Living Without a Net: An Odyssey into Self-Employment (Part XX): On Knowing What You're Worth

A dear friend had a heart-to-heart with me after I backed down from competing for a client. It wasn't really my thing, I had said to her, justifying why I was only too happy to give a friend--and potential competitor--a shot with a longstanding contact of mine.

The truth is I wasn't sure the services this client needed were in my core competency. In the past I would have bullshitted my way through the project and pretended that I'd known what I just learned. But I see myself coming to a nice place in my solo journey, a place of specialization. People ask me for things that they think I am uniquely qualified to do. I think back on the reams of medical books I copyedited to make ends meet when I was in my early 20s, when I had no knowledge of what hematomata were but knew how to spell the word in plural; or the--I believe the technical term is 'shit work'--that I took on just for the money. I find that I don't have to take on projects just to get by. I can weigh the pros and cons and, if necessary, refer the business to someone else.

That said, this wasn't one of those cases.

I just wasn't sure I could DO the business. It wasn't squarely in my narrow confines of doable projects, namely because I would need to put together a team. More specifically, I would need to have the cajones to satisfactorily PAY a team. I had just assumed that me being, well, ME, a self-proclaimed solo practitioner I should take a back seat and let my friend take charge. I could just work for him and he'd pay me accordingly.

When I told my dear friend about this arrangement she was incredulous. Why would I give up control? she wondered. Why wouldn't I absorb the full credit for my contacts and my work?

Later in the week I received a call from a woman who'd been referred to me for blogging advice. She was a smart businesswoman and marketer who was new to blogging. A friend of mine told her about my experience helping companies, so she figured I could help her. Turns out, I did. After our conversation, she asked me, "So how do you want to work this?" It took me a few seconds before I realized she was asking me how I would charge her.

"Oh, this? It's nothing. We can figure something out if you need more." I honestly thought what I'd done wasn't that big of a deal. I gave her some pointers, not flown out and done a freaking PowerPoint presentation.

I got off the phone with this woman and there was b-friend, looking at me like I was nuts.

"You just piss that stuff away!" he said. This, from a man who practically turns on the meter when I ask for a back rub. I realize that he's almost too willing to monetize--to quantify good will, even, to justify spending his time on it. But he has a point. Why am I not willing to fully leverage what I'm bringing to the table?

A mentor of mine used to give me similar feedback, when I was working on my own in New York and I'd asked her what I should charge for a consulting project. She threw out a number, and immediately I balked.

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I would NEVER ask for that kind of money!" She explained to me the rationale for marking up my rates--to account for taxes and my overhead--but there was still a chunk of money that I couldn't justify.

"That," she said, "is the premium for your ideas." In this consulting project, I was being asked to develop a magazine concept. The work was not long, just intense. I didn't know how to qualify my creative process of culling information and waiting for ideas to percolate. I figured, the client is paying for the popcorn, not the time it took to heat up in the microwave. My friend convinced me that the incubation time was worth something too.

Still, the thought of bidding on this recent project, in which I determine the value of my work and others' work, was daunting. Who am I to determine everyone's worth?

It's not like I'm not good at creative billing. As a business development director I would write ornate, multi-tiered business proposals offering a multitude of services to fit a number of budget scenarios. I became an expert in determining revenue models for larger entities, but not for myself. When it came time to negotiate my salary for writing these plans, I deferred to asking for what my boss "thought was fair". The only time I balked was when, during drastic salary cuts at a start-up I was slashed to a level that cut into my living expenses. I could live without having any discretionary income--it took cutting into my rent to make me speak up.

I can only attribute this lack of confidence to a number of things. One to being female; the other, to self-esteem. Now before, women who know what they are worth start shrieking at my sweeping statements, let me point out the following: Women, in general, have a tougher time giving themselves credit--monetary or otherwise. Years ago I wrote a story that I referenced in another blog post, about women's discomfort with rating themselves positively in a job interview for a performance better or equal to men's who rated themselves as exceptional.

Blog buddy Maria Niles confided that at one job she held years ago she was asked to rate her performance on a scale of 1 to 5. She had just earned a Ph.D. and was re-entering the corporate world. She didn't want to seem immodest, or assume that she had nothing left to learn, so she rated herself a 2.

"It turns out I rated myself lower than everybody else in the department," she said.

Man or woman, modesty is not seen as a virtue when it comes to career. Just yesterday I caught a portion of the reality show "Rock Star: INXS", where numerous, experienced musicians were trying out to replace the legendary INXS frontman Michael Hutchence. One of the top contenders, a georgeous and talented singer never mentioned his leading broadway roles until his one-on-one interview with his potential bandmates. He didn't think they had any relevance, even if they were high-profile. When the band heard of all of the starring gigs he'd had in his career they were amazed. Later, when the contender left the room, they all said the same thing: Nice mate, but will he speak up when he needs to? The next contestant, not afraid to tell the band where he thinks they need to go creatively and how he will take them there, was perceived as less talented but more of a fit.

So, no, confidence isn't just a female thing. But I'm comfortable saying that failing to give ourselves credit is more a female problem than a male one. Men are socialized to overstate their abilities--something is wrong with them if they underbid themselves. They expect to hear "no" and are willing to work from there. Women put more meaning around the word no. If they are told no, they wonder, "What was I thinking asking for that in the first place?"

I've found the Women Speaker Wiki that Mary Hodder started after BlogHer an intriguing laboratory for this concept. It was determined by attendees of the conference--more than 80 percent of whom were female--that there were not enough women speakers at critical conferences. iI anything, there has been a sprinkling of token females who have often had to endure talking-head formats that are not geared toward them. The wiki is a repository of women's profiles for conference planners or businesses who want to reference information specifically on women. Though the wiki was created to promote women, men were not discouraged from adding their profiles.

A month after the wiki was announced and made accessible from the BlogHer blog, there was little movement. Women who have been prominent in the tech, blogging, and media communities signed up, as expected. But very few new female profiles were added. On the other hand, men--both regulars on the conference circuit and newbies to the community--signed up. It seemed that these men had no qualms about their qualifications, or about not being part of the target demographic; they saw an easy, high-profile way to promote themselves and jumped at the chance.

A few of us responded by checking in personally with women we'd met at the conference who had not added profiles to the wiki. Most of the responses were the same:

"I looked at the profiles of the people who are on the list. My qualifications are not anywhere in the same league as these people."

My colleague, Elisa Camahort, had the best response to that one: "Whose professional bio isn't written to make them look better than they are?" She's suggested that we help women construct their speaker profiles. We're making progress. SLOW progress. A few of those who were hesitant to add profiles are doing so more out of an obligation to help our effort, insisting that they don't really have much to offer in the way of expertise.

There is something counterintuitive to me, I'm embarassed to say, in training women to talk the talk of career puffery. There is something admirable about women's understatedness and willingness to put forth an effort without necessarily getting all the credit for it. On the other hand, I think back to a conference where there was an abysmal male speaker who advocated inauthentic methods as the way blog marketing is headed. Because he speaks up and presents himself as a blogging expert he tends to be regurgitated at every blog marketing conference. He's not furthering the agenda, in my opinion. He's influencing people and preventing them from seeing another way of doing business.

When you put it in these terms, ladies, how can you not just suck it up and add yourself to the list?

As for me, I'm developing a pricing model for what was once my pro-bono blog work.

 

blogher women and career women entrepreneurs

Comments

[Elisa Camahort]

I think I should say what I said better: which is not that our bios make us look "better than we are", but rather that they "make the very best of what we are."

[Joy Des Jardins]

This is wonderful Jor...can you hear me clapping all the way back here in IL? You deliver a very important message here...to women and men alike. Great post.

[Tish G]

Thanks for the great post Jory!

I always wonder about the socio-cultural things that keep women from evaluating themselves properly. I know that, within working-class families, women of intelligence are valued the least(documented wonderfully by Alfred Lubrano in his book "Limbo")--we only upset the status quo. When that's the case, how one reinvents oneself in order to be successful becomes a matter of de-programming and re-programming. It's not easy.

Right now, I struggle with how to properly state everything I've done so that it makes sense to others. Not an easy thing to do when one's life's been pretty much counter-culture.

thanks again! T.

[Koan Bremner]

When I migrated my blog from Blogger to Radio, I thought, "I'll write a FAQ, and include a short biographical "sketch" there"... that was, what, six months ago? No biographical sketch, as of yet.

And after BlogHer, I thought "I owe it to others, not just myself, to put my details on the Speaker's Wiki" - so, I started adding my details... and stopped, when I got to the "Biography" part...

I find it very difficult to summarise my life, in that way. I have a kick-ass CV / resume... but that's not the same thing. Who I *was* for nearly forty years is not who I *am*... but if I don't play to who I *was*, few people would be interested in my technical or business experience.

So, I appreciate first-hand just how hard it is to put a profile "out there"... and shyness or reticence isn't the issue (well, not for *me*, it isn't!)

Cheers, Koan

[JOry]

my name is jory to..how cool.
<3 jory

[Yvonne DiVita]

Jory, this is a perfect example of how women shoot themselves in the foot. We just aren't trained to compete the way the guys are. Well, most of us aren't. I've known and admired many strong, competent, self-assured women who are able to look in the mirror every morning and say, "I'm the best there is."

The interesting thing is -- having to say it in the mirror at all. Men don't do that. They just assume the audience (or client) knows they're the best. Ah, if only we could learn to do that.

[Stephen Jones]

Joy

This was an insightful article - well written and well argued :)

Regards

Stephen Jones
http://www.accjobs.com