An escort, at any stage of her career, can make mistakes. Some escort mistakes are trivial, others can hurt a girl's career in significant ways.
These are not the life and death mistakes of failing to use protection or putting yourself in danger; rather they are basic personal and business mistakes which can reduce your income and increase your stress.
Ignoring your Health – Escorting is physical work but it is also a lifestyle. There is a fair bit of down time as you wait for the phone to ring or your next date. What do you do with that downtime?
Do you find yourself sitting on the couch playing X-box or surfing the web with a carton of Häagen-Dazs or a bag of chips? Is your first glass of wine at 11:00AM? When was the last time you cooked a real meal? Have you somehow gained fifteen pounds without really trying?
Escorts, like most women, need to incorporate exercise, fitness and a decent diet to stay healthy. It is not one thing or another, rather it is an overall commitment to staying ahead of the fitness/health curve. The good news is that as an escort you have downtime and you can use it.
Three things to beat the health negatives the escort lifestyle may bring:
Walk – try to walk a minimum of a mile a day with at least three days where you walk two miles or more. You don't need equipment or a gym membership, just a pair of good runners. Walk at a steady, brisk pace. The brilliant thing about walking is that along with firming up your legs it clears your mind. A daily, brisk walk, sets you up to be healthy, energetic and calm.
Eat real food – if it comes in a sealed plastic bag it isn't real. Fresh carrots instead of chips, a quick steak instead of take out. The amazing thing about eating real rather than processed food is that is is not only good for you, it's cheaper. Escorts run through their cash fast. Slow the bleeding by eating well.
Sleep – It is easy for an escort to cheat on her sleep. A client wants to see you at midnight, another at ten in the morning. Very quickly your sleep schedule gets disrupted. Plus, the internet is always there. And the TV. Take control of your sleep by turning off the screens at a reasonable hour. Charge more for late dates.
Doing the same thing over and over – As an escort it is very easy to slip into a routine. You have a client over, you chat, do a little strip tease, engage in consenting adult activities, say good bye. Rinse, repeat.
This is a recipe for burnout. Plus your escort clients are going to come a couple of times and get bored. Routine is great for initial encounters but it is worth while to plan to mix it up a little bit with your regular clients. Some things to try:
Wear a different outfit. It is much too easy for a particular dress or skirt and blouse to become your escort uniform. Instead, look at changing your outfit for different days of the week and different hours of the day. Make sure your lingerie matches the outfit.
Change up the consenting adult activities. As an escort you are seen by many of your clients as a mistress of the sexual arts. While you will certainly cater to their desires, throw in a few things they are not expecting. Probably the biggest secret sex trick Cosmo ever revealed – and it revealed it almost every issue – is that many men enjoy being anally teased a little. A discreet surgical glove and a little lube and many of your clients will be delightfully surprised.
If you have the space, create a second bedroom for kinkier pleasures. You don't have to be a domina but you can certainly take charge and tell your client that he's going to spend a little time in the "red bedroom". What goes on in the red bedroom is up to you but it should be more than a little different than your regular escort date.
Forgetting that Marketing is an everyday thing – It is awfully easy for an escort to put up a post, book clients and put exactly the same post up the next week. Easy and, in a very short while, counter productive.
Successful escorts spend time every day working on their marketing. They put their escort posts up in a variety of locations and they track which posts work best where. And marketing is more than just escort advertising. Having a well made, simple website will bring in new clients. Having a blog on that website where you can publish great pictures to keep things fresh all can help raise your escort profile.
Taking your Escorting Regulars for granted – A client who wants to see you again is potentially a regular. A client who wants to see you once or twice a month is a regular and needs to be nurtured.
The reason why regulars are important – they are safe and lucrative – is also the reason why it is easy for an escort to ignore them. By their nature an escort's regulars are predictable. After all, these are clients who are going to show up every couple of weeks without the escort having to do much.
Which is a huge mistake. A good roster of regulars is an escort's security cushion. They are the income she can count on. So it is vital to treat them very well.
A few things an escort can do to keep her regulars coming:
- Offer a loyalty discount. If you are charging $300 an hour offer your regulars an hour and a half for the same price.
- Offer a half hour "touch and go" special service for your regulars on days where you are not as busy as you would like to be
- Where it is safe, keep in touch with your regulars via email or SMS. Nothing wrong with sending a quick note with a pretty picture
- Keep track of what each regular likes, what he talks about and what seem to be his favorite topics. This prevents the problem where all the regulars blend into a single, indistinct, escort client.
- Pacing – As an escort becomes successful it is very easy to book and service every appointment which comes up. Girls can find themselves working from 10 AM to 1 AM and seeing a dozen clients a day. Great money but it is physically and psychologically unsustainable.
Understanding and implementing the idea of pacing will let an escort take charge of her schedule and, in many cases, provide better service to her clients. Better service means that an escort can charge more for her time and, in short order, be working less and making more.
There are two sides to the pacing equation: the absolute number of dates a day and the nature of the dates. Ten one hour encounters in a day is very difficult to sustain, however, eight encounters where two are an hour and a half with regulars and four are half hour "touch and go" dates and three are regular one hour encounters will leave an escort with more time and often more cash.
Varying the nature of the encounters can be just as important as keeping the total number of dates low.
Too Much Cash – For an escort is there such a thing as too much cash? In an odd way there is. Because most escort encounters are paid for in cash an escort can easily have a couple of thousand dollars in real folding money at the end of the day. And that cash is just asking to be spent.
Living in a largely cash world means that an escort has no real reason not to buy the $800 boots or that pretty $700 dress. In fact, given how hard she may have worked for her money, an escort often feels a real sense of entitlement.
At the end of the month, when the rent and the bills are due, many escorts, despite having made thousands of dollars that month find it tough to come up with the money. They have bought lots of things because they have had stacks of cash.
The simplest way for an escort to beat the problem of "too much cash" is to open a bank account and make very regular deposits. Simply putting half the cash you make daily into your bank account will ensure that, at the end of the month, an escort can pay her rent, cover her bills and usually have a tidy sum left over.
- Forgetting that Escorting is a Business – Going on a date with a man for a few hundred dollars can be great fun but it is hardly a business. For the savvy escort, her encounters are part of a service business.
Treating an escorting business as a business rather than as a random source of income lets an escort plan, budget and, in the medium and long run, set goals. Instead of having a series of random, somewhat risky encounters, an escort who treats her work as a business can professionalize her services, reduce her risks and increase her profits. How?- bank your cash and keep records of what you make
- file your taxes – and remember to take the deductions for business expenses you are entitled to
- invest in your business – improve your location, get nicer furniture, buy better clothes and prettier lingerie, get great photographs, get a website, pay for posts aimed at your market
Isolation – It is surprisingly easy for an independent escort to become isolated. After all, to a large degree her work is confidential and her clients are rarely her friends. She works odd hours and, realistically, can find herself working ten to twelve hours a day. Because escorting has a degree of social stigma still attached to it, it is often easier for an escort to avoid social situations rather than have to explain/lie about what she does.
The mistake here is that escorts more than many people actually need ordinary social contact simply because the escort lifestyle is a somewhat surreal existence. Being self contained is wonderful but it has costs.
Avoiding isolation begins with a clear division between a girl's escort life and the rest of her life. Here are a few tips:
- Have a cover story. Whether you want to be an online personal assistant, a downsizing consultant or web merchant, having a cover story and sticking to it means an end to the awkwardness the simple question "And what do you do?" can create for an escort.
- Live your cover story. There is no reason at all that an escort cannot have a side business. It does not have to be huge but the fact is that an escort who manages her main business well should have time to set up an online selling business or a downsizing consultancy.
- Take courses – whether it is to learn another language or French cooking, taking courses will get you out of your apartment and in touch with new people.
- Stay fit – going to a gym a couple of times a week or for a good long swim puts you in the company of other people
- Get to know your neighbourhood and your neighbours. Armed with a cover story an escort can have a favorite café, a great florist and a nice little bistro for lunch. If she rides a great looking bike she will be visible in the neighbourhood. Talking to people, getting to know the name of your butcher and your baker and your waiter, means that you'll have real people to talk to every day.
Missing Opportunities – Escorting can be pretty intense with packed schedules and very little time to notice the bigger picture as a girl goes from date to date. If you have managed to get your pacing right an escort can get a lot done in her day but sometimes getting it all done means a girl misses opportunities which are within her grasp.
For an escort opportunities range from better paid dates and more regulars all the way through to travel, being kept as a mistress or as a private assistant, starting a new business or getting a great, straight, job.
The main source of an escort's opportunities is her clients. Many of the men she meets will, in order to afford her rates, be successful. Some will be significantly wealthy. As some of these men become regular clients a savvy escort will learn about what they do and what they need. She'll listen when they talk about their work and their businesses.
Opportunity is created. When a regular client of an escort tells her he'll be away for a week in Paris or New York there is nothing to stop her suggesting that he might like a bit of company on his journey. If a regular wants to see an escort constantly, she is certainly able to suggest that he become her patron and she his mistress – on suitable terms of course. Escorts create opportunities for themselves by listening and actually paying attention.
Burnout – Every business brings with it the possibility of "burnout". Escorting is no different. Burnout is a point at which a person is no longer very interested in what they are actually doing. Lawyers, doctors, housewives, academics, plumbers all can suffer from burnout. For escorts, burnout is a significant risk simply because so much of what an escort does requires a degree of acting. While some escorts are simply "themselves" in their encounters, most adopt a persona for their work and that is mentally tiring.
There is no magic formula for avoiding burnout. Rather there are things which an escort can do which will let her regroup before burnout actually becomes an issue. Here are a few:
- Take a few minutes every day to review your escort encounters. How did they go? What worked, what didn't? Which was your favorite client?
- Take time off. It seems pretty obvious but the reality is that many professionals never take any time away from their profession. This is a shortcut to burnout. A mini-vacation, just a couple of days with your phone off is a start. Even better is a couple of days in a different city with your phone off.
- Once in a while take a break from your regular escort persona and play with other alternatives – from girl next door to glamour girl is a change of make-up, different outfit and a great excuse to try out that new photographer.
- Have a professional counselor to talk to once in a while – simply being able to talk about your life as an escort with a trained professional is a great way to discharge the stress which can lead to burnout
- Have goals and reward yourself when you reach them. Some of your goals might be about money – "debt free", "month in Europe" – and some might be personal – lose a dress size, learn to make puff pastry, speak French – and some might be entirely silly but fun – learn to lace my corset down to a 22 inch waist, own 50 pairs of vintage shoes, go swing dancing, go to Burning Man – the point being to set attainable mileposts.
As much as anything, an escort avoids mistakes by being committed to self-awareness. As with any job, in escorting you tend to get back what you put in. An escort who finds herself going through the motions in her encounters is doing neither herself nor her clients any favours.
By working on her self-awareness an escort is able to, in most cases, notice the possibility of her mistakes before she actually makes them. Paying attention to her health, her safety, her security and her business means that an escort is able to enjoy her profession as she builds her career.