Category: Blog

Have you ever thought of using your potential customers’ pain to your advantage? By this, I don’t mean you should torture your leads into submission! Rather, if you focus on their pain – and tell them how you can take it away – you will suddenly become their best friend.

Think about the last time you had toothache. It’s a killer isn’t it? You can’t concentrate on anything but the throbbing pain and you’d give anything to be free of it. You book in to the dentist, they sort it out and they’re your hero.

Now consider how this applies to your marketing message.

When booking your dentist appointment, were you particularly bothered about finding out how long they’d been a dentist, or what university they went to? Or did you just want to know they could take your pain away?

Your biggest selling point will always be how you can solve a problem, improve a situation, make someone’s life easier – or in other words, remove a pain.

DON’T make this your ending strapline. Why would you want to bury your problem-solving prowess in a load of facts about you that, whilst they might add to your credibility and be really important to share, will not make people pick up the phone and ask for your help?

Look again at the information you give out to potential customers. Look at the introductory paragraph of your website’s home page, or your brochure. Now look at it through a potential customer’s eyes. What does your first line focus on? Are you telling them you’ve been in business for 20 years? That you’re the number one in your field?  Or are you telling them what you can do for them – save them time or stress, or help make them more profitable?

It’s all great information, but you should prioritise your main sales message.  If a customer can’t see immediately what’s in it for them to employ your services, you’ve already lost them.

Tell customers straight away how you can take their pain away and marketing suddenly becomes less painful!

Once you’ve got your marketing message right, the rest should fall into place.

Follow my six steps to marketing success here.

There’s also more in-depth guidance on refining your marketing in my book, Getting Down to Business.

Modern marketing can really feel like a battle – you’re fighting to win the attention of potential customers, often against multiple enemies, or competitors.  So, you need to think like an army commander!

There are key elements to preparing for any battle, and each can be linked to the marketing process.

Know your enemy – do your market research

An army commander will gather intelligence on the enemy, through covert operations and observation of the enemy’s movements. He will try and ascertain the size of the threat, know their troupe numbers and fire-power, and understand their strategy. He will measure and evaluate – and consider how his own forces match up. This is exactly what you need to do with your market research. Make a few calls to competitors to see how they respond to an enquiry – see if they will send you a brochure, read their website, follow their social media channels, stalk them! Then, compare your marketing to theirs – are you on an equal footing? Is there anything they do better than you that you might need to improve on before going head-to-head? The more information you have about what you’re up against, the greater your chance of success.

Get your strategy in place

Once the intelligence is gathered, a commander will then plan his strategy according to the findings. This isn’t about replicating the enemy’s activity, but thinking of an appropriate response. How best can you use your own arsenal? You want to play to your strengths and take advantage of the enemy’s weaknesses. Where are you going to invest greater resources? A planned attack will always beat the scattergun approach, so make sure you plan how, where and when you will deploy your troops.

An army commander will strategically place his infantry and tanks; he’ll decide on the best time to send in the bombers; he’ll consider whether ships with rocket launchers are required.  In marketing, your infantry might be your website, seo and blogs, your tanks – your social media channels, your bombers are your email or postal campaigns etc.

In the same way that an army commander won’t rely solely on his infantry – you can’t rely solely on your website to bring you custom. It’s about using all the weapons at your disposal in a strategic way.

Prepare your arsenal – branding / marketing materials

Once the strategy is in place, you need to make sure you have enough fire-power and ammunition. In marketing, this means refining your branding and marketing message, and preparing all the materials you need to deliver your message effectively. Your marketing materials and content are your bombs and bullets – and your underlying strategy should ensure they hit their target.

Are you using the latest weaponry? In the same way that the army are constantly upgrading their kit and use the latest technology to their advantage – you need to stay abreast of the latest marketing trends.

Defend your territory – reactive marketing

A certain amount of battle strategy will be reactive – responding to enemy activity. If you know troops are being deployed to a particular area, you send your own troops to defend the territory. So, with marketing, if you know your competitors are prolific on Twitter, or have a particularly effective radio or TV ad campaign – you might want to work it into your strategy to ensure you have an equal presence.

Stay one step ahead – proactive marketing

To win a battle, however, you need to try and stay one step ahead. Think about what the enemy isn’t doing – are they missing a trick? Sometimes, you need to think outside the box. Doing something different could be the key to success, catching your enemy off-guard and gaining you new ground.

Evaluate and amend – measure and adjust your marketing

A good commander knows that any battle strategy has to be flexible. If something’s not working, you don’t keep throwing resources at it relentlessly! Instead, you learn from mistakes and adapt your strategy as you go along. Marketing is no different. If you’ve spent thousands on radio advertising but received no leads from it, you either need to change the advert, or re-allocate those funds to an alternative activity.

Employ advisors

Remember, you don’t need to do this alone! An army commander will employ specialist advisors and use the expertise of the team around him. In the same way, you can employ the help of marketing consultants or business advisors to guide and inform you.

You can find more marketing advice in Doug’s book, Getting Down to Business, available at just £9.37 from Amazon. Click here to buy.

It may sound a strange question! If they’re a customer already using your services, of course they know what you do – right?

Wrong! They may know what you do for them – but do they know you also do this, and this and this?

We should never assume that a client understands the entirety of our business. For example, they may have come to you to develop their website – but do they know you also write blog posts, create email marketing campaigns, manage social media accounts and do graphic design for brochures?

As we’re talking about the importance of client retention, it is definitely worthwhile considering how you are communicating your full range of services to existing customers. They may have employed you to undertake a short term project, but there may be a way of retaining them as an ongoing client with another of your services.

Again, it comes down to communication. You shouldn’t have to do the big, hard sell on existing clients – hopefully you’ll have won them over with the fabulous work you’ve already done. There will be a trust there, which makes it much easier to sell without selling. Try dropping into conversation that you’ve done X for another client that seems to be working really well for them. Ask them, ‘did you know we do that?’ It really is that simple!

Here are some other ways of getting the word out to existing clients about additional services:

Case studies and testimonials

Do you have any case studies or client testimonials on your website? If not, get some on there, pronto! Nothing speaks louder than showing off some top work you’ve done for a client and hearing how pleased they are with the results. Why not get a client on camera? Short video testimonials can be really powerful.

Spread the good news!

How are you spreading the word about the amazing projects you’ve completed, or the fantastic feedback you’re getting from clients? Don’t just let case studies and client testimonials sit static on your website. Share them! Facebook, Twitter and Linked In are great for getting word out, as are blogs and email newsletters.

Leaflets

Don’t rely purely on online – a well designed leaflet with your list of services can be just as effective. A cleaning company I worked with handed out leaflets to all of their commercial clients, telling them they also did window cleaning and removal of environmental waste.  Straight away they secured new business from existing clients, who hadn’t realised before that they offered these services!

It’s good to talk!

Make sure you have it on every meeting agenda to discuss how else you could help an existing client. Face-to-face meetings give you the perfect opportunity to talk about what else you do that might be of interest.

Now go forth and multiply your business the easy way. Just tell your existing clients what you do!

Doug’s step-by-step guidebook to growing your business is available NOW to buy from Amazon.

For straight-talking advice specific to your business, book a FREE business review with Doug today!

There are many reasons we end up saying farewell to clients, some are completely beyond our control, others not so much. But have you ever considered the true value of that loss? It’s far more than the fee they were paying you!

Client retention, in my opinion, is something that should be managed and monitored as closely as the cash flow in your business – however, it very rarely is.

Losing clients for legitimate reasons is one thing, but often I find businesses are far too flippant about letting customers go. “Oh, they were only paying £100 per month,” “We’ve finished their job,” etcetera, etcetera.

If I ever hear this from a coaching client – I give them a little exercise to do. Don’t consider the income you’ve lost, consider the costs to you of replacing that business.

How much does it cost you to bring in a new client?
Think about what you spend on marketing and advertising; the time and money spent on networking; how many hours do you spend sitting in sales meetings and drawing up proposals and quotes? Try adding it up – I’m sure you’ll be surprised!

For argument’s sake, let’s say each new client costs you £1,000 in time and money before they sign on the dotted line. Would you rather keep earning £100 per month guaranteed income, or spend £1,000 just to stand still?

Client retention makes sense from an economic point of view – so it’s really important to keep track of how many clients you’re keeping and losing as well as monitoring the new business you’re winning. To successfully grow a business – yes, you need new customers, but you want to build your client list, not replenish it!

If you’re losing clients on a regular basis, it really is worth the time and effort considering what you can do to keep them. Here are a few of my suggestions:

1 – Get feedback

Do you know the real reason they’ve left?  It’s always worth a frank conversation asking for honest feedback of your service, and an explanation of why they’re leaving. You may just pick up some pointers that can prevent you losing another client. After all, how can you hope to improve if you don’t know where you’re going wrong? I like to ask, too, if there’s anything we could have done differently to make them stay.

2 – Communication is key

Client relationships often fail due to lack of communication, so make sure you’re in regular contact with all your existing clients. Ask them while they are still with you – what can we do better? It could make all the difference!

3 – Address their niggles

It’s not always big things that can strain a client relationship, it’s the little niggles – if they get ignored. By keeping in regular contact, you can find out about any issues before they become major problems. The important thing is to sort them out promptly, and show you take customer service seriously!

4 – Deal with complaints

If it does get to the stage where you’re faced with a customer complaint, you need to take 3 steps:

• Fix the problem (as quickly, thoroughly and professionally as possible)
• Investigate why the problem occurred in the first place
• Put measures in place to prevent it happening again.

We’re only human and things do go wrong, but you will be remembered for how you put things right! And always keep the customer apprised with what you are doing to correct the issue.

In conclusion – ensure your customer service and communication is top-notch, and you’ll reap the rewards in client retention and customer loyalty. And to go the extra mile – think about offering a customer loyalty scheme to sweeten the deal for staying with you. Keep in mind the value to you – saving you heaps in winning new business!

It will probably come as no surprise to hear that the top New Year’s resolutions in the UK are about getting fitter in one way or another.

It might be to lose weight, give up smoking, eat healthier or go to the gym – and possibly all of the above! The reason? We all want to improve ourselves, and we know that our health and wellbeing is something that we can control to some degree.

Have you thought, however, that this could also be a great analogy for improving your business in the year ahead? After all, we never stop wanting to improve our business in some way – and it is completely under our control! So, I’ve put together my thoughts on how you can tone up your business in the year ahead.

Be specific – what does ‘fit’ look like to you?

People’s ideas of getting fit differ greatly. It depends on their current condition, what their priorities are and their ultimate goal. One may want to lose three stone, another may want to climb Everest.  In the same way, each business’s idea of ‘fit’ will vary. One manager may want to double their turnover, another may want to restructure to free up their time. The important thing is to have a vision of what fit looks like to you. Be specific. Picture it and write down exactly what you want to achieve. This is setting and defining your goal, covered in greater depth in my previous post here.

Share your goal

The brave amongst us will share what we want to do with those around us. They’ll tell their partner not to buy them that squidgy cream cake because they’re trying to lose weight, or will announce their intentions to the world on Facebook. This isn’t about showing off or making everything about you – it’s about asking for support to keep you on track. Sharing can give you the extra motivation you need to keep going when things get tough, because no-one wants to admit to others that they’ve failed. In business, think about sharing your vision with your team, so they can help push you towards your goal. Or, if you don’t have a team, share with another business owner you know well – or a coach.

Set targets

It can feel overwhelming thinking you’ve got three stone to lose – so you need to break your bigger goal down into smaller targets that sound much easier to achieve. Lose half a stone in the first three weeks, for example. In business – think about the smaller targets you can set yourself that are stepping-stones to your big goal. To increase turnover, how many more customers do you need? How many can you get in the first three months?

Plan, plan, plan!

You know what you want to achieve, and have set yourself targets to reach – now you need to write your action plan – and I mean write! Don’t just think about it and keep it all in your head, it’s too easy to forget important steps or ‘adjust’ the plan to suit you. Write down what you need to do to achieve your first target. To lose weight it might be go to the gym twice a week and plan your weekly meals. Business planning is no different. Look at your first target and schedule the actions you will take to achieve it. If you want to get three new customers in January, think about who you want to target and what marketing activity you will do to attract them.

Keep track of how you’re doing

It’s the dreaded scales moment! When you’re losing weight, you hate stepping on the scales in case the results are disappointing – and we have the same fears in business. But, if we don’t measure how we’re getting on, we can’t rejoice in the successes or take the necessary steps to improve. If you have reached your target – hurray!  You know your action plan worked and can keep doing the same. If you didn’t quite make it – don’t worry! Analyse where you went wrong and adjust your plan accordingly to do better next time.

Get a gym buddy or personal trainer

Do you have someone to hold you accountable for your results? Someone who will push you when you’re not feeling it – or help you work out a better way to reach your target? We talked about sharing your goal, which is all well and good, but you also need someone behind you to keep you on track – asking how you are doing and keeping you motivated. Consider joining with a group of like-minded business owners to share ideas and encourage each other. Or invest in a business coach. Even top athletes need help to improve. Business managers, no matter how experienced, can benefit from coaching too.

Reward your achievements

We’re often our own worst critics! We’re very quick to berate ourselves for failures – and often don’t congratulate ourselves when we succeed. But this is really important! Recognise your victories. Even if you haven’t quite made a target – you only lost two pounds instead of the three you wanted this week – you’ve still achieved! You are still two pounds lighter and that much closer to the big goal.  In business, every step forward should be celebrated. If you don’t praise yourself when you accomplish something, you can soon get jaded and feel deflated. Buoy yourself up with a little treat every now and again to acknowledge that you’re getting there! The dieter’s little chocolate indulgence! Perhaps finish early on a Friday and enjoy some family or hobby time – or just relax.

No matter what stage your business is at, why not think about how you can get it fitter for the New Year? Good Luck!

Why not book a FREE business review with Doug to kick-start your New Year goal-setting and planning? There is no obligation to take up Doug’s coaching, but you will glean some interesting insights that will help you take your business forward.

Has anyone you know ever stuck to a New Year’s resolution? I can guess the answer – it’s probably a resounding no!

Like New Year itself, resolutions are fleeting. They’re often made in haste and forgotten just as quickly, packed away with the festive finery never to be seen until the following New Year!

The idea behind them, however, is a great one. New year, new start. It is a perfect time to reflect on the year that’s passed and decide what you want to achieve in the year ahead. But, like many things in life, the label matters. It has become the norm that a New Year resolution doesn’t make it past January – so alter the label and you might have a chance of making it stick! Set a goal.

I’ve written at length on the importance of goal setting, it helps you move forward both in business and in your personal life, so I thought a bit of a flashback post might be just what’s needed here. This will help you find all the information you need to set goals – and go for them! Let’s call it my go-getters goal-setting guide.

1 – Know your goal.

You may think you have a goal in mind, but it might just be a target. Yes, there is a difference! The first step to achieving a goal is to fully understand what it is – then you can set the target you need to reach to achieve it.  These will help:

Do you know what your goal is?
Targets – v – Goals: Can you spot the difference?

2 – Set your personal and business goals.

The two may be intertwined, but it’s important that you set distinct personal and business goals.  Think about where you want to be personally and professionally this time next year – or in five years.  Here’s some advice on how to go about doing that:

Setting your goal – the know how
Business goals and personal goals

3 – Plan your attack!

Knowing your goal is all well and good – but how are you going to achieve it? You need a battle plan! Read my advice on effective planning to help you achieve your goals once they’re set:

Goals set – but how can I achieve them effectively?
Short term goals and long term goals

4 – Get help!

Running your own business can be a lonely experience. Even if you have a team of people around you, when you’re the driver and the decision maker – it can feel like you have no-one to turn to for advice and support. But this is vital to success! Not only does it help to have a sounding board, it’s great to have people around you keeping you on track – making you accountable for getting things done. There are two really effective ways of getting constructive help – join a masterminding group, or invest in a business coach. Here’s the lowdown on each:

Achieving your goals – the Mastermind effect
Is a business coach really for me?

5 – Remember why you set those goals.

My final tip would be – keep in mind why you set those goals. Everyone in business faces tough times, there will be challenges to overcome in reaching for your goals – so it’s important to remember a) what those goals are and b) why you set them for yourself.  Listen to my podcast about the importance of goal setting, and keep in mind the ‘why’.

Goal setting and how important it is (Podcast – £4.95)

Now it’s down to you! Good luck and go set ‘em!

Goal-setting (and achieving) is covered in detail in Doug’s book ‘Getting Down to Business’. Buy a copy direct for just £19.99 here.

A business can succeed or fail on effective scheduling, so it’s really important to have a procedure in place for planning upcoming projects – setting timescales and managing operational delivery of work.

My previous blog post ‘Order! Order! How an order book can help keep your business in line’ discusses how essential it is to set up and maintain an order book, documenting all current projects and placing them in a monthly schedule of works to be completed – but there are steps you need to take to ensure your order book works effectively.

Here are a few tips on scheduling your work – so that you are able to set realistic deadlines that you can stick to!

Take a comprehensive brief
This should be a given – that you understand exactly what is required of you before you even put in your proposal or quote.  All too often, however, sales teams fail to take a comprehensive brief, which leads to all sorts of problems down the line.  Not only can this cause your quotation to be askew, if you find out later that more is expected of you than you thought, it makes scheduling impossible. Make sure you understand, in as much detail as possible, what the client wants!

Monitor how long different project tasks take
To schedule your workload effectively, you need to understand your output levels. How long does each task take? Do you need to allow extra time to troubleshoot any problems? Is your work dependent on receiving information or products from others that could cause delays? Try and set a maximum delivery time for each project task.

Match projects to work hours available
To ensure you meet deadlines, you need to schedule new work into your existing production programme.  If you don’t have the man hours to start work on a project for a couple of weeks, make sure you take this into account when calculating your deadlines. You will need to consider staffing levels, allowing for holidays etc.

Communicate with your client!
One of the most vital steps in scheduling works is communicating your plans to the client to ensure your potential deadline meets with their expectation.  If they have a distinct deadline, you need to know you can meet it.  If you can’t, you need to tell them – it’s just good customer service.

Monitor your schedule regularly
Things do crop up in business that can mess up even the most meticulous plans. Unexpected staff absences, urgent jobs that must be prioritised, unanticipated delays, the list goes on. Regular monitoring of your work schedule is, therefore, essential. You may need to shuffle tasks around, speak to clients about moving deadlines or enlist more help to get work completed – so ongoing management of scheduled works is vital.

Update your order book accordingly
Make sure you keep your order book updated! Add in new work according to your planning, with a realistic deadline. If you have to shuffle tasks, change the details in your order book so that it doesn’t throw your invoicing or cash flow predictions out.

For more in-depth advice on project scheduling, take a look at Doug’s practical guidebook ‘Getting Down to Business’ or speak to him direct about the support he can offer.

Some may think it’s an outdated practice, but keeping your order book in order can really help you keep your business in check.  It may be seen as an ‘old way’ of doing things, but my argument has always been – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

On my initial visits to clients, I often hear they have no order book system in place.  Very much like the sales board I advocate for tracking your sales pipeline, an order book is essential to track and plan your operational delivery.

Whilst updating the order book is still seen as an essential process in the manufacturing industry, to keep a check on how much output you need through the production line each month to fulfil your orders, it is often overlooked in the service industries.  Keeping an order book, however, is a useful tool in any business.

Here are just some of the ways it can help you:

1 – Scheduling client work
One of the worst things you can do with client work is over-promise and under-deliver.  This often happens when we set unrealistic deadlines for completion of client work – and are left struggling to fulfil orders as promised.  But there really is no excuse for mis-scheduling!  An order book allows you to check your current workload in any given month, so you can schedule new orders around it.

2 – To do list
An order book will help you plan your task sheet, or to do list.  Let’s face it, if you have no easy way to see at a glance what jobs you have on your books each month – how are you going to plan the delivery of the work?  Instead of writing a day-to-day to do list, and risk missing tasks in the process, an order book will help you plan your work production in advance.

3 – Forecasting cash flow
An order book helps you predict your company’s income – a necessity to ensure you have enough work to sustain you.  It allows you to see exactly how much you should be able to invoice in any given month.  As long as you understand your break-even figures, you can work out whether you are meeting that as a minimum each month.

4 – Marketing and sales activity
A glance at your order book will tell you in an instant where you need to focus your marketing and sales activity.  You might find you’re stacked out with work for the next three months, but then have nothing – or you’ve pre-booked loads of work for three months time, but have nothing now.  Use this information to focus your marketing and sales activity.  Run a marketing campaign that encourages orders in your quiet months, maybe running a short-term offer, or prioritise the sales calls you think will bring work in when it is needed most.

5 – Invoicing
Your monthly invoicing will be so much easier if you have a record of work completed each month.  When work is signed off as delivered successfully, mark your order as complete in your order book and date it.  This then becomes your working document to charge clients for finished projects.

These are my top five reasons, but I’m certain that once you start using an order book system, you will discover many more benefits.

Doug’s book ‘Getting Down to Business’ includes a more in-depth look at how to set up and maintain an order book – as well as covering other essentials of business success. Buy it here now!

If you’re left wondering month after month why you haven’t got enough prospects converting to customers, or why your customer numbers are rising but your profits aren’t, you’re probably not tracking your numbers effectively.

It’s not uncommon, and is often because business owners simply don’t know where to start to get the information they need. Following a step-by-step sales process and keeping a track of your pipeline can make a huge difference, however, and help you to plan for a profitable future.

It might not be sexy, but gathering stats will help you sell!

So, here’s my simple, step-by-step guide to tracking your sales numbers:

1.     Understand your sales process

Every business might have a slightly different sales process, but it’s important to have one – and to understand what yours is!  A simple example would be:

• Initial contact with prospect
• Follow up call to book appointment
• Send relevant information before meeting
• Meeting to discuss requirements
• Send proposal/quote
• Follow up
• Close

2.     Set up a sales board

It may take some time initially, but setting up and maintaining a sales board will pay dividends in terms of streamlining and tracking your sales. It allows you to see in an instant where each of your prospects are in the sales pipeline and ensures you keep on top of follow ups. Check out this earlier blog about the sales board to find out more.

3.     Track your numbers!

Once all this is in place, tracking your numbers becomes very easy. The information you want to record might include:

• Number of prospects
• Number of proposals sent
• Number of closes
• Value per close
• Length of time taken from initial contact to close

Only when you have all of this information in front of you can you work out where improvements are needed for you to grow your business.

You can work out how many closes you are getting in relation to prospects, how much your average close is worth and how long your sales process is taking.

For example:

• You have 15 prospects
• You close 5 deals
• Average of £10,000 per close
• Sales process takes one month

If this is a regular pattern, you can deduce that you are closing one in three deals and for every 15 prospects you bring in, you are closing deals  worth £50,000 of business.

From here you can now start to plan. If this is the average activity in one month, you can project your annual figures.

If you want to see that sales figure grow, you have to do one of three things – bring in more prospects, get better at closing or work on getting higher value clients.

So, if your sales figures are running away with you, implement these simple steps to get back on track!

Doug D’Aubrey has helped hundreds of companies grow and become more profitable with his practical, straight-forward advice. To find out if his growth or mentoring programmes could help you, request a free business review here.

As a business coach, I talk a lot about the sales process. It’s vital in a business to know how to find and follow-up on leads, how to approach and negotiate with customers and how to close a deal.

One of the issues that crops up time and again when talking sales with clients, however, is helping them appreciate the difference between the price of their product or service and its value to the customer.

A common mistake salespeople make is to negotiate on price, without considering the true value of their proposition to the customer.

So, what do I mean by value?

Think about why the customer is talking to you about your product or service. There must be a need there, usually a problem that they need solving. You simply need to identify what the problem is and what value they place on solving that problem.

Assessing the needs of a potential client should be the first conversation you have in any sales process. Listening is so much more important than talking in the early stages of communication with prospects – learning about their business and how you can help them.  Only then can you fully understand the value of what you’re offering.

For example…

The easiest way to illustrate the difference between price and value, is by citing some examples I’ve come across.

Example 1

A roofer receives a call from a factory owner.  The factory roof is leaking – so requires a quick fix.

The problem the roofer can solve here isn’t just the leaky roof. Consider the other problems that may occur.

The leak will probably be causing water damage inside the building – and possibly to stock, equipment or other contents. It could be causing operational disruption, requiring them to move operations to a different area, reducing workspace or making it difficult to maintain productivity levels. Depending on the severity of the problem, they might not be able to operate at all, and could be losing £1,000s in business. Left unchecked for any length of time, the cost incurred could inflate to a full replacement roof.

The value to the customer of fixing the roof, and doing so speedily, therefore, is being able to continue their daily operations unhindered, preventing the loss or damage of factory contents and preventing further expense if the problem gets worse. What is this worth to them?

Example 2

A payroll specialist is contacted by a care home. They are about to be inspected by HMRC and are concerned their payroll is not being done correctly. To the specialist, this is a simple job that won’t take a great deal of time so their initial thought is to charge a reasonable hourly rate for the time it takes to fix. But, consider the value of this job to the care home.

The specialist is not only being asked to ensure legal compliance for the future, offering peace of mind, they are preventing the client being fined £15,000 for non-compliance. This is a huge saving in financial terms, but will also save them the stress and inconvenience of legal proceedings, and help uphold their professional reputation. What value would they place on all of that?

Communicate all of that to the customer and they may well agree a much higher hourly rate!

And it’s not just the service we offer that we often undervalue – we undervalue ourselves and the skills and experience we bring.

Example 3

A counsellor was revising her fees and wasn’t sure what she should charge for her services.  She had always tried to remain in-line with the government’s fees for offering mental health support to children and families, which was around £20 per hour, thinking that people wouldn’t pay more. But her qualifications and experience far out-weighed those of the counsellors offered under the state mental health provision.

The years of specialist training undertaken in the area of child and family counselling has a value! To a family experiencing difficulties, the knowledge that they are going to get the right advice from someone who is fully versed in their problems, that will bring real results, is worth paying extra for.

Ironically, when this particular counsellor amended her prices to reflect her experience, and started charging £75 per hour, rather than struggling to fill spaces – she found herself with a waiting list.

It just goes to show, if you value yourself and your services highly, others tend to too.

Hopefully, you can now see why knowing and understanding the value of your service is so important before you try and agree on a price. Solving the customer’s problems is your selling point, and you should lead any discussions about price based on value.

During Doug D’Aubrey’s time working in business development for global corporations, he helped turn failing and unprofitable enterprises into multi-million pound businesses. He now shares his wealth of experience in business operations with others, helping them develop and grow in line with their business goals. His expertise spans all the core issues faced by corporate bodies, large or small, such as employee training, team management, HR, logistics, sales development, sales management and customer service.

To discover how Doug’s help could improve your business, request a free business review here.