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:As I was thinking about, how do what does it mean when we don't own our authority, claim our value, when we don't get paid what we deserve, which happens because we don't own our authority what does that look like? Well, I was thinking about different people that I've worked with over the years, and at one point I thought I would share this little story with you. At one point, I was working with a massage therapist who was extremely well respected in her community. She had been in the field for a long time. She was what I, in my world, I would call a senior level clinician. That's not how she would have used, that's not the language she would have used, but she a lot of the other massage therapists in her town had been trained by her. She was very, very good at what she did and she cared a lot about her clients, which was really obvious to anybody who ever went to see her.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:But she was so conflicted about money that she had kind of an odd way of pricing her services. For example, at the time that I was working with her this was been several years ago she was charging something like $65, $70 an hour and that doesn't sound terrible. That wasn't that out of line for that kind of service at the time. But she was spending two hours with people, sometimes longer. Most of that she was talking with them. She would spend a really good period of time before you ever got on the table, just asking how you were doing, how you were feeling, what you needed help with, what you had noticed since you'd seen her last, like really digging into what might be going on with you energetically, emotionally and physically. She really wanted to understand that. Then you would get on the table, she would do the massage it was great work and then there would be a wrap up period at the end. All together, an hour session with her often lasted two, maybe two and a half, but what she would say to you when it came time to pay was that she only charged you for the time you were on the table, which was indeed about an hour. So you know what that means. It means she was doing twice as much work for half as much pay and because she wasn't making nearly enough money to live off of, she had to see people any time they would come. So she was seeing people six and seven days a week.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:And y'all physical I mean massage therapy is intensely physical, right? It feels great on the receiving end. I don't know what it feels like on the giving end, but my guess is it's rough. I wouldn't want to do it and my, I mean good Lord, kudos to those of you who do that kind of thing, because the rest of us really benefit from it. But it's very physical. So she was working long days every day and was barely making ends meet. Can you relate to that? Does that sound in any way familiar to any of you? Because I have seen that same dynamic happen in all kinds of different situations. Here is the problem we want to help. It is in our DNA. There's a reason why you are called to this work, but and here's the shadow side of our practice. Sometimes our desire to help may not always be coming from the healthiest place.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:You know what I'm talking about, right? I saw this a lot in graduate school. It's very common in my line of work that people go into clinical social work or psychotherapy because they come from a situation that was very difficult and they want to address it, understand it, heal it, make sure that the next generation does better. All perfectly good reasons, but sometimes we are trying to right the wrongs that we ourselves grew up with, which means we are not always, depending upon how much work we have done ourselves. We may or may not be aware of that place.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:I was thinking about the Enneagram. I lean heavily on the Enneagram from my thinking and my understanding about myself and about people I work with. In my mind, this would be people who are in the thinking triad, so those who are fives, sixes and sevens. The thinking triad is all about managing fear by basically kind of getting out in front of it in different ways. It varies depending upon which one of those types you're talking about, but the whole point is I'm not going to feel fear, I'm in charge, I'm ahead of it in various ways, and that can be why we do the kind of work we do by managing our own fear, by making sure that we're helping others with theirs. But how does our avoidance of fear impact our relationship with our clients? I don't know Something to think about.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:It might be that we want to help people because we feel love ourselves, we feel affirmed in some way, because when a client says thank you, what's not to love about that? Just last week I shared was it last week? Yeah, I think it was last week I shared with you, um, a note that I had received from one of my clients recently, where she was telling me about what a difference our work together has been, as made for her. Well, goodness gracious, I love that. Of course I love that. But when we do the work, we do because we feel loved. We have to make sure that when we have to do things in our work that maybe aren't going to make us feel so loved, that we are still okay with it and that we're careful about that.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:Or, if you're like me, I'm a nine. So the people who want to fill, the folks who that might be their motivation, those are going to be the people from the heart triad of the enneagram, that's, the twos, threes and fours who, in one way or another, are seeking love. We all are, of course we all are, but that's, in particular, a strong dynamic with those types and gosh. If I am working with a client, I'm helping them get better and they're extremely grateful. Well, that feels like love to me. On the other hand, when I have to hold them accountable about their past due account, they may not be so loving. Can I handle that Like? This is a way that this could impact your work right, or you could be like me.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:I am a nine on the enneagram. That. What is that part? That's the body part, the body part of the triad. But the eights, nines and ones are all about doing, not thinking so much, not feeling so much, just doing. And our tendency as a nine is to want everybody to just get along. I just want everybody to get along, everybody like each other, everybody be happy. I don't want to ruffle any feathers. Well, you can certainly see how that could impact me as a business owner, because sometimes you kind of have to ruffle some feathers right. Well, if, depending upon how much work you have done on your own, depending upon how self aware you might be, depending upon how healthy you and I are. We may tend to want to help others while missing certain factors about ourselves or, more often than not, seriously minimizing the value of what we bring to the table. That's really what I want to talk about.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:If you're doing this kind of work because you know what it feels like to come from an unhealthy situation and you want to help people, that's great. But don't do it just because you feel sorry for people. Do it because you know how to help them. You've got the expertise. You've got the life experience. If you are doing this because it feels really good to help people, there's nothing wrong with that. But understand that you're not just doing it because you're nice. You're doing it because you know stuff All right. You bring skill to the relationship. You're not just a nice person who cares. You're so much more than that. And even if you're like me, you just want everybody to get along. I'm not just doing this work so that people are nice and kind of just doing this work so that people are nicer to each other, for example, or that families work better or couples get along better or that people have a high. I really I do this work because I have a certain skill set that I know helps.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:I want you to see recognize own claim what you bring. That makes the difference. I really want you, as Ryan said last week, to value your value. I want you to believe my friend and yourself Because, listen, if you don't believe in you, why should your clients? If you don't think you have something special that you're bringing to the mix here, then why are you in business at all? It's not just because you love people, it's not just because you want to help people, it's not just because you're nice. It's because you know something. You have actually a lot of something that you bring to the table.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:I'm going to talk about that in just a moment, but I really want to hammer home why this is important. If we are muddy about this, if we are conflicted about this, if we apologize and shrink from that which makes us awesome, that's going to impact our business. If you apologize, if you shrink from your unique abilities, from your experience, from your authority, if you hesitate to lead in your relationship with your clients, that's going to impact your whole practice. And here's why and this is going to sound a little bit weird, but this is what I have come to understand when we don't own our authority, when we don't recognize that this relationship with our clients works for lots of reasons. Part of it is because of what they bring to the table their courage, their willingness, their open-heartedness, goodness gracious, their trust in us, which is a huge deal. But also, what makes it work is us. There's a reason why some people do better with you than they have ever done with anyone else they've turned to for help. There's a reason for that, and it's not just because you're a nice person. But here's the danger If we don't see what it is that we do, if we don't understand the difference that we individually make to our clients, what we are doing in that moment is we risk becoming client-centered to an extreme.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:Now, I don't know about you, but in my training everything was about the client and of course I mean why wouldn't it be right? The guiding principle is is this good for my client? When I have to make a decision about what's best in my practice I'm going to handle something. The first thought, the first question, always has to be is this in my client's best interest? But there is a real possibility that you could take that idea to an extreme. And when you do, where what's best for your client is not only what matters most, it's the only thing that matters. You could end up with poor boundaries. You could end up making some really serious therapeutic mistakes and financial mistakes. You could end up with a lack of confidence. You could end up with a lack of leadership because you're not showing up the way your clients need you to show up. And when we don't do that, when we go into the work like yeah, I could help you I actually have some ideas about that when we show up like that, that's when we don't make any money y'all, and there's a really good chance that we are also not having the kind of impact that we are meant to have. So if I've got you thinking and if you're a little bit like whoa Wendy, honey, what you talking about here, where are you going with this? Well, I'm going to tell you I've got. I do have somewhere. I'm going with this. So bear with me.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:Before I get into what this means and what I want you to do with it, let me just take a moment here and just mention something to you. Have you checked out the IP 360 Scorecard that I offer for free on my website? If you haven't. I invite you to go check that out right now. Just go to my website, wendypittsreeves. com/ 360, the number 360, 360. Get your copy right now, because this scorecard is a really quick and easy kind of a self assessment of your practice and it's based on my framework, what I call the seven pillars of an ideal practice. It will help you very quickly get a sense of which of those pillars, which of those areas you're solid in and where you could use a little help, and some of this is about owning your value. So I think you might find that helpful. You might want to check that out. Go to wendypittsreevescom/ 360. I just want to mention that before I forget it and before I dive into where I want you to go with this.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:I see this happen when I'm coaching people. I've often worked with folks who are freaking rock stars y'all just really good at what they do, have a real heart for the work because they are real nice people, because they do come from a place of love and service, but who also have years of experience, who have thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of training, who have life experience and a worldview that deeply impacts what they know how to do when they're working with the clients, who are just right for them. I've seen that. I want you to recognize your worth. Ryane last week said that, ultimately, when we talk about limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome and all the things that we throw up that say I'm not worthy, I don't deserve this. I don't deserve to get paid, Wendy, $150 an hour, $200 an hour. I don't deserve to make $100,000 a year, $150,000 a year. I don't deserve to only work with clients I absolutely adore. I don't deserve to take six weeks of vacation a year. Well, what if you did? One of the things that Ryan said is that when we have limiting beliefs which is what all of that is often what that all comes down to, what you bring to the table. Now, I've designed this as a tool to help you think about pricing, because when you get clear about the value that you bring, the authority that you have, that's going to influence your pricing. I hope, and I hope it will influence it in a good way.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:But I just want to talk this through with you for a moment, if I can. I want you to think about certain things and I want to start here. You could write this down, or you can download the worksheet that I've got for you, if that's easier. I'll tell you how to do that in just a minute. I want you to think about what are the literal skills and credentials that you already have. Are there specific licenses that you have? Certain certifications that you have? Have you been trained in certain uh techniques like AIT or EMDR or polyvagal theory? Are there certain things that you've gone? You've gotten extra training in working with trauma, dealing with back and neck injuries? I don't know.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:Do you have a unique skill set that you've actually spent a lot of time perfecting, a lot of time and often a lot of money? What are those? It might be your graduate school education, but it might be that you've never been anywhere near a college. It doesn't matter, you've gotten it in some other way. What literal skills and credentials do you have Now? My credentials are I'm a licensed clinical social worker, so I could certainly say that. But one of the skills that I have is a wicked level of intuition and a powerful ability to recognize and pull together patterns that I see in the lives of those that I work with. I also have a real knack for saying things directly in a way that people can hear Usually not always, but usually right. You have skills and credentials as well. Some of them are the hard, measurable, licensible kinds of things. Some of them are intangibles, but they are every bit as real. What are those? Write those down.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:After you've done that, I want you to think about what is unique about your services, about the work that you do, or what could be. Do you work with a particular population, like kids on the spectrum, maybe same sex couples? Maybe maybe you work with them? You work with full families, which hardly anybody seems to do. Maybe you work with people and their pets in some unique way. I don't know, there's like all kinds of things, but what is? Is there something unique about the type of problem you solve, the kinds of folks that you work with, or maybe the way you work with people? Maybe you work with them in their homes, maybe you see people on Sundays. Maybe you work with people in the outdoors, in nature. In some ways, maybe you do some kind of experiential work. All of that is part of what contributes to your awesome. Okay, all of that is part of what makes you unique among your colleagues. So what are your skills and credentials? What kind of services do you offer, and don't just tell me you know that you work with everybody, because you don't, nor should you. All right, so think about that.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:And then the third area I really want you to think about is your life experience. Just this week, one of my coaching clients, a therapist who is exceptionally skilled at working with couples and working with like a couple of different areas I won't go into the details, but she's she's got her own area she's really good at, but she has begun to own her full life experience in a way that she's never done that before. In fact, I've got two people I'm working with right now that this has become important Sometimes. Who we are, our own cultural background, our own family experience, our ancestral experience, our energy all of that is part of what we bring to the table too. Maybe it's an experience that you've been through, maybe it's the, maybe it's a wide level of work experiences you've had. I don't know, maybe it's just how long you've been around, like me, but there's something, and probably several some things in your personal life experience that informs the work that you do. That is how you know how to help people, the way you know how to help people. That making sense.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:I want you to spend some time, my friend, writing that stuff down, really thinking about it. And if you're not sure about this, if you have trouble about this, ask a friend or a colleague. What do you see in me in terms of my how like? What I bring to the table, what like? What do you notice about my credentials, about the people I serve or the way that the people I help with, the way I help them? What do you know about or notice about my energy or the stories I tell, or the way I do what I do and why I think the way I think? What do you see in me that maybe I don't see? If this is hard for you to see, ask a friend, ask a colleague, ask four or five friends or colleagues. You may be surprised at what others see in you that you've never even noticed, and it can be super, super helpful.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:What it means to run a practice that is profit centered and people who are people forward means you own your authority, you claim your value, you bring all of that to the table and you get paid what you deserve, without a polity, because that's how you run a healthy business and it's people forward, because your clients do matter most. They just don't matter more than you. They matter as much as you. You don't matter more than them, you matter as much as them. This was an equal partnership. See how that works. That's how that works.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:So let me go back to the massage therapist that I was mentioning to you at the beginning. Remember what I was telling you about her. She was working all day, every day, like hardly ever got a day off, and was literally charging, like making half as much money as she should have been making for twice as much time. It was so bad. Well, you probably don't need me to tell you where that goes.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:If you keep pouring out of yourself in that way for your practice, for your clients, if you are so client centered and you are leaving yourself out of the equation, there comes a time when you cannot sustain that anymore, and what that often looks like is burnout or illness, and in her case, it was illness. She got sick, and it was when she got sick that she called me and she said I've got to fix this, and I'm like, good, it's about time. And so the good news is we worked together for a while. It didn't take a long time because it was very clear what needed to happen. The main thing was she had to deal with the discomfort of treating herself with the same level of love, care, attention and respect that she treated her clients with. You wouldn't think that would be hard, and yet it's. So often is, especially when we don't, as Ryan said, value our value.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:Well, fast forward a few years. That person became a good friend of mine. She has since retired, but by the time she retired she had tripled her rates. She actually raised them two more times without my help. She no longer charged for time that she that was just on the table like people paid for every minute they spent with her. And because her practice got healthier, she didn't need to see so many people. So she cut her time in half. She got her time and a half. Her hours got much more limited. She got her freedom back. She got her life back. She began to go hiking again. She had time to spend with her family. She got her health back. Everything got better. She saw fewer people, made better money, was doing just as deep, beautiful, rich, important work as she had always done. Her clients had always gotten the best, but now she got what she needed out of that relationship, too, makes sense.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:Yeah, so good, so good, and I was really proud of her. That's what I want for you. So if you would like to get the little worksheet that I put together for you, go to wendipetsreevescom. Forward slash pricing and you will get this little worksheet, and I encourage you to spend some time with this. And, like I said, if you're, if you have trouble filling this out for yourself, go ask some people in your life what they would say about you for each of those areas. I think you'll find this quite eye-opening and my hope is that you will be so proud of yourself that you're like a foot taller by the time you finish this exercise.
Wendy Pitts Reeves:My sweet, brilliant, beautiful, open-hearted friend, I simply want you to own your authority. You know something. You bring a level of expertise to the work. That is important. I want you to claim your value and recognize what you do, and I want you to get paid what you deserve. So there you go. That's what I've got for you today. I hope this is helpful. I hope it gets you thinking. I hope you will go download that worksheet wendypittsreeves. com/pricing. We will put a link in the up in the show notes below. Have a great week, everybody, and I will see you next time. Next week right here. Same bat time, same bat station on the ideal practice podcast. Bye now.
