There’s this woman that keeps reaching out to me, asking for a job. I very much applaud her persistence. Just from continually being in contact, I finally asked her what her rate is. I don’t have a position for her, but because she keeps reaching out, I know that she would be a hard worker.
She didn’t say that her rate was $45 an hour, but that the investment was $45 an hour. Somebody probably taught her to do this; to position her fee as an investment. At first glance, that’s a really good idea. You want a client’s money to be an investment in their business. However, I don’t want to invest in working with her, because what does that do for me? She didn’t tell me, for example, “here’s five things I can do to grow your business,” she just told me what her skills are.
Here’s something I want to make very clear: business owners invest in results. If you come to a business and you don’t know what you can do for them, they’ll still invest in you if they know what result they can get by putting you to work, but what they’re going to do is buy up your time.
If you come to a business with a strategy and a proven result, like telling them that you just got a very specific result with other businesses and asking this one if they’d like the same result, you’re going to be able to get a lot more money. You’re getting paid for the strategy and to know what to do. The woman who was reaching out to me didn’t know what to do. All she’s saying are “here are my skills, you can buy my time.”
Your job is to be a strategist. If you reach out to business to sell your time, you are a commodity and they can replace you with anyone else in the market. When you start charging by results, you’re going to get better clients and have a lot more fun in business.
To learn more about becoming a strategist, visit https://www.christianmartin.org/podcast