How to Command Premium Fees 101

Warning: What you're about to learn might be sensitive for some visitors. It can upset long-held, limiting beliefs.

Reader discretion is advised.

Are you tired of undercharging for your expertise and not getting paid what you're worth?

As a business advisor, you know the immense value you provide, yet somehow, you're still stuck on the income roller coaster and feast or famine of hourly rates, blocks of hours, or fractional roles.

This keeps your income tied too closely to time.

And since your time has a limit, so does your income. You find yourself capped by the number of hours in a day.

But how do you break free from this frustrating time-for-money trap and start charging what you’re truly worth?

Here are six simple changes you can make now that will help you finally make the money you deserve:

1. Understand what and why people buy

Money is a measure of your client's perception of the impact you're making in their lives.

Impact is how fast you move them closer to love, joy, peace, and happiness in their emotional whirlwind.

The emotional whirlwind is part of our inner world and something we all live in each day, and every moment of our waking hours is spent striving toward positive emotions and away from negative ones.

Everything we do is for that purpose.

Every dollar or unit of currency we spend is for that purpose.

To elevate our emotions.

To be at the higher altitudes of our emotional whirlwind.

So, to command a higher fee, you must show your potential client how you can move them toward those higher emotions with speed, ease, excellence, efficiency, and with little or no risk. You must:

2. Be excellent at helping them solve their problems

You don't have to know it all (nobody does), but you definitely want to have an extension of your knowledge and experience that reach far beyond you.

And you want it all within arm's reach.

The way you do that is,

* Leverage AI.

* Build (or buy your way into) a complimentary network or mastermind group of other experts who'll support you.

3. Show them you've done this for others

Your unique mechanism or method for getting results must be tested, proven, and believable.

The more social proof, the better.

Social proof is the Teflon that takes friction and objections out of the sales conversation.

If you don't have at least one good case study, it'll be hard to command a premium fee.

Not impossible, just hard.

So if this is you, get out there and get a client, even if you have to work pro-bono. 

Get them amazing results, and ask them for permission to write a case study about them to use in your marketing and sales efforts.

4. Use a business model that serves both them AND you

* No SOWs

* No packages

* No hourly rates

* No fractional roles

* No blocks of hours

* ONLY monthly retainers or pay in full

* And be very, very careful when selling packages

You should be getting $3K to $10K or more for coaching engagements. Even more for consulting.

5. Use a sales process that converts at least 20% of prospects to clients

* Monetize the gap

* Don't be pushy or icky

* Present an irresistible offer

* Have mounds of social proof

6. Monetize the gap

The most important step in positioning yourself and your offer for premium fees is to determine the value to your prospect of closing the distance from where they are to where they want to be. Your fee should be at least 10% of this, preferably 20%.

Help them turn nickels into quarters.

It's important to determine both the monetary AND the emotional value of the gap.

Stay focused on this value, and help them continue to make meaningful and measurable progress toward their new and better place.

Your prospects want to experience a transformation.

I pay people well who help me do this.

So do you.

And so will they.

Implement this and switch from the roller coaster to the rocket ship.

Enjoy the ride.