There are good reasons to use sliding scale, discounts, or scholarships.
And not-so-good-reasons.
Some of us use them as a cop-out.
Is that you?
See if one of the following applies to you.
(1) You firmly believe that There Aren’t Enough People Ever Who Can Pay Your Full Price
Or… even if there are, They’re Too Far Away or Mysteriously Hidden and You’ll Never Find Them.
Then you might be using the “I’m building equity!” thing to avoid building a sales mindset that actually works.
Selling at full price is a skill that, at some point, you have no choice to build if you want a profitable business. If you don’t want to do the mindset work around this, that’s fine… but tell yourself the truth.
You’re giving away scholarships because you’re scared to believe in yourself and the value of your offer.
And it has nothing to do with equity.
(2) When you imagine yourself abundantly, even luxuriously provided for, you feel… guilt, shame, anxiety. Abbunance feels like a zero sum game where, if you’re thriving, you must be taking from someone else.
I’m not talking about the clean pain that comes with acknowledging the fact that some people are grossly economically oppressed.
That is a real thing, and if you are paying attention, that should enrage you and break your heart. It should make you slow down and think twice about creating a flow of wealth that is community-enriching and socially responsible.
But here’s something that will be telling. If you would be genuinely happy to imagine a loved one, or someone you deem “worthy” be abundantly, luxuriously provided for (let’s say your kid, someone who is overcoming hard circumstances, someone you really respect)…
… but when you imagine yourself enjoying the same, it feels uncomfortable, we are no longer talking about your sensitivity to injustice.
We’re talking about “I am uniquely unworthy to enjoy nice things”. If you don’t heal that, you’ll always create and serve at under your full capacity.
(3) You are automatically suspicious of success and abundance, and equate wealth with greed or evil.
Listen, I’m not saying there aren’t a lot of people whose wealth is earned and hoarded in suspect and gross ways. Clearly, there are. And our society is rigged to encourage, enable and abet that in so many ways.
And it’s damn wise to hold onto an awareness of that.
But there are also all a lot of well-off people, financially comfortable people, who have kind hearts and discerning minds and are working damn hard to leave the world a better place than they found it, and ARE succeeding at that in many important ways…
… just as there are a lot of poor people who are shitty, cruel people that leave the world worse off than they found it.
Equating financial abundance with evil wholesale is lazy thinking, on top of the fact that it is a super effective way to make sure you stay under-resourced.
Being a leader of any kind requires the audacity of belief.
Being willing to try on, find evidence of, and indeed, create evidence of what you wish to see in the world, what you envision creating with your one-and-only, limitless, God-given life force.
If your current beliefs are working for you, keep them. If not, dare to imagine having something different.