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Are you paid what you're worth?

How often do you have client’s and prospects ask your for information or advice and more information and advice and never compensate you for it. Do you rationalize this by telling yourself that you’ll be paid in the future with their business?

Are you paid what you’re worth?
I received an e-mail from a former student of mine who wrote that he had come back to our free weekly coaching calls and liked the direction we’ve taken, however he was disappointed that we’re now charging for specialized educational webinars, 50 hours of education, because he had already paid a one-time fee for a previous course he had taken with us. I wrote back to him that I was glad that he decided to rejoin us, but that I was saddened that he felt that it was inappropriate for us to charge and be compensated for our time and advice, especially considering that every week we provide all comers 1 hour of solid strategies and tactics with no sales pitch.

I spent some time considering the message that my former student sent me and have concluded that those who resent paying others for their time and advice lack the self confidence to ask others to compensate them for the same. With so much available today for free it is no longer an exclusive value proposition, and thus you must not assume that providing free tools, information and advice will lead to paying clients. It must be asserted early in the client or prospect interaction how you’re compensated and at what point compensation is due. Certain industries such as insurance, mortgage, real estate and aspects of the financial services sector are compensated at the conclusion of an engagement and the client often does not remunerate their advisor directly, but rather indirectly in the form of a commission that the client never actually sees. I contest that if you are a sales professional compensated this way you must have a direct conversation about how, and what you are paid for and what your client can expect for this compensation and that anything outside of that context is compensated at an hourly rate and considered expert advice above and beyond the additional contracted services.

I’m aware that some of you who read this are thinking to yourself that going above and beyond is your exclusive value proposition. I would counter that clients and prospects expect this regardless, and yet have no way to measure “going above and beyond” against another’s service. For this reason, your exclusive value proposition must be that clients and prospects understand exactly how, when and by whom you are compensated, and that you are qualified to offer expert fee based advice as it’s warranted and requested. To do so will require that you have absolute confidence in your integrity, intent, capabilities and results and there is the rub. It’s one, if not all of these four cores listed in the last sentence that are typically missing from our lives and thus why we fail to be paid what we’re worth.

What experts now understand is that while we’re engaged in interactions with others our integrity, intent, capabilities and potential results are being measured and evaluated. Experts refer to this as Calculus Based Trust (CBT) and it’s exactly what it sounds like; others are measuring the risk versus reward of engaging with us. Others are often able to sense a disconnect between these four areas better than we are. Described more clearly; often we ourselves don’t realize that our capabilities fail to measure up to our intentions, integrity and the results we desire. If you wish to be paid what you’re worth you must ensure that your four cores, Integrity, Intent, Capabilities and Results are in alignment and if there not you must conduct some intense soul searching in order to reach congruence. Until all four areas are perfectly aligned you will struggle to be paid based on the value you provide.

Until my next article consider joining my weekly coaching calls with this link https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/633060643. or follow me on Linked In http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanklein45

Article Source: http://www.targetsearch.org/articles

Jonathan Klein is a Sales expert with 25 years experience in B2B and consumer driven sales along with management and training of sales forces. In his first book "The Path To Just Being Nice" Jonathan demonstrates that nice is not just a strategy, but rather has actual processes that if you practice you can increase your "Nice Quotient" and the quality of your life. Jonathan likes to say that "Nice is one of the only renewable resources that when practiced can go on in others for ever." Reach Jonathan Klein at jk@cddppi.com or (561) 212-9226 or consider joining him on his weekly coaching calls by registering with this link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/633060643

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