To Discount Or Not To Discount Your Service Fees

You never see this one on a consulting or professional services firm website: "We offer excellent services and deliver superior value, but our prices are negotiable. What you'll pay really depends on whether we're hurtin' for business this month, whether you're a marquee client we want to have on our roster, and whether or not you pressure us."

Yet, that's what's happening. Just a day out of the gate, the first several hundred survey responses are in for the Wellesley Hills Group and RainToday.com Pricing and Fees in Professional Service Businesses benchmark research study. With an initial but already significant percent of precincts reporting (love that presidential primary season):

61.4% of professional services firms report that they discount their fees from their internally standard or externally published rate or fee structure.

38.6% report they do not ever discount.

What drives companies to discount? Which firms tend to discount and which don't? What are the greatest factors that affect a firm's ability to raise (and get!) the highest fees? More to come as we continue to collect and analyze the data...
Take the survey - open through the end of January: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=uJMDeOD9q69m3HT6VG3RIQ_3d_3d.

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To Discount Or Not To Discount Your Service Fees

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Schultz, President of the Wellesley Hills Groupis world-renowned as a consultant and expert in services marketing and rainmaking. His practice focuses on strategy for service and technology businesses in the areas of branding, marketing, and lead generation.

Along with his client practice and management responsibilities, Mike is the Publisher of RainToday.com, the premier online source for insight, advice, and tools for growing a service business. Mike has led RainToday.com from a startup to the leading online magazine focused on marketing and selling for professional services.

Mike is a well-known speaker in his areas of expertise, delivering keynotes and speeches for such organizations as MarketingSherpa, Business Marketing Association, American Marketing Association, Direct Marketing Association, CPAmerica, Association of Accounting Marketing, Society for Marketing Professional Services, and a number of major colleges and universities.

Over 60 publications such as Business Week, Inc. Magazine, Publisher's Weekly, Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, and others have featured Mike's original articles and white papers, and frequently quote him as an expert. Mike’s most recent research work includes Making Lead Generation Work for Professional Services, How Clients Buy: The Benchmark Report on Marketing and Selling Professional Services, and What's Working in Lead Generation: The Benchmark Report on How to Spend Your Time, Energy, and Money for the Best Marketing ROI in B2B Professional Services.

Mike’s clients include: Fidelity Investments, Communico, Monitor Group, Mellon Financial, John Hancock Financial, Dun and Bradstreet, Deep Customer Connections, Fleet Financial, Everon Technology Services, Trustee Leadership Development, and many other professional services organizations of all sizes.

Mike is a graduate of Brandeis University in Waltham, MA with a B.A. in American Studies, and holds an M.B.A. from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College (where he often returns to deliver specialized classes to graduate students). Mike also enjoys fly fishing and golf, and actively studies and teaches the traditional martial arts of Kokondo Karate and Jukido Jujitsu, holding the ranks of black belt and Sensei in each.

You can email Mike at mschultz@whillsgroup.com or contact him through his website at www.whillsgroup.com

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