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Attracting Ideal, Successful Clients

Most coaches, trainers and other service professionals
feel that if they raise their fees they will lose clients.

This is usually just not the case.  In fact, many of my
clients have found that by raising their fees they began
attracting even more clients who were ready to really
make changes in their businesses and lives.

This creates a wonderful ripple effect that will benefit
both you and your clients.

Find out how you can double your fees and attract more
ideal, ready, and successful clients.

Charge What You Deserve

Cheers
Tom

 

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.

 

What Do Skydiving And Setting Your Fees Have In Common?

Did I just compare an extreme sport with your business? I sure
did, and here’s why.

A little background first. A few years ago some friends and I
decided that it would be a good idea to go and jump from a
plane…so, we did! And it was a total blast! (No pun intended) I
had so much fun that I began lessons to become a certified skydiver
a couple weeks later. Although I haven’t made any recent jumps, I
have logged 47 in total.

So, here is where I draw the comparison between skydiving and
raising (or establishing) prices in your business and charging what
you deserve. Just like in skydiving, the fear surrounding what you
charge is all in the build-up. It’s not what happens after the
leap that’s scary; it’s everything in your mind that leads up to
the leap.

I will never remember my very first drive out to the drop zone
(DZ). I was PETRIFIED! Frankly, I didn’t know if I would go
through with it, but with two of your best friends out there with
me did I really have a choice? GUYS! LOL.

Well, looking back on the experience I was clearly more scared on
the drive out and the plane ride up than I was during the jump.
After I was in the open air free falling at 150+ miles per hour
there was nothing to it but to have some fun. And have fun I did!

It’s also my experience that the same mental process occurs when
you set your fees; especially when you set them where they SHOULD
be and that’s a bit (or WAY) outside of your comfort zone.

You begin having all of these negative thoughts like, “nobody will
pay that” or “am I really worth that much?” And let me just answer
those two questions FOR you: Yes, they will and yes, you ARE!

Stop fretting about the build-up and go for the jump. You just
might have the ride of your life!

Cheers
Tom

 

3 Things You DON’T Need to Begin Attracting New Clients

The other day I was giving a presentation here in Atlanta for a business networking group called Women Intelligently Networking. There were some real go-getters in the room and everyone seemed to be involved in amazing businesses.

This was a great opportunity for me to find out why so many service professionals are refusing to charge what they deserve. One of the points that kept coming up was, “I don’t have the experience” or “I don’t have thus and such certification”…

…you get my point. I stopped one person right in her tracks with four simple words when she began to explain that she had a difficult time convincing clients to pay her what she was worth since she is just getting her business started…regardless of the fact that she has an incredible array of relevant skills to offer.

What were those four words?

“How do they know?”

How do your clients know that you are starting a new business or don’t have umpteen years of experience? Probably because you told them… NOT because they asked.

Charging what you deserve and attracting great clients does NOT require the following three things:

1) More experience
2) More certification
3) More time

Charging what you deserve DOES require the following:

1) Finding a market that has a clear need or desire for a service that you offer (or can offer)
2) Clearly expressing that you have a solution for this need or desire

Your path to a profitable business will be much shorter if you focus on these two areas rather than equating your income with your experience. The value that you offer your marketplace has very little to do with the next certification that you obtain.

Listen, we are always learning. We will never know it all. Understand that you have something incredible to offer your market right now!

Start focusing on the value that you deliver (and realize that you can deliver that value today) and you will start building that successful business you’ve been dreaming of sooner rather than later!

 

Charge What You Deserve Interview with Tad Hargrave

Thanks for signing up for the call. Here is the playback link from yesterday’s call with Tad Hargrave.

Have a great week!

Cheers
Tom

 

Make More Money with a Smaller Market: 5 Reasons to Narrow your Niche as a Service Provider

It’s like pulling teeth to convince some service providers that they NEED to narrow their niche. I understand that it can seem very scary at first, but service providers such as coaches, trainers, speakers and consultants need to recognize that they can’t work with everybody. And, in fact, they will be able to actually help MORE people by narrowing their niche. One of the best marketing tips that I ever got was that I needed to make my market smaller.

Here are 5 reasons why it’s important to narrow your niche if you’re a service provider.

1. You’ll know what to sell.
To be successful, you need to create solutions to urgent problems. You can’t identify a market’s urgent problems if your market is “everybody.” But these problems become very easy to identify once you begin to narrow your niche.

2. You’ll know HOW to market.
Every market will have a different set of emotional “hot buttons” and triggers. They will also identify with different types of marketing approaches. This is a great reason to narrow your niche. Once you learn exactly who your market is, you will know exactly how to market to them.

3. You’ll know WHERE to find your audience.
Trying to solve all problems for all people creates an obvious problem: where do you begin? When you narrow your niche, you will know exactly where to find them. They will be hanging out on very specific forums, blogs, social media sites, networking groups, etc. One of the greatest challenges that many business owners face is knowing exactly how to find their market. Fine tuning your “who” will make the “where” a simple question to answer.

4. You’ll spend less money on marketing.
Since you now know exactly who you want to work with and where they’re hanging out, doesn’t it seem fair that you can expect to spend less on your marketing budget to get in touch with them? Yup! This is a great way to really get the most bang for your marketing buck.

5. You’ll be able to work less and make more.
Wow…now that’s a good reason to narrow your niche! And it’s a valid reason to boot. The more you can narrow your niche, the more efficient you can work. Your thoughts, energy and marketing ideas can go into “ultra laser-focus” mode, making you a lean, mean, money-making machine. OK, no more metaphors, but you get the picture.

So, what can you do with this new inspiration to narrow your niche?

Action step:
Take out a sheet of paper and write down exactly who your ideal clients are and what they need MOST that you can supply. Answer the following questions:

Who are they?
What do they like?
Where do they hang out to learn or gather information?
What hobbies do they have?
What’s their biggest fear?
What’s their biggest desire?

Take 10 minutes to answer these 6 questions and you’ll see that your marketing vision will become much clearer.

 

Multiple Prospects? Multiple Solutions!

When you are offering only one service or product, you’re putting a tremendous amount of undue pressure on yourself.

Every time you face a prospect you know in the back of your mind that it’s all or nothing.

Why not alleviate this pressure and at the same time give your market a selection of choices.

Here are a few ideas:

<>Newsletters, articles and free reports

<>Information products

<>Group programs

<>Split-fees

You can cover all your bases from “home-run” services to free information such as newsletters and articles.

Let’s go through these one at a time.

Most people need to get to know, like and trust you before they invest hard-earned money into your services.  This might take 5 minutes or 5 months.  Everybody is different.  That’s one of the main reasons to offer multiple solutions for your clients’ problems.  Not any one is going to be best suited for all of them.

Newsletters, articles and free reports:

These are, without a doubt, three of the best ways to get people interested in what you have to offer.  If you give them valuable, practical information at no risk whatsoever then they will be more inclined to trust you when you offer more expensive solutions.

What about those prospects who truly cannot afford your fees?  Newsletters, articles and free reports are a godsend for these people.  They need information that they can trust, but they aren’t capable of shelling out the money just yet.

For others it absolutely frightening to hand money over to somebody that they don’t know.  Give them the opportunity to know, like and trust you and their guard will come down.  Just be sure to always respect and honor this trust.  Consider it sacred and you can have long lasting relationships with your clients.

Remember, it’s MUCH more expensive to acquire new clients than it is to retain existing ones.

Information products

Information products come in all shapes, sizes and prices.  They can be free, 15 page downloads all the way to multiple CD and book packages ranging from a few dollars to $2500 and more.

I watched one ezine guru go from $450 to $1500 for the exact same info product in ONE year.  And she gets it.  Obviously people have found her information to be worth thousands of dollars.

One of the easiest ways to create an information product is to record a teleseminar or a series of teleseminars, have the audio transcribed, then package the audio and book.  You can keep it to a simple PDF text and MP3 audio download or create a physical product.  Both can be very useful for your clients and very profitable for you.

Group programs

Teleseminars and workshops are great ways to leverage your time and offer your services at a lower fee.  You can do this and make excellent income because you are working with several people at a time.

If you are providing superb value for your clients then many of them will want to get closer to you and hire you one-on-one.

Group programs are also a great option for current clients who are struggling with the financial commitment of more expensive private services.

Split-fees

Many coaches offer a set number of sessions per month for a set number of minutes each session at a set price.

For instance, they might offer four, 45-minute sessions per month for $500.  This becomes very restrictive in terms of what you’re offering your clients.  Not everybody is going to need the same number of sessions each month for the same amount of time.

Take the same example and make a slight adjustment.

Package A        Package B

Sessions per month:        Two                    Four

Length of sessions:          45 minutes       45 minutes

Investment:                        $400                  $700

Imagine your prospects actually having choices?  You don’t want to confuse them with too choices, but you don’t want to limit them to an “all or nothing” either.

This is also great insurance for not having to discuss your fees too early in a sales conversation.

You can be honest and say that you have multiple solutions for their needs and you would like to get more information first.  More on that when I discuss tips for communicating fees with confidence.

Profit Step

Write down split-fee packages that you can offer.  Include 2-3 different packages.

Challenge: If one of the packages is offering the same amount of time that you currently offer your clients, I want to challenge you to raise the price of that package at least 50% above what you currently charge.

Cheers and Success

Tom

Note: This was an excerpt from the Charge What You Deserve Coach in a Book.  To discover more practical techniques for how to charge what you deserve and get it go to:

http://tinyurl.com/cntn7k

 

What do Raising your Fees and Skydiving Have in Common?

One of the quickest ways to improve your quality of life as a coach, consultant or other self-employed service professional is to structure your fees and rates in such a way that you’re earning more money in less time. And if you aren’t willing to reduce the amount of time you spend with clients to increase your hourly income then the only way you can do this, outside of creating passive flows of income, is by increasing your fees.

I find that one of the biggest obstacles that people have to increasing their rates and charging what they deserve is simply the fear of an unknown outcome. When I work with clients for the first time they often assume the worst before they even try it. And to be honest, what’s the worst that can happen if you raise your fees? You hear a couple “no’s”. That’s about as bad as it can get. And as long as you hear a couple “yeses” along the way then it’s all good.

So what does all of this have to do with skydiving?

I can vividly remember the fear that I had when I made my first of 47 jumps from an airplane. Actually the fear came BEFORE the jump. I was scared to death on the drive to the drop-zone and on the plane ride up. But to be perfectly honest, once I was out of the plane in a free-fall, I didn’t have anything else to do other than enjoy myself. I wound up having one of the most incredible experiences of my life and started on my skydiving certification two weeks later.

The fear is often in the build-up and speculation about all of the “bad things” that might happen. But the truth is that as long as you have a solid game-plan there’s really nothing to be afraid of once you make the jump.

Here are 4 quick steps to a solid game-plan:

***Determine exactly what you want to earn and how many hours you want to work
***Outline a fee-structure that will support this goal
***Always focus on value when communicating your fees
***Make the jump and enjoy yourself…it just might be the best ride of your life

 

4 Tips to Communicating your Coaching and Consulting Fees with Confidence

Most of us get a little nervous when discussing our fees. Some of us get VERY nervous. A little case of the nerves is fine, but when it gets to the point that you try to avoid the subject of your fees altogether it becomes damaging to your business.

Here are some tips to help you manage your nerves when discussing your fees with prospects.

1. Say it until you can say it with a straight face

Literally repeat your fees to yourself until it becomes a reflex. Say it out loud; in the mirror, while you’re in the shower, while you’re driving down the road, whenever. Just keep saying it until you take yourself seriously. If you can’t take yourself seriously when it comes to what you charge then don’t expect your prospects to.

2. Emphasize value and not process when talking with prospects

Always emphasize the value that your service offers, not how many times a month you will meet and how long each meeting will last. When you develop the habit of discussing value, you will begin to recognize more and more how much your service is really worth and you will stop being hesitant about discussing your fees.

3. Offer multiple pricing options so you don’t have to discuss specific fees too soon

If you offer multiple solutions for your clients’ problems, then you can honestly tell prospects that you have several levels of services and products and you would like to get more information about their needs first. You now have a built-in reason for learning more about your prospect and communicating to them the value that they will get from working with you.

4. Sell without selling

When you’re excited about what you do and the results that you’re able to provide for people, you can easily sell without having to ever be a salesperson. Ask your prospects questions. What do they want? What are their goals? What pain do they want out of? Where would they like to be in 6 months or a year?

Now let them picture how working with you will allow them to achieve these goals. Guess, what? When you do this, there will be no selling necessary.

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When and How to Raise Your Fees with Existing Clients

I recommend that you make it a healthy habit to raise your fees 1-2 times a year.

Whether or not you raise your fees with existing clients is a judgment call.

You may want to consider it if you have a very long life cycle with your clients. If this is the case and you don’t begin raising your fees then you’re going to be frustrated with your income for a long time coming.

If there’s plenty of room in your practice for new clients then this may be a different call. You can significantly increase your income by raising your fees with new clients and not raising them with existing clients.

If you do raise your fees with existing clients, here are some tips.

1. Don’t raise their fees to the same price as new clients’.

Let them know that you are increasing your fees but the increase for them will be less than all new clients. Make sure that they know that you appreciate their business.

For example, let them know that you are increasing your fees $150 with all new clients, but only $75 with them. In a sense they will feel that they are getting a discount. Now, I know that they aren’t stupid and they know they will be paying more, but they will also understand that they are being treated fairly and respectfully.

2. Only mention the increase in fee, not the new fee amount.

In other words if you’re a coach going from $500 a month to $575 a month, let them know that the increase is $75. If a client is getting results and value from their relationship with you it is very tough to argue over $100. In fact, if that is a make or break for them then they really weren’t getting value out of the relationship and it’s time to move on.

3. Give them ample notice.

It’s unrealistic to spring a fee increase on clients effective tomorrow and expect them to be cool about it. As a matter of principle they will be put off. As long as you give them some advance notice, most clients will understand.

How much notice? That, again, is up to you. I would suggest 45-60 days.

4. Create a unique offer.

As long as you aren’t adding more of your time to the table, I think it’s a great idea to offer a little something special for your existing clients.

For example, if you’re planning to create a group program, you can offer this to them for free or for a reduced price. This can be for a limited time or it can be indefinite. This is the beauty of group programs. You can add a couple of people gratis without having any negative effect. And you aren’t spending any additional time by doing so.

What else can you offer so that they know that you appreciate their business and want to continue the relationship?

Let your imagination go here.

But remember not to trade more of your time for the increase in fees or you will be right back to trading hours for dollars.

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