Are Sliding Scales Smothering Your Clients?

Where did Jewish mother jokes come from?

According to Wikipedia, Margaret Mead is to blame.

When Mead published the results of interviews with 128 European-born Jews, the popular media recognized an archetype in full bloom(Archetypes are stereotypes elevated to mythic status.)

Whatever the origin, the Jewish mother has become synonymous with an intensely loving, but controlling to the point of smothering, parent who engenders guilt in her children through the suffering she undertakes on their behalf.

And all too often, that’s what we do to our clients when we offer them a sliding scale.

Like reminding your children to wear galoshes, offering a sliding scale seems kind. Thoughtful. Caring. But when the child is an adult, both are intrusive rather than supportive.

Why, then, do so many independent professionals cling to the sliding scale?

The seductive appeal of the sliding scale
Sliding scales have a lot of appeal. For one thing, they delay the moment of truth, when we must declare what our work is worth.
For another, sliding scales seem to give power to our clients. (As you’ll see, that’s questionable.)

Sliding scales let us charge as much as more experienced colleagues and as little as less expensive competition. But the most seductive characteristic of the sliding scale is that it lets us be the good guy.

And that’s why it doesn’t work.

How sliding scales turn clients into dependents
As a service professional, you have a job, and it’s not to mother your clients.

Your clients have mothers. They aren’t looking for someone to make sacrifices that make you look good and put them in your debt.
Now, I know that putting people in you debt is not your motivation. In fact, you probably use a sliding scale in part to avoid having clients  owe you more than they can pay.

But it rarely works. By and large, people feel obligated when you do them a favor. That can work out in the short run. But if you have long-term relationships with your clients, a growing sense of obligation can fester resentment on both sides.

When that happens, dependency turns into co-dependency and nobody wins.

But what will they think?
When you are self-employed, it’s easy to get caught up in what other people think. It makes a kind of sense. You need people to approve of you if you’re going to get any clients, right?

Well, actually, no.  

Approving of yourself is your job. Until you face that moment of truth, no amount of outside approval will convince you that you are worthy of your hire.

Until you face that moment of truth, part of your attention is going to be diverted from your clients while you worry about what they think of you.

And until you face that moment of truth, you’re making your clients responsible for your self-image, like a Jewish mother who looks to her children to make her life worthwhile.

It’s not smart, and it’s really not fair.

Caring and worrying are not the same thing
Still, there is a healthy and legitimate concern we need to address, the concern that we not abandon our commitment to caring about others, clients or not.

But watch what happens when you begin to worry about this. For my own part, it goes something like this:

• If I don’t offer a lower rate, they’ll think I don’t care.
• But darn it! I can’t afford to have everyone pay me the lowest rate.
• Besides, it seems like the clients who pay least are the clients who complain the most.

At this point, the inner dialogue goes on of two ways,

• Door #1: I’ve got to make a stand here. People are just going to have to understand that I need to make a living.
• Door #2: I just can’t stand the idea of them thinking I think I’m too good for them.

It doesn’t matter which door I step through. On the other side I shut  down a little or a lot to protect myself from either their criticism or their need.

That’s worrying, not caring.

We don’t need to be protected from what we care for. We can be with someone else’s pain or joy or anger with out hearts and minds wide open. Since we’re not taking on their experience or judgments, we don’t need to guard against them.

It’s a lovely way to relate to people, clients or not.

What to do instead of using a sliding scale
I’m clear that sliding scales don’t work, and I recognize that there are times when your fee schedule doesn’t work either. Here’s why that’s not a problem.

What you charge is your business. What your clients pay is their business.

When you stay in your business, it doesn’t get crowded over there in your clients’ business. Without your intrusion, they might notice that they are not able or willing to pay your rate. It’s possible that they will ask if you are open to a different arrangement.

Then it’s your business. Are you open? Staying out of your clients’ business, go inside and find out. (Sometimes it’s helpful to say you’ll get back to them, not to delay answering, but to give yourself space to find out what is right for you.)

Here’s the key: go into this conversation without knowing what you are going to say.

When someone asks your rates, tell them (you know the answer).
When someone asks you if you are open to something else, go in and find out. How can you know your answer in advance? It’s a new question every time. Let go of any fantasy about being consistent* or predictable.

When you practice not-knowing in this way, you remain open and available to the other person regardless of the final outcome. Again, it’s a lovely way to relate to people.

If you still insist on a sliding scale
I’m a realist, and I suspect some of you aren’t ready to give up the sliding scale. Here are some guidelines for making the best of it.

Make the sliding scale available to a specific portion of your client list. For example, if you see 20 clients weekly, allocate 5 clients to the sliding scale. You don’t need a full calendar to do this. Just decide on the maximum number of sliding scale payees you can take on and stick to it.

Create a waiting list. If all 5 sliding scale slots are full and a 6th person requests sliding scale, put them on a waiting list for the first available slot.

Set a specific time period for the sliding scale agreement. Let your sliding scale clients know that at the end of that period they will be expected to pay the full fee.

Clients, like children, are a blessing. Both you and they will see it that way if you leave the caretaking to their mothers.

* A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson)