Watch Your Language: Clients & Pricing

Sam Dunn on June 16th, 2009 Posted in Business

Want more pricing help? This is day two of our five part series on pricing clients. You can find the rest of the articles on the Pricing Bootcamp splash page

When first meeting with a (potential) client it is important to establish yourself as capable, competent, and professional. In the early stage of giving a quote or proposal to a client it is easy to slip into conversation where unrealistic expectations or promises are tossed around in order to seal the deal. In some cases this level of candid conversation can come back to hurt you later in the project.

First Contact

First off, let’s create a basic outline of goals to accomplish during your initial client meeting.

1. Become familiar with project requirements.
2. Offer insight and suggestions when applicable
3. Set up next point of contact (Sending quote or proposal)
4. End Meeting

And that’s all. Your first meeting should be an info gathering and credibility establishing mission, nothing more. Avoid making any commitments or estimations at this point in the game. If you can confidently toss out an estimated price range then feel free, but keep in mind the moment you do so, that’s the baseline the client will operate from.

If you find a client is pressuring for you to toss out specifics you can firmly state “the proposal will include all this information” and then give them an ballpark date to expect it’s arrival. An example line to use is “I like to be as accurate as possible on the first try, so rather than give you a number now, I’ll go over what we’ve talked about and send that proposal right over.” Or something like that.

Red Flags in Client Conversation

“It shouldn’t take you that long”

If a client says this to you, flip the red alert switch, because you need to shut that attitude down immediately. They are hiring you for a reason, because they either don’t know how or they don’t have they don’t have time. You run your own show and it is important that you counter these sorts of comments with “I can have this completed by _____” or something to that effect. Don’t let them trivialize your work as that will directly impact how much they might be willing to pay, they have to recognize that your skills are a commodity. Not to mention talk like this gone uncontested can lead to unrealistic deadlines.

“No problem, that should be really easy”

So your potential client has asked for something that is rather easy to put together. That’s great, but don’t let them know that because that affects their perception of the level of work you’ll be doing. It might be easy for you because of the amount of practice you’ve had in that area, but the client is hiring you for a reason, they can’t do it themselves. Be objective when listening to requests and avoid discussing how difficult you think a task might be. You can be confident in your ability to accomplish something, but don’t trivialize the effort that goes into it with words such as “easy”. You worked to get to this point, that’s why it’s easy.

“I’m flexible”

This should be changed to “We’re as flexible as our contract says we are.” Don’t over commit yourself to rounds upon rounds of revisions just because you feel that’s what the client wants to hear. Set a specific number of revisions or hours spent on a design before additional fees are incurred. The last thing you want is a client that gets hung up on design and is on revision 19 just because you said in the proposal stage that you “are flexible”.

“We are willing to negotiate the price to fit your budget”

Think about buying a laptop. When you go in with a $1000 budget, tell the salesperson what hardware you would like, they never respond with “Sounds to me like this $2000 laptop would fit your needs perfectly. I know it’s twice what you wanted to pay, so in order to make sure this sale happens I’ll work with you and sell it for $1000.” The computer guys wouldn’t undervalue their products and neither should you. There are ways to handle price objections more gracefully. A better approach is pointing out what the client can get with their money. This is where the use of pricing tiers is useful, it gives the client options to work with inside of their budget without making you reduce your fees.

The Golden Rule of Client Communication

Never feel like you have to come up with an arbitrary price estimate in the first conversation. It’s better to give an honest and realistic price the first time to avoid disputes later in the process. Use your proposal or quote to make the first statement about project cost, so you have it in writing. The pricing conversation is one that needs to be written down, live and die by your proposals and contracts.

Want more pricing help? This is day two of our five part series on pricing clients. You can find the rest of the articles on the Pricing Bootcamp splash page