Archive for the ‘Prices & Charge Rates’ Category

How grateful are you for your clients?

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

I met up with a new client last week and was blown away by her photography.  A self-taught amateur turned professional, it was obvious – even from someone who knows nothing about the art of photography – that she had a real eye for capturing startling images.

But talent, a business does not make!

When she started to tell me about the story behind her business and where she was at today, it became clearer and clearer to me that it wasn’t a lack of business skills that was holding back her business.

What was holding her back was her business attitude.

Her pricing was so low, that even she couldn’t quite believe what her hourly rate really was once we divided her commission rate by the number of hours she took to do the project (and I know I was being generous with the actual time she spent!).  What was her reason for charging such so low prices?

“I am just so grateful for any work that I can get,” is what she replied.

Grateful is very dangerous word to use when talking about your clients.  Thankful and even appreciative are great words.  But grateful – never!

Grateful puts you in a place where you secretly beg for a client to work with you.  When you are on the phone to them, you find yourself crossing your fingers and talking randomly to fill up the silence while the potential client decides whether to hire you or not.  And when you do get a “yes” from them, you throw yourself in to the project, nothing being too much for you to do, despite the number of hours you end up spending.

Grateful will make you bend over backwards for a client who never pays you on time.

Grateful will make you drive for miles just to have a cup of coffee with someone who picks your brains and then says goodbye, leaving you to pick up the tab.

A grateful mindset must be left well alone and you must be able to speak with potential new clients with a “I’ve got a full diary this week” mindset.  Even if you have to pretend to flick through your calendar to arrange a meeting (I did this on many an occasion in my first couple of years!!), you’ll notice a huge difference to how your potential clients make their decisions and how much you are able to charge.

Have you found yourself being too grateful for clients?  And how has a grateful mindset affected your business? It always great to read your comments, too.

Posted in Business Attitude, Marketing Small Business, Prices & Charge Rates | 1 Comment »

Why niche marketing works for small businesses

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

niche marketing for small businessesNiche marketing works for small businesses.  The more focused you are on the particular problem that you can solve, the easier it is to communicate and spread the word about the solutions you offer.

Imagine a coach who has a background in teaching and happens to love the great outdoors.  What if you came to their website and they offered you general life coaching, coaching support for teachers, a special programme that helped school children study better and a few walking holidays combined with personalised coaching sessions.

Phew!  All that from one person?  Really?

Think back to the last time you needed your boiler serviced.  Who did you use?  A specialist corgi registered boiler servicing company or the odd-job-man who offers to clean your gutters, re-paint your living room, fix and install bathrooms, trim your hedges as well as service your boiler?

If your odd-job-man comes highly recommended by your neighbours, then perhaps he is the “man for the job” – but looking through the Yellow Pages, he may not be your first point of call.

So, what about you?  If you are competing with everyone else and not at the stage that all your customers are coming via the “highly recommended” route, then you may want to take another look at your marketing messages.

Are you an “odd-job-man”?  Or are you a specialist?

Posted in Business Attitude, Marketing Live Events, Marketing Small Business, Prices & Charge Rates | No Comments »

Marketing by Temptation: a lesson in wants and needs

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

marketing by temptationI popped in to our local branch of Waitrose earlier this week for a couple of pints of milk and few veggies. Now the thing about food shopping in the likes of Waitrose and M&S, is that is very easy to get caught up and turn your 5 item list in to a over-loaded shopping trolley.

I came out with a couple of frozen pizzas (to top up my last-minute-supper freezer draw), bag of chicken breasts (they were on special offer so I saved £2.31), a selection of frozen herbs (3 for £4 – how I can refuse?), a punnet of strawberries (over-priced and out-of-season but remembered my 9 year old mentioning she wanted strawberries on the way to school) to name but a few things that I wanted – but I didn’t really “need”.

My quick shop turned in to a £69.54 shopping trip which was precisely £50 more than I had intended to spend!

Why did I spend so much more than I intended? 

The £50 was the difference between buying what I “wanted” and buying what I “needed”.

And this is the trap that many coaches, consultants and service based professionals fall in to.  The trap of trying to sell something that they feel their clients need – and not what they want.

Yes, some people “need” help with their time management.  But do they “want” to spend their money (and their time!) on a half day workshop or 3 month long training programme to improve it?

Some people “need” to organise their house and de-clutter their cupboards, but do they “want” to cough up a few hundred pounds for someone to come in and do it for them?

And yes, there are people who “need” to lose weight, feel more confident, find a perfect partner and know how to manage their staff better – but if they don’t “want” to pay for a solution then it’s doesn’t matter how much your service is “needed”, you’ll won’t find enough clients unless your solution is something they “want”.

So next time you are struggling to fill your workshop or find enough clients to work with on a 1-2-1, ask yourself is the service or product you are offering be tempting enough for clients to “want” you?

Are you challenged by the needs and wants of your clients? Add your thoughts or ideas in the comments box below

Posted in Marketing Live Events, Marketing Small Business, Prices & Charge Rates | 1 Comment »

Are you being honest enough about money?

Monday, July 20th, 2009

small business moneyWhen you started up your own business, you were probably full of enthusiasm.  You may have felt like you had the power to change the world; you wanted to make things better for your clients.

But have you fallen in to the trap of discounting your services to clients you feel can’t afford you?

Have you found yourself doing that little bit more, for no extra charge because you didn’t want to bother them with an additional invoice?

Now I know money isn’t everything.  If you are just in it for the money, then, to be honest, you won’t really care about your clients; you just want to make the fastest buck as possible and get out of there.

But assuming that you do care about your clients, how much do you also care about your bank balance?   Are you running a charity or are you there to make profit?

Motivation to make profit can be tough to admit because, after all, if our clients think that we are out to make a profit, will they not object to paying the going rates for your services or products?

But let’s turn this around.  If you are not being paid well for what you are doing and you are not being rewarded significantly for the work that you are doing with your clients, then how can you carry on and work with more clients?

How can you carry on and improve on what you are doing?  How can you invest in your business systems and create new programs and new services.

So if you are avoiding the question “Am I really in it for the money?”, then maybe it is time that you should be honest with yourself and think “Well, yes, I can be in business for the money, at the same time as really caring about my clients.”

If you can focus yourself on setting strong financial targets this will, in turn, help you to push yourself to give a better service for your clients.

Your thoughts & opinions: What do you think about making a profit from your business? Leave your comments in the comment box below

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Posted in Business Attitude, Prices & Charge Rates | 2 Comments »