So many leaders & business owners get caught up in pricing wars and feeling like they’ve got to be cheaper than everyone else. They feel like they’re going to lose the work or not be able to build a project pipeline if they raise their prices or are more expensive than their competitors.
Today I want to flip this viewpoint and this discussion on its head.
I’ve been doing a lot of work recently with clients in my coaching programs around pricing, the value proposition and their positioning in the marketplace.
You see if you get your positioning wrong in the marketplace, meaning that you've positioned yourself as a generalist, that you can do everything and that you’re all things to all people AND you don’t talk about the value that you add or how you solve your clients’ problems or how you deeply understand your client’s world, then of course you have to be the cheapest!!
But if you completely flipped this on its head and can change your thinking around your positioning and you start to talk to your clients and the marketplace about how you DO add value, how you SOLVE your clients’ problems and how you DEEPLY understand your client’s world, then the conversation around pricing largely becomes irrelevant.
If you really start to understand your client’s world, you’ll see and understand that your fees as a part of the overall project are such a minor percentage and really you could charge a lot more than you already do.
It’s just that your clients are conditioned to always want you to be cheaper and they haven't been shown the VALUE you can bring to their projects and solving their problems.
So if you can shift the focus of your clients away from pricing and onto the value that you bring, how you’re amazing at what you do, how you have 10 or 15 or 20 years of experience, know how to solve your clients’ problems and how you can make their lives easier - that’s when you can move the conversation towards increasing your fees, charging more and charging what you’re really worth.
So the next time you find yourself worrying about dropping your fees or cutting your costs or trying to be the cheapest in the marketplace to gain market share - stop yourself.
Have a different conversation.
Flip the conversation in your head to - how can I add value to my client’s world, how can I show them how I'll add value to this project, how can I show them how I can solve their problems - and watch the conversation around cheaper fees drop away.
Josh “Increase Your Fees” Stone
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