Value-Based Fees

How to Charge — and Get — What You're Worth

Alan Weiss

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 2002 , 207 pages

ISBN: 0-7879-5511-6

Synopsis:

Toggle Synopsis

Establish your value and convince your clients to gladly pay what you're worth

In this third book in The Ultimate Consultant series, Alan Weiss — one of the most widely-renowned independent consultants in the country and the author of the best-selling Million Dollar Consulting — shows consultants how to raise their fees in a way that creates a win-win, "good deal" dynamic with clients. Moving beyond the old "time plus materials" concept of consulting charges, Value-Based Fees explains how to establish fees based on value delivered to improve the client's condition. Using interviews, vignettes, and a wealth of practical, hands-on advice, Value-Based Fees reveals how you can:

• Establish your unique value
• Educate clients in how value determines worth and thus, their investment
• Overcome existing clients objections and also find new buyers
• Set fees for non-consulting opportunities such as speaking, products, and more
  

Table of Contents:

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• Chapter 1: The Concept of Fees
  Will People Actually Give Me Their Money for My Advice?
  
• The Ethical Nature of Capitalism
• The Power of MBS: The Mercedes-Benz Syndrome
• The Importance of Buyer Commitment, Not Compliance
• Critical Steps for Buyer Commitment
• The Buoyance of Barnds: How Brands Help Fees
• Creating Shared Success
• Chapter 1 ROI (the Summary)
  
• Chapter 2: The Lunacy of Time and Materials Models
  Who Wants to Be as Dumb as a Lawyer?
  
• Supply and Demand Illogic
• Ethical Conflicts of Interest and Other Small Matters
• Limiting Profits, or Why Not Just Forget Domani
• Why Lawyers and CPAs Do So Poorly
• Educating the Buyers Incorrectly
• Chapter 2 ROI
  

• Chapter 3: The Basics of Value-Based Fees
  It's Better to Be an Artist than to be an Engineer
  
• Focusing on Outcomes Not on Inputs
• The Fallacy and Subversive Nature of "Deliverables"
• Quantitative and Qualitative Neasures and Criteria
• Measuring the Unmeasurable
• Serving the Clint's Self-Interest
• The Subtle Transformation: Consultant Past to Client Future
• Perpetual Motion = Perpetual Progress
• Chapter 3 ROI
  

• Chapter 4: How to Establish Value-Based Fees
  If You Read Only One Chapter ...
  
• Conceptual Agrement: The Foundation of Value
• Establishing Your Unique Value
• Creating the "Good Deal" Dynamic
• The Incredibly Powerful "Choice of Yeses"
• Some Formulas for the Faint of Heart
• Chapter 4 ROI
  

• Chapter 5: How to Convert Existing Clients
  Correcting Your Own Mistakes
  
• Setting Priorities Among Existing Clients
• Offering New Value
• Finding New Buyers Within Existing Clients
• Finding New Circumstances
• What If Clients Resist a Conversion?
• Abandoning Business
• Chapter 5 ROI
  

• Chapter 6: The Fine and High Art of Using Retainers
  It's Just the Smarts, Stupid
  
• Optimal Conditions for Retainer Arrangements
• Choosing Time Frames and Creating Realistic Expectations
• Organizing the Scope and Managing Projects Within the Retainer
• Capitalizing on Retainer Relationships
• Aggressively Marketing Retainer Relationships
• Chapter 6 ROI

• Chapter 7: Sixty Ways to Raise Fees and/or Increase Profits Immediately
  Act Today and Also Receive the Bass-o-Matic Free of Charge
  
• The First Fifteen
• The Second Fifteen
• The Third Fifteen
• The Fourth Fifteen
• Chapter 7 ROI
  

• Chapter 8: How to Prevent and Rebut Fee Objections
  Since You've Heard Them All Before, How Can You Not Know the Answers?
  
• The Four Fundamental Areas of Resistance
• Maintaining the Focus on Value
• Boring in on the Subject
• Offering Rebates
• Utilizing "Smack to the Head" Comparisons
• Ignoring the Competition
• Chapter 8 ROI
  

• Chapter 9: Setting Fees for Non-Consulting Opportunities
  How to Make Money While You Sleep, Eat, Play, and Well, Make Money Elsewhere
  
• Keynote Speaking: Don't Charge for Your Spoken Words
• Highly Leveraged Practices or Working with Bureaus
• Products
• Other Stuff
• Remote Consulting and Its Lucrative Nature
• And Now for Some Perspective
• Chapter 9 ROI
  

• Chapter 10: Fee Progression Strategies
  Why You Fall Behind when You Stand Still
  
• Entry-Level Fees
• Transition to "Going Concern"
• Transition to Word of Mouth
• Transition to Brand Phase
• Transition to Ultimate Consultant
• The Book's ROI: Alan's Axioms for the "Good Deal"
  
• Appendix A: Questions to Qualify the Economic Buyer
  
• Appendix B: Questions to Establish Business Objectives
  
• Appendix C: Questions to Establish Measures of Success
  
• Appendix D: Questions to Establish Value
  
• Appendix E: Questions to Assess Personal Value Contribution
  
• Appendix F: The Difference Between Inputs and Business Outputs