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“You’re too expensive.”

What do you do — and say — when you hear that?

If price objections are a problem for you, now there’s a solution.

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Now there’s an audio CD program on how design professionals can handle any price objection, any time.

It’s called “Overcoming Price Objections: Turn Price Bellyachers into Believers.”

Invest in this tele-seminar audio recording, and you’ll get 17 “Objection Protection” strategies.

You’ll get tools to take control of your pricing.

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And you’ll get tips on how to turn price objections into opportunities.

For more information and ordering details, click here: http://fredberns.com/Products_OvercomePriceObjections.htm

Close your eyes, and imagine.

Imagine doubling the fees you set and get. Imagine, getting paid for all of your time, all of the time.

Imagine, earning enough money to free you of financial worry.  And, imagine all that PLUS having enough time left over to enjoy family and friends and fun.

That was the scenario I created during my recent teleconference for the Interior Redesign Industry Specialists(IRIS).

My message: you can turn all those fantasies into realities by implementing the following steps:

1/ Differentiate Yourself. 

Design professionals can set and get any fee as long as they differentiate themselves from those who charge less.

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 How to do that? Discuss your specialties, experience, awards and other honors, accomplishments, background, etc.

2/ Create a “Cheat Sheet.”

Develop a list of higher fee justifiers, and memorize it.

Include things like how you save your clients time, money and headaches; provide them with other benefits of all your years of experience:  guarantee your work, etc.

3/ Wow ‘em with Your Website — and other Marketing Materials.

Promote yourself with pizzazz with a killer site, http://fredberns.com/Products_21KeysToAKillerWebsite.htmland a personal promotion kit that includes a bio sheet, a service list, photos, testimonial letters, reprints of articles by and about you, etc.

4/ Make a Plan.

A design professional without a marketing plan is like a ship without a rudder. Focus on your target market, and practice million dollar marketing on a shoestring budget. http://fredberns.com/Products_Million.html

5/ Raise Your Rates.

Nothing differentiates you more than your fees. http://fredberns.com/Products_TwiceThePrice.html

Increase yours, and present your new price with polish in a rate hike letter . Communicate with confidence about your higher rates, and master this phrase that  pays: “Here’s how we charge…”

6/ Welcome Price Objections. They are, after all, buying signals: prospects have to be at least somewhat interested to question your fee.  http://interiordesignbusiness.net

Your chances of closing a deal are 30% higher when at least some price objections are raised.

7/ Give Yourself Credit. Remmber: you’re a unique, one-of-a-kind design professional who changes people’s work space, living space, and lives.

You should be compensated accordingly.

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Tired of your clients battling you over bills, and fighting you over fees?

Four magic words that will help you get a grip… and head off the gripes are: ”Here’s how we charge…”

Use that simple phrase when you meet a prospect, and you’ll gain something that eludes too many design professionals too often.

Control.

Clients are much less likely to bellyache over bills if they understand, up front, how you price your services.

Many designers, architects, window fashion professionals, kitchen and bath specialists and others are way too wimpy when it comes to explaining their fees. They’re eager at the outset to discuss the scope of a project, but stumble and bumble when they talk about its price.

Then, when clients balk at the first bill, these design pros play “Let’s Make a Deal.”  Or,  they seek the irate customers’ approval in other ways.

Your job is to explain your fees — not to seek your customers’ permission to charge them.

If clients have a hissy fit when your bill arrives, that’s not their problem. That’s yours,  because you failed to clearly communicate the cost of your services.

Client confusion and concerns over your invoices are sure signs that they’re losing trust — and you’re losing control.

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Try as you will at that point to justify your fees, you’re probably too late.

You can head off all the hassle in the early stages simply by sharing your phrase that pays, the one that begins:  ”Here’s how we charge…”

Suzanne Barlyn and her husband have a problem: living room windows that have been “bare for ten years.”

“We’re not exhibitionists,” she explained in her recent “Cranky Consumer” column in the Wall Street Journal. “We just never have been able to make up our minds about what to hang.”

America movie full Which is why, she wrote, they turned to five leading professional shop-at-home window treatment services to help them cover their two large rectangular windows, measuring 42 inches wide and 67 inches high.

She had kind words for them all.

The representative from V2K Window Decor & More was “prompt and easy to work with,” according to Barlyn. 

 And, she added, the designer from J.C Penney Custom Decorating “instilled our immediate confidence” by indicating that she had been a window fashion professional for  10 years.

The author liked the way the representative from Interiors by Decorating Den  “promptly responded to our consultation request” and “shared a portolio of full-room decorating projects from other homes.”

The column praised the Smith+Noble’s virtual design center, a tool which enables you to “see how different styles would look with different fabrics.”

“This helpful tool also let us change wall and window trim colors,”  Barlyn pointed out.

She and her husband also met with an Ethan Allen representative, whose proposed window treatments “were the nicest of any we considered — especially the trim made of wooden tacks.”

When all was said and done, she compared costs.

The price for decor ideas and treatments from the five companies ranged considerably: from $265 per window (J.C. Penney) to $800 per window (Ethan Allen).  As for the others: V2K:$270; Interiors by Decorating Den: $400: and Smith+Noble: $500.

So what does this “Cranky Consumer” plan to do?  She seems to prefer the more expensive Ethan Allen treatments — eventually.

“We’ll hold out, until we fit them into our budget,” she noted. “After 10 years, why not wait a few more?”

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Small thinking is a big mistake.

It’s a mistake that too many design professionals make when they launch their businesses.

“Small thinking” was a phrase I used frequently recently when I was interviewed for an article about design industry startups.

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The question from a reporter for the Seatle Design Center’s By Design magazine: What are the three major errors committed by new design firms?

My reply:

1/ Small Thinking, when it comes to funding. Too many new design businesses go out of business because they’rze undercapitalized and overcommitted.

2/ Small thinking, when it comes to fees. Just because you’re new doesn’t mean you must be cheap.

2/ Small Thinking, when it comes to seeking help. Firms that lack sales and marketing know-how should hire a coach who has it.