Thursday, December 23, 2010

Product Pricing Strategy For A Small Business Providing Consultant Services

The simplest way would be to price your services on an hourly basis at a rate that reflects the level of service you provide. You'll want to offer a rate that is competitive (so know what your competition charges) and appropriate for the types of clients you are looking to work with again relative to the level of services you offer.

BUNDLE SERVICES TO CREATE PRODUCTS AND SIMPLIFY PRICING ....

Using your hourly rate as a base, you can package your rates into bundles or banks of hours for different services.

For example if you know that social media audits and top level recommendations takes you on average 3 hours to complete, then you could package this as a product and bundle your 3 hours together as a total price.

FLAT PRICING AND PRICE RANGES ....

Clients find it easier to understand what they are getting and have an easier time buying in to a service when you package services and outline what's included with a flat price or price range. Hourly consulting works better for ad-hoc requirements to offer flexibility.

BRANDING SERVICES TO CREATE EASY TO UNDERSTAND PRODUCTS ....

Other ideas for pricing tie into branding your services to make them more tangible to a client. For instance putting together a LinkedIn primer and strategy package where you show clients how to maximize results through LinkedIn.

The idea is to streamline your packages and service offerings so that they are easy to implement and replicate for other clients while being transparent to the clients in what they will receive.

INTRO PACKAGES TO GAIN MORE CLIENTS ....

You can use low cost intro level services to allow clients to see what you can do for them at a lower risk and then upsell them once you've gained their trust. So have a few smaller "products" priced at a lower cost to help you penetrate the market without having to discount your services.

FREE CAN BE A GREAT PRICING STRATEGY ....

You can also offer the equivalent of sample "products" such as 1 free hour of consulting or offer a free hour with every 10 invoiced - you get the idea...

MONEY BACK GUARANTEE ....

Offering clients a guarantee such as "If you're not happy working with me, you can walk away and not pay the invoice" can also help seal the deal.

Of course you want to be careful to limit the timeframe of the guarantee
to one package or the first month to prevent an unscrupulous client from unethically taking advantage of you. Most often though, hardly anyone will invoke your guarantee unless your services are really sub par.

As you can tell pricing is not a simple exercise, but there are many opportunities to find the sweet spot for both your and your clients.

My last parting advice is to always link pricing to value wherever you can because that's what you want your clients to see - the great value you provide at the price you're asking.