Last week we talked about the three drivers of value, scale, scope, and uniqueness. If you want to grow your profitability, you can’t pursue all three – they have different trade-offs and strategies. You’ve got to pick one. Let’s look at those trade-offs to find out which path is right for you. Scale Agencies that…
Most of us agree that the value you can charge is directly related to the value you create. So to make more money, you must create more value. But how do you measure how much value you are creating? On a recent episode of Michael Neill’s excellent podcast, “Caffeine for the Soul” he talked about…
We (including myself in this) can get really up in our heads about pricing. “Is $X too much? Will they think I’m too expensive? What should I charge?” The answer is simple but not easy. Whatever you want to charge for your work, you can charge. Pick any number and charge it. Some folks will…
Over the last week, we’ve talked about how we have to price the customer, not the project. We’ve also looked at how letting the customer make trade-offs can help us close more deals and make more money. Today, we will talk about how charging more money helps us win better clients and provide us with…
On Thursday we talked about what your work is worth. Though we want our work to have some intrinsic value, the truth is that the only one who can tell us the value of our work is the client. The same work could be worth very little to one client, or a whole lot to…
I’m in an agency owner’s slack channel where it’s common to ask questions about how to improve and grow businesses. I enjoy popping in every few days and joining in the conversation! Last week, one question stopped me in my tracks. This agency owner asked: “If anyone is willing to share, I’d like to know…
When you put together a proposal for a piece of work you’d be perfect for, how long is the document you are creating? Do you wax poetic about your “proprietary process? Do you include bios of your key people? Have you added case studies of similar projects? Or do you create a one-page summary that…
Last week I talked about spending more time thinking so that we can make better decisions. One of the categories of decisions that I see the least thinking about is new business decisions. When someone wants to talk to us about starting a new project, there is no pause – just a pavlovian response, “When…
A market segmentation process is fundamental to develop your sales potential as an agency and service business. The benefits are not only financial.
What is competition-based pricing, and should you use it? Learn the pros and cons of a competition-based pricing strategy.