What represents value?

As with any service it is important to establish what represents value to your clients. And then over deliver. Reiki should be thought of as a professional service. It is a healing service. But, hopefully one with alot of heart. (Which to me just means not driven by the idea of profit - see part 4)

This is the most important factor to me when trying to establish what is the right amount of money to charge for Reiki.

There is a great hull-a-ba-loo in the Reiki community, ongoing, about certain associations insisting its members charge $10,000 for reiki masters training. Which they testify was the amount that Mrs Takata, THE original western reiki master, recommended.

On the logic I am presenting here, I personally would not have a problem with someone charging $10,000 for reiki training. As long as that represented value to the client. And, as long as the person conducting the training then found a way to over deliver against that persons expectations.

You represent reiki

See, the thing is, subtly we are all responsible for the way reiki is perceived in the community. Which in turn then affects how much benefit reiki is able to be to our communities.

And, so I think it is important that we all, as reiki people, take that responsibility seriously, and do our very best to represent reiki in the highest light.

The easiest way to leave people with a good impression of any service or presentation, whether in big business or small, is to over deliver. You need to exceed people’s expectations. If you can do that with your service (and I have some ideas which I will share with you later this week about how you can do little things that make a BIG difference to the way people think and feel about the reiki service you offer them) then you will have clients that are impressed and clients that talk highly of both your reiki services and reiki in general.

Should be non-profit

All reiki clinics and houses should be non-profit.

I do not really think there is any room for debate here. Reiki has a spiritual element. Even if you are using it purely as a technique to offer physical symptom relief (say as a compliment to massage or beauty therapies).

Because reiki has a spiritual element (reiki is defined, generally, as “spiritually guided life force energy) it will never “feel” right to exploit it to make a profit. And this is you best guide. But, if you are looking for others, I challenge you to find a religion that encourages its followers to manipulate its gifts to make money. I know for certain in my own family’s tradition (Tibetan Buddhism) it is not okay to charge for teachings or empowerments (donations are fine). And, that is how it works. If we are hosting a Buddhist meditation Master for a teaching series, we will work out how much money is needed to cover costs, and if a sponsor for the event does not manifest, we then divide that amount by the number of registrations and ask for a “suggested donation” to break even.

Money is not the devil

I grew up in a Christian household. So, I know all about this one. And even now, living in a Buddhist family, I find the same old references and reverences being made to hermits and humble beggar type practitioners.

But, thankfully I have also grown up a bit in my own self and realize that if I want to be able to offer reiki to as many people as I do, then I need to get out of the way of the success of our little reiki house.

And, that same principle applies at all levels of service businesses. There is nothing inherently “wrong” with receiving alot of money. It is just that it should not be your reason for doing it. And even non-spiritual business people will tell you that when they take their focus away from “the money” they are more creative and things flow more easily.

You should not be afraid of charging a decent amount for you service either. As long as you are satisfied that what you are offering represents value. In marketing terms there is often a “sweet spot” of what to charge for a service. If it is too low, people think the product must not be very good, and if it is too high no one will purchase it.

Barter System

It is very important that every reiki service incorporates some system that can cater for people who are unable to access the service at regular prices, due to financial hardship.

I have found that the easiest way to over come this situation is by using a barter system (other ways are to give the service for free, or to let people pay via installments).

A barter system is basically where there is some sort of exchange that is not monetary and which represents a comparable value. For example, the most common type of barter trade that we do at our little reiki house is the barter exchange of the client’s labour. I organise for the person to spend an agreed amount of time working around our property. Picking fruit, cleaning up waste, gardening.. whatever needs doing at the time.

There is certainly more thought that needs to go into this kind of exchange, but it can be very rewarding for both people.

Conclusion

For better or worse, the best thing for us as reiki people to do with any decision like “how much should you charge for reiki” is to sit and contemplate it with the aid of reiki flowing in, through and around us.

Trust your feelings, trust your intuition. And remember there is no “wrong” answer (just something we did not learn/heal yet..)