Value-Based Fees: How to Charge—and Get—What You're Worth: A Guide for Consultants, Second Edition

2.6. EDUCATING THE BUYER INCORRECTLY

An inherent problem in the lunacy of time-and-materials billing is that we educate the client incorrectly from the first meeting. Buyers are willing to believe that we operate in certain ways—just as the client does—and that those methods of operating will somehow have to be accommodated.

Yet we often show up as supplicants and fawners, obsequious in our determination to get the business. We position ourselves as vendors and "salespeople" from the outset, not as credible peers of the buyer with our own valuable trove of expertise.

Hear this: in true client-consultant partnerships, neither party wants to put the other at a disadvantage. Partners simply don't do that to each other. But in superior-subordinate relationships, the superior usually doesn't care, either out of callousness, noblesse oblige, or indifference.

Our job is to educate prospects from the outset about how we operate. That means that certain steps are important to take and others important to avoid. Use the following as a checklist to assess your own effectiveness in educating buyers.

Prospect Education Checklist

1. Never quote a fee before project objectives and their value to the client are stipulated (see Chapter Four).

2. Don't quote any time unit basis at all.

3. Explain to the client, if pressed, that single, value-based fees are in the client's best interests.

4. Resist comparison to other consultants by pointing out that your potential client probably also operates differently in ...