Value Based Fees: How to Charge and Get What You're Worth: Powerful Techniques for the Successful Practitioner

by Alan Weiss

Book Overview

Value-Based Fees shows consultants how to easily and adroitly educate clients about value determining worth and consequent investment. Unlike the contingency fees of attorneys, Weiss explains, his technique is about establishing a win-win dynamic with clients, while accommodating buyers' egos that "you get what you pay for." Filled with stories of successful consultants, sample proposals, letters of agreement, and other practical tools, Value-Based...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0787955116
• ISBN13: 9780787955113
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Length: 207 Pages
• Weight: 1.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.2" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

All You Need to Know About Setting Your Fees

A discussion of fees is something with which many consultants are somewhat uncomfortable, and hourly billings may be an attempt to show we are not ripping the client off. Alan Weiss shows the absurdity and conflict of interest inherent in time based fees - to make more money you are tempted to stretch out your assignments. The buyer on the other hand while watching the meter run, is motivated in the opposite direction. Value is the victim here. The book places the responsibility for educating the buyer about value, squarely on the consultant. The proper basis for fees, according to Alan Weiss, are client results rather than time or material inputs. Prior conceptual agreement, your belief in the unique contribution you bring to the assignment, and your ability to create a win/win dynamic by providing a choice of yeses all through will enhance your ability to charge based on value. For existing clients, you are advised to gradually transit them to your new fee strucure, while offering even greater value. Also treated in the book are how to manage retainers, sixty suggestions for raising your fees, methods for handling the four basic types of objection, and non-consulting opportunities. All consultants who want to escape having their services treated like a commodity should read this book.

This book helped me QUINTUPLE my income

This review may sound like one from the author or other paid representative -- but it isn't. Nonetheless, this tome provided so much insight and structure as to successfully charging value-based fees that in a sense I have "been paid" by the author many times over. I have read other reviews posted about this book that criticize Alan Weiss for merely regurgitating in extended form his shorter booklet on maximizing fees. However, those reviews miss the point that this book is a greatly expanded analysis of the methods and challenges (and how to surmount them) of high-end value-based fee structuring. When I entered private practice a decade ago I was entirely hourly / standard-rate structured. Now, greater than 90% of my work is value-based according the impact on the client's business. And, the AMOUNT I KEEP (Weiss consistently states: "It's not what you make, it's what you KEEP") has skyrocketed and enabled me to become financially independent. In short, I highly recommend this book -- and feel no "conflict of interest" in saying that I am "being paid by the author" -- in a round about manner! Best of success to you! Tom Fuller, MIM, MBA [...]

Far Beyond Million Dollar Consulting

While Alan Weiss's eternal best-seller "Million Dollar Consulting" remains the most valuable book overviewing consulting practices, this book takes the reader into the actual mechanics and philosophy of value based fees. The transition will be worth six figures annually, because it's been worth it to me. The single negative review claiming this book repeats "Million Dollar" is far off base as far as I'm concerned (or the reviewer didn't read this book). For example, Value Based Fees deals with converting hourly clients, setting up retainers, combatting the competition's lower fees and a wealth of detail that the more primary book doesn't touch. Get this book today, because you're leaving money on the table every day it's unread.

If you only read one book......

This book is a MUST read not only for those consultants who have to submit proposals but should be required reading for all professions who charge by the hour - YES doctors, opticians, dentists, accountants and lawyers as well!! This book gives a sound theoretical basis for charging value based fees instead of hourly fees (everyone in the world ONLY has 24 hours in a day so this approach makes absolute sense).BUT the Coup de Grace is the fourth chapter "If you only read one chapter....." which sets out exactly how to structure value based fee proposals and gives a live example.I have long been charging value based rather than time based fees but this chapter raised my fees to a new level.

Client View

You aren't charging enough for your expertise, if you are a professional service provider. Why? Because you see your work from your perspective, not your client's. You see your work in terms of hours and effort. You should see it from the perspective of the value you deliver as a result of your knowledge, insight, and expereince.Alan Weiss explains, with wit and in great detail, how and why your professional fees should be based on your client's view of value delivered. Buy, read, and use the ideas presented in this book. The Appendix questions alone are worth the price!