Money mistakes… I’ve made a few…

“One day” I’ll be perfect with money (won’t that be nice) but until that happens, I choose to forgive myself unconditionally for my imperfection with money!

Even though I have a successful 6-figures business, I still have new learnings about money ALL the time.

Here are some of my past and present money mistakes, and I’d love to hear yours, too.

Over-delivering with clients

When I first started coaching, my hour long sessions were more like 2 hours. I just wanted to tell them EVERYTHING. I wanted to solve EVERY PROBLEM they ever had in their whole lives, EVER.

I answered question after question, even when time was up. The problem with that kind of over-delivering is that it’s exhausting – for you AND the client. It doesn’t really serve them, it overwhelms them.

But it’s part of a larger problem: I’m not enough. I finally got the balls to make some tiny changes. At the start of the call, I’d remind the client how long we had, and I’d remind them at regular intervals, “Ok, we’ve got twenty minutes left, what do you want talk about next,” “So, let’s start to wrap up and look at actions for the next ten minutes” and at the end of the call if they started to go off on a new tangent, I’d say “Great question, let’s make a note of that and we’ll cover it next time.”

Easy. (Well, it was after I got over feeling like a bitch!)

*Journal – Where are you over-delivering unnecessarily with your clients or customers?

Ignoring people who owed me money

Payments fail and credit cards bounce. It’s just a natural part of business. It’s certainly nothing to stress about. Oh, but stress I did…. Luckily, I have a great system in place now. When someone’s payment bounces, they go into an automated follow sequence, asking them (nicely) to fix up their account. However some people still slip through and sometimes, I’m slack on chasing them up. (Just being honest here!)

I’m much better than I was, though. I used to cringe every time I saw a bounced payment notice come through and procrastinate on it for DAYS. I hated asking people for payment upfront, but honestly – that was the BEST money boundary I ever put in my business. Why create situations where you’re constantly chasing people for money, or facing no shows because they have no skin the game??

*Journal – Who owes you money? What’s your plan for chasing it up?

Letting my fears get the better of me

You know those days when cash flow gets tight? And you start freaking out… OMG – where are all the clients? The economy is soooo bad. Nobody wants to work with me! The truth is that being in business can sometimes be scary. There are new challenges all the time.  It can test your boundaries like nothing else when you don’t have a predictable paycheck and have to rely on hustle to make money. Having your own business is the best and worst thing EVER (and anyone who tells you different is a dirty liar!)

The thing is, you can’t let those thoughts in because they make things SO MUCH WORSE. Next thing you know, you’ve got an unexpected speeding fine in the post, all your bills are due at once and the clients dry up even more. The good news is that money mistakes are rarely fatal if you recognize them and move on quickly.

Working on your money stuff is an ongoing process, and you don’t need to be perfect to earn a great living from your business.

December 2013 Issue