How to Separate Your Fee From Your Time – In Just 7 Minutes with Loren Fogelman

Resources/Links:

• Emphasize Your Value, Rather than Time: Follow Loren’s Word-For-Word Consultation Script to Highlight Your Value. Get Instant Access Here: https://businesssuccesssolution.com/value/

Summary
Most entrepreneurs don’t understand how pricing works.

As a result, you undercharge for your services.

This means tolerating non-ideal clients for way too long, working longer hours to make more money and compromising other parts of your life to grow your business.

Loren Fogelman is an expert in pricing strategy and sales for small business owners.

In this episode, Loren shares her passion for empowering accounting professionals and other entrepreneurs to double revenues by working half the time through strategic pricing and effective sales techniques.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:20 – Loren’s ideal client: “My ideal client is an entrepreneur who offers service and they charge by the hour, the session or the project. And they’re ready to earn more without having to work additional hours.”
• 01:55 – Problem Loren helps solve: “The problem that I solve is how to separate their fees from time, very directing in that, by understanding who their ideal client is.”
• 02:31 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Loren: “Well, the first thing to understand is, from my research up to 57% of entrepreneurs actually under charge for their services because they are connecting their fees to time. A lot of time it’s because we started out as employees, we were either paid by the hour or we were paid a salary, and our employee might have been charging by the hour also. Therefore, they’re close minded.”
• 03:53 – What are some of the common mistakes that folks make before finding Loren and her solution?: “They are setting their prices according to what everybody else my industry is doing.”
• 05:15 – Loren’s Valuable Free Action(VFA): “When you’re talking with potential clients you don’t want to sell them. What you want to do is ask great questions that positions you as an expert.
• 06:04 – Loren’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Emphasize Your Value, Rather than Time: Follow Loren’s Word-For-Word Consultation Script to Highlight Your Value. Get Instant Access Here: https://businesssuccesssolution.com/value/
• 06:57 – Q: What are the four things that clients highly value? A: The things that they really care about is that–it’s easy, it’s fast, it saves them money, and make some money. If you can ask questions about those things, then your clients will say yes to you. And it has nothing to do with how long it takes to fix the problem, it’s about the fact that you have the solution and they trust you to do it.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“The things that clients really care about is that--it's easy, it's fast, it saves them money, and make some money. If you can ask questions about those things, then your clients will say yes to you.'”-@lorenfogelman Click To Tweet

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland: 0:09

Hello everyone, a very warm welcome to another edition of Marketing The Invisible. My name is Tom Poland, joined today by Loren Fogelman. Loren, good day, very warm welcome. Where are you hanging out?

Loren Fogelman: 0:19
I am hanging out in sunny California.

Tom Poland: 0:22
Lovely, from California to Castaways Beach in Australia. Well, let’s rock and roll.

Tom Poland: 0:27
For those of you who don’t know Loren, she’s recognized by HubSpot and its list of the worlds’, get this, top 22 business coaches. And HubSpot by the way, if you don’t know HubSpot, it’s kind of an authority on marketing, online marketing particularly. They do a lot of extensive research and publish a lot of cool stuff. And so, to be recognized as one of the world’s top 22 business coaches is pretty extraordinary. Congratulations on that, Loren.

Loren Fogelman: 0:50
Thank you.

Tom Poland: 0:50
And for those of you listening to this, it’s not so much an ego stroke for Loren, but it is for you to listen up because she’s got some cool stuff, it’s very valuable. She delivers talks about pricing, which is very interesting, and sales strategies for entrepreneurs at major conferences such as Inbound. Sponsored by HubSpot, I believe so.

Tom Poland: 1:07
Title today is, “How to Separate Your Fee from Your Time.” Loren’s going to tell you how to do that in just seven minutes. Loren, our seven minutes is going to start now. Who’s your ideal client, that’s question number one.

Loren Fogelman: 1:20

My ideal client is an entrepreneur who offers a service and they charge by the hour, the session or the project. And they’re ready to earn more without having to work additional hours.

Tom Poland: 1:32
So, it could be a business coach, a consultant, a technician.

Loren Fogelman: 1:36
Actually, my best clients are accounting professionals.

Tom Poland: 1:39
Accounting professionals, and probably also lawyers would fit into that category. Anyone charging by an hour that realizes they’re probably well over delivering on value and get restricted by the hourly rate, by the sound of it. Thank you. Question number two, six and a half minutes left, what’s the problem you solve for them?

Loren Fogelman: 1:55

The problem that I solve is how to separate their fees from time, very directing in that, by understanding who their ideal client is.

What their clients actually value is different than what they think their client’s value. And to really hone in on that for them so that they can make more money without having to work additional hours.

Tom Poland: 2:14
Perfect. So, question number three, six minutes left, we’ve got these CPA or accountant, business coach or consultant, whoever, and they’re doing the time for money thing. What are some of the typical symptoms they’re going to be experiencing? How do I know that one of these is one of your prospects, basically?

Loren Fogelman: 2:31
Well, the first thing to understand is, from my research up to 57% of entrepreneurs actually under charge for their services because they are connecting their fees to time. A lot of time it’s because we started out as employees, we were either paid by the hour or we were paid a salary, and our employee might have been charging by the hour also. Therefore, they’re close minded.

Loren Fogelman: 2:55

They’re looking to make more money but in order to do that the only way for them to do it is to work more hours.

Which means they have to sacrifice other parts of their life and they eventually hit an income ceiling. So, what I look at that is the biggest problem and they don’t even realize it if they’re leading and position themselves as the technician which overlooks their highest value.

Tom Poland: 3:18
Interesting. Boy, that is so simply articulated. Thank you. So, question number four, we’ve got this person who’s charging by the hour, they’re aware that they’re probably working too many hours is that, that would be one of the mistakes they make?

Loren Fogelman: 3:30
They are working too many hours, they’re maybe on the verge of burnout. They know what they want, which is to make more money, they just don’t know how to do it without having to give up other important parts of their lives.

Tom Poland: 3:42
So, question number four, four and a half minutes left, what are some of the other common mistakes, apart from working too many hours, that they’re going to make trying to solve this problem before they find your solution?

Loren Fogelman: 3:53
Well, some of the common mistakes is that they are setting their prices according to what everybody else my industry is doing. Which is usually a combination of time as well as cost. Because of that, they actually end up under charging for their services, they don’t even realize that doing that, and they overthink it.

Loren Fogelman: 4:14
They are concerned about raising their rates because nobody else in that category is doing that. They are also feeling that if they raise their rates, then they’re going to lose a part of their clients. The ones that tend to go away though are the once that they don’t want to work with anyway so it actually solves that problem.

Tom Poland: 4:35
Folks, this is the rich voice of experience talking here. Listen up, because this is absolute gold.

Loren Fogelman: 4:42
The bottom line, the biggest mistake is that they continue to connect their fees to time when that is not what their clients are actually buying. Their clients don’t really care about how much time it takes.

Tom Poland: 4:53
So true. So true. Fantastic. Paradigm shattering for a lot of people. Question number five, and we have three and a quarter minutes left, what one valuable free action that an audience member could take that’s going to move them closer, not to solve the whole problem, but it’s a step in the right direction?

Loren Fogelman: 5:07
Okay, I want to know this first, if I finish this before seven minutes, do I get like a bonus question?

Tom Poland: 5:12
I’ll figure one very quickly.

Loren Fogelman: 5:15
Okay. So, to solve this is, when you’re talking with potential clients you don’t want to sell them. What you want to do is ask great questions that positions you as an expert. And come from this, from being of a trusted advisor where you are helping them to make a decision that’s in your client’s best interest, as opposed to one that is in your best interest. And some of the great questions you want to look at is identifying their problem, and what is the cost of continuing to deal with that problem? And then wrap it up with, once that problem’s solve, what is possible for them?

Tom Poland: 5:53
Perfect, thank you. Question number six and two and a quarter minutes left, so we might have enough time for that bonus question. What’s one valuable free resource that we can direct people to that’s going to help them even more?

Loren Fogelman: 6:04
I just gave you some overview as to what the questions are. I know that the people listening here are busy, they might have never been trained in how to do sales, or they don’t like the sales part. I put together the entire script when you are meeting with a client of exactly what to ask them. All you need to do is plug and play and adapt it to your particular profession if you’re a service-based entrepreneur. It is at businesssuccesssolution.com/value. I gave you all the words, you can follow it word to word, it’s plug and play, and you will start having value conversations instead of sales conversations. It is a game changer.

Tom Poland: 6:45
So, it’s businesssuccesssolution.com/value. Thank you very much. Question number seven, possibly the last question, 75 seconds left. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t?

Loren Fogelman: 6:57
Well, you ought to ask me, what are the four things that clients highly value?

The things that they really care about is that it’s easy, it’s fast, it saves them money, and make some money. If you can ask questions about those things, then your clients will say yes to you. And it has nothing to do with how long it takes to fix the problem, it’s about the fact that you have the solution and they trust you to do it.

Tom Poland: 7:19
Congratulations, Loren, you qualify for a bonus question. My bonus question is, how do you work with your clients?

Loren Fogelman: 7:26
I work with my clients by offering them packages. So, when we have a conversation, a value conversation, if they’re not a good fit, I don’t even make an offer. I just bless them and send them on their way. If we do work together, it’s a combination of mastermind, which is group coaching, as well as individual coaching.

Tom Poland: 7:44
20 seconds left, where would someone go to reach out to you and book a time to have a conversation with you about that?

Loren Fogelman: 7:50
Oh, that’s like a bonus, bonus. So, if they wanted to talk with me, then they go to businesssuccesssolution.com/letstalk. It’s a complimentary 15-minute conversation where we get to focus on what’s most important to you.

Tom Poland: 8:05
Fantastic. Loren Fogelman, thanks so much for your time.

Tom Poland: 8:08
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.