Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

First, I suggest deflating your suspicions and ego a bit. You are undoubtedly very talented, but don’t kid yourself, you have no great secret that everyone is trying to steal. You are in a very crowded field; you need to demonstrate your superior abilities to help potential clients achieve their objectives and that it will be a mutually pleasurable experience to work together. You want long term clients, their referrals will be one of your best sources of new business, so impress the heck out of prospects with the great work you have done and let the business roll in.

Your fee should be something just less than the value to your client. If it's too much less, then they'll think, "It's too cheap to be valuable." If it's too high, they'll say, "Not worth it to me!"

Of course, the value will depend on each client's business, so you'll have to do some serious homework to determine what your services should be worth to each prospective client. Once you've done that homework, you can use it to demonstrate your value as you present your offering.

There is no such thing as a one-price-fits-all in your business (or in any consulting business). Don't spend your time trying to develop a rate card. Instead spend it researching the value you can deliver to each of your prospective clients.

The whole issue of pricing consulting services is discussed at some length in Rasputin For Hire. It might be worth picking up a copy and checking out chapter 6 -- where pricing and value are discussed in the context of a consulting proposal.

The book is available through major booksellers in the United States and at Amazon.com. It's also available directly from the publisher.

If you order from the publisher, you will also get a free bonus report featuring a round-table discussion with 5 leading experts here on the Know-How Exchange. The title is "Experienced Consultants Talk About Consulting." They talk about their lives as marketing consultants -- including their advice on pricing consulting services. If you're interested, use this link:

Order link for MarketingProfs members.

Hi, internetdarling

I am not sure if this question belongs to this section, but here's my input. before you start marketing the service you described, you need to show clients samples of your work. Go out there, pick some of the websites that will be relatively easy to critique, and do your work: critique them as if the owners paid you. Place your ideas on your website, and add images of what the site could look like if you were the consultant. You need several of such examples.

In your case I would charge per hour (that will help you to assess more complex work) or work out some kind of retainer fee per project. Since the work you are planning to do is strictly analytical, I would set up some kind of per hour price and base on it per project price (commutative of the number of hours you were planning to spend multiplied by a little bit less or more of a per hour fee). Don't hesitate to ask to be payed extra for complexity or urgency.

To promote buy in without providing too much information you can by, for instance, giving general directions on the improvements. Say, you give them "fonts are inconsistent" or "there is problem with fonts matching" - that information you are giving for free, and helping them to select wining combination for money. Just an idea.

Whatever Happens
Good Luck!
Natasha Chernyavskaya
Los Angeles, CA