Value-Pricing Assault Course For Consulting Firms...

...To Transform Consulting Practices from Per Diem Hell to Value-Pricing Heaven to Get Paid What You're Worth

In 1865 Karl Marx supported the "labour theory of value," stating that value is proportional to the labour used. And while this may be (I'm very uncertain) true in industrial companies, it's definitely a blatant lie in professional service firms. Sadly, many of them believe it to be true, and they try to peg their fees against the amount of labour they perform. And in doing so, they often end up suffering from the rocking chair syndrome: Lots of activity and little actual progress. It's only fair to say that in the world of professional services, value has nothing to do with the amount of labour.

Are you still sitting shackled and locked up in the dark and dreary dungeons somewhere in the most pestilential pit of Per Diem hell, desperately trying to stay alive on billable hours and deliverables, and gradually consuming your life with more work just to earn a living?

Well, the situation may look shitty but it's not hopeless.

If you're sick and tired of being paid like a dock worker for the number of sacks and boxes you carry, then this programme may be your rescue.

This new programme is for you if you work in a professional service firm or you're a solo practitioner who already delivers tremendous value to your clients, but somehow your prospects and clients just fail to recognise the value they receive, and...

...you have a chronic overdose of fee objections.

...your services are perceived as commodity.

...you're being price-shopped.

...you're bleeding to slow and agonising death in bidding wars.

...you lose business to lower-priced competitors.

And as a result of these symptoms, you don't get paid for what your service is truly worth. And by recognition here I mean financial recognition. That is, you're essentially offering the proverbial Ferrari at a Yugo price. To be or not to be paid for your worth and the value you deliver? Paraphrasing Shakespeare, this is the earth-shattering and mountain-flattening question.

In case you don't know, Yugo used to be a Yugoslavian car manufacturer hellbent on making the world's cheapest cars. It didn't work. I mean it did... all the way to the bankruptcy court.

Very often clients get bogged down with methodologies, poundage of deliverables and working hours, and fail to focus on the value they actually receive. But is it really failure on their parts or is it failure on the practitioners' part to discuss value. What it means is that it can be remedied with a shift in practitioners' perspectives.

Well, Do You Recognise Yourself in These Problems...

"Most of our prospects perceive our services as a competitive commodity. They treat us as if we were selling cheap diet pills or sacks of potatoes."

"Our clients are unclear about the value we bring them and are pressuring us for fee-reduction. We keep telling them how valuable our service is but they keep repeating like a demented parrot, 'Drop 20% of the price and we can talk.' They just don't understand it."

"We submit detailed proposals to seemingly serious buyers and then they mysteriously disappear. They can never be reached and can never return phone calls or emails again. And we get the same message from their secretaries, 'Please don't call again. If my boss is interested, he will call you'. Is there any other way? I can accept a no, but a no decision really bugs me."

"We are expected to jump through more and more loops while prospects refuse to make commitment and decisions. They just drag us around with the proverbial carrot, but it's really just a lie to fish for free information. How can we stop giving away the store to tyre kickers and freeloaders?"

"Our clients make us accountable for every minute by demanding time sheets in 15 minute increments. And we get paid 30-45 days after submitting our time sheets. When can we do the work? They obviously don't trust us."

We are expected to jump through more and more loops while prospects refuse to make commitment and decisions. They just drag us around with the proverbial carrot, but it's really just a lie to fish for free information. How can we stop giving away the store to tyre kickers and freeloaders?"

So What about These Positive Changes in Your Practice?...

Could you live with them?

"We want to increase client value so we can charge and receive higher fees."

"We'd want to work with ethical and honest buyers who have the guts to make decisions, may it be yes or no, and don't lead us down to dead bidding alleyways to dead ends."

"We want to convert from hourly rates to value-based fees but we're worried that if we do it wrong we can scare clients off."

"We want to develop a better way of communicating the results and value of our services, so buyers don't get fixated on time and deliverables."

"We want to get out of the bloody bidding war, bury our hatchets and leave the battlefield once and for all."

"We want to reduce the time and effort it takes us to deliver distinctive value that is worth premium fee for."

So, if this is a reasonably accurate picture of how you want to improve your practice, then read on and see if this is the platform that can help and support you to implement this fiendishly plan of being able to double or even triple your fees within one year. I know it sounds like a bold statement, but bear with me for a second.

I'm not talking about gradually increasing your fees. No. As technology maven, Wiesner Professor of Media Technology and founding chairman of the famous MIT's Media Lab, Nicolas Negroponte once said, "Incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy." What that means is that you have to look at the issue from a totally different perspective.

But the Basic Problem Lies in the Fact that...

...most consultants love what they do and love talking about them. They love to come to meetings with all guns blazing, poised to jump in with their solutions to help their prospective clients. But this approach gives buyers an opportunity for an early comparison: "You're lawyer. He's lawyer too. So is my son in-law(yer)." So, because you can't pre-empt your solution and don't give your buyer an opportunity for stipulating the value of your services, you lose to the lowest bidder.

So, what if six months from now you could deliver twice of your current value, charge twice of your current fee and you could do it using less of your time and effort. The good news is that you already deliver preponderance of client value. But the bad news is that due to a basic flaw in the client acquisition continuum your prospects and clients don't perceive the true value you offer. And this problem can drop you right in the dead middle of the bidding war battlefield, forcing you to battle it out with your competitors who get the next gig often at competitive(ly low) fees just to grab your fair(ly discounted) share.

And this is why I created the...

Value Pricing Assault Course

I call the programme an assault course because of its close resemblance to a military assault course. But instead of a physical assault course, this is a mental and emotional assault course to help you to blast through the mental and emotional obstacles that hold so many people back from cgharging what their expertise is worth, so that you can achieve both your revenue and lifestyle goals. And while on the military assault course you have a drill sergeant kicking your arse to make sure you successfully handle the obstacles, here you have me, an ex-soldier, to push you through the obstacles of how to charge and get paid for your worth. And luckily, just like any good drill sergeant, I'm an excellent and ruthless arse-kicker too. But more about this a bit later...

Another reason: At this time less than 7% of professional get paid for the value they deliver. So, this programme seriously rocks the boat of conventional wisdom. And the fact is that if you don't rock the boat, some day someone will rock it for you in the form of fee objections, time wasted on tyre kickers and undecided or rejected proposals. So, we'd better do something about it now.

Actually, in a survey by the Professional Consultant, 76 consulting practices have been analysed in depth with the following results:

Those working exclusively on time-based fees had 87% lower profits than those who worked on fixed fee basis.

When profits and salary were added together, the time-based fee group had profits and salary that were 95% lower than their fixed fee colleagues.

For those professionals using time-based fees, profits were 32% lower, and profits and salaries 36% lower than the ones using both time-based and fixed fees.

And these fixed fees are estimated on time and deliverables, not on value. Do you see the difference?

Here's one more interesting fact: According to a study by McKinsey & Co., there is an interesting relationship between your fees and your profits.

1% increase in your fees can result in 11% increase in your profit.

1% drop in your fees can result in a massive 8% nosedive in your profit.

And one more reason for this militaristic name is because, after many years of working with professional service firms all over the world, I've observed one interesting phenomenon: In most firms people seem to know what to do. Some of them seem to know how to do it. Yet, the most important, the most profound and most impactful initiatives never get acted upon.

Why?

The answer is closer than you think. It is plain, pedestrian, garden variety fear.

Yes, it may sound silly but most professional firms don't have the courage and the valour to act on their very own strategies. They intellectually know that their profitability would go up if they could charge higher fees, but how much do they actually think about raising their fees? Well, very little. Why? We cover six reasons in the programme. One major reason is: "I don't deserve it." So, they step back, and just raise their hourly rates to keep pace with inflation. That's all.

So, it's only fair to say that what separates professional firms from achieving premium status instead if getting stuck in the "economical alternative" rut is massive action. Paraphrasing Jack Lemmon's words, "It takes the nerve of a bullfighter, the energy of a nightclub owner and the concentration of a Buddhist monk to build an excellent professional service firm. And it can take some time, as it is nicely "explained" in an old AC/DC song, It's a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll from the 1974 "High Voltage" album.

And fear is just normal to human nature. We all know the path of least resistance. Well, that's the human mind. As Arnold Schwarzenegger put it, "The mind always poops out before the body." By nature, we humans are willing to settle for smaller results provided the path to achieve them is reasonably easy, comfortable and convenient. In order to go beyond that, we need an external force. Roger Bannister, who was already an excellent athlete, was helped by four spot runners to pace him for his four-minute mile historic record. Golfer legend, Tiger Woods has several coaches, ranging from a business coach through a personal trainer to a nutrition coach.

And the military uses those nasty foul-mouthed drill sergeants to train soldiers and build the most reliable and trustworthy teams that get the job done no matter what. Even the pearl in the oyster is the result of the sand's irritation inside the oyster. The pearl is created when the oyster's defence mechanism against the sand's irritation kicks in. And we all have the pearl inside us. But not everyone is willing endure the irritation to find it.

Time to Step up

I've created the Value-Billing Assault Course around the same ingredients the military uses for soldiers' skill development. And the military is the very environment where you can't cheat. If you don't know your stuff, you might just catch a bullet and kick the bucket. So, unlike many other workshops, this is not warm and fuzzy with group hugs, but... well effective. The demands are high just as they are in the real world of business. In the military you can get killed. In business, the competition can trample you down if you're not prepared. And that can ruin even the nicest day.

So, with this in mind, the programme focuses on four areas...

1. Principles - This is a big part of the programme. This is about the mindset. Going into the programme without clearing up this mindset issue is like letting young kids carry arms. Physically they can pull the trigger but they have no moral understanding if the devastating consequences. Most people need major paradigm shift to understand that, for instance, they don't rip off their clients by charging drastically higher fees provided the value is there. We cover six major issues that hold back practitioners from raising their fees.

But there are four other reasons why people resist change...

1. Habit - "That would rock the boat big time. Let's just keep doing what we've always done. It may not produce the results we're seeking but at least we're used to doing it. We can do it with our eyes closed." The dirty reality: "I have to make decisions, change habits, give up the comfort of the status quo, so I couldn't act on whim and impulse. No way!"

2. Fear - "Oh, what if it doesn't work? If it were so good then everyone would be doing it. Let's not do anything unusual." The dirty reality: "I don't have a strong enough conviction in my services and my abilities that I can pull this off. I rather just stay where I am."

3. Prejudice - "No, that wouldn't work here. We are totally different. You just don't understand our unique situation." The dirty reality: "We have so overcomplicated our business that no one on this Earth, including our target market, can understand what we're actually doing."

4. Inertia - Yes, but we've always done it this way, so why would we change? The dirty reality: "We don't think we're capable of improving even an iota. And if we don't even try, we can't fail and don't draw attention to our mistakes. We're comfortable enough just slogging away as is."

2. Ingredients - There are some key ingredients that must be included when a firm is transforming from being a vendor paid for dispensed time and deliverables to being a true advisor paid for value delivered. In the programme we identify the ingredients and participants customise the ingredients to their own businesses. Missing out even one ingredient can lead to disasters, as price-shocked clients deserting you in droves.

3. System - This is the infrastructure of holding the all the ingredients together and making it duplicable. Just think of Vivaldi's systematic fiddling with the chromatic tone scale, and call it The Four Seasons. Without Vivaldi it's just 12 tones. With Vivaldi, it's a system. The whole idea is that you don't want to re-invent the wheel every time a new prospect comes into your funnel. If you want to listen to the Four Seasons, you don't have to get it re-composed. You just play the "system." It would also be pretty difficult to convince Vivaldi for the re-composing after many years of careful decomposing.

4. Action with Accountability - This is about actually doing the work and following through with the assault course's objective. And as a good (tor)mentor, I just keep pushing you to get things done. And this is where the problem lies. I could even say, this is where the proverbial dog is buried.

Being an ex-military, I know my militaristic methods work, after all the military has been using it successfully for a long time. But my approach is not exactly smooth and polished. While I provide constant nudging and nurturing to get the most out of the programme, I'm not exactly tactful or diplomatic. Nevertheless the method works with committed people who focus on substance and can enjoy the professional but non-business-like style.

And let's stop here a bit and spend a few words on accountability. This is where people's good intentions go down the toilet. Consider these facts...

96% of adults say they want to change something about their appearance, but do absolute nothing about it. Not a sausage.

76% of people claim they exercise but 59% are pretty overweight and still gaining weight.

Over 50% of people claim they try to eat healthy, but 34% of them regularly eat at junk food joints.

37% of people ask for more "all you can eat" restaurants.

People just don't do what they say they want to do. And they don't do it in spite of the fact that they know they would benefit from it. But again, this is normal human nature.

There is one thing though. Slackers are not tolerated for a very specific reason. A few years ago I did a very famous and expensive business coaching programme which dragged on month after month because we were progressing at the pace of the biggest slacker. The company didn't have the guts to expel the slackers, but rather punished those of us who did the homework and prepared for each class. So, I rather lose some clients than tolerate slackers who talk but don't play.

So, What Can You Expect from the Programme?

This is a three-month high-intensity coaching programme to help and support you in transforming your firm from the traditional "time and deliverables" compensation model of a vendor to a value-based model of a trusted advisor. It offers you the value-centred perspective, the information and infrastructure to design your own system and the action to actually put it into use...

1. Your services will be perceived as that of a trusted advisor offering unique services, as opposed to just being another vendor dispensing a lukewarm commodity in time chunks at competitive(ly low) prices.

2. Your clients will better understand the value of your services, and don't get stuck on your methodologies and the number of hours you take to do the work.

3. You submit value-based, as opposed time and task-based, proposals only to buyers who make a conditional commitment to hiring you. You also drastically reduce the time to craft your proposals.

4. You no longer have to succumb to bloody bidding wars for idiots who are seeking premium advice at rock-bottom prices. No more loops to jump through, no more wasted time on tyre kickers and no more chasing the proverbial carrot which is always out of reach, while the proverbial stick constantly poking your arse.

5. You increase the calibre of your clientele. You start attracting buyers who focus on the unique value your collaboration can create, instead of getting lost in minute details, such as deliverables, methodologies and number of hours.

6. You can deliver more value to your clients and get paid for it. Many clients love great value but don't want to pay for it. Now clients fully understand that they only receive the value they are willing to pay for.

6. You learn why and how most practitioners make their buyers focus on time, tasks and deliverables, while failing to allow buyers to establish the value of the service they're about to receive.

7. You reduce the time and effort with which you deliver your services. You reposition your firm, so your buyers can no longer compare your to your competitors

Topics We Cover

Don't be surprised here! I don't promise you a truckload of new things. Just like any good military training, this programme is very focused on just a very few topics. In the army few years ago, when we were on the shooting range, the drill sergeant didn't dilute the training with radio or first aid skills. That was a different programme. This is the same. They key is to master one skill and one skill only: Improving your ability of helping your buyers to articulate the value you offer, so they can pay you for that value. Within this premise we cover these topics.

1. How to separate qualified buyers from tyre kickers to make sure you only meet the former and avoid the latter with amazing accuracy.

2. How to conduct a value-based discovery meeting only with highly qualified buyers.

3. How to craft a questioning process to diagnose buyers' problems and the value you bring to the table by solving them.

4. How to write a value-based proposal to buyers who've already made a conditional commitment to hiring you.

5. How to price your proposed projects based on the expected - quantitative, qualitative and personal - impact your client will derive from your help and support.

6. How to follow up after submitting your proposal, making certain you actually get an answer. (Some 54% of all submitted proposals are never decided upon, and the majority of the 54% are flatly rejected.)

To Participate You Have to Be a Player

More specifically...

You actually have a life beyond business, and regard your business as a means to create a better life.

You have mental toughness, emotional stability, guts under pressure, resilience in the face of adversity and deep-rooted core values you actually live by.

You have great visions and it's stronger than the temptation of giving in to the quick buck.

You are willing to go by leaps and bounds as opposed to plodding along safely.

You are committed to doing the work, knowing that if you fall behind, you hold everyone back.

You have a healthy streak of unorthodoxy and a good dosage of daredevilry, and are wiling to take calculated risks.

You have the courage to look tough decisions in the eye and take massive action.

You have energy, inspiration and enthusiasm to create something of kick-arse calibre.

You can pack up your ego and take critique and feedback without offending or insulting yourself (One can be insulted only by oneself no one else).

Structure of the Value-Billing Assault Courses

The information and the relentless arse-kicking is structured in the following fashion.

The programme is based on fortnightly 90-minute learning/arsekicking sessions. It's really virtual arsekicking because we meet on the phone, but the metal and emotional impacts are the same, that is, you will take action. We use forced application, a method used in accelerated learning, including in the military, to make sure you do the work and submit it for review.

The programme runs in three squads, with 12 participants in each. The squads are small, so everyone has personal attention both from me and the other squad members. This way we can leverage our combined brainpower.

Between our sessions you do your homework, and submit it for review and feedback. And you'll get plenty of pushing, prodding and cajoling from me.

To improve your learning and transition to value-billing, you can join the discussion forum too where, in addition to my comments, you can get feedback from your fellow participants too.

Logistics of the Value-Billing Assault Courses

Dates of the Programme

There are two squads in the programme at any one time...

The Wolverine Squad meets on Tuesdays: 7 and 21 February; 7 and 21 March; 4 and 18 April.

The Raptor Squad meets on Thursdays: 9 and 23 February; 9 and 23 March; 6 and 20 April.

Later on there will be a third squad in the form of a mastermind for practitioners in need of ongoing support.

Time of Sessions:

Each course contains six 90-minute telephone sessions. Each session is held at 12 noon Pacific Standard Time on the dates outlined above.

Investment Options

Although the Value-Billing Assault Course is a three-month programme, you can pay on a monthly basis if you prefer. The investment is $295US a month, payable by the first of each month. You receive a 10% value savings if you pay for the full three-month programme at commencement. You can also reserve your place for an upcoming course for $100US, and then make your payment by one week before the first session.

So, before you decide whether or not the Value-Billing Assault Course is for you, read the...

Ten Reasons for Switching to Value Billing

Average Canadian consultants bill out 22 hours per week. In a year it is 1,144 hours. Multiply this number by your hourly rate, and what you are staring at is the absolute maximum you can earn. Yes, you can put in more hours, but you may want to have a life too. So, for those who opt for having a life, here are ten reasons for implementing value billing in your practice...

1. Value-based fees remove the limitations from your earning. Your income is proportional to the value of your solution regardless of elapsed time and poundage of deliverables.
2. Charging for value is an investment. Buyers want to cut expenses but hardly ever cut investments that offer high return. When you emphasise the value the client receives from you as a result of hiring you, you talk about return on investment not merely costs.
3. Value-based fees will increase your positioning in your market. You will be perceived as an innovative value provider, not merely a peddler of time chunks. You raise the bar not merely restore the status quo.
4. Value-based fees position you on the client's side of the table. This way everyone involved in working towards the same objectives. You make money by enabling your clients makes money.
5. Value-based fees make your clients truly committed to the success of their projects. They are less likely to quit on you, leaving you alone struggling to finish the project with no support.
6. It is not elapsed time and poundage of deliverables but your smarts, accumulated experience, intuition and finesse that will improve your clients' condition. Your objective is not to sell more hours, but to truly help your clients to improve their situation.
7. With value-based fees both you and your client will be infinitely more confident in the outcome of the project. You are committed because you are paid for expected results, contingent on the client's implementation. Clients are more committed to implementing your solutions because they want to enjoy the return on their investment.
8. Value-based fees can overcome possible client stinginess and protect your name from being associated with a project that turned into a disaster because of clients changed their minds and ended the project on a whim.
9. Charging for value protects you from being fired before completion of the project on the pretext that the new management is not interested in your solution. The quality of your approach is assured, since your fee is set and is committed to being paid to you in your agreement. Also, smart executives don't fire value creators and don't stop valuable investments. Conversely, we don't have to work with idiots.
10. Value billing allows you to go beyond "going rates" or "competitive (ly low)" rates. Clients don't want "going results" or "competitive results". They want blazingly outstanding "earth-shattering" results.

And on the top of all this you get huge career satisfaction for being recognised for the value you offer.

Applying for the Value-Billing Assault Course

Considering both the topic and the intense nature of the programme, it is not suitable for everyone. Using the questions below, please give me some specifics about you and your business, and I'll get back to you and let you know whether or not this programme is right for you. Upon acceptance, I'll also send you the payment link, and you're required to reserve your place in the course.

But before you apply, please read all the details. This programme is only for professional service firms and solo practitioners that aspire to charge and get paid for the value they deliver. To apply for the programme, answer the questions on this form and email it to me at bald.dog(at)di-squad.com (Replace "(at)" with "@".). Please put "[Bald Dog]" in the subject line, so I can promptly respond to you.