Great Entrepreneurial Pricing

Or, "Fishing for the right fish in the right river with the right bait!"*

(*thanks to Ian Skinner - My BIG Mentor - for that one.)

Have you ever found setting your pricing a challenge? I have.

If you haven't, you can message me your own strategy without investing any time in reading and applying the content of this article.

If you have had a challenge setting your price, read on and get ready to overcome this challenge.

Impatient? Here's the first of two aspects to my new Great Entrepreneurial Pricing Strategy:

Require the benefactor to pay the same rate per hour to you that they'd pay themselves

Enough? Good! You can stop reading now.

...

Still here?

OK, you're curious. Let's go deeper...

Personally, I'm enjoying my most productive, creative, and inspired period of my Life. This is rich given that there is ￡5 in the bank and I'm officially personally bankrupt. How do I come to be enjoying an inspired, creative, and productive Life? Shouldn't I be miserable and even depressed? Nope!

l + PT + GTR = F

Firstly, there's nothing like lack (l) combined with Possibility Thinking (PT) and a Great Track Record (GTR) to get you Focused! (F) There are only two 'F' words I use on a daily basis: "Focus!" and "Fascinating!"

I believe you need all three: l + PT + GTR.

If you're suffering lack and you have surrounded this with impossibility thinking in spite of having a Great Track Record, you are still courting a visit from the black dog of depression.

If you are suffering lack and you have Possibility Thinking and yet you have a poor track record, you may yet be in la la land. Watch out for the Unicorns! They're more thorny than horny.

No dogs, no unicorns, OK?

Possibility Thinking is far better than Positive Thinking. I have met many people who wrap horrible situations in a veneer of pseudo-positivity - as if they are not in real trouble. That is what I call a veneerial disease. Psuedo-Positive Thinking is toxic, harmful, short-lived.

Possibility Thinking, on the other hand, may envelope any situation without putting a positive spin on it. It seeks, instead, to mine every scenario for the gold of opportunity, possibility, and rich vein of robust hope. It asks four great questions:

Q. What are the benefits of this?

Q. What lessons can I learn from this?

Q. How can I turn this to my advantage?

Q. What's my next physical action step forward?

Reading a recent postcard from Alan Bennett to Victoria Sturgess (of Black Pug Books fame), I am reminded of his comment about his father's joy at losing his teeth at 25. Clearly, Alan's father believed and felt that the loss of his teeth was a definite benefit compared with whatever distress they had previously caused him. (re. the benefit question above.)

You can hear the contents of the postcard below. It's an aside, but it's delightful.

How wonderful is that?

Thank you, Alan Bennett!

Let lack be your catalyst if you're in a similar situation! Add this catalyst to a hi-octane mix of Possibility Thinking and a Great Track Record, and, "Whoomp!" you'll be off to a roaring start in seconds.

Great Track Record

A quick note on the GTR. You've survived so far. That's a Great Track Record! Anyone who sold you the myth that life was guaranteed to be easy sold you a lie, a fairy-tale, a deception. If you're like most of us, you've been through some tough times - but they've passed, and you are still here. That's a Great Track Record - the evidence that you've made it before, so you can make it again. Use those memories to remind yourself that you can not only do it again, you can improve on how you respond to the current challenge.

Great Entrepreneurial Pricing Strategy #1

I've shared this above for the impatient! If you're still reading, you are far superior to the impatient... and, after all, perseverence is a characteristic of the Entrepreneurial Mindset!

The strategy is simple: charge them what they'd pay themselves.

Trust me, lots of your clients will hate this. Many want a clear price that they can say 'yes' or 'no' to. My point is that they won't respect any price that is below what they'd pay themselves, though they may love a cheap deal. A cheap deal says as much about you as it does about the deal.

'Respect' is the key word here. Most of my clients can't pay me what I value my time at (￡625 per hour; ￡5000 per day). The second best scenario for me is thus to get them to respect themselves. Once I know what they value their time at and match that, we are on an equal playing field.

"Don't be unequally yoked..."

That's in The Good Book [2 Corinthians 6:14]. The next part of the verse is, "...with unbelievers..." We're talking about credibility and respect here. You need to be credible. Match your hourly-rate to your client's and you will be ploughing a straight furrow forwards. Miss this, and the only furrow you'll see is the furrow of frustration on your forehead.

Great Entrepreneurial Pricing Strategy #2

The second strategy kicks in if they say, "No" to the matched-hourly-rate. This one is non-negotiable. If they can't (horrible word, should be banned), or won't pay but they say they value what you offer, make it clear that they still owe you the balance and that this will have to be paid in kind.

We don't do discounts

Work out the balance and let them work it off in products or services to match. If you are not worth per hour what they pay themselves, they are not worth having as clients. No one respects freebies - they like them - but they don't respect them.

This sounds like Don Corleone territory!

I'm not Godfather, yet I do share three aspects in common:

1. A love of cats - check out that cat in the clip - so cool!
2. A devotion to mutual-respect
3. An expectation that there are no free lunches - not in Nature and so not in Life.

Nature is a closed system. It's all about exchange. This is the world in which we live.

If you give people your time for free, a debt is incurred. Whether you call that debt in or not is up to you, but the debt remains.

Why Are You So Joyful, Lex?

It takes a long time for some of us to learn how the system works. For someone who excels in teaching 'Accelerated Learning', I can be a slow learner at times!

I've given away too much for too long, and I've 'forgiven' those debts. The resulting lack of respect served neither me nor those I gave service to. So it's stopped and it's like a weight off my back.

Clean slate. Fresh start. Move on.

Now, we can have far more fun and be far more respectful of one another, and, bottom line, be far more productive. If I do something for you - anything - there needs to be give and take, ebb and flow, yin and yang, breathe in and breathe out! Equally, you won't be doing anything for me for free. Let us respect one another.

Our first conversation after expressing a desire to work together will be about the exchange of value - the cost - the investment - however you want to frame it. It's margin before mission. I worked out the mission when I was 18!

" No Margin; No Mission."

That was Sister Irene Kraus of "The Flying Nuns." [The blog that the hyperlink will take you to is rather fascinating.] Good work is funded by good cash flow!

Thus, I'm joyful. Plus I've found my flow. I love to write. I love to produce video. I love to compose. I love to do voice-overs and narrate. I love to see others shine when I produce and then monetise their talent (through mentoring them in blogging, vlogging, writing their book, podcasting, and publishing their online programmes - all permanent cash flowing assets.)

Now I love to be paid for being in my flow. What's not to rejoice about?

MF + CF = J

My Flow + Cash Flow = Joy in fulfilling one's purpose and mission.

That's me at one of my home-from-home locations: Hotel du Vin, in Poole. Paradise. Oh, and that's my serious face.

In the spirit of my new strategy, I shall put to the test my assertion that, "You get what you ask for." If you are feeling generous and enriched by any of the content I share, you can say, "Thank You!" with a glass of wine or even a bottle of wine (I don't like this 'buy the artist a coffee thing') to facilitate my journey on my way to owning a vineyard! Entre nous, I don't drink cheap wine.

Bonus

Test number two, for those who need to raise the quality of their LinkedIn profile to World Class, here's uncharged access to my short online programme on:

"10 Easy Steps to a World Class LinkedIn Profile."

It said, 'FREE', but it isn't anymore. Instead, I'm going to leave free access open to this programme on the understanding that you 'pay what you want' when you have sampled or even finished the programme. 10 Easy Steps to a World Class LinkedIn Profile. or, if you'd like to copy and paste a bit.ly link: https://bit.ly/WorldClassLinkedInProfile

Pay what you want to: paypal.me/lexmckee

Thank you, and please send me your 'before' and 'after' profile link. For 'before' - message me before you make any of the adjustments!

Now, go charge yourself out at the rate you're worth!