WHAT SHOULD I CHARGE MY CLIENTS?

Early into my career as a consultant and leadership coach, I found it quite difficult to charge my clients more for my services because I felt I ran a small operation that didn’t have the reputation and size of big consulting firms. As a result, I could not justify invoicing my clients larger amounts.

If you recently started a business, or maybe you’ve been running one for many years and are like me, you might be tempted to say, “Well, I run a small business with a few employees, I’m not all that big. There is no need to price my services or products so high”. These are the words that I used to convince myself to bill my clients less. As long as I was earning a salary equivalent to my previous role, that was fine by me.

But that all changed when I realised that companies were willing to pay more. My clients did not simply want to pay me to cover my expenses – they hired me to bring transformation to their organisations and that was not just a small expense to be salaried. I dedicated hours to turning around company environments, reconciling people to one another, causing people who wanted to leave their companies, to stay. I was bringing a great deal of value and that is what my clients were willing to pay for. Price was not the issue! Value was.

If you are unsure about how to price your services or product, I encourage you to determine what value you bring to your clients and use that as a starting point. And while there is a season for giving of yourself, and earning less than you would like, don’t spend years and years undervaluing your services or your products to the point that you undercut your own worth. After all, if your products and services are something that your clients truly need, they will certainly be willing to pay more and you might find that you are invoicing double or triple what you originally had in mind.