3 Steps to Increase your Fees with Confidence

As a service provider it’s critical to remember that your market is investing in YOU, not in your actual service.  Yes, they want results from the service you are providing, but ultimately they are investing in you because of the relationship and trust you have developed.

There is an awful lot of pressure if you feel the need to sell everyone you meet the first time you meet them.  This is an unnecessary and often fatal mistake that many business owners make.

Here are some steps to take when building your business and selling your services so that you can have the highest profits and best client relationships.

1. Always build a relationship FIRST.

Most people will need to have contact with you between 5-7 times before they actually make a purchase.  That means that a chance encounter at the grocery store or meeting potential prospects at networking events will not always lead to a sale on the spot.  But this is easy to remedy with a good follow-up system.  One of the easiest ways to keep in touch and build that relationship is through an email delivered newsletter – also known as an ezine.

Whenever you meet a potential client you should ask for their contact information and offer to send them some free tips related to your business.  These tips are easy to deliver in a bi-weekly or monthly newsletter.  This way you are providing valuable information, staying in touch and building a relationship at all times.

2. Create multiple offers

Let your market get to know you before they invest at the highest level.  There are many ways for you to allow people to engage with you without having to invest thousands of dollars for your private work.  You can start a blog or newsletter, create a simple information product, start group coaching and training events, write and self-publish a short, but informative book, etc.  The idea is to create just a couple offers that will funnel your market down to working with you at increasingly higher levels.

An example would be: prospect signs up for your newsletter, they purchase a digital information product, you follow up with a phone call and offer your private consulting or coaching services.  Because you’re allowing your prospects to get to know you one step at a time, it makes the sales process much easier.

3. Ask for the sale

When it comes down to brass tacks, you won’t ever make a dime in your business if you don’t ask for the sale.  One of the biggest mistakes that I see service professionals make is always delivering free information and never asking for the sale.  They expect their prospects to ask THEM to work with them, but this rarely happens in the real world.  This doesn’t mean that you have to be pushy.  By building the relationship like I described above you can have a natural, low-pressure way of attracting new clients.  Keep in mind that if somebody is reading your ezine, blog posts, articles, etc that means that they WANT your help.  It’s your responsibility to offer it to them.