How to Set Your Consulting Fees

For any consultant starting off, figuring out what you should bill your clients is often the most difficult challenge. Charge too much and you'll fear that you wont get any clients, charge too little and you wont make enough money. 

The quick answer is to find out what your peers are billing, and use that as a basis. Often when you are starting off, price may be the only way you can compete. Once you have an established track record, you can start to justify a higher fee. Many consultants will walk away from a lot of money because they fear that they will not attract the same amount of work. Ironically, this is exactly what you want. 

 Think about when you first started off in your consulting career. You probably did work for clients who wanted as much as they could get for free, or for next to nothing. In wanting to establish a clientele or portfolio, you likely agreed. Think about the number of hours you spent working on this clients project, and the pay you received for that. There are many potential clients out there who wants your work, your expertise and your opinion for free, or next to nothing. 

There is another set of potential clients who dont mind paying for quality. Those are the clients you want to target. Here's why: a) these clients are likely used to paying for quality, and the higher price gives the perception that you are providing that quality. b) these clients know exactly what they want, and are willing to provide you with details you need to get the project completed. When they are paying you top dollar, time is money c) a cheaper fee conveys inexperience. 

The type of clients you want to attract do not want inexperience d) a higher fee feeds the perception that your work is in demand When you raise your rates, you will lose clients. However, the clients you gain will make up for it. Imagine working on fewer projects and making the same amount of money as you do today. Now imagine picking up another client in that free time. Its important to remember that you must deliver on the quality. The increase in expectations match the increase in your fees. 

If you are going to raise the bar for your fees, be prepared to raise the bar on the quality of your work and how you deliver on it. Value based billing will often help you get past the challenge of billing a higher rate. If you bill by the project, or bill by the phase of the project, you will find that you can bill a higher rate than your current hourly rate. 

The faster you get the project done, the more you make per hour, and the happier your client is. If you bill $2000 for a project that can deliver in 2 weeks, your client will likely budget that you are billing $25/hr. If the project is worth $2000 to complete to the client, they will sign off on the project. If you deliver that project in 1 week instead of 2, you'll have 1 week off to play golf, or start work on your next project. Meanwhile, your work will be worth $50/hr. Of course, your client is happy because you have delivered your project early, and met his expectations. Underpromise and over deliver. 

About The Author Christopher Smith has been providing tips for small business consultants for over 7 years. For more great tips, please visit http://www.consultingscene.com.

Can Internet Marketing Be a Long Term Business?

Here is the basic honest truth: most of the people get into Internet Marketing because they are convinced it is an easy way to earn quick money. Their approach is to make a fast website, put up some advertising and a few affiliate links and then sit back and watch while they earn real cash. There are a large amount of individuals who do this and also earn lots of money on the internet. But what if you want more than some extra or even quick cash (quick cash, naturally being a misnomer)? Can Internet Marketing really be leveraged to produce a worthwhile and long term career?

The quick and dirty answer is that yes, you are able to make Internet Marketing your long term and sustainable career. You only need to take on the project properly. The procedures and programs you use to build something to earn fast money are not all that different than the methods and systems you will use to build long term profits. So what would you do if you need to develop a sustainable career on the internet?

It is very important that the first thing you do, in order to earn long term money online, is accept the fact that you are going to have to do real work. You will have to do actual and real work on a daily basis and you will have days when you feel fantastic about what you do and days when you wish you could find something else to take on. This causes it to be just about like every other occupation that is out there. If you want to produce lasting cash flow by working lots right now and not at all later on then you are going to be in for a rude awakening in a little while. So be ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

There are a few ventures that lend themselves much better to a long term career than others will. Affiliate marketing, to use one example, is a great task for someone who wants to earn money on a part time basis or to supplement your already existent income. Is it truly possible to earn a full time income in this manner? You could if you pick out only the right products and then work like crazy to promote them. A far better approach, nevertheless, is to create your own products or websites and then promote those. This gives you full control over the projects you take on and how you accomplish them. And you will end up more likely to stick with it in the long run. If you want to give a service on the web this works much the same way. Writers, for example, need to create websites for themselves and create portfolios that they can point to as examples of their work.

Finally, perhaps the most significant thing that you need to recognize is that, when you want to build a long term and reliable income on the internet, you need to truly dedicate yourself to your task. You might have fun and feel rewarded by your efforts but first you should tell yourself "yes, I really want to do this." Making a half hearted effort is not about to get you anywhere.

Source: http://senataka.info/