How I liberated myself from astrology's unsavory darkside of bad checks, no-shows, and other bad vibes.

So for what it's worth, here are some tips I've gleaned from roughly nine years of astrological practice:

1.  Do not have clients you would not want as friends.

When an astrologer friend shared this creed with me several years ago, I was initially shocked.  But some people simply do not fit us, or us them.  Starting with a generally comfortable and positive feeling about your clients makes it easier for you to be open to them and responsive to their needs.  This rule is hard to follow when you’re desperate for the work/money.  Solution: never be that desperate.  As much as I hate doing grunt-work in some office, it’s not as much as I dislike trying to do caring, transformational work with someone who rubs me the wrong way.

2.  Do your homework.

This sounds obvious, but it's something I wasn't doing adequately in the beginning:  Be prepared for the session.  Crunch numbers, study, analyze, and make notes.  Anticipate the questions your client may have by imagining what questions you might have in their place, and give some thought to how you will address those questions.  The more prepared you are, the more you will, in the actual session, be ready to...

3.  Unclench.

The reading is not about you.  Relax.  If you’ve done some screening, then you and your client already feel pretty good about working together.  If you’ve done your homework, you have a good idea of your client’s main issues and some idea of what you’d most like to share with your client.  So take a deep breath, exhale, and be fully present and available for your client, without a lot of clutter in your mind and heart caused by self-doubt, insecurity, and subsequent need to impress.

4.  Send follow-up notes and birthday cards.

I’m still not as vigilant about this as I plan to be, but a short note not long after the reading--especially if the session was particularly emotional or revealing--may give both you and your client some needed closure.  If you’ve had the experience of revealing something intimate with a person you didn’t know well, and then feeling uncomfortable about it later, you have some idea of how your client may be feeling.

5.  Do not make toll calls to clients during peak hours.

I realize this might sound petty and dumb.  But if you’re operating your practice on a tight budget (and let’s face it, many of us are), it can be very tricky to maintain an open feeling toward a client who, when you’ve called during peak hours for something a simple as confirming an appointment, won’t let you off the phone.  With the two of you trained to observe certain social niceties, at best it could take several minutes to end the call.  At worst, your client, excited to get a head start on a much-anticipated event, could turn chatty, wanting to share a fair amount of biographical information while you try to find a polite way of saying, “Let’s save this for the session.”  Either way, you’re probably feeling tense and a little resentful about the money this phone call is costing you.  In order to remain open and responsive to your client, you cannot afford tension or resentment.

6.  Payments in full, in advance.  NO EXCEPTIONS.
     No refunds without 24 hours notice of cancellation.

I repeat:  In order to remain open and responsive to your client, you cannot afford tension or resentment.  Most people would feel resentful about showing up to do a day’s work, for which they expected to be paid, and then being told by the boss, “Gee, I don’t have enough money to pay you right now.  Can I pay you part of it?”

Believe me when I say, I have tried very hard to be the nice guy on these two points.  But I always ended up feeling pissed off, doing a reading for someone and then waiting for the check to arrive, and throwing a fit if it didn’t (very rarely, but it has happened).  Most people, even nice responsible people, will put you on the back-burner before they will forgo paying their landlord, utility company, or whomever.  After all, you’re not charging interest!

My feeling about this is, if someone does not have the money for a reading, they should not book a reading.  I don’t like feeling like a low priority in someone’s life, which is how I feel while I wait for payments or for clients who never show up.   If I am doing my work with integrity, then I have already made this person a high priority for several hours of my life before they even show up, and will inevitably resent feeling like a low priority to them.

Of course, there are exceptions, and if a client calls me the morning of a reading with the Cold from Hell, I’m inclined to be gracious.  However, if they just don’t show up, and then call a couple of days later with what would have, at the time, been a perfectly legitimate excuse, then I’m not so gracious.

7.  The ten minute followup.

I was recently reminded of a tip I hadn't had to use in many years: the ten minute followup call. When I was starting out, I had a hard time with clients who would call me a few days after a reading, ostensibly to ask a couple of followup questions about their reading, but really to try to extend it (without paying me, of course).  So I instituted the ten minute followup call: any client was welcome to call me one time after their session and ask questions directly related to the original reading for up to ten minutes.

8.  When talking with other astrologers, don’t misrepresent how many clients you see or how much money you make with astrology.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve done this, and it made me feel like an idiot.  I felt like I had to, because I was insecure about my abilities as an astrologer (an insecurity validated, I thought, by my lack of clients) and was embarrassed to confess to my peers that I was not doing as well as I’d hoped, because they all seemed to be seeing tons of clients.  In all likelihood, most of them probably weren’t doing a whole lot better than me, but nobody was talking about it!  If we persist in pretending we’re doing great, how can we get—or give—support to one another and share information about how to grow our practices?  How many potentially fabulous astrologers are leaving the field because they are so discouraged in their attempts to build a practice?  And how many ostensibly “professional” astrologers are subtly trying to eliminate their competition by “psyching them out” and making them feel bad about themselves?  That said....

9.  Never, ever, ever say anything bad about another astrologer, especially to a client.

Nothing undercuts your integrity with a client faster than bad-mouthing someone behind his/her back.  How can a client be open with you, wondering what you may say about them when they’re not around?

10.  Declare every penny you earn as an astrologer on your income tax.

Nothing undercuts your integrity more than dishonesty and cheating.  Don’t break the law and don’t commit fraud; enough people already think of astrologers as thieves and charlatans.  Don’t make them right.

11.  Trust astrology.

Most of us have lots and lots of knowledge of astrology before we gather the nerve to do a paid reading for somebody, and yet on some level we’re not quite convinced that it “works!”   Because we live in a culture that distrusts and trivializes astrology, we often doubt it as well, or at least feel we need to work double-time impressing our clients with its absolute accuracy and validity.  Nonsense.  Astrology existed for centuries before we showed up on the scene, and has surving through the ages quite fine without us.  Doing our job well depends on learning the language and techniques of astrology well enough to act as an intermediary between the client and the constellation of his or her unique psyche—and then to trust astrology and the client to do the rest
 

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