Aisha:
Welcome to Beyond the Session with Aisha Shabazz it's
Aisha:
time for, it depends where I answer your questions with context.
Aisha:
Should I offer pro bono and sliding scale to everyone, or just the people that ask?
Aisha:
So in my opinion, both parts of those questions are the same.
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I would adjust that question.
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To be the following, should I offer pro bono and sliding scale services as
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a front end offer or a backend offer?
Aisha:
And let me break that down a little bit further.
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So a front end offer is something that everybody knows what
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it is you're thinking about.
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Looking at a menu, you see it right there.
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Plain is.
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Pro bono and sliding scale services are available.
Aisha:
Okay.
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That is a front end offer.
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Everybody knows about it.
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A backend offer is something that's only available to people that,
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in this case, are active clients.
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And the reason why I like to distinguish between a front end offer and a backend
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offer is, If you have anything that's a front end offer, you have to be
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prepared to answer any and all questions that come through the door, and the
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amount, the volume of people that are on the front end of your business,
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people that are inquiring about what you're offering is a lot higher.
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Then those who are actively on your caseload are actively
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engaging with your service.
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So you have to consider how many questions you want to answer about
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your pro bono and sliding scale offers and services versus how many
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questions you don't want to answer.
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So that's the first thing.
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The second thing is I want you to consider, How much you're going to offer,
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and you can consider how much you're going to offer in a couple of different ways.
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You can consider how much of a pro bono and signing scale offer you provide
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based on the total dollar amount that you are in theory giving away.
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. The second thing that you could consider is how many sessions you are giving away.
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So see the difference?
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It's the dollar amount that you're giving away versus the number of
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sessions, and either way you slice it, you're still gonna be giving yourself
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a cap to how much you can give away.
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There are many industries outside of the therapy industry that offer
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pro bono inciting scale services.
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The legal industry is one of them.
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Attorneys are oriented and trained to know and realize that pro bono services
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is a standard in a lot of different law firms, and there are corporate law firms
Aisha:
that have pro bono programs, you know, community legal aid that is a pro bono
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and sliding scale nonprofit that offers.
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Low fee access to legal services, so they have a very well fine-tuned process
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in their industry, even though legal services are known to be a high ticket
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offer or a high ticket service where it's costing a significant amount of money.
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For the time that you're working together.
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So when people are in doubt of whether or not they're gonna offer sliding
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scale of pro bono, I like to encourage people to consider other industries
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outside of their own that are doing this.
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So going back to how you would determine what you're gonna give
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away, I don't think that it is wise.
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for you to offer sliding scale and pro bono services from day one.
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And the reason why this is, is because you don't know how much money you
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really need to run your business.
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And so if you are giving away money before you have money, then
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you're never going to be able to hit this place of sustainability.
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And I would much rather therapists give a service not expecting anything in.
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I also would encourage people to consider, and this is within the
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clinical context of our work, that transference and counter transference
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that comes up the idea of gifting something in exchange for something else.
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And I believe that when you have rapport established with a current client, you're
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more likely to establish clear boundaries with someone rather than starting.
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Offer with someone that you have not built rapport.
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So one way to protect yourself from, you know, the slippery slope of just giving
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away the farm is having boundaries on how much you're going to give away.
Aisha:
So let's just use an example of the following.
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If your rate is $150 per session and you've determined that you can
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allocate $1,500 a year to pro bono and sliding scale services, that
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means that you have a total of 10 sessions that you can give away.
Aisha:
10.
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Now, does that mean that one client is going to get 10 services on the
Aisha:
house or 10 sessions on the house?
Aisha:
No, that's not exactly what that could mean.
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What it could mean is that you're going to slide the scale and
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you're gonna say, you know what?
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I will give a percentage or a flat fee reduction on the full.
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So if you reduce that one 50 down to 100, you're giving away $50.
