Feedback Form
Home Features Mastermind Videos About Advertise Blog Network Contact
   

Have A Suggestion?
Toronto Salsa Classes / Toronto Salsa Lessons Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
Have A Suggestion?

Featured Ebook


ebook Famous Entrepreneurs - Modern Empire Builders


Featured Ebook

More Evan Carmichael
Have A Suggestion?


Sales Lessons From Starbucks And Dell

What Exactly Are You Selling?



What Exactly Are You Selling?
   

Independent professionals spend an inordinate amount of time fretting over how much to charge. But there is no right or wrong answer when it comes to pricing. It’s all completely subjective and dependent on a wide variety of factors, including what the market will bear, geographic location, timing, aggravation factor (or lack thereof) and your level of desperation (hopefully low to non-existent), just to name a few.

If you are selling your services, one of the things that often get in the way of clear pricing is the belief that what you charge is related to your value as a person. Wrong! It has nothing to do with you.

For example, a client will often ask, “How much do you charge for a web site?” or “How much do you charge for a brochure?” They ask these questions as if they are buying shoes or tomatoes.

In fact, if you were selling shoes and a customer asked, “How much do you charge for these shoes?” you wouldn’t say, “I charge $100 for these shoes.” You would say, “These shoes cost $100.”

It’s the same with creative or professional services. It has nothing to do with what “you charge.” It’s not about you, and it never will be. You must shift your mindset to think instead about what the product and the process costs. So when someone says, “How much do you charge for a web site?” take the “you” out of it and respond with, “A web site can cost $X.”

Clear pricing is based on a clear idea of what you are really selling. You may believe that what you are selling – and what clients are buying – is time. As a result, you price by the hour.

Pricing your services by the hour is easy. It’s clean, it’s orderly and it doesn’t require much math. But when you price by the hour, you are cheating yourself, especially in the long run.

You get better at what you do—sometimes a lot better—with time. A 10-page brochure might take you five hours today when, two years ago, it may have taken twenty. But if you charge by the hour, as you get better and spend less time, you will earn less instead of more. Does that make sense?

Also, yours is probably a creative process. Not only is there no standard for how long it should take; there is a lot of “creativity” and inspiration involved. You have no idea how long it will take for your best ideas to come. They could take several hours of doodling and thinking and whatever you do for inspiration; or they could come right away. Should you be paid based on how long it takes for your ideas to gel? Is that how you should determine how much money you earn?

The answer, of course, is no. Because you are not selling your time. What you are selling is your years of experience, the effort you’ve expended developing your skills and talents, and your resulting expertise.

What you are selling is your brain, your attention and your creative imagination applied to a client’s specific problem, and that has a value. It’s not an objective value; in fact, it’s highly subjective, which makes it challenging to quantify.

Ultimately, what you are selling is peace of mind. You see, your clients may not understand exactly what you do. They don’t know what they’re buying, and they know they don’t know. So it’s your job to make them comfortable and safe in the knowledge that you do understand and will take care of everything. If you do that, the good clients will choose you, even if you’re the highest bidder.



What Exactly Are You Selling? - To learn more about this author, visit Ilise Benun's Website.

Like this article? Share it with your friends
[Get Copyright Permissions] E-Mail | Print | More  


Related Articles Related Articles
Selling Power 26
  Selling power - learn what it is and while you're at it learn what the ultimate selling tool is too. It's something you use everyday. Master this and watch your sales take-off.
The "Use Seasoned Sales Professionals As Trainers" Myth
  In some selling organizations, if formal sales training exists at all, it is often performed by seasoned sales representatives or top performers on the staff. Big mistake!
Consultative Selling
  Consultative selling is a highly evolved and extraordinarily successful approach to selling. In consultative selling, the entire sales process is oriented toward the salesperson, or “consultant”, understanding the n...
At-ti-tude, n
  At-ti-tude, n. a mental position; the feeling one has for oneself. Your attitudes are mindsets—or points of view based on what you believe to be true about life, other people and yourself. Attitudes impact your abil...
Consultative Selling Won't Fill Your Pipeline
  This Consultative Selling article explains the role of this sales method in pipeline management.

Related Forum Posts Related Forum Posts
Re: Kevin's Case Study #10 - When to become an entrepreneur? Re: Kevin's Case Study #10 - When to become an entrepreneur?
Blog pinging Blog pinging
Business magazines Business magazines
Online Sales-Keep it Simple! Online Sales-Keep it Simple!
Website suggestions Website suggestions
Prime Means of Selling Prime Means of Selling
How to be green? How to be green?
Cost vs Benefit Cost vs Benefit

Related Forum Posts Related Businesses - Evan Elite Authors
Dave Kurlan
Dave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website

George Ludwig
George Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website


The Evan Elite Authors program is currently in beta phase. For details please contact us.


 
About the Author


Ilise Benun
(Visit Ilise's Website)
Ilise Benun is an author, consultant, national speaker and co-founder of Marketing Mentor. Her books include “The Designer’s Guide to Marketing and Pricing" (HOW Design Books, Spring 2008), “Stop Pushing Me Around: A Workplace Guide for the Timid, Shy and Less Assertive” (Career Press 2006), “The Art of Self Promotion” (2007) "Self-Promotion Online" and "Designing Web Sites:// for Every Audience" (HOW Design Books). Her work has been featured in national publications such as HOW Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Nation’s Business, Self, Essence, Crains New York Business, Dynamic Graphics, The New York Times, Toronto Globe and Mail, The Washington Post, The Denver Post and more. Benun publishes a blog ww w.marketingmixblog.comand a weekly email newsletter, Quick Tips from Marketing Mentor! which is read by 8000+ small business owners. Benun started her Hoboken, NJ-based consulting firm in 1988 and has been self-employed for all but 3 years of her working life.
Have A Suggestion?

View Author's Blog
Become An Author

View Author's Video
Become An Author

Free Downloads


Ilise Benun's

Complete
List Of
Women-Entrepreneurs
Articles

First Name
Last Name
Email
 
If you enjoyed this article, get Ilise Benun's Complete List of Women-Entrepreneurs Articles For FREE!

More Ilise Benun
Money Management With No Excuses
Who is My Market Its Smaller Than You Think
10 Things You Need to Know About Your Prospects
Will You Ignore The Stranger Next To You
How To Tell Your Story In The Media
How Should I Grow My Business By Avoiding Overwork
Youve Submitted the ProposalNow What
How Should I Present Myself By Picking The Right Name for Your Business
Answers To The 3 Big Advertising Questions
What Should Be In My Contract A Contract And Why You Need One
Become An Author