Me and clients eating dinner at the top-rated restaurant on the island of Santorini during a mastermind retreat in Greece

 

A few months ago, I was on the phone with a woman who had built a gorgeous business with lush retreats in tropical locations.  One look at the pictures of her events and you’d be left drooling. The flowers! The vistas! The warm pictures of beautifully decorated rooms where her clients came together!

Except she had one problem.

She had figured out exactly how to make what she does ‘work’. This meant, she had finally figured out a proven system to fill her programs until they were sold out.  The revenues were consistent. And, as she told me, on the ‘outside’ all looked well.

But behind the scenes, there was a whole different story.

See, she felt ‘stuck’.  She knew that at this point, the only option for her business to keep growing was to raise her prices or allow more people in to her programs.  Except she kept hitting a wall.

She didn’t want to let more people in, because she was afraid she’d lose the intimacy of her events and programs.  But she didn’t want to raise her prices either. Why? Because she was attached to the fact that she was ‘known’ for having the mid-range prices that she had. 

So she was afraid to raise her prices.  And she didn’t want to add more people, or any new programs to hold more people. And on top of that, the workload she had right now with her business ‘working well’ money-wise, she was at max capacity, so she couldn’t add more clients or programs anyway.

See what’s wrong here?

She knew it and I knew it.  This was a ticking money-plateau-time-bomb waiting to happen. Hello, Money Capacity issue. 

(plus there were some Visibility, Structural and Boundary Capacity issues in there, too.  But like I said, Money is the mother of all of them and often woven in to your other capacity issues).

Have you ever had those same fears?  Things like:

• If I raise my prices, all my old clients will get mad at me or leave and then I’ll LOSE money.
• If I charge what this is really worth, people will say I’ve lost my mind and I’m a snob.
• If I put this price tag on it, no one will sign up for it.
• Why should I want more money? If I have the lifestyle I want, isn’t that greedy to want more money?
• Am I turning my back on marginalized groups by raising my prices or charging what I charge for my work?

While some of these questions are extremely important to ask and consider, MOST of the time, they are actually symptoms of a Money Capacity issue.  Yep. 

Because, the truth is that old clients who are the kind of clients that grow with you will gladly invest more to keep working with you.  

Clients with expanded money capacity (which are the kind of clients you want to attract anyway) won’t balk at your prices, they’ll be inspired by them. 

People who say you’re a snob for your pricing often are just glaringly revealing their own Money Capacity issues.

Wanting to make more money when you have everything you basically want isn’t greedy – what about the impact you can make with more money? The social issues you could fund.  The charities you could donate to? The movements you could start with more money?  

Making more money isn’t about YOU making more money per se.  You can keep your salary the same. It’s about buying a retreat home where people can come to heal and change their lives.  Or investing $100,000 in the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. Or being able to offer more scholarships to your programs. Think BIGGER than just your basic needs.

And as far as turning your back on marginalized groups… first, most people I speak to in that category find it insulting that they are viewed by the societally privileged as ‘not being able to invest in themselves’ because they’re in a marginalized group.  

And second, your business making more money means you can provide more financial aid or scholarships to said marginalized groups if anyone should truly not be able to invest in your life changing work. Or that you can use that money to invest in causes that aid marginalized groups.

But listen, I can give you the logical responses and the perfect snappy comebacks  to your questions til the cows come home. Me just saying motivational things isn’t actually going to shift this for you.  

All of the above types of questions (and similar ones) that you ask on a daily basis are basically contagious money thought forms that are influencing you to behave very small around money.

Giving you good answers to those questions won’t make you BELIEVE those answers for yourself, deep down in your bones.  Snappy responses won’t get you to the point where you don’t care who is judging you and where you won’t allow other people’s opinions of your money to influence you to behave financially small.

Rational responses aren’t enough to get you to make DNA-level changes in how you view yourself and how you operate so that you break through your money capacity plateaus, for REAL this time.

We’ve got to DO the capacity work and go deeper. Just giving you good answers is as effective as when someone tells you “just get over your fears and do it!”.  Sounds good but doesn’t actually change things enough internally so that you actually get over your fear and do it.

Only capacity work can create this deep change. 

This woman with the lush retreat business knew that if she didn’t address her Money Capacity issue, she was going to stagnate her business.  And that meant reaching less people with her incredible work. And eventually revenue going down, because it was not sustainable for her to keep up the pace she was keeping and not earn more and more money every year. At some point, something had to shift.

What I loved about her is she didn’t wait for that to happen (the revenues backtracking) – she already saw it was GOING to happen.  She decided to work with me so she could expand her money capacity BEFORE it went into a state of decline.  

When I last checked in on her after we completed our work: her schedule is more open than ever. She earned enough extra money from raising her prices and changing up some of the structural capacity of her programs that she was able to hire a business manager full time.  This means taking lots of things off her plate so she can spend more time with her kids.

AND she’d made enough extra money to launch a new ad campaign that was reaching WAY more people than she was before.  Hello, new levels of impact!

If you’re taking on other people’s or clients’ money fears and baggage and allowing that energy to second-guess yourself (whether it be in not raising your prices, discounting things when you hear money sob stories, or freaking out when you feel someone freaking out over your prices)…you have a Money Capacity™ issue.

And if it’s not addressed, well… then you’re either already experiencing a plateau or decline or you will very, very soon.  

What would it be like to FULLY OWN your prices, the value of your work, the BIG financial goals you secretly keep to yourself because you’re afraid of other people’s judgments?

If you’re ready to find out the answer to that question, then I invite you to join us in the virtual Money Capacity retreat.  We’ve sold out of our first date. But we have a few spots remaining for the next two dates for the retreat (though those are filling up as well as I type).

No fluff.  No ‘motivational quotes that don’t actually change anything’.  

ACTUAL shifts at your core in how you OWN your power around money. Which will shift how you attract, earn and grow that money.

Here’s what one recent participant of our last virtual retreat, who is also signed up for the Money Capacity retreat, had to say:

Best of all, you don’t even have to leave your house to attend this retreat. It’s at the same reasonable price I set for my other retreats.  It’s a great way to get a taste of what capacity work is all about. And you’ll walk away with some pretty massive shifts in how you behave money-wise (and what you’re able to hold, handle and receive when it comes to money, too).

We also have a payment plan available, so truly, we’re making this as easy as possible for you.

Want to learn more?

Lisa Fabrega

Ps: have any questions or wonder if this is just going to be one more thing you threw money at that didn’t work? Send a mail to support@lisafabrega.com and I’ll be happy to answer your questions/address your fears.