Plumber Pricing
Professional services providers, the speed with which you execute an engagement is a feature and should be priced as one. A recent experience I had with a plumber illustrates the point.
The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.
TRANSCRIPT
John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. In my last episode of this series, I talked about my recent superb experience with the plumber, using that story to make the point that how we show up is an intangible value to our clients. This plumber came to our house on a Friday night a few hours after I called him to diagnose the problem. After doing that, he said he could be back the next morning on a Saturday to perform the necessary repairs. Unfortunately for him, though, my experience with this plumber was further elevated by his pricing. What do I mean by that? Well, even though he delivered his service so quickly and efficiently, his price was well below the estimate I received from another plumber who I could never get to show up.
Even with offering the intangibles of both reliability and speed of service, this five-star plumber didn’t price his service to reflect the client perceived value of those intangibles. Professional services providers, the speed with which you execute an engagement is a feature and should be priced as one. Bookkeepers for example, when you’re producing financials by the 15th of every month, that should be priced at a premium relative to engagements which call for the end of the month. Yet so many bookkeepers I’ve run into price all their clients at their same hourly rate, which highlights just one of the many problems with hourly pricing but that’s another subject.
Here’s another example. At year end, some professionals like attorneys or business valuation experts will have clients who, with little or no warning, come walking in with a project which needs to be completed by December 31st. Price the needed velocity. When confronted with a premium price, such clients will make their own determination as to how important that year in closing is and therefore how much they value your project and the outcome you deliver. Speed is value, price it.
I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Go to pricevaluejourney.com to learn more about my work, including a link to the show archive of this series, which you can also subscribe to on your favorite podcast app. And I’d be honored if you would do that, if you’re not already a subscriber. When you go to pricevaluejourney.com, you can also sign up to receive updates on my new book coming out in 2023. The title of the book is The Price and Value Journey, Raise Your Confidence, Your Value and Your Prices to Grow Your Business Using the Generosity Mindset. If you’d like to email me directly, feel free, John@JohnRay.co. Thank you for joining me.
About The Price and Value Journey
The title of this show describes the journey all professional services providers are on: building a services practice by seeking to convince the world of the value we offer, helping clients achieve the outcomes they desire, and trying to do all that at pricing which reflects the value we deliver.
If you feel like you’re working too hard for too little money in your solo or small firm practice, this show is for you. Even if you’re reasonably happy with your practice, you’ll hear ways to improve both your bottom line as well as the mindset you bring to your business.
The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.
John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey
John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.
John owns Ray Business Advisors, a business advisory practice. John’s services include advising solopreneur and small professional services firms on their pricing. John is passionate about the power of pricing for business owners, as changing pricing is the fastest way to change the profitability of a business. His clients are professionals who are selling their “grey matter,” such as attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, consultants, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.
In his other business, John is a Studio Owner, Producer, and Show Host with Business RadioX®, and works with business owners who want to do their own podcast. As a veteran B2B services provider, John’s special sauce is coaching B2B professionals to use a podcast to build relationships in a non-salesy way which translate into revenue.
John is the host of North Fulton Business Radio, Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Radio, Alpharetta Tech Talk, and Business Leaders Radio. house shows which feature a wide range of business leaders and companies. John has hosted and/or produced over 1,700 podcast episodes.
Coming in 2023: A New Book!
John’s working on a book that will be released in 2023: The Price and Value Journey: Raise Your Confidence, Your Value, and Your Prices to Grow Your Business Using The Generosity Mindset. The book covers topics like value and adopting a mindset of value, pricing your services more effectively, proposals, and essential elements of growing your business. For more information, contact John below.
