Stop Giving It Away!

Do you find that you are not earning the income you wanted from your business?  Are potential clients asking you to give them freebies, or telling you they need your help but can’t afford it?  Here are some Stellar Strategies to ensure your business is earning the income you deserve and you get paid your worth!

I started working with a new client this week; he has a fabulous business concept and is obviously very talented!  His business was born from a hobby of helping friends who wanted to start their own businesses, which means he is up against two issues:

1. He has traditionally provided his services for free, so that is his default mode, and
2. He thinks he doesn’t have enough experience and so devalues his offerings.

These are actually very common issues with many business owners I coach.  Often we are good at something and enjoy it – we want to work for ourselves, so it seems like a great solution!  We do some jobs for people we know, decide this is a goer and we start our own business!  BUT WE HAVE TO SOMETIME MAKE THE BREAK FROM HELPING TO EARNING!

The natural progression is that at some stage we have to find a way to value what it is we offer.  This value process is the change that needs to occur so we can charge a fair price for our services!  Now this is easier if you have a product as opposed to a service, BUT in my experience, many businesses forget to add enough margin in their product range to account for all of the extra’s it takes to run a business.

So, how do you value what you do and make a fair income from your business…

Set your prices (and stick to them)!!

It is seriously that simple!  I will soon have a pricing matrix available on my website to help you with this process (as I mentioned previously, many businesses tend to undervalue their services).

There are a few follow up procedures I recommend you follow as well:

1. have a price list for your own internal use, so you commit yourself to earning your value and aren’t tempted to sway,
2. have different offers for different price ranges (eg: low, medium, high; full or partial services)
3. have payment options (if you wish) for people who are genuine about needing your services, but can not perhaps pay the full amount up front,
4. know if/what you will be willing to accept in exchange (eg: you might offer reciprocal services instead of money exchange), and lastly
5. DON’T GIVE IT AWAY!  Break the habit right now! It might mean losing some business, but trust me you will pick it up from people willing to pay and that is what you want!

There is one more point I would like to make, charging a fair price is intricately involved with Self Worth, especially for service providers.  Self worth shouldn’t be measured by the number of jobs you have or haven’t done, or the number of clients you have or haven’t dealt with;

Self Worth is tied to how deserving you FEEL!

One of the best ways to feel deserving of a fair income is to set prices and stick to them.  We don’t get what we deserve, we get what we THINK we deserve – so move your thought process!  Define your worth and then practice the habit of sticking to that definition!

I hope these Stellar Strategies help you to start earning a fair price for your work and bringing income into your business!  You don’t need to give your services away – you deserve to earn a fair income!  Next post I will talk about the “Stellar Foundation to Successful Sales” this is a great way to make sure you are able to sell your business and yourself comfortably!

Tags: earn a fair price, get paid your worth, giving your services away, good small business tips, how to get paid for what you do, increase business, increase your business, pricing matrix, self worth, set your prices, small business tips and advice, Stellar Strategies, value what you do

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.