[00:00:00]
Genecia Alluora: This episode is brought to you by Instantpodcastleader.com, the leading platform to launch your podcast in 48 hours and make it profitable. Get your free audiobook and free web class at instantpodcastleader.com/webclass. I believe we can change the world. But first we've got to stop living in fear of being judged for who we are.

[00:00:27]
Genecia Alluora: Hi, I'm Genecia Alluora, founder of the number one leading female entrepreneur network in Southeast Asia, supporting 1 million women to own and love the F word. Being fabulous, having freedom, financial independence and family. With a challenge to women everywhere to stop talking themselves out of their dreams. Soul why - Secrets of the Soul Rich Women's blueprint identifies the excuses to let go of the behaviors to adopt and the skills acquire on the path to growth, confidence and believing in yourself to be recognized as a leader online, with clients online, and to have more impact on the world. Stop believing the lies about who you.

[00:01:11]
Genecia Alluora: So you can become who you are meant to be. You are just an F word away from the life you want. The marriage you want, the family that you want is going to be fueled by the business and life you build. Join me. Be a soul rich woman. Alone, we are strong. Together we are unstoppable. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:35]
Genecia Alluora: Hello gorgeous and welcome to today's show. I'm your host, Genecia Alluora and today I want to talk about how to have awkward money conversations with your clients. Now we all have them before and they are an inevitable part of being in business and they can be super weird and awkward and it's kind of making you feel like war meeting sometimes. But don't worry. I once said to one of my colleagues that I feel like being in business was just having to go through a series of awkward money conversations. For example, conversations about pricing. How much do you charge? Can you give me a discount? Sounds too expensive. What can you do and offer me?

[00:02:23]
Genecia Alluora: I also have awkward conversations about refunds, awkward conversations about overstepping boundaries, people asking you to do pro bono work collaboration for free, awkward. But that's just business, isn't it? It's rare that you ever get through your entire business without having to have at least a slightly awkward conversation about money. The good news is that it gets less awkward as you go on, especially when you have tools and experience to deal with it. The bad news is that you have to make one thing a bit less awkward and then there's always going to be a new challenge to come up and new conversations to have. Well, you get better and better at it. Okay? Here are my top level tips. The very first thing when someone sends you an awkward conversation, and if this is usually over email, don't feel like you have to respond right away and don't respond in panic. Give it at least a day. Take a breath and take a step back.

[00:03:29]
Genecia Alluora: And even if you respond to the person and say, let me have a think on that, or let me get some resources for you and I'll get back to you. So you're not leaving them hanging, but you're also not making a decision based on urgency. Sometimes people will ask you and to be honest, you don't know the answer to it. Then it's okay to go back and talk to your coach or your mentor or talk to your mastermind to see if they have experienced that before. Sometimes old people, I mean sometimes people will trigger you and you'll need a day to work through that. Maybe it's triggered some of your old money blocks. Maybe you have to do some EFT, which is emotion freedom technique on what it's bringing up for you.

[00:04:20]
Genecia Alluora: So just be okay with not responding right away and giving yourself time to get a good response. That means you write out and craft a good response. There are a couple more reasons for that. One is you might have to create a procedure around it. This is something I really recommend. Rather than making exceptions for everyone, create a procedure that allow people and yourself to go back to your client and say, here's what we do like a SOP. A perfect example is refunds. Now if somebody asks for a refund and you don't have any terms and conditions in place. Now it's the perfect time to create them. You might not be able to enforce it with this particular client, but at least you can go back and say, I can make an exception this time. But for the future, this is the new procedure now that's really, really super important.

[00:05:19]
Genecia Alluora: Don't make up stories around it and don't make it mean anything about you and your ability to do the business. Awkward conversations are just a fact of business. It could be something that you just hadn't thought of it before or it hasn't come up for you before. Or just to be honest, sometimes people can be really difficult, and it's got nothing to do with you at all. So just take a few extra minutes to write about the situation that is bringing up for you. Maybe somebody's asked you for a refund and you've created this whole story in your head like, I'm such a terrible person. I cannot do business. I'm not good. Why I do I suck. Everyone is going to hate me, hate this situation. Everyone is going to ask for a refund, and I'm going to lose money in business. Hello, my dear. The truth is, when you give it a little bit of time, you realize that it's just kind of like a journey in business, okay?

[00:06:23]
Genecia Alluora: Everyone gets refund request. It's inevitable because you're doing business. I get refund requests all the time because the more business that you do, the more refunds that you get because it follows a predictable percentage. But if you let any of these awkward money conversations create a story where you think to yourself, I'm just terrible at being in business. I shouldn't do this anymore. They hate me. I suck. I'm losing money doing business. I should quit, then you are really going to miss the lesson, and you're going to miss the opportunity to create things in your business that will drive you forward. Now, creating procedures out of awkward situations will create a good foundation for you to build your business on. Outsource it or delegate it so you don't have to be the bad person.

[00:07:23]
Genecia Alluora: Now, this is great. If you already have an assistant, I have some resources for you if you haven't hired your first assistant. But first you must learn how to delegate and let someone be the bad person. Let someone else say, This is the procedure and this is what we do, and this is what you have to do next. For example, with refunds. Now, if you email my team at Soul Rich Woman, you're not emailing me and I'm not refunding you. That is my assistant and she knows the procedure and she doesn't get triggered by it. She just does the procedure, SOP. This means it's wonderful for me because I don't have to deal with it. We've got a procedure that we've agreed on, but I don't have to be that bad person. Sometimes she does have to be the bad person if someone's asking for a refund outside the refund period.

[00:08:19]
Genecia Alluora: She has to tell them no, and that sucks. Sometimes it is good to have someone else in your business who can reinforce that for you. Now, if you haven't got any assistant yet, please go get one. But you can ask your partner if you fe they can be your finance officer. If you really have to, make up a fake assistant. Lots of people have done it in their first year of business. I know I did it. Just to have someone else to reinforce the policy and someone else to be the bad person. And that's going to make you feel so much better if you can outsource or delegate it to somebody else. Script it out. Now, this is especially important if you're going to have one of those awkward money conversations on the phone. If you are on Skype, turn off your video and say, Look, let's do this on audio because it helps with the sound. Script it out. I did this in my early days when I had to increase my prices. Remember, think about charging $5,000 to now $40,000 and then $100,000. I would script it out and I would read out to my clients. Just to let you know, my prices are going to be going to go up on this date, and this is a new package going forward and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:09:43]
Genecia Alluora: I would read it word for word. Yeah, because sometimes you are too nervous, you will forget, right? I mean, I will be nervous as hell, but I would just read it out word for word. That's why you need to script it out. So that's exactly what you can do, whether it's over the phone or an email. Have those scripted responses so it's very clear and then you don't need to come up with it on the fly. The more times you have these awkward conversations, you can pull that and send it out. No need to think or be obsessed about it or blame yourself over it. Okay, my dear? And that is going to make everything so much easier. Now, here are some scripts to get started with. For example, if a customer asked for early bird pricing after the deadline has passed. Now, how many times has that happened? A client missed a scheduled session. Now, that happens to everyone. But it's really good to have a process for that. I've got a script and I've got some email scripts that you can use as well. For example, a client shows up 20 minutes late for their hour and they still want their full hour.

[00:10:54]
Genecia Alluora: Someone cancels the last minute. Someone's trying to negotiate your prices. A client asking for a discount, a client asking for installment plans that don't make sense. Someone asking you to work for free or do pro bono work. A company asking you about your speaker's fee, a request to donate your goods or your services to charity. Someone else where a client asked you to do something that was more than what was agreed on or missing deadline that's pushing your project. A client that's demanding refund for a service they never even used. For example, they sign up for a certain amount of sessions and then they disappeared. You never heard from them again. And then two years later, they are asking for a refund.

[00:11:47]
Genecia Alluora: So my dear soul rich woman, script it out. Okay? I know that you are ready for the next step and I believe in you and I will stand by you. And that's why I'm here every single day. So I just want to say, please rate, review and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and Spotify so that this podcast gets found more easily by other women who really need to hear this message. Take care of yourself and I'll speak to you soon. Bye for now.

[00:12:21]
Genecia Alluora: Need more unstoppableness? Alleviate your status instantly in your brand, business, and life? This new free book shows Unknown Secrets to get from stuck to unstoppable without changing who you are even if no one believes in you or stand by you. We'll like to rush a free copy of a brand new book to your doorstep ASAP. Reserve your free copy now at makeithappensecrets.com.