Can you honestly say that you charge what you are worth? Consistently? With every Client?
How many times do you wake up at night thinking “They just don’t pay me enough; why am I doing this again? How is this happening? …. Again?”
Why don’t you charge more? You don’t because you:
- Are still thinking about “trading hours for dollars” and not thinking in terms of the service you provide to your client/customer
- Worry that the current “economic climate” won’t support the fees that you want to charge
- Compare your fees to others in your industry and charge an amount that “fits”
- Believe that to have a client paying something is better than not having any clients
- Don’t want to appear greedy or appear to be “in it for the money”
- Feel embarrassed or uncomfortable talking about what you charge
- You are waiting till you know more/ have more experience
Today I am going to tackle the first of these, and will cover the other points in future Blogs:
You are not charging what you want to charge because you are still thinking about “trading hours for dollars” and not thinking in terms of the service you provide to your client
Are you actually clear about how much you want to charge? or is it just “more”?
What are you basing this amount on? How are you arriving at this amount you want to charge?
Are you in a “trading hours for dollars” mindset?
Or do you think of the service you offer in terms of your client?
What I notice is that as soon as you start to think about what you offer in terms of the benefits to your client, the actual tangible difference that you make to their lives, their family, their health, to their business – things change!
Whatever service you are providing the only reason that your clients/ customers engage you is that they believe that you will change something for them; something that needs to be changed, something they want to be changed. They hire you to help them make the change because they cannot do it on their own.
Think about what you offer from their perspective, from your clients’ perspective.
What benefits are they deriving from the service you provide? This is not about you, this is about your client. You do what it is you do, you use all of your expertise to provide them with the outcome they want and it is this outcome that determines the price they will pay.
Ask yourself “when I do what is the result they want?”
Then ask yourself “How valuable is this result to them?”
And this leads to “How much are they prepared to pay for this?”
I’ll give you an example. Recently I have had an injury/ affliction on both my thumbs. I consulted 4 different medical/ health experts and no-one was able to offer me a solution, in fact none of them were able to diagnose what it was.
I was suffering from increasing agony in both thumbs. The physical pain was now creating problems in the rest of my life – the pain made me grumpy and irritable which impacted relationships. I was frightened that major surgery/ amputation might be necessary – it’s amazing what we come up with at 2 am!! I could already feel the beginnings of defeat ….
The fifth person I consulted (sort of by chance) suggested I attend the Sydney Hand and Rehabilitation Centre. She said they would be able to help me! I headed to my appointment prepared by this stage to pay almost any amount just to have a result; to make the pain stop and fix the problem.
Immediate relief! I cried with joy at the ceasing of my physical pain and when they handed me my bill I was astounded. So little? Is this all? For what you gave me? For the results? For the solution? For the pain relief?
Every one of you who offers a service is offering to Make the pain stop and to fix the problem.
Think about the service you offer and what pain relief you provide. Think in terms of the results for your clients – this is the real key to charging what you are worth!