How To Realistically Set Your Fees – Part 5 – Real Estate
How To Realistically Set Your Fees - Part 5
Sue and Chuck DeFiore
How To Raise Your Fees
There comes a time when it is inevitable that you must raise your fees in order to maintain both your profit margin and income level. You will find that the greatest resistance to this comes from your oldest clients.
There appears to be a direct correlation between the length of time a client is with you and the amount of outrage they show to your rate increase. This article will discuss the types of clients and how they usually react.
Keep in mind, no matter how you raise fees, how you approach telling clients or amount of lead time you give them, you will lose some clients. This is a given. I have found over the years that a very high percentage of clients lost are those that Im not crazy about working with anyway. Its worked out, for me anyway, that these former clients who complained the most about your fee increase, were responsible for 85-90% of the aggravation I encountered.
Clients are attracted to you for a variety of reasons. We would all like to think that it is because of our brilliant promotional pieces, our award winning designs, outstanding service, etc. The reality is that many clients are using your services strictly because of price. I refer to these clients as price loyal. They are loyal to whomever has the lowest price. This type of client is not particularly sensitive to quality of work or level of service you provide. They go strictly with the lowest price and if you have the opportunity to examine how they run their business, your see it operates on this principle. For me anyway, this type of client is no loss.
There is a second type of price conscious client that is concerned with the quality and type of service being provided to them. You may lose this type of client with a price increase, but youll find that they will be very apologetic about it. These clients truly can not afford the higher rates. They are usually a dream to work with, and I hate to lose them. In this situation, I will try a number of ways to keep them.
Your newer clients usually react in a more neutral manner to a rate increase. They havent been with you long enough to get a true baseline on your fee structures. You stand a very good chance of keeping these clients if the reasons for the rate increase are explained to them and not just dropped on them.
I find that I lose about 5-6% of my clients when I raise my fees. Usually, I suffer no income loss because my higher rates absorb their loss. Remember, the bottom line is you are selling your time, you must make the most efficient and profitable use of it. If your rates stay around market level, you should have little or no trouble finding new clients.
Copyright 2003, DeFiore Enterprises
About The Author
Interested in having your own successful, home based creative real estate investing business Chuck and Sue have been helping folks start successful home based businesses for over 17 years, and we can help you too! To see how, visit http://www.homebusinesssolutions.com for the latest FREE tips and tricks, educational products and coaching in creative real estate investing and home based businesses. No time to visit the site Subscribe to our FREE "how to" Home Business Solutions Digest, its like having your own personal coach: mailto:subscribeHBS@homebusinesssolutions.com
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RSS PIONEERS SET OFF GOLD RUSH – Web Hosting
RSS PIONEERS SET OFF GOLD RUSH
Tony Dean
The nature of cyberspace is changing fast with the rush now on to set up rss news feeds. Every gram of news and current affairs is gleaned from the four corners of the globe so that we may be informed as to what is happening in hundreds of different commercial fields of endeavour.
Everything from what new item is selling well on eBay, to what "Wired Magazine" is saying about the latest technology. More and more magazine and newspaper publishers are gaining a foothold on this new juggernaut which is going to change the way we gather news.
Advertisers too are not left out. Already some of the largest media companies in the world are now poised to find advertising space for their clients branding campaigns, on any available web page that regularly features in rss feeds.
The media companies with billions of ad dollars to spend, will they say, be spending less on newspaper and t.v. advertising in the coming years, and will concentrate instead on blogs and rss feeds.
Competition will be fierce for every available space on the most popular feeds, some run by newspapers!
Many freelance journalists will be running rss feeds in direct competition with the newspaper employers who now pay them to gather news for their publication. There will be no editor to censor their news items, they will be free to write whatever they want.
This new found freedom for anyone in the world to be able to express their opinions without it costing anything, will make for a new House Of Babel, with maybe up to several millions of rss feeds within the next five years run by private individuals all over the world. The only needed resource to set up a rss feed is free hosting on a server anywhere in the world, and these web hosts are plentiful.
Press releases submitted to the biggest and well known media release agencies are appearing rapidly on rss feeds, with the publishers of these feeds scambling to put content on their feed almost on an hourly basis.
Commercial enterprises have never had it so good to get their press release into circulation so quickly as more and more commercial news, via press releases, is needed to fill the ever available channels being run by rss feed publishers. Even badly written press releases that under normal circumstances would not find a publisher willing to print it, will be readily accepted by rss feed publishers looking avidly for more content. This content may only be on a rss feed for the space of one hour before it is replaced by something else, but it will have the potential to be seen by lillions of people world wide.
This is the potential that big media companies are now eyeing.
One rss feed publisher charges $6,000 for an item of news to be on one of his feeds for the space of one day. So the potential for earning substantial incomes from publishing your own rss feed can be huge.
Many web publishers will change tack and embrace rss feeds as being potentially more commercially viable than publishing a web site.
Many spammers will change to running as many rss feeds as possible to saturate the market, since spam filters are proving very effective for email.
How easy is it to put up a rss feed
If you have web hosting already, it can be set up in 5 minutes!
All it needs is a text file placed on the server, and the feed is live to the whole world. Instant rss feed publishing!
About The Author
Tony Dean is a published author and webmaster. Author of the bestselling ebook on setting up a rss feed "Really Simple RSS" available from Clickbank or his site:- http://www.ebook-sales.com/rss.html
Ready, Set, Go Sell Your Book In The Real World! – Writing
Ready, Set, Go Sell Your Book In The Real World!
Mary Holzrichter
We hear a lot these days about more books actually being sold outside the traditional bookstore. Think about it. When was the last time you actually took time to linger and explore the bookshelves When did you last impulsively grab a book, flip it over, read the blurbs, and finger through a few chapters Lets face it, most of us are too hurried.
So Whats The Point
If you dont take the time to browse, why expect your potential customer to do so
Try This:
Grab about five copies of your book, and head for the "Ma and Pa" stores in your hometown area. Pick a time when you know it wont be too busy. Talk to the owner or manager. Ask him if you may set up a small display on his counter. Offer him a percentage of each sale.
Get Impulsive!
Go for the impulse buyers! Havent you at one time, while waiting at a cash register, seen a small display of books on the counter Before it was your turn to get checked out, you grabbed it, became excited, and added it to your other purchases Maybe it was a novel set in your locale. People love reading tales taking place in their familiar surroundings.
They think, "Oh, Ive driven that road! I know where it is!
Wheres the next landmark Have to find out!" They feel they become a "part" of it.
Is your book set in your region Try your local gift shops, bed and breakfast inns, pharmacies, hair salon, even the little "quick stops." You get the picture.
Is the hero in your book of Italian descent Is there a lot of ethnicity Head for the specialty shops like that little corner deli. Pesto. Gnochi. Fresh-baked focaccia. Get your book on that counter!
Maybe kayaking through turbulent river rapids is a large part of your novel. Or sky diving, race car driving, hang gliding, deep sea diving. Head on out to the sporting goods stores.
Whatever, go for it. Take control.
Another Idea
Grab your books and get a booth at the local festivals taking place in and around your area. Maybe share one with an author friend. In my area, there are different festivals every weekend throughout the summer and early fall. In the winter, many craft fairs. Think "thousands of potential customers!"
What Are You Waiting For
I know youre thinking, "But I only want to write!" That may be so. Promoting is time consuming. But whats the alternative Your book just sets there and gathers dust. So ease on out of that chair, and head on out. Let people know about your book. Talk it up. Readers who love your book will add another dimension to your promotion - word-of-mouth advertising!
Start Small and Think Big
Some stores you approach may not work! Granted. But youll get the ball rolling and your mind spinning. "Where else can I sell my book" Youll find yourself eyeing every little store as a possibility, while driving your car or strolling the sidewalks of your hometown. Who knows, you may even become your hometowns next "celebrity!" Give it a try!
About The Author
Mary Holzrichter
Do you enjoy reading quality fast paced action novels Do you like to write them Either way, visit ActionTales.com . We offer some great titles for
readers and an unbeatable publishing deal for authors.