 All right, today I'm with Bear, A Bear. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation because Bear has, you know, you call it an anti-capitalist perspective on pricing. And pricing is something that is very emotionally charged, I think for a lot of people and confusing and, you know, uncertain. And so I wanna talk about pricing from your perspective and, you know, to be transparent, I don't think we necessarily share the same perspective about pricing, especially sliding scale. I'm not a fan of it. However, I believe in diverse perspectives. So I wanna hear kind of how you came to it and how it's working out, you know, and what your guidance is around that. So, and just from your bio, you mentioned that relational work is real work and emotional work is movement work. So I really liked that. And you've been fully self-employed since 2014. Congratulations, that's awesome. It's not easy to be fully self-employed. And so I admire that and appreciate that you published with that as well. So all right, let's get into this topic of pricing. Why is it so difficult for many of us to set our rates or it's confusing, we're unsure about it? Why is that? Yeah. I think that there's so much, basically inside of capitalism, everybody comes out with money issues. So whether you grew up with a ton of money or you grew up with no money at all or you grew up sort of more middle class, basically everyone has some kind of like guilt or shame or both about money. And the other thing I think that capitalism does in terms of like influencing our feelings about money is that it convinces us that no matter how much we have, we never have enough, right? Inside capitalism, the machine of capitalism always has to be going up, right? The economy always has to be increasing. And so if you approach your pricing from this place of like, there never can be enough, but also if I have too much, then I feel guilty about it. Sometimes we feel guilty just for having enough. And so there's this real sort of like soup of influences that come to us from the culture and from our experiences in life that I think then when we show up into business, it's like, oh no, how do I even begin to figure out what I actually need? How do I begin to figure out what people will actually pay for the thing that I'm offering? And yeah, I think it can leave people feeling really overwhelmed and sort of, yeah, there's all kinds of I think behavioral patterns that show up for people from there in terms of how they actually set the rates. Yeah, that's totally good. And yeah, there is a lot there. Both culturally, emotionally, from our family background, for our compassion for the other, the potential client, et cetera, yeah. So let's get into it then. How do you approach pricing from what you call an anti-capitalist perspective? And it's like, we are in the system. I mean, we operate within the system. We are attempting to transform the system or make the system more compassionate and better for everybody. Yeah, we're still in the system. So we still have to charge a price. And so how do we do that? How do we do that? Yeah, I think there's all kinds of advice out there about how to set your rates and how to figure these things out. But the way that I do it and the way that I sort of recommend to my clients to it is to really start from a place of looking at what you actually need. Like how much money do you need in order to live a life that is sustainable without being wealth hoarding, right? But also that like it has enough that you have a financial space to be able to do things like go on a vacation or save money for retirement, that leaves space that's not a sort of scarcity rate, right? But that's like- So we're allowed to go on vacation? I am. I think we all are. We're allowed to save for retirement. Is that okay? Right, I think so many people who really, I know a lot of the people who are interested in your work and my work too are like people who really wanna like make the world better. And I think frequently we have a tendency to like self-sacrifice in service of that vision. And so the perspective that I take is like, okay, if I'm aiming for collective liberation, if I want everybody to be able to be free in this world, I have to include myself in that, right? I have to include myself in the collective that I'm trying to work towards liberation for. I actually matter. No, it's so interesting because, well, I mean, the whole thing about saving for retirement, like for example, I am grateful that, you know, part of my parents saved for retirement. And the other part didn't. And so at this point, I actually, me and my brothers have to support them to some extent, but not as much as we would have to if neither of them saved for retirement. You know, it's like we are working to support them in some way, you know what I mean? But it's like, thank goodness we have to support them double or triple, you know, which we would have to if they, so it's like, yeah, it's like saving for retirement is compassionate for future generations and for the future society around us. It's a compassionate thing to do. Yeah, yeah, so I think that, I mean, totally this, the practicality of just sort of like, okay, if I calculate my, the bare bones kind of like, sustenance wage for me is one thing, but then if I look at like, how do I have a life that's like actually, you know, that there's space for beauty in it, right? That there's like, there's money available for me to like, have a nice- Not always scroungy. Exactly, not having to like move money from one pot to another pot. Like if I think about, if I can, you know, budget from that place that's like, okay, what would it look like? Not to have like a lavish life where we're hoarding wealth, but to have a life where I actually have the things that make life meaningful. Okay, so that's one piece, right? Like, and of course, as we're getting into, there's all kinds of barriers, all kinds of internal reasons why we think, I couldn't even write that number down. That number is like not available to me. And then the calculation basically is to look at that number of like, okay, I need X number of dollars per month or X amount of money per year. And then look at how much can I actually work? How much time can I reasonably sustainably spend doing the thing that I'm doing, right? And so taking a new account, time off for sick leave, time off for a vacation, should you deem yourself worthy of such a thing? You know, and to really look at like, okay, how many client facing hours worth of work can I reasonably do in a week or in a month, however you're calculating the thing? And then you go, okay, if I need X amount of money per month and I can do X amount of client facing hours per month, per week, whatever your unit is, and then you just do the math, right? And so rather than looking at charging what you're worth or like what's the going rate for this thing, actually calculating it based on what do I need and how much can I work and therefore then how much do I have to charge? And it really approaches things from like a place of facts rather than feelings. And even if there's some play there, but I think that gives people a good starting point to move forward from. Yeah, and of course I'm sure you go into the details with your clients, but I just want to remind you, we'll remember to budget for your business expenses and also budget for taxes. We do have to pay taxes and depending on where you live, taxes could be a large chunk. And so yeah, so like after all that, are you still able to save a little bit of retirement and to go on a modest vacation and take a little bit of time off? That kind of thing. So this is really good. One of the things interesting set of principles that you come to pricing with that I found was interesting is reciprocity versus extraction. Okay, tell us about that. Yeah, so insider capitalism basically we're always trying to get the most for the least, right? Fire beware, you know? It's like everyone has to beware, like seller beware because I have to try to get as much from you. Like price, it's like, oh my God, what the market can bear. Like we're supposed to price what the market can bear. I'm like, oh my goodness, like if I'm your market, that's how you're thinking about me. It's trying to get as much from George as possible. Yeah, and so this extractive kind of mindset I think shows up for us in small businesses because then we feel like we're trying to squeeze something out of our potential clients, right? And then if your client is approaching your work from that same mentality, they're gonna try to be squeezing services out of you. So we're like, how can I get as much money as possible from these people? And they're like, how can I get as much labor as possible from the service provider for as little money as possible, right? And so that's the sort of capitalist exchange. That's the extractive approach. And of course, this is like, that's like on the small scale in terms of- And that's anti-relational approach because we don't do that with friends. How can I get the most out of you as a friend that you get the most? No, that's not, we actually as friends, we try to give as much as possible to each other while staying sustainable, like you said. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that when we're stuck in that kind of extractive mentality or extractive approach that then it severs our ability to actually be sort of open-hearted with each other, to actually see each other as fully human because then we're just like pawns in the system, pawns inside this game that's not actually, that's not actually seeing any of us as whole humans. Yeah, and then of course that like shows up as like, on the larger scale, it's like this is the same principle of extraction as like how we end up with like, environmental degradation for the sake of the economy. It's like the history of, you know, enslavement, the history of colonization. And economy, of course, is such a loaded term because it's not really for the sake of economy as a whole, it's for the sake of stock prices. Totally, yeah. When the people say the economy is doing well, really, what part of the, what, really? I really grew up for who? For who? Yeah, so it's really, but yeah, no, this is really good. I really appreciate that you have that kind of in your bones as you approach your pricing and your teaching of pricing. So then we get into the actual tactics of pricing and I'm really interested to hear about your approach to payment plans and sliding scale or what you think about pay what you want. So anything you wanna address there is great. Yeah, so I guess let's start with like, so for a long time I was a yoga teacher and I taught yoga classes at a studio that was, that let me sort of do things the way that I wanted to and I offered my classes on a sliding scale. And I actually have had not that great experiences with sliding scale and I don't offer many things on sliding scale anymore. I think probably for similar reasons as you that because inside capitalism we all feel like we don't have enough, most people will end up paying like the minimum plus a little bit more. And that actually doesn't work inside, in terms of trying to make ourselves get paid. You know what's so interesting, Bear, is that I had such high hopes for pay what you can and sliding scale as an idealistic new business person years ago, now that I'm old and jaded. And I was like, no, but what I remember very clearly one of my, still to this day, one of my favorite restaurants, not too far from me was very holistic and like compassionate. And it was the only restaurant within my, I mean, actually I can't think of another one that was pay what you can, pay what you want. And I was like, I live in San Francisco, by the way. No. So you can see imagine it's not cheap to rent here. And the food was like nourishing, organic, like vegetarian, like it was like the best food. I was like, oh my God, please have more places like this. You know, right. And they didn't last long. And guess what? Every time I went there, I was the only customer. I don't know why. It's really, I mean, no, I didn't want to the wilder. But then they had the menu said basically at the first, when I remember the restaurant first opened, the menu was basically every item was pay what you want, pay what you want, pay what you want. And then I basically asked them, do you have any guidance on this? Like should I be paying $10, $20 or whatever? And then he'd say, ah, you know, somewhere around 15 or something. And I would always pay more. I would always like, because I want them to stay in business. So like as a business owner, I was as compassionate and I would pay them and maybe others would be like, five bucks is what I can afford today or whatever. You know, for this wonderful plate of food or what. And it's like, yeah, it's like, I wish pay what you want. And sliding scale could work for everybody. If everyone was thinking like me, where I'm so compassionate about business owners that I'm like, I'll pay as much as I possibly can. I really like, please take my whole wallet, you know? That's the way I approach pay what you want people. But I realized after a while it's not how most people do it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that that example is so, I think that's pretty common. And I think part of what you're, part of what doesn't work about that is that they gave no guidance. And I think, so most customers enter into a transaction again, trying to get the most for the least. And so when we say just pay what you want and we're really hands off about it because we're like, we feel guilty or feel bad asking for an actual amount then people want to, people default to extracting from us, right? And so I think there are ways to set up sliding scale that allow for people to do more kind of like self-reflection about how they're approaching what they're giving you. So they're like, they're not just trying to be extractive but are actually, we're inviting them into a new way of relating to pricing and payment. But it takes work on the part of the business owner to be like, okay, here's a guide, here's some questions to ask yourself about where you might fit on this scale. There's like, there are things we can do to help people to appropriately locate themselves inside a sliding scale so that people are not just approaching it from a kind of extractive place. I appreciate that you said it's a default mode. It's not that anyone is trying to be, they're obviously not thinking, I'm trying to extract as much as possible but it's just the culture. It's how we are raised and how we approach commerce. And I love that you are doing the hard work, the emotional work, the relational work of kind of training for a better, more beautiful culture you know, essentially like you're training your potential customers and clients to slow down a little bit here. It's like slow food and now it's like slow business. It's like slow down a little bit so we can be more reflective of how we're relating to each other. Yeah, I think that's really a big piece of it. And what I was gonna say about teaching yoga and sliding scale there was just that for years the class was five to $15. And on average, I do like track my income on average people would pay about seven bucks, which the minimum plus a little bit more. Interesting, that's interesting. So you did this for several years and you were able to track the average. Yeah, like how many students were in class? How much money did I make at the class? Like what was the average per student? Then at some point the studio decided to up the sliding scale and it went up quite a bit. It went from five to 15 to 10 to 20. Wow, that's a big jump. And the sliding scale doubled, right? And so I was really. Which is the minimum ended up being quite a bit higher rates. 10 is higher than 7. Totally. And so I was like, oh God, this is gonna like scare away all my students. These people really can't afford $10, whatever. And so I like made a bunch of, you know, announcements like, if you can't afford $10, it's okay, whatever. So the day like starting again, after we like made the switch to 10 to 20, I kept calculating how much I was getting paid per student and my average went up to $12. And my student base did not change, right? Which means that all the people who had been paying $12 could have been paying $12 the whole time. The $7 students could have been paying $12 the whole time but people don't see themselves that way, right? And I don't think that's because my students were like consciously like, let me try to extract from there but we just don't see ourselves as having enough. Right, that's so interesting. Now, and you know, I was talking with a client about the sliding scale stuff and it's interesting. She told me that, now she lives in a place where there are both a lot of wealthy people and a lot of poor people too. And she said that consistently some of the people who paid the least on her sliding scale were the wealthy people. Yeah. You know, and it's really sad. And she also said that some of the people who paid the most were the less wealthy people. And sometimes the less wealthy people are the most generous. And so there's no correlation, you know, sometimes the wealthy people are generous. I mean, it really depends. And so anyway, so how do you then decide or how do you guide others to decide whether to charge sliding scale or not? Yeah, so what I've switched to mostly for coaching and for a lot of the things that I offer, and this is what I recommend most other people do is to sort of take the principles of sliding scale but to hold a little bit more of the control in my court, right? So the way that I think of this is like, okay, how much, if I'm gonna work with 12 clients in a given period of time and I wanna be able to give away three spots at slidings at a pay what you can rate, how much do I need to charge for those other nine spots to be able to subsidize for the three spots that are pay what you can. So that way I'm guaranteeing that people who don't have money have access to my services because that's really important to me. And I'm not going broke in order to do that, right? And so I'm like asking the folks who have more money to pay more money, but I'm not telling them that that's what I'm doing, right? And so then it says on my website, like here's the cost to hire me. Well, we don't tell, even if we didn't do sliding scale we're not telling everyone where the money is going. So, you know. Right, and it's not a secret. I talk about it in interviews and on my blog and whatnot it's on the website, but like, what it says is like, okay, here's how much it costs to work with me and then if that doesn't work for you, let's talk about it, right? And so then in a sales call I can have a conversation with someone where I say, here's my rate, is that a number that's workable for you? And people can say yes or no. And if they say yes, then it's like, okay, then we go down that road. And if they say no, then I say, what would be a more doable amount? And I know that I have built in sustainability for myself in my pricing structure so that if somebody says, you know, I know you charge $300 a month for this, but honestly what I could reasonably pay is $75 a month. I can say, that's fine. I would love to work with you for $75 a month. And I don't have to feel any kind of resentment or frustration with them because my needs have already been met. Like my needs are already covered because I've designed it that way. Yeah, I think it's important to emphasize that you have a limited slots for sliding scale. Like you have made a sustainable calculation to say, this is, you know, whereas some people who haven't made that sustainable calculation would just say, oh, you had another person who I want to serve who can't pay that. So I'm just gonna, you end up after you calculate, oh my God, I can't pay rent now. And so I really appreciate that you have, you create peace for yourself, for your business. Wow, yeah, and the reason, because in the sales calls, like when I'm having those money conversations with people, I've already figured out what I actually need and I know that that need is getting met because of, you know, because of how I've engineered the pricing. And then I'm able to like offer freely to people, what, you know, my services for whatever they actually can pay. And I think people are really afraid of like, oh, well, people are gonna take advantage of me, poor people are gonna, you know, try to extract me or whatever. And I just have to say after, you know, nine years of being in, you know, business for myself, like it does not, that is not what's happened. Like people largely really appreciate that I'm offering them this relational approach to pricing and to payment. And yeah, and nobody's really screwed me over. Yeah, people generally are not trying to screw me over. Thank you. And that's what a beautiful conclusion to what it's like, it's wonderful to have that evidence, you know, within your own experience, which makes you more likely to be generous and open-hearted and say, okay, this is really good. Well, I wanna make sure people hear more about what you're providing these days, what service or program are you excited to be offering these days? Yeah, so I'm sort of fully booked for business coaching clients at the moment, which is great. And so the thing that folks can access first is I have an online class called Freely and Anti-Capitalist Guide to Pricing Your Work. It's three 90-minute webinars that I taught in 2019 so they get links to the recordings to those webinars and the transcripts of them. And basically part one talks about how to calculate your rates, some of the stuff we talked about today. Part two is all about alternative pricing models and how to actually, like the nitty gritty of how to actually do something like sliding scale or pay what you can, how I use payment plans, all that kind of stuff. And then the third part is really about doing the kind of inner work of like, how do we get out of this feeling of never having enough? And how do we actually find that kind of like internal piece about pricing and about money, but doing that in a way that's not just sort of like bypassing systemic oppression. Like I feel like there's lots of kind of money minds that work in the world that's not actually looking at things with the whole context. And so it's taking all of that into account in part three. That's great. I so appreciate that you come from the social justice, racial justice, anti-oppression perspective and integrated with sort of like viable business way of doing things. And yeah, so thank you for kind of integrating those worlds. I really appreciate that. Anything else coming up for you that you wanna share? The only other thing I wanna say about freely is that it's priced at $50, but also there are discount codes on the website. So 50 bucks is out of reach for anybody because this is a product that is infinitely available. I can sell as much of it as I want. You can get it for $25 or for zero dollars. No questions asked. Just use the discount codes that are on the site. So that's amazing. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you, Bear, so much for this conversation and those who are watching, of course the links are above below the video wherever you're watching this. Do check out Bear's sheet. Well, I'll put all the links to wherever people can check out your content. So thanks for all that you do. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, George.