How to Charge More and Get It!

Copyright (c) 2009 Adam Urbanski

Simple tips to confidently raise your fees without losing your clients or your mind.

Wouldn't you want to charge more for your services? Every day a countless army of solo-professionals mistakenly make price their only competitive advantage and end up selling their services way too cheep.

Often, after the initial excitement of getting a new client fizzles away, they end up feeling frustrated, working too hard, and struggling to make a living instead of creating the lifestyle they desire.

Fortunately, increasing your fees can be easier than you think. But before I share with you a few how-to tips, let's first explore what's getting in your way of charging more.

Here are a few possible profit-stealing culprits:

- Not knowing how to find and approach a more congenial clientele that's better positioned to use your services and pay you what you are actually worth.

- Not having a compelling marketing message that clearly differentiates your offering from others and underscores - in a meaningful way - the benefits of working with you.

- Generating too few leads. Worrying about not having another prospect to work with you might settle for lower fees and take on "less than ideal" clients.

- Poor sales skills. I know this is not the favorite topic for many solo-professionals, but fact is you need to know how to have an effective sales conversation and how to confidently ask qualified prospects for the business.

- Last, but not least, limiting beliefs about money, lack of confidence around your business, and low self-esteem, can all seriously impair your ability to successfully command higher fees.

Frankly, what's going on in your head can appear to be every bit just as real as the objections and pressure from your potential clients.

So how can a good marketing strategy help you get paid more? To start with think positioning vs. prospecting...

When you are prospecting you are chasing after potential clients. They can "smell" your sales pitch from a mile and run from you like from a mad dog. If all you've got with your prospect is your salesperson status - they will likely question your prices, compare you to other "similar" offers, and try to negotiate your fees down to the bare bones.

Positioning, however, is about gaining visibility, credibility, and being viewed as a trusted advisor who can help. We naturally expect that expert help will cost us a bit more and are willing to pay for it.

And there is more...

Recognize that your marketing and selling process has to make your potential clients realize three things:

- First, that they have a problem. And not just a little problem 'but a really big and hairy one, that's costing them a fortune to ignore and needs to be taken care of quickly. By the way, the costs don't always have to be in dollars. They can be in lost productivity, lost relationships, lost happiness, lost health, and so on.

- Second, that they don't have the necessary skills to deal with their problem on their own.

- They need to clearly see it would take too much of their time and effort to take care of their big and hairy problem without expert assistance.

- Finally, the third thing you must make your prospects realize is that you are the expert in dealing with big, hairy problems.

Because you can help eliminate big, hairy problems quickly and painlessly, paying your fee is a real bargain comparing to the cost of living with the pain. And waiting another minute to call you is just bad business!

You may say, "Wait a minute! That's a whole lot of convincing I've got to do." And you're right, it is.

But with the right attraction and positioning materials it's actually a lot easier than you think. And it beats the alternative of cold-calling and begging for business!

Here are a few action tips you can start with

- Analyze your real strengths, as well as your past and current clients. Look for patterns when you did your best work and created great results for clients. Then focus your marketing on a specific group of prospects that you can deliver most value to.

- Develop a magnetic marketing message that clearly and succinctly describes your potential clients and communicates the HUB - hot-undeniable-benefits of working with you.

- Develop, implement, and automate a system for attracting leads, presenting your solution, asking for the sale, and generating referrals.

- Continually educate prospects and clients about ways to maximize their payoff from using your services. Never assume they know how you can help them - they don't!

- Create Attraction Tools and Positioning Materials that illustrate the problems you solve, demonstrate your expertise, and make prospects call you.

- If you must deal with price objection, develop logical responses you can easily use even when you are nervous.

- Finally, last but not least, deal with your internal demons - the way you think about yourself and your business.

If thoughts like "I'm just starting out", "what I do is so common sense", or "my clients can't afford higher rates" cause you to eat macaroni and cheese too often consider these two alternative beliefs:

1) The length of your experience in business is less important than your ability to deliver results and value.

2) There are plenty of people who need your help, respect your work, want to hire you, and have the means to do this - whatever your fee.

So don't let the quacking whiners steal your time. Go ahead and give yourself a permission to charge more and get it! Start today!