EYESTORM CONNECT & COLLAB

JUNE 2024

Another fabulous EyeStorm Women Connect & Collab meeting – thank you so much everyone who joined and took part in the discussion around Pay parity and charging your worth, what a beautiful collective mind we have!

Connect & Collab is the free monthly community call held on Zoom every last Wednesday of the month from 12-13.15 (Uk time), and is open for all women in our EyeStorm Women Community.

We all did short presentations for a start and shared what drives us and what we’re passionate about, before we went into Rooms to start the conversations on Pay parity and charging our worth.

We weren’t looking for any finite solutions to deliver a white paper here, we just want to open up these very relevant conversations to see the real experience, how we can suggest solutions and help other women stepping forward in a better way.

The first thing we all agreed on, was for all of us to work in a more sustainable fashion and not burn out from the stress of making money. 

Success doesn’t necessarily mean making a massive amount of money. It’s all about working smarter and finding fulfilment in what we do – to earn money in a pleasurable way.

Any yes, we do realise we’re extremely privileged to be able to pace ourselves and aim to do what we’re passionate about and not just work to feed an extended family, but we also want more women to know their worth and be able to charge more and work less.

Most of us had a similar journey from testing out our products and services for free, to do a cheaper pilot product, to then charge more. The next step is to create “passive income” in the form of online products, but also to step into the corporate market and earn more in less time. Also licensing our products to sell in a more effective way.

We discussed Greed vs Need

In the conversation that Emily had with Carin and Linz, Carin noted that – “Inequality was the air I was breathing as a child”. There was almost a physical block to ask for money for the services offered, and was working hard at tearing down all the blocks, for herself and for her clients. It’s all about self-worth, and also there is a need to train the people around us to have healthy boundaries so that they don’t try to take advantage of the skills we have.

Linz observed she had been terrible with pay and boundaries and still found it hard to talk about money- her money archetype is a connector and could actually live without it. Also observed the connection to self-worth, when not feeling worthy, that’s when we are most likely to be taken advantage of. 

Emily mentioned a time in her career when she discovered that the person (white man) recruited to do half her job was earning £20k more than her. Couldn’t do anything about it at the time, as everyone had just been given redundancy notice. As a coach, she had started out charging for session/hour, and then moved to package, and then to outcomes. Slow progression to charging – but the business is not yet earning enough to be self-sufficient. 

When we’re not feeling worthy we’re taken advantage of

Ltd shouldn’t have to be unsustainable

Nina/Marisa

Marisa shared that she had difficulties monetising herself when first starting out in her business, but used a combination of researching the market and affirmations to overcome her ‘money monsters’. 

She raised an interesting question around pay parity – should someone be paid according to length of service or remunerated for the value they add irrespective of how long they’ve worked in that role.

Alison Wilkins and Mi Elfverson talked about the importance of having a Pitch Deck / the importance of having sample products / product outlines on the ready to progress quicker towards contract and not to be afraid of asking if there’s a budget.

Carin highly recommended reading Katrine Marcal’s book: Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner?

Katrine Marcal is a well-renowned Swedish journalist with economics as her field. Her book is about women’s participation in the economic system and growth in a historic perspective. How they have done their fair share of labour, but without recognition and taken for granted. The title is a joke about Adam Smith’s concept “the invisible hand” in his most famous literary work, Wealth of Nations.
A very interesting (but at times very depressing) reading experience – but it fires one up!!!

We hope to see you for our next Connect & Collab meeting on Wednesday the 24th July.

Register here:

https://eyestorm.org.uk/eyestorm-connect/