How To Sell Value | Using Market Pricing Based On Value | Professional Selling Skills

Pricing is one of the four Ps of marketing and is one that few professionals use. Accounting and law firm marketing has improved over the past 20 years in three of the Ps of marketing (place, product, and promotion). But pricing is still being done using cost-accounting techniques.

Limits of Hourly Billing

Most clients hate hourly billing and will be very willing to alter the way they work with you. The Professional’s Guide to Value Pricing is one of the more intelligent and informative subject that comes along at an important time: a time when people are looking for a new direction, when paradigms are shifting.

Some of your clients are quite willing to pay you more than your are receiving from them, but you are failing to maximize your profits. For example, there are people who choose to drive luxury cars, when more affordable transportation is available. These same types of clients would pay you more if you designed a pricing system to capture what they are willing to pay for your results.

Other Fee Approaches

Commissions and contingent fees will become the norm within the next 20 years. But, there are alternatives to commissions and contingent fees.

To obtain higher pricing, you must focus more on providing value that clients want. The profitability to you and your client of various pricing methods will help you focus your attention on achieving both.

Using a fixed-price agreement combined with a change order system is one method we can all use to improve our pricing. Spelling out what you will and won’t do for your fixed price is the essence of a fixed-price agreement. Items not covered in the agreement are changes, just as your builder does with your home as it progresses.

Conclusion

If you bill by the hour, to make more money you have to work longer hours. If you bill by value delivered, you have the chance to make more income, and focus on client satisfaction. For in- stance, one firm specializes in “Starker” exchanges of real estate. (People avoid taxes by trading one investment property for another, without having to make the trade themselves.) Fees for changing a $1,000,000 taxable event into a tax-free transaction are based on the expertise involved, not on the hours.