Hot Tips
RESOURCES
Forty Methods to Increase and/or Protect Fees
Fees remain a topic of unending interest according to my mail, so here is a compilation of tips and ideas. Any two or three that you can use will probably increase your profits immediately.
- Establish value collaboratively with the client.
- Base fees on value, not on task.
- Never use time as the basis of your value.
- Don’t stop with what the client wants. Find out what the client needs.
- Think of the fourth sale first. Fees are cumulative, not situational.
- Engage the client in the diagnosis. Don’t be prescriptive.
- Never voluntarily offer options to reduce fees.
- Add a premium if you personally “do it all.”
- If you’re forced to consider fee reduction, reduce value first.
- Provide options every time: the choice of “yeses.”
- Always provide an option that is comprehensive and over-budget.
- As early as possible, ask the key scope question: “What are your objectives?”
- Broaden objectives as appropriate to increase value.
- Ensure that the client is aware of the full range of your services.
- If something is not on your playing field, subcontract.
- Always ask yourself, “Why me, why now, why in this manner?”
- Determine how many options the buyer perceives other than you.
- Use proposals as confirmations, not explorations.
- When asked prematurely about fees, reply, “I don’t know.”
- If you must lower fees, seek a quid pro quo from the buyer.
- Do not accept troublesome, unpleasant, or suspicious business.
- When collaborating or subcontracting, use objective apportionment.
- Any highly-paid employee must bring in new business, not merely deliver.
- Seek out new economic buyers laterally during your projects.
- It is better to do something pro bono than to do it for a low fee.
- Fees have nothing to do with supply and demand, only with value.
- If you are unaware of current market fee ranges, you’re undercharging.
- Psychologically, higher fees create higher value in the buyer’s mind.
- Value can include subjective as well as objective measures.
- Introduce new value to existing clients to raise fees in these accounts.
- Do not accept referral business on the same basis (e.g., hourly) as the source.
- When forced into phases, offer partial rebates to guarantee future business.
- At least every two years, consider jettisoning the bottom 15% of business.
- Start with payment terms maximally beneficial to you every time.
- Offer incentives for one-time, full payments.
- Never accept payment subject to conditions to be met upon completion.
- Focus on improvement, not problem solving.
- Provide proactive ideas, bench marking, best practices from experience.
- Practice stating and explaining your fees.
- Always be prepared to walk away from business.
