Is Your Price Right?

 You may be reluctant to tinker with the fees you charge, especially given the tough market many of your clients face. Still, it’s good to look at how you’re pricing your services to see if there’s room for improvement.

Your expertise (and value to clients) grows over time. Often, though, fees lag behind that growth. Most consultants I meet are pricing their services too modestly for the value they provide.

When was the last time you changed your fees? If it’s been more than a year, it’s time to consider a change. It’s a routine matter for many businesses to raise their fees each year, no matter how good or bad the economy.

You might worry that you will sink your competitive position if you change your fees in a tight market. But remember, the state of the economy won’t impact your clients’ perceived value of your services–assuming you’ve done a good job expressing that value.

To decide if you need to rethink your fee strategy, ask yourself one question: Is the value you bring to your business keeping pace with the value you’re bringing to the market?

Sanity Check: The Final Question

When that proposal, presentation, or report is ready to go, do one more thing before you send it to your client.

Read through each page or slide and ask yourself, “What can I remove from this document?” Maybe you’ll find unnecessary adverbs, some flabby language, or sentences and images that don’t really add anything to your key messages.

Once you’ve got language in a document or slides in a deck, it’s hard to get rid of it. But, you almost always have an opportunity to do that. And, you’ll communicate more effectively by stripping out the fat.

Checking the Foundation

If you’ve ever bought or sold a house, you know that, as part of the deal, a home inspection will have to be done so buyers know what they’re getting into. The inspector assesses the foundation of the house, the walls, floors, plumbing, and so on. Then, you get a report on ways to shore [...]

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Sanity Check: Mission Impossible

It’s pretty common for an experienced consultant to see a problem or a project and know exactly what needs to be done. For some, the way to go seems “simple.” Keep in mind that a project that looks simple to you may seem like scaling Mt. Everest barefoot to your client. You’ve got to take [...]

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Stamp Out the Blah, Blah, Blah: A Podcast with Dan Roam

“We have become so enamoured of our ability to talk that we often delude ourselves into thinking that, if we can talk about an idea, we understand it well.” In this podcast, I talk with Dan Roam, author of BLAH, BLAH, BLAH: What To Do When Words Don’t Work. Roam’s mission is to help us solve [...]

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How to Sell to a Geezer

Let’s say you’re meeting with some prospective clients. And, as you look around the room, everyone seems years (maybe decades) older than you. The word that might flash through your mind for the people in the group is geezers. You know who I’m talking about. Some haven’t changed their hair styles since the Carter administration, [...]

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What Service Professionals Can Expect in 2012

Last month, the good folks at RainToday.com asked several of their contributors to take a crack at answering these questions: What do you expect to happen in the new year as it applies to professional services marketing, sales and business growth?  Are there any trends you see taking hold? Are there things you think firms should [...]

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Sharing

The thought of sharing their intellectual property causes some hand-wringing among consultants. How much should you give to a new client? Should you hold something back until you make the sale? Some consultants worry that clients will pilfer their ideas and use them without any help. Others are concerned that competitors could get their hands [...]

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