Making the decision to hire me and bring my coaching support into your life is an empowering step in what will be a series of empowering steps and decisions made throughout our work together.
For this reason, sharing my company policies is integral to your process, and mine. When booking a free Assessment Call to explore the possibility of us working together, you are asked to acknowledge having read and understood my company policies in advance of scheduling your call.
This is to honor both of our time, and prevent any misunderstandings later.
Private coaching is a relationship and like any good relationship, open and honest communication is key. Sharing my company policies is just one way that I show up for the relationship – transparent about how I work, what I believe, value, prioritize, and expect.
I see you as capable, powerful, and abundant. I see you as a responsible adult who makes good financial decisions. My company policies are consistent with this.
While two-payment options are made available upon request for The Dream Acceleration Program and Top Shelf with Tara, and a monthly membership option is provided for The Brule Breakers Club, I don’t offer payment plans beyond this option.
Some coaches offer a variety of custom payment plans in an effort to accommodate and make things easier for a client, and I respect that completely. I used to do that too. As I see it now, I used to not just coach my clients, I also used to finance my client’s decision to hire me.
There are two really important reasons I don’t do it that way anymore.
(1) When I finance your decision, it creates a level of relational enmeshment that I don’t think supports either one of us very well. When I am not only your coach, but in essence, also your banker, it blurs the lines and the focus of our connection. I want you to be able to come to our coaching, fully focused on our work together. I want you to be able to choose this engagement and investment, independent of me. The last thing I want is for us to be in our coaching sessions, and for you to be worrying about how you’re going to make your next payment to me. I want you to feel totally safe to relax, show up, focus only on what will make the biggest difference for you and your life, and simply enjoy the process of coaching.
(2) It was an administrative burden. Sometimes payment plan agreements went smoothly. Most did. But sometimes, they didn’t. When people didn’t pay on time, per our contract, late fees were applied. This, along with resetting their account in order for the overdue payment to process required manual updates each time a scheduled payment didn’t go through, plus several back and forth emails to ensure clear communication. In a few instances, I ended up sending unpaid accounts to a collection agency. This involved paperwork, several phone calls with the agency representative, and in the event that payment was successfully collected a large portion of that money went to the collection agency’s commission. A well-meaning business advisor told me that collections was “just part of having a business.” I defy that! It was a hassle and a loss in many ways, costing me and my team time, money, and energy. The administrative management details were draining, and only further compounded by the emotional toll of having a breach in a client relationship.
Ultimately, I came to realize that I was doing the very thing I coach people NOT to do. Accommodating others at your own expense is unsustainable.
So I stopped.
And I updated my company policies accordingly.
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The work I do with clients is obviously personal. I learn my client’s personal psychology as I coach them. As I get to know you, you also get to know me. That’s how relationships work.
This begins immediately.
“People first” is a principle I strive to always live by. I pour my wealth of experience, content, knowledge, and skills into my client relationships. My work, expertise, and the support I provide is high value, and my relationships aren’t transactional. This “people first” principle includes the relationship I have with myself. How I choose to organize my priorities and manage my energy helps ensure that I am able to bring myself fully to every exchange.
I don’t tit-for-tat. I don’t hold back on how I deliver. I don’t withhold love, resources, or information that could be helpful. A woman of my word, I show up for the people I promise to show up for – an extension of my values – and I attract clients with similar values. For these reasons, my clients and I get the financial part sorted out at the start so we can roll up our sleeves, nurture the relationship, and get on with the work of transformation and self-actualization, knowing we’ll never have to pause or circle back about overdue accounting.
Excellent service is my standard. Clients have come back to me years later, again and again, because they know this. My clients are people who show up, relentlessly, for their own growth, success, joy, and progress, however imperfectly. And I love them for it. I believe their success is inevitable. I will never NOT see them – or you – as capable, powerful, and abundant. No matter what.
How you go about paying my fee is none of my business. Meaning, whether you have the money and it’s no big deal to you, or a totally big deal to you … whether it’s a stretch or a comfort … whether you take out a loan, or don’t take out a loan … whether you pull money from savings, get a part-time job, put it on a credit card, or ask someone you know for money … whether you consult with your spouse about your decision, or you don’t … I’m not here to be involved in any of those decisions, nor is it for me to make a moral or ethical judgment about such decisions. I respect your boundaries and your choices.
Coaching, as an industry, has a million-and-one problems. I’ve done my fair share of hemming and hawing about them, debating what to do about them and what it means for “my industry” and “the reputation of the industry as a whole.” And, what I have come to understand is that my job is to solve exactly zero of these problems. My job is not to fix the coaching industry. My job is to serve my clients and give generously to those who value what I provide.
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The exchange my clients and I agree on, is one of value. If you don’t have the money to pay me, or your priorities are to spend your money elsewhere, that’s ok. I give away tons of free value through my social media posts and offer gifts you can download from my website, etc. Feel free to claim any and all of them!
My books are $14 and every page has immense value there for you to absorb on your own or, as some have, you can start a book club.
My coaching programs range from $97 to $16,000. Choose what suits you now, and/or come back later.
Big love,
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