Stand out from your competitors and put yourself in a category of your own to get paid what you are truly worth

As a consultancy or creative agency, you are very probably familiar with the concept of value based pricing. But,,,you may have looked at it and not been convinced. Or tried it, and found it doesn’t work as described. In either of these cases, your scepticism is justified.

To make value based pricing work, you need to go through three steps. But 99% of what you hear and read about it is only step 1.

The Intelligent Pricing Architecture process gives you, for the first time, all three steps so that you can make value based pricing work for you.

If you’ve been in business long enough to have some happy clients, a reasonably well defined proposition and some experience of selling your services, the Intelligent Pricing Architecture process will give you a systematic way of getting the fees you deserve without haggling or risking losing the sale.

The process solves the three problems that are preventing you from commanding the fees your work deserves:

• Not having a clear and compelling way of talking about the value you produce;
• Being compared against the wrong things, in ways that devalue you;
• Not standing out against inferior but apparently similar, cheaper competitors.

So this is what we do…

First,

Your value proposition has been designed to attract attention, and it probably does that well. What it doesn’t do, however, is prepare the way to a higher fee. So we design (and where necessary script in detail) a way of talking more convincingly and compellingly about the value you produce, in all its different forms. To reach this point;

• I’ll take you through a series of checklists and case studies and ask some strange questions to build a picture of all the benefits you provide to your clients (almost always more than you realise);
• Then we’ll find the most compelling way of presenting these benefits, even when they are highly intangible;
• And then we’ll develop a list of questions to ask to be sure to uncover what in your offering is most valuable to potential clients.

At the end of this first stage you’ll always know what to say, and what to ask, when talking to a client.

Secondly,

We’ll decide who or what you want to be compared against – you get to choose. A lot of success in pricing comes down to presentation – present your fee in one way and it looks really expensive; present it differently and it looks like insanely good value.

• We’ll apply the science behind how clients actually evaluate fees, to devise a way of presenting your fee in a way that works with their mental architecture, not against it;
• We’ll work out the specific comparisons you can make, so that you can preemptively present these;
• We’ll develop the list of questions you need to ask to build the most convincing proposal.

Once this element is in place, you’ll put an end to the anxiety of presenting an ambitious fee and wondering “will they accept it or not?”

Thirdly,

None of the above will help you if there’s someone else who looks similar and says they’ll do the work for less. So we’ll find a way to make you stand out amidst the sea of sameness that most clients perceive when they’re looking for a consultancy or an agency.

• We’ll pull out and make crystal clear how you do what you do. This makes the intangible more tangible. We’ll go from “we do this magical thing which produces this great result” to “we go through this series of steps…” This hugely increases your clients’ confidence that you know what you’re doing, and and that you can produce the result you claim;
• I’ll run through my very long list of concepts, frameworks and processes to find the one we can adapt to make something you can claim as uniquely your own;
• And then we’ll find a name for this process that will establish it as yours. Maybe you can even trademark it.

Once this is done, you will be the only viable choice, the one that your clients can choose with confidence.

How It Works

There are three options for how we work together. They all cover the same areas, and get you to the same point. The difference is in how much support and accountability you get.

Option 1 – Fully Bespoke Service

This is the option if you want the maximum of support and the minimum of effort. It also offers a firm end date. Your commitment is simply to show up to a weekly session of 50 minutes at a regular time for an agreed period. When you’re with me, I do 90% of the hard thinking. (If you want to do work between the sessions, so much the better, but it’s not essential).

Option 2 – Unlimited Calls and Email

This option gives you individual support; I lead you through the process, giving you a template to fill in, a question to answer or an exerciseexercises to complete. When you’re ready, you send the results to me and I review them by email or, if you feel the need, you book a 15 minute call. In this option accountability is up to you. I am available to you for 6 months, but you shouldn’t need all of that.

Option 3 – Unlimited Email

This is Option 2 without the calls. If your diary is impossible, it gives you a way of working that doesn’t add appointments. Accountability is entirely down to you, and with only email progress will probably be slower. I’m available to you for 9 months.

Investment

Before you consider the investment, let me put the figures in context.

To calculate how much it would be worth to you to improve your pricing:

Take your annual revenues;
Calculate 15% of that, from a 15% increase in average fees (quite a conservative estimate, based on clients’ experience). This increase goes straight to the bottom line.
Now multiply this annual figure by 3, because once we’ve done the work it should serve you for 3 years at least.

So as an example:

Annual revenue £1m
Average fee increase 15%
Additional profit in the first year – £150,000
Additional profit over 3 years – £450,000

That’s what’s on offer here, financially speaking.

Now for the options:

Option 1: Fully Bespoke Service: fee and duration by agreement, based on your unique circumstances. If the value calculation above has come out above £750,000 I strongly suggest that you explore this option. It would be a great investment.

Option 2: Unlimited Email and Calls: £9,000

Option 3: Unlimited Email: £4,500

What To Do Next

If you want to get started, just email me at acd@akenhurst.com and I’ll get things moving. If you’d like to talk to clarify anything or discuss which option would be best, I’m happy to. Use this link to my calendar.