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Member You - Setting Prices - Pricing Your Consulting Services
A strategic alliance is a partnership, a collaborative agreement and/or a relationship between two or more companies or organizations formed to pursue a set of agreed upon goals while remaining independent companies or organizations. Strategic alliances exist in a variety of shapes and sizes and include a wide range of scopes of cooperation levels. Strategic alliances usually are most effective when the entities involved have complementary strengths.As a business coach and business owner, I have witnessed the clear and powerful benefits of carefully constructed strategic alliances and have employed and endorsed this concept for more than 35 years. Based upon those 35 plus years of experience, here are what I consider to be twelve (12) of the most clear and powerful benefits of developing and working with strategic alliances.1. increased and enhanced credibility and image of your company2. access to new skills, knowledge and experi
After all, no sane company is going to advertise the fact that the work they do is of average or low quality. It’s all high, isn’t it?
PRICE
There is absolutely nothing positive about competing on price, unless you specifically position yourself as a low-cost provider. Certainly, there is a market for the discount provider, but I believe this on
These days a business owner or principal just can’t be too careful. Weather they’re searching for a new employee or looking for a new babysitter, it’s vital to know who they’re really talking to. For safety and liability reasons, you must know as much as possible about them and their past. According to the National Retail Security Survey, employee theft cost U.S. business over $31 billion last year. Retailers saw almost 2% of their inventory walk out the door in the hands of their employees.If you are a business owner or looking to hire someone to work at your home, such as a handyman or babysitter, it only makes sense that you’d want to know everything about them before they came into contact with your family, cherished property, or personal information. While property crimes in the U.S. are actually decreasing, according to the latest FBI statistics, violent crimes are on the upswing. The FBI reported that, for 2005 and the first half of 2006, vi
In case you hadn’t noticed, people can react very differently when faced with the same price for a product or service. In fact in most cases, we’ll never actually know what is in their minds when they consider a price and then decide to respond to it in certain way. So what does that mean for those of us pricing and selling our services out there in the market?
Typically, people who sell services go for an hourly rate. They use a process called “reverse competition” to determine what their rate should be. This is where you take a look at what your geographical competitors are charging, and you decide where in the range you want to fit on the spectrum of hourly rates. Inevitably, we choose a rate somewhere in the middle, so we can say that we’re not the most expensive, but neither are we the cheapest!
What kind of message are we sending out to our clients with this approach?
We’re showing absolutely no differentiation from any other company – just sticking ourselves straight down the line. In other words, we compete with everyone! Not a very prudent marketing decision.
So pricing simply using an hourly rate that sits in the middle of the spectrum is, in my view, a wasted opportunity to create a point of difference with your offering. Let’s think more broadly for a minute about what we are actually offering to your clients: Regardless of what our specific offering is, we all offer some combination of:
Quality, Price and Service
QUALITY
Quality has become an expectation - the minimum you need to be in the game. It is similar to a high school degree - no one cares if you have one, but watch out if you do not. Quality is no longer an effective differentiator. So if you are going on about the exceptional quality of your service in your promotional material and sales pitch, just realize that in your customers eyes, you are not differentiating yourself in any way.
After all, no sane company is going to advertise the fact that the work they do is of average or low quality. It’s all high, isn’t it?
PRICE
There is absolutely nothing positive about competing on price, unless you specifically position yourself as a low-cost provider. Certainly, there is a market for the discount provider, but I believe this onl
If you are a nurse who enjoys traveling, you may want to consider a travel nursing position. Many travel nurse placement agencies offer positions that range anywhere from four to thirteen weeks depending on the case. This type of position offers the opportunity to expand your horizons while obtaining more experience in your chosen field.In terms of compensation, the traveling nurses tends to make anywhere between 10-15% more than the staff nurse with incentives and bonuses added to the package. For many nurses, being a travel nurse opens the opportunity to see parts of the country they would not ordinarily see in the course of normal employment. If you aren't able to travel because of children or financial obligations, you can still experience the thrill of being a travel nurse by accepting assignments closer to home. Of course, when you are able to do so, you can ask for assignments in other cities or states. That is one of the benefits of b
What kind of message are we sending out to our clients with this approach?
We’re showing absolutely no differentiation from any other company – just sticking ourselves straight down the line. In other words, we compete with everyone! Not a very prudent marketing decision.
So pricing simply using an hourly rate that sits in the middle of the spectrum is, in my view, a wasted opportunity to create a point of difference with your offering. Let’s think more broadly for a minute about what we are actually offering to your clients: Regardless of what our specific offering is, we all offer some combination of:
Quality, Price and Service
QUALITY
Quality has become an expectation - the minimum you need to be in the game. It is similar to a high school degree - no one cares if you have one, but watch out if you do not. Quality is no longer an effective differentiator. So if you are going on about the exceptional quality of your service in your promotional material and sales pitch, just realize that in your customers eyes, you are not differentiating yourself in any way.
After all, no sane company is going to advertise the fact that the work they do is of average or low quality. It’s all high, isn’t it?
PRICE
There is absolutely nothing positive about competing on price, unless you specifically position yourself as a low-cost provider. Certainly, there is a market for the discount provider, but I believe this on
Advertising about a product or services has become one of the key aspects to survive in the business world. Precisely, marketing will enable a large audience to know about all about the products or services. There are various mediums that are available in the market that can be used for the purpose of marketing. Some of them are posters, car magnets, newspapers, banners, pamphlets, internet and many others. Among all these mediums, car magnets are considered as one of the easiest way to advertise. It is because of this reason that car magnets can be put on any vehicle and wherever the vehicle goes, people will surely notice and will read the message. The best part of car magnet is that it can reach a large number of people of all the age groups.Car magnets are great source of information through which you can achieve several objectives. You can customize different designs in your car to make it look stylish. You can also articulate for a cause that
So pricing simply using an hourly rate that sits in the middle of the spectrum is, in my view, a wasted opportunity to create a point of difference with your offering. Let’s think more broadly for a minute about what we are actually offering to your clients: Regardless of what our specific offering is, we all offer some combination of:
Quality, Price and Service
QUALITY
Quality has become an expectation - the minimum you need to be in the game. It is similar to a high school degree - no one cares if you have one, but watch out if you do not. Quality is no longer an effective differentiator. So if you are going on about the exceptional quality of your service in your promotional material and sales pitch, just realize that in your customers eyes, you are not differentiating yourself in any way.
After all, no sane company is going to advertise the fact that the work they do is of average or low quality. It’s all high, isn’t it?
PRICE
There is absolutely nothing positive about competing on price, unless you specifically position yourself as a low-cost provider. Certainly, there is a market for the discount provider, but I believe this on
Marketing refers to everything a business does to promote itself in the marketplace, and to create or strengthen its reputation in the minds of consumers.Advertising is just one method or strategy in an integrated marketing plan. While it’s important to communicate a consistent message to consumers through the various pieces of your integrated marketing plan, advertising typically is very time sensitive and very specific in the message that’s being delivered. Two clear examples of advertising are an ad in the phone book (promoting a solution to an immediate need or problem) and a newspaper circular for a department store’s weekend sale (also promoting a solution to an immediate need or problem).Here are a few basic questions we would ask before designing an ad:What do you want to accomplish with this ad? Knowing what you want to accomplish will drive the ad’s content and visual image. It will also determine what type of ad is created
Quality, Price and Service
QUALITY
Quality has become an expectation - the minimum you need to be in the game. It is similar to a high school degree - no one cares if you have one, but watch out if you do not. Quality is no longer an effective differentiator. So if you are going on about the exceptional quality of your service in your promotional material and sales pitch, just realize that in your customers eyes, you are not differentiating yourself in any way.
After all, no sane company is going to advertise the fact that the work they do is of average or low quality. It’s all high, isn’t it?
PRICE
There is absolutely nothing positive about competing on price, unless you specifically position yourself as a low-cost provider. Certainly, there is a market for the discount provider, but I believe this on
I stayed in an Orlando hotel suite for ten days. Breakfast was available in the concierge lounge each morning: oatmeal, bread with butter and jelly and an assortment of sliced melon.Each morning I looked for a banana to top off my oatmeal. Sliced melon, yes. But banana, no.On the third day I spoke to the staff in the lounge.‘You want a banana?’ she asked. ‘No problem. I’ll have one for you tomorrow.’The next morning, and every morning thereafter, she brought me a banana, usually keeping it hidden until I appeared. Occasionally another guest would see my special banana and look for another. But there were no more bananas. Only sliced melon.Days later, I asked the Food & Beverage Manager, ‘Why don’t you provide bananas at breakfast? Other guests seem jealous of my bananas – and I notice the sliced melon is often sent back to the kitchen untouched.’He replied, ‘If we provide bananas, everyone would take one, or even
After all, no sane company is going to advertise the fact that the work they do is of average or low quality. It’s all high, isn’t it?
PRICE
There is absolutely nothing positive about competing on price, unless you specifically position yourself as a low-cost provider. Certainly, there is a market for the discount provider, but I believe this only works if you have a very high volume of transactions. As a service provider, the only sensible route is to obtain premium prices for your services.
No matter what you charge, there is always someone, somewhere, willing to perform the work you do for less money. Customers are value conscious, not price conscious. They look to do business with people they feel give them more than they are paying for. So the goal for the service provider is to make sure the customer perceives the full value of the service, not simply the price component.
Its accepted fact that many customers will equate high price with high value - especially when there is very little else to judge your value on.
Wise consultants know that if they price their services at the low end of the market, customers do not take their advice seriously. On the other hand, if you charge rates on the upper end of the spectrum, the customer will hang on every word you say and has a higher probability of implementing your suggestions. This of course has a proviso that you are offering a great service, rather than a mediocre one.
Sometimes the biggest hurdle to get over when considering charging premium pricing is our own attitude. Do any of these sound familiar?
‘I can’t charge those prices – my customers will all walk away!’ ‘My service isn’t worth that much’
As long as you stay in that mindset, you’ll never make the transition to high end pricing. You must truly believe the value of what you offer - after all if you don’t, why should your customers? More on this below in a discussion about articulating the value of what you do.
If you are selling good advice, and your customers listen carefully and implement it - they will be more successful and thus will value you that much more. It is a cycle that spirals upward: The more you charge, the more people follo
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