By Will Kenny
Whatever the particular line of training products and services you offer your clients, you have probably learned the benefits of pricing your services on a unit or project basis as much as possible. While clients will sometimes press you for some kind of hourly rate, most of what you deliver should be fairly standardized. Whether you offer a day-long seminar, a standard series of coaching system, or self-paced training products, you generally want to charge a set fee for these items.
But it's hard to totally escape the need for having some hourly rate schedule, at least in your own head. What should you charge if you have to customize your seminar content for a particular client? How do you charge for additional time to conduct interviews with employees as part of your coaching service? How do you price some new training your client asks you to create for their specific needs?
Most training consultants estimate the time it will take to handle these non-standard situations, and then apply an hourly figure - perhaps calculated as a fraction of a day rate - to determine what to charge the client.
The mistake too many training consultants make is to have several different hourly rates in their heads when they make these calculations.
Base Your Rate on What You Do Best
You client may ask you whether you charge less for that instructional design, or research and interviewing, or customization of your training materials as you do for your standard products. They may reason that, say, talking to employees is not as demanding of high-level skills and expertise as is coaching them through better practices or appropriate conduct.
And many consultants give in, when this comes up. They end up with a series of different rates for different kinds of activities.
That's a big mistake. The effect of using several different rates to compute your charges to the client is not only to reduce your revenues, which is serious enough, but to reduce the pleasure you take in your work.
And didn't you start your consulting business not just to make money, but to do more of the kind of work you really enjoy?
One Rate Is Enough
Your main products and services, the ones you charge those standard fees for, are most likely the ones that interested you when you set up your business. But if your clients learn to use you for other tasks at bargain rates, you will find yourself spending more and more time on those secondary activities.
That's not what you want to do, in terms of what rouses your passion for your business.
But it is also bad for your bottom line. The time you are spending, for lower fees, doing secondary activities is time that you cannot use to perform your preferred activities - activities for which you would charge your full rate.
You are substituting low-paying, undesirable activities for higher-paying, preferred activities.
Train Your Clients
The solution is simple, although not easy. Use one mental rate - the same rate you charge for your main products and services - for any activity you perform for a client. Do not let them talk you into discount rates for "less important" services.
Your clients will learn either to pay the full rate, or they will learn to use other, less-expensive resources to get some things done, reserving your time for the training that is your area of expertise.
You may temporarily lose some revenue from these lower-paying services. Remember, fear of giving up any paid work of any kind is precisely what leads many training consultants to end up with multiple rates, finding themselves spending more time on less pleasant tasks and making less money.
But holding to your core rate gives you more control over what you do and what you get paid for doing it. And that control is one of the main reasons you run your own business. Instead of chasing after any task your client will pay you for, work at replacing low-paying tasks and services with better paying ones. Do the marketing and selling work to replace undesirable business with quality opportunities.
It takes some determination. But after you have trained your clients, and yourself, to expect every hour of your time to be equally valuable, you will find yourself doing more enjoyable work, and making a better income while you do it.
But it's hard to totally escape the need for having some hourly rate schedule, at least in your own head. What should you charge if you have to customize your seminar content for a particular client? How do you charge for additional time to conduct interviews with employees as part of your coaching service? How do you price some new training your client asks you to create for their specific needs?
Most training consultants estimate the time it will take to handle these non-standard situations, and then apply an hourly figure - perhaps calculated as a fraction of a day rate - to determine what to charge the client.
The mistake too many training consultants make is to have several different hourly rates in their heads when they make these calculations.
Base Your Rate on What You Do Best
You client may ask you whether you charge less for that instructional design, or research and interviewing, or customization of your training materials as you do for your standard products. They may reason that, say, talking to employees is not as demanding of high-level skills and expertise as is coaching them through better practices or appropriate conduct.
And many consultants give in, when this comes up. They end up with a series of different rates for different kinds of activities.
That's a big mistake. The effect of using several different rates to compute your charges to the client is not only to reduce your revenues, which is serious enough, but to reduce the pleasure you take in your work.
And didn't you start your consulting business not just to make money, but to do more of the kind of work you really enjoy?
One Rate Is Enough
Your main products and services, the ones you charge those standard fees for, are most likely the ones that interested you when you set up your business. But if your clients learn to use you for other tasks at bargain rates, you will find yourself spending more and more time on those secondary activities.
That's not what you want to do, in terms of what rouses your passion for your business.
But it is also bad for your bottom line. The time you are spending, for lower fees, doing secondary activities is time that you cannot use to perform your preferred activities - activities for which you would charge your full rate.
You are substituting low-paying, undesirable activities for higher-paying, preferred activities.
Train Your Clients
The solution is simple, although not easy. Use one mental rate - the same rate you charge for your main products and services - for any activity you perform for a client. Do not let them talk you into discount rates for "less important" services.
Your clients will learn either to pay the full rate, or they will learn to use other, less-expensive resources to get some things done, reserving your time for the training that is your area of expertise.
You may temporarily lose some revenue from these lower-paying services. Remember, fear of giving up any paid work of any kind is precisely what leads many training consultants to end up with multiple rates, finding themselves spending more time on less pleasant tasks and making less money.
But holding to your core rate gives you more control over what you do and what you get paid for doing it. And that control is one of the main reasons you run your own business. Instead of chasing after any task your client will pay you for, work at replacing low-paying tasks and services with better paying ones. Do the marketing and selling work to replace undesirable business with quality opportunities.
It takes some determination. But after you have trained your clients, and yourself, to expect every hour of your time to be equally valuable, you will find yourself doing more enjoyable work, and making a better income while you do it.
| Will Kenny helps independent training consultants develop content, skills, and strategies for marketing their products and services. With decades of experience as a successful training consultant, he knows the unique needs and obstacles of this business. If you want to take the pain and mystery out of marketing to build your business as an independent training consultant, visit the Best Consulting Practices blog at http://www.BestConsultingPractices.com, or follow Best Consulting Practices on Twitter at http://twitter.com/BestConsulting. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Will_Kenny |  |
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