In a down market, businesses need to work harder to maintain and grow profitability.
Companies will be more price sensitive than usual, but there’s always demand for people who can create value in surplus of their costs.
As a consultant, this is your opportunity. The next lead that comes along, get clear on what their business goals really are.
Figure out how they will measure success against those goals. Don’t let them be vague or ambiguous.
Using those metrics, do some napkin math with them to roughly estimate the value of achieving those metrics.
Once you’re clear on the goals and how you’d measure success, your job now is to create three options to help them get there.
You could do one or two, but three options creates a nice range to choose from. Anchor all of your offers against the value of their goals. Make each a clear win for both of you.
Assuming you can help them make meaningful headway toward those goals, there should be plenty of value in the relationship for both of you to capture.
This is the essence of value-based fees. This is what it means to be a co-buyer with your client.
Goals, measurement, value, price, and scope.
—k
H/T to Alan Weiss for his teachings on this.