How Much to Charge as a Consultant - Hourly-Based Pricing Strategy

0:00Welcome to today's episode of Black Belt Startup with Ferris. Thank you for tuning in. So what's new in the world of entrepreneurship? Pricing, pricing, pricing. How much to charge as a consultant and specifically what is the optimal hourly-based pricing strategy? That is what we want to discuss today. And if you're new to this channel, I'm Ferris Alhalu. I've built seven companies, exited one, and sold it to Densu, the global media giant. And I'm on a mission to help new consultants succeed, build their business, build a business they're proud of, make it profitable, build an amazing culture, and achieve their dreams. And I provide strategies and tips on how to start, how to build and how to scale consulting businesses.

1:02So if pricing, if you're new to sales, and if you're new to pricing, and pricing feels fuzzy, feels capped or stressful, this is your reset. Whether you're guessing your hourly rate or whatever you've been doing is not working, I know that the results are typically the same. You're overworked, your margins are low, and then you're constantly second-guessing when you're pricing. And I can tell you that I was in the same exact boat when I started. I had no idea, I was trying to sell project-based, and I heard someone talk about value-based, and I tried that and failed miserably initially. And then, after so many different trials and so many different attempts, I landed on hourly pricing. Now, I'm not saying hourly pricing is the only one-way

2:05to price, as a matter of fact, I have an entire video, a 19-minute video on all the pricing models for consultants. You can check out on the channel, one of our ultimate guides. And I go over the pros and cons of every pricing model. But for those of you who are about to start, or you've started, I believe, I highly recommend that hourly is the most optimal and the best solution for you from a pricing perspective. And I'll go over a whole lot of questions on this topic. 26 of them to be exact. And I'll also send you, I'll share with you a link of a video that I made recently on hourly pricing, where I talked about how it works, when it works, when it doesn't, what to do when clients ask you tough questions. So all of that information is available in the pricing video, the hourly video, and I'll put those links in the description, one for the pricing models, the seven pricing models.

3:07In case you want to explore different things, and I want to learn before you get your feet wet. And also, I'll have a link to the hourly-based pricing and all the details around it. And I can tell you, like I said earlier, I've been in the same boat that you are in. I know when we pivoted from digital marketing to analytics, and we started to specialize, and we knew our craft really well by that time. We decided, let's move, let's hire our rates. Let's go from 150 an hour to 250 an hour. Now, that was a big jump. And I remember one of those very early proposals that we sent, that I sent with the $250 dollars an hour, I wasn't sure. Can I defend this rate? If the client comes back with rejections, or with questions, can I answer?

4:08But I felt that we had a good handle on what we were doing. We were, we studied this pace of analytics at the time, really well, so we knew our craft really well. We were very responsive. We were also from a level of service, we provided wide glove service. We really took care of our clients. So I, in my mind, after all the thoughts, or maybe the negative thoughts, I came to a conclusion that I can defend this rate. So we went with it. But I was still hitting refresh, hitting refresh, you know, the feeling to see what the client would say, whether they would negotiate, or potentially just reject the whole proposal. But I got that email eventually, it says, hey, Ferris, this looks great. When can we start? And that five second moment changed a lot in my mind. It was a big shift, because it wasn't about the 250

5:10hour or the 275 hour or 200,000 hour. You know, depending on your service, depending on your market, you might be offering different rates that work for you. But it's not about the specific hour, but the specific hourly rate. It was really about us having that confidence that I have something to offer that people appreciate and value and they're willing to pay me money for that. And that was really important. And that was the shift. And it was something that I had, and that I was afraid of showing the people and making assumptions and how they react. And that just led for us to delay uping, you know, hiring our rates. So if you're in that same boat, if you're not ready to up your rates, if you're not ready to charge 250 hour, I understand maybe you're just starting out and you're not sure. You just want to get in and get your first few clients at a lower hourly rate, I get it.

6:11But the idea about pricing and being nervous about it, being stressed about it, you're not sure how high, how low, what is involved, all of that is something I hope will cover today. And if you don't cover today, and if you're joining us, if you're joining us later, feel free to comment on whichever channel you're on, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, on X, where they were there, I read all these comments and I reply to you. If it's something very, maybe specific, something personal, you don't want to share that question publicly. Email me at Ferris, at startupwithferris.com. I read all these questions, I answer them, I keep it all confidential. So if you're, if you have a question, you don't want to put it out there publicly, just email me at Ferris, F-E-R-A-S, at startupwithferris.com. And I would, I'll be more than happy to answer. And one more administrative thing before we get to the 26th question, questions,

7:12and that is about this live stream and the live streams that I do. I cover a business topic, and then I answer all the questions that I get from the community. So if you have a question on your mind, pricing or otherwise, email me, comment here, let me know, let me connect with me on LinkedIn, wherever you are, I'll be more than happy to take all these questions and address them in these live streams and help you start and grow the business that you are dreaming on building and scaling. Good, good, good. So let's now move into that questions. And I should be able to put them all here on the screen for those of you watching, so you can see it. And then again, for those of you who are just joining us, I'm here to answer questions on pricing for this session. If you have something else, beyond pricing, business-related, go ahead and add it as well. I'll see if we have time at the end of the session.

8:13I'll be more than happy to answer, or maybe I can answer you offline. But let's talk about pricing. So where is the first one? Right here, I have them all ready to go. Okay, what is wrong with fixed pricing? Why is fixed pricing risky early on? Very good question. Well, fixed price, fixed project based or fee-based pricing or fixed fee pricing, all of those mean the same thing. Basically, you go to a client and you say, I will build a website for you for $5,000. I will do a financial audit for you for $10,000. I will rebrand your company for $10,000. That's just a fixed fee price. So it's a good model, fixed fee, project based, that is a good model to use initially. Initially, I do not want you to use fixed-based.

9:14Initially, I don't want you to use fixed-based, I can't say today, fixed-based pricing. Why? Because when you are just starting out or let's say you launch a new service line and this whole area, the new area that you're launching, it's new to you. So you won't know, you will not be able to discern all the details, all the nuances of what you have to do and what the customer is looking to have. There'll be a lot of nuance that you just haven't been exposed to. So there's a huge risk of something called scope creep where you're thinking, you're building something this big and the client in their mind, they have something this big. You're thinking of doing their financial audit for this customer and he's thinking him and his wife and his business because things are the contract or the proposal or the discussion is very high level.

10:18So again, project-based or fee-based, fixed-free, based pricing is not a bad model, but initially focused on hourly and be very specific in terms of what you offer what you offer for those hours. So for example, you can say for, let's say you're a social media marketing consultant. So you can say, I will go in and I will audit three of your channels. I will look at Facebook, Instagram and TikTok and I will do a full audit and I will provide you with an audit report and recommendations. I'll do all of that in 12 hours, okay? So that's what, and then maybe specify the specific handle because they might have three YouTube channels and three Instagram channels and four TikTok channels. So again, be very specific in any kind of pricey model. In general, you wanna be specific around scoping

11:18and framing, packaging, or what you're solving for the client. So that is in terms of what's wrong with, there's nothing wrong with fixed fee pricing. It is just initially, there's just a lot of unknowns. You don't know what's included, what's not included. You don't know what is it the customer will be doing. You don't know if you have payment milestones, it might take forever for these milestones to be accomplished. So if you said, okay, I will do this work for 10 hours, I'll do it in the next couple of weeks and here's what I need from you, client. And that is just much more optimal for you as a consultant and then the beauty of this is that, let's say halfway through you've identified that the client has other channels that you did not list in the case of the marketing consultant and the customer hasn't really brought that up. You can let them know, hey, Mr. Customer, this is the scope of the work hours. I'm planning on doing, completing this work

12:19for those three channels that we discussed. In 10 hours, I found you have other platforms, other channels, I can also do them for another five hours. So you can, the client doesn't know you yet, he doesn't know what to expect. I think that hourly incremental, hourly approach will help you solve the problems for the client right away and then start building that trust that you are charging for the specific amount of time you're working for them and for the problem that you're trying to solve. So that is on the first question in terms of risky, the project based being risky. Let's move on to the next question. Is hourly pricing outdated in 2026? I don't think it's outdated at all, actually. I don't know if it will ever be outdated, I don't know. But for now, it's not outdated. I did read some articles, including one on the,

13:19where was it, on the WSJ Wall Street Journal that I think the title was a bit provocative that hourly pricing is gone, it's outdated. For new consultants, you really have to be careful what advice you get and who you get it from. Of course, Wall Street Journal is a very established newspaper publisher, they know what they're talking about, you might not agree with some of the stuff they say, but it's an authoritative resource of information, no doubt. But does that apply to you as a new consultant? That's what I want you to question. When you hear advice from other people, some of these gurus on the internet, they say hourly pricing is awful as terrible, doesn't work, use value-based pricing, use performance-based pricing. Yes, those other pricing models exist, but for you as a new consultant,

14:20or if you're struggling with selling, struggling with margins, stick with hourly, it works really well. So it's not outdated. Now, of course, in the age of AI, automation, efficiency, if it used to take you two hours to do some research that you can now do in five minutes, you have to be transparent with the client. If you're doing hourly, you can't just go and run a quick prompt, a sloppy prompt, sometimes I see, not chat GPT or Gemini and take that and package and give it to the customer. Use AI, I use AI, use it responsibly, but clients are savvy, they research. So you as a consultant, you want to be efficient, you want to be, you want to use automation, you want to use AI to support what you're doing, and anything that's mundane, that's repeatable, or something that you can automate, why not automate, and do it quickly so you can apply more of your thinking, more of the client care, more of the strategizing,

15:23doing some of the things that AI cannot do for you on your behalf. So this way you still charge hourly, you still leverage AI, and you'll be the consultant that this client who will be happy with your performance, he'll be the one he or she will refer to other people because you are very efficient. So you might have quoted 10 hours and you've used AI responsibly to help you research and automate certain things, while another consultant who's doing things manually, or maybe he's not using AI, he could be, he or she could be using building 15 or 20 hours, where you with your efficiency and using AI and automation, all of that can, will make you stand out, will make you differentiate, so keep that in mind. But good question, so moving on to the next one. Why is hourly pricing the right starting point? So I just covered this actually a little bit ago,

16:27but hourly pricey works at all phases of a business and across small mid-sized larger organizations and I've seen it work, I've seen it work really well. But initially, and actually before I go that, I have a pricing matrix. So when you go to my pricing model video, the 19 minute video I mentioned, I do have at the end of that video, I have a pricing matrix where I show all the pricing models and where they fit, depending on your journey. And I used two dimensions there. One is the level of sophistication with your tools, your process easier, the way you manage the customer and also your level of proficiency in your own domain. So if you're a novice, if you're just starting out, again, hourly is what I recommend, but as you gain more experience, as you become very proficient,

17:29start to reach mastery in your domain and also have a labors and have systems and processes, you can do performance-based, you can do tiered pricing, you can do other things that require more, a bit more of knowledge in the domain and also knowledge of the domain of your client and also ways to track your results and report those results to clients. So again, I think from a new consultant or someone who's just debating and struggling with which pricing model to use, stick with hourly for now, and there's no issue, I've seen small organizations and I've seen organizations with thousands of employees use hourly pricing. Now, as you get bigger as a business, you need more systems, more processes, you will need people to manage all this back end of hourly reporting and to maintain profitability and make sure you're using the hours that and this whole thing,

18:31the whole back end system has to be in place. But initially, when you're starting out, you don't need a lot of sophistication. A system, a spreadsheet will be your system to track things for you and maybe the first couple of hires you have or maybe the first contractors that you have. So keep that in mind when you are deciding which pricing model to use. Stick with hourly initially. Next question. What expense, this is a good one too. What expenses should be included in pricing? So to give you an example, so you offer someone to do, let's say an HR consultant you want to go in and improve employee more out and you want to improve the whole entire process they use for performance evaluation and feedback. So you might, you know the stuff cold,

19:34you're a consultant, you know the system, you know the tools, but let's say the client is using another tool that you haven't worked on before. And for you to do that job, that project effectively, you have to learn that tool, the customer, the one that the customer is using. So is it, you charge the time for you to learn that tool to the client part of your hourly project or do you put that time against your own dime, right? So I don't know if there's a hard and fast rule there, but basically I would say, I wouldn't charge the time to research the client's tool, I would not put that in my invoice because that's just me as a consultant, I'm the consultant, I'm expected to know a lot of things about the industry that the client is in, about the systems, the processes, the technologies around HR consulting, right? So people are hiring me because of me being a consultant

20:37the knowledgeable person. So anything to do with the client, with the project, if they specifically ask you to go and research their competitors, all of that I think is valid to be invoiced against the hours that you have, but anything that are more industry specific or you want to acquire more knowledge about the domain of the client or about the tools that they're using, I think that is something that you want to do on your dime, on your own dime, not build a client for. And the best thing here is to be very transparent with the client, clients don't like surprises. So, especially when they have to pay for those surprises, oh yeah, by the way, we need five more hours, oh yeah, we need 10 more hours because of this, because of that. Or hey, I use all the hours researching, learning your new tool. Imagine, put yourself in their shoes, you're paying someone to do something for you to improve, help you improve employee morale and the performance, employee performance process

21:39and then you spend most of the time learning the tool and then billing them for it. I don't think it will land really well with them. So, the best thing is to be clear in what's included in your hourly billing and what's not included. So, clarity is really important, especially as a new consultant. Your reputation is really important. So, if you establish a reputation where you are nice to your knowledgeable, easy to work with, you don't nickel in the time, the most important, you are reliable and also that reliable, dependable and of course trustworthy. That is earning someone's trust is hard. So, as I think, yeah, Warren Buffett, he said, your reputation is like fine China. So, expensive and hard to get and so easy to break. So, as a new consultant, especially if you're working maybe

22:41in a domain in a specific niche and people talk, right? You wanna be known in that domain that this person is reliable, dependable, knowledgeable and they are trustworthy, they don't, the ability for the time they work, that's their reputation you want to establish and that is the DNA you want to have for your own business and with the employees and the contractors that you work with. Good, good, moving on. What percentage of time is realistically billable? So, that's a really good question because when I was working on that video that I just mentioned earlier, the hourly pricing sort of ultimate guide there, I covered a lot of details and I did a lot of research online and I noticed a lot of the new consultants assume, I work 40, 50 hours a week and then I can, I can, if I can bill at $100 an hour

23:43times 50 hours a week, that's $5,000 a week, times four, that's $20,000 a month. Well, the math looks nice and I spreadsheet always, always. But you have to, you have to spend time selling, well, you have to spend some time marketing, selling, networking, but you have to, if you're working, if you're just starting, you might have to do some paperwork with lawyers, you want to set up your accounting system. So, even if all that back office is set up and it's established and it's functioning well, you still have to spend time on non billable work. So, I would say use, initially, use, I would say 60%, that is the factor I would use. So, if you work 40, let's say you work 160 hours a month. So, and I have those cards from the video that I called on the other day. So, if you have 160 hours,

24:45time, divide by, or multiply by 60, 60%, you basically get 96 billable hours. So, I would start, I would start with 96 hours, assume you have 96 hours to bail. So, that is, that is the pool of hours you have. Now, of course, if you're the ambitious type and you want to put in more time, you want to work 60 hours a week. So, you have an extra 20 hours a week. And let's say half of those are billable because you're spending a lot of time out there networking and getting leads. So, instead of having just 24 hours a week, now you've increased that 24, 96 hours a month, 24 hours a week, now you have 24 plus 10, 34 hours a week. And if you're selling this at $100 an hour, that's another $1,000 a week that you can get. Assuming there's demand, assuming there's, that you're able to sell that. So, keep that in mind.

25:45The number of, I would use from a planning perspective, if you're in this phase of thinking, of taking the leap and you're putting these nice financial plans and sales plans, I would use pulling 60% as a factor for determining how many billable hours you'll have in a giving month or in a giving week, all right? So, that is, that's what I would, again, you can increase that amount by putting more times, by putting more time in more hours into the week. Now, some of you might say, wait a second, I have obligations, I have this, I have that. I thought I can become a millionaire and work 30 hours a week. It doesn't happen, it does not work that way. If you want to establish a sustainable business, a profitable business, in consulting and services, it takes blood, sweat and tears. It takes a lot of commitment. There's no overnight success,

26:46overnight success has taken years of preparation and work and hard and experience. So, there's no other way out. You have to put more time. I'm not saying you, you sever the relationships, I'm not saying you don't take care of the young ones at home or the spouse or the aging parents, or if you have committed to an unprofit, yes, and obviously, I want it to be healthy and active, but something has to give, something has to give. So, when I'm saying here works 60 hours a week, I'm saying something has to give, meaning you tell your business partner, you tell your life partner that for this phase, for this season, you will be putting more time at work. So, get there, buying in and then cut down on, maybe hobbies, cut down on leisure time, cut down on TV, cut down on some social activities.

27:47I'm not saying don't have a social life, but something has to give, especially when if you want to build and grow a very profitable business, you wanna have a company that you'll be proud of, you want to leave a legacy, it requires a lot of hard work upfront. Later in later phases, in future seasons, you'll have time, you can slow down a little bit, you can hire people to help you, you don't have to work crazy hours your entire life, but if you want to build in something worthwhile, it does take a lot of commitment, a lot of time. There is no if, but it's about it, none of that. There is hard work, there's working smart, working hard, learning from others, learning from our own mistakes, but it does take time to, it does take time and commitment and effort

28:48to build something worthwhile. All right, went off on a tangent there for a little bit, all right, but I get these questions all the time. Someone, anyhow, said enough about it, moving on to the next question. How do you calculate your, how do you calculate a minimum hourly rate? So that's another related question. So we talked about, let's just for now assume 40 hours a week times 60% that gives us 96 hours a month, right? Now, what I want you to do is to have, you can use this formula, and again, I have these cards from the last video is on the hourly rate is your total number of, total monthly revenue, the amount of revenue that you need, and I'll go into what goes into that number, and you divide that by your billable hours. So the total monthly revenue that you want to have, you divide that by the total monthly billable hours, okay? So if our goal, our target monthly,

29:48target monthly revenue is $10,000, we divide that by 96. So 10,000 divided by 96, we get 104. Let's round that up to 110, just sounds better. So that's our hourly rate, $110. Now, how do we get to that $10,000 number, the total revenue? So you have to think of, you have an example here as well, you have to look at your business expenses, three things. First business expenses, office rent, if you're renting, internet, phone, networking, all of that stuff, right? Let's say it's $3,500. And then what do you take home, your take home pay? Let's say, including taxes and social security and all that, let's say it's $5,000. So $3,500 for business expenses, $3,500 for your take home. And then let's say $1,500 for profit, for your margin, because you have to have a cushion,

30:49you have to have a profit in the business so you can reinvest so you can buy tools to automate to streamline to hire people. So if you add those up, $3,500 plus five, so expenses, take home pay, and then a profit margin, you get a $10,000. Now you can do this formula in different ways, but this is the basic idea, is add all these three things up and you get to $10,000. Now in your area, maybe $5,000 will be just fine. Maybe you need $15,000. So all of that will determine an hourly rate and also the amount of hours you have to sell, every week, every month for you to get to that target. So with our 96 hour a month example, we have to be able to sell 96 hours and also charge at $10,000 or $110. That will give us the number. So that is how I would calculate it. And again, if you're just starting out,

31:52you might not be able to sell 96 hours a month, you might not be able to sell at this minimum billable hour, but that's your target. And initially it's okay, initially you're learning. I'm hoping you've watched some of my other videos on how to build a six month financial runway. The financial runway is going to be really helpful for you to make sure the finances are in check and the finances are in order so you can focus on growing the business. So check out my live stream. I have a live stream on a six month financial runway that every entrepreneur needs to have. And if you have that in place, then you'll have a bit of a cushion if you can't sell all the billable hours that you have and if you cannot sell at the hourly rate that you aspire to have. Initially it's okay because you're still learning, you're still building, but you can't be in that space for the rest of your journey because you'll run out of money.

32:52So, but initially it is okay. Good, why profit must be part of my rate? I just explained this, those are all related questions. I had them here in order by design. Basically I do wanna emphasize when we did the math in terms of your target monthly revenue. Again, business expenses, take home pay and then profit, you must have a profit margin. If you don't have a profit margin, you can't invest in the business. You won't have a cushion when there is famine as it's known in consulting and services. There's feast and famine. Sometimes you have a whole lot of leads, a whole lot of customers. And then you're working 67 hours a week and you're barely catching up. And then at times you have no leads. All customers are just slowing down their spending or it's the holiday season or what have you. So, having a cushion, having a profit is really important

33:53and it builds up. And if you have $1,500 of profit every month, obviously by the end of the year, you have almost $20,000 in your bank. That's a nice cushion, especially if you're just starting out and you're not ready to hire. That gives you a lot of peace of mind. That's really important for entrepreneurs. So the finances are an order. My family will be provided for, I can start investing in the money. I can upgrade my computer now. That's slow. I can hire a part-time contractor to help me with certain things so that profit is really important. Initially, again, there's always an exception. Early on, like the first few clients don't worry about profit. I want you to be out there knocking on doors, closing deals, profit, profit margin, all that good stuff is for later. Initially, number one goal is revenue. Number one goal is to grow the marketing and the sales muscles.

34:56Because that will give you confidence that will prove, validate your business idea, your business, and then from there, you'll learn from the first few projects that maybe did not have an amazing margin. Maybe you lost your shirt on those projects, but you'll learn from them. And you've built that muscle of being out there and you're selling. And I remember that, if you follow my channel, you've probably heard this story before. That first sale we had to a small Greek restaurant here in Santa Clara, California, it's called Athena Girls. Still thriving, that's 20 plus years ago. That $1,400 project. And that 50% upfront payment, $700. That was one of the best moments in my professional life because it validated that I could sell. It validated that someone out there has a problem I can solve. And that gave me a whole lot of momentum, a whole lot of energy to go out and keep selling. And then up our price from $1,400 to $2,000 for our second client,

36:02my dentist. So, very grateful to the dentist and the owner of that Greek restaurant, they're still around. But when you sell, when you start selling, it does a lot of confidence. So I want you to do that. Initially, don't worry about profit, just sell, sell, sell. All right, next one. How do you explain hourly pricing to clients? It's very straightforward, you say. I will give you 10 hours and you will build me. You'll, sorry, yeah, I'll invoice you for 150 an hour and then you pay me $1,500. It's, that's really it. There's no, not a whole lot of complexity to it. When it's value-based or performance-based or these other pricey models, there's just a lot going on. And you have to be very specific. But with hourly, you tell them, here's what I do. I'm an HR consultant. I'll come in in 10 hours or 20 hours, I'll do these three things for you.

37:02That's it. Or it could be even a bit more open-ended. They'll say, use me as you wish. I will come to your office. I will look at the records. But I will spend 10 hours working on your project. If you are a video editor, if you are a branding person, if you are an HR consultant, if you mention HR consultant, if you are a financial advisor, all of that can be packaged, all the services that you have. You can package in an hourly fashion. And you tell the clients what the way I like to do it is, after I learned, the hard way, of course, is I would give ranges. People, clients, don't like vagueness and again, expectations, they're always missed expectations when people communicate. So I would say, tell them, basically, I'll charge. I'll do, here's my hourly rate. And I estimate around 10 hours for this project. And then I'll keep you posted. And if more work, you send more work my way

38:05or the scope is larger, we will need to put more hours. So be upfront about it and explain it to the client. And give them the details on what you'll be building them for and what is it that you will not be building them for. And again, don't make things up. Build trust, establish credibility. Make sure integrity is hard. It's important. It's really important. That's your reputation as a business owner, as a consultant. Your team members in the future, they'll see how you work with clients, how you deal with the clients. And if you're doing cutting corners here and there and not transparent, and if you're playing games with clients, what sort of DNA you'll be creating for your business? Keep that in mind when these thoughts come to you. So that's on explaining to clients. Now, when it comes to clients asking the next question here is how do you avoid open-ended engagements? Because yeah, I've seen it to where, yeah, these are my services. And I charge $150 an hour.

39:07And it's all open-ended. So me as the client, when I receive this proposal, OK, the hourly rate is fair, $150 an hour there. They've got the credentials. They have the logos. They've helped clients like me. So I'm happy. I'm OK with that. But I have no idea how many hours they're going to be spending. This is going to be $10, that's $1,500. It's going to be $100, that's going to be $15,000. Like, I don't know, right? So put yourself in the seat of the client. And I would say that's my recommended approach is give the client a range. If you're just starting out, it might be difficult because you don't know. But you can research. This would be a good time to check with ChatGPT or Gemini or Clot. Just put together a very thorough, not a sloppy prom and get a range, a project of this scope for a client, this size, with these parameters. What is an average?

40:07What is the average number of hours to do something this from someone who's new to consulting? So look around, maybe do some competitor research. If you network and you should be networking, if you have access to people in your field, you learn from others, suppliers who provide, maybe adjacent services, see how they're pricing the range of something like this work that you're about to propose. So this way you go back to the client. You say, here's my hourly rate. I estimate it's going to be anywhere from 15 to 20 hours or maybe 15 to 25 hours. Because a lot of times, clients don't have and don't provide all the details. We ask consultants, over time, we learn what questions to ask to define this scope for the client. So we avoid, again, mismanaged or we avoid having issues with expectations. But early on, we don't know what questions to ask. We don't know how to scope things properly.

41:08We don't know what the range is. So initially, I would say, again, do your own research, competitive research, check with GPT, Google, those questions, and then go back to the client and say, here's my hourly rate and he's the range. And to the best of your ability, stay within that range. Even if you have to put a few more hours, even if you have to do more work, then maybe what you understood needed to be done initially, getting that client happy, making that client delighted is really important. Is the difference between making it and helping you make it or potentially close shop? Because if you don't have initial happy clients, you'll be losing some of that momentum. You won't feel good about it. And then they will not be sending you new business and they will not be sending you referrals, which typically repeat business and referrals

42:08from existing clients is a very key source of stream of revenue. And early on, so that's why don't nickel and dime be generous with your hours always. But especially initially, a couple of hours, and if you're bidding on a 20-hour project and it takes you another hour or two, do something. Let me ask them for a testimonial for a case study. Say, it took us five more hours and happy, no extra charge. Would you be kind enough to leave a testimonial for me? Or do maybe be on my podcast or do a case study, right? So those are things I would recommend to do so that you don't nickel and dime with the hours. Over time, you want to be very disciplined with the hours. But initially, again, it's a different setup, different environment. Next, what does TNM really mean? OK, TNM probably came from government or engineering or construction. Time and materials, basically, people

43:08might ask you, bill me or quote me, TNM. They mean basically hourly. But you want to differentiate your hours from other third-party hours or materials. So for example, let's say you're an accountant. So you charge hourly. And then you will bring in a few systems to help you manage the client's back end, maybe QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Online, or maybe you have expenseify, I don't have any affiliations with any of these tools, by the way, I'm just mentioning those as examples. So you can bring all these systems to the client's environment. The client has to pay for those systems, that's material. And then you just charge for your time. So TNM is time and materials that basically your hours are in one bucket. And then you have third-party costs, licenses, other people's time, or maybe tools, or software, all of that will be in addition to your hours.

44:10So that's what TNM is. Next question. Why efficiency, how does efficiency hurt hourly pricing? OK, so this is one. This one goes for, it's a good point, valid point for the proponent of fixed-based pricing, or performance-based pricing, or value-based, all that good stuff. So if the opponent of hourly pricing, they always mention this, if you as a consultant as a talented expert, you go into a situation, and you solve it in 20 minutes. So what do you do? You charge for 20 minutes. So if your hourly rate is 180, then yeah, you're going to charge 60 bucks, and that's it. So if you do fee-based, say, hey, I'll come in and fix this for $10,000. Whether it takes you 20 minutes, or 200 hours, it doesn't matter. The client agreed to pay you $1,000 for fixing this problem.

45:14Now, if you charge by the hour or in 20 minutes, here, obviously, you're leaving a lot of money on the table. I get it. There is a place, and there's time for value-based pricing. But initially, you won't run into this issue, because you're still learning how to sell, how to deliver, to implement, to understand the client's requirements. So it's a very highly, highly unlikely scenario for new consultants, and those who are struggling with selling and pricing. So I would say it's a valid point that if you're very efficient, you're getting punished for that. But as I said earlier, if you're very efficient in certain things, see where you can add value. Even if you're using AI or automation to provide that efficiency, you always want to identify value, other errors, where you can offer value, that you only, the consultant can offer to the client. Good, next.

46:16And we have a comment here. Let me go to the comment. I believe I want to be successful. Okay, so this is from, Jessica 9.63, I believe I want to be successful. I think you have to lie. I think the question, maybe if I'm reading this right, if I believe, if you want to be successful, you have to lie. I don't think so. I don't believe so. In marketing, I mean sales and marketing is not making things up, is not lying. Of course you want to look good, you want to look your best, it's okay to embellish a little bit. If you're going to meet, going on a date, you want to look good. If you're going to meet your future wife, you're going to look good. If you're going to your graduation ceremony, you want to look good. Of course, but it doesn't mean that you're faking it or you're lying. Same thing in business, I think from a sales perspective, let's say, if you have skills and you're solving problems,

47:20of course, that is essential. That's what you have to have to be a consultant. You have to have some skills, some knowledge you can build. If you don't have a whole lot of skills yet, a whole lot of experience in a specific area, you can learn it. So this applies to those who don't have skills in a specific area yet. You can learn those, but once you have it, it's really a matter of presenting what you have as a solution to the problem that the customer has. So you don't have, yeah, I mean, lying is a big word. I don't think that works well in general in life. You'll get exposed, you'll have a reputation that you're maybe inflating your numbers, you're making things up, you make false claims. I mean, there potentially could be legal ramifications, but just even from a reputation perspective, yeah, I wouldn't say I would not agree with that. Unless I'm misreading what you have there,

48:22maybe Jesse, 960, so feel free to elaborate. I'll be more than happy to read it again and see what you meant. All right, so when the next question, when should you move beyond hourly pricing? So as I said earlier, I am not saying hourly is the only model. I am saying initially, I'm highly recommending that use hourly initially, at one point, and I'll pull, I believe I have a, I'll find that I'll put it on screen here in a second. If I have it, I believe, I'll show it before the end of the thing. I have this matrix, actually, let me pull it, let me pull this here one second, pricing, pricing, pricing, I believe I have it here. I can't find that link right now, so. But if you go on

49:25bbsu.net slash pricing, I believe that's the URL. I should know this because I use it all the time. You'll have that matrix. I will definitely include the link to it in the description after the live stream. But basically, I show the seven models and where they fit for your business. So in no way I'm saying stick with hourly, you can stick with hourly. From now till you retire, I've seen companies, when we merged with Densu, bought us and we merged with their systems and their processes, they had a very elaborate system of tracking hours. We did not, we were not selling hourly at that time. I love valued basin. And we had, by that time we had specialized and we knew our craft really well and we were selling six figure contracts. So I was big on selling value-based selling. When we merged, you have to go,

50:27they have 63,000 employees Densu had and they have systems and processes we had to comply with. So but they invested in tracking hours on a project, by individual, on projects. And they had a very nice margins and profit margins. Profit margins. So I know it works well with the right infrastructure when you're larger and initially it works well. Just like I said, it's optimal because it's easier to sell, easier to package. You avoid issues that come up with these other models that require a bit more sophistication. All right, how do I handle, sorry, why is the next question? So when should I move beyond hourly again? I will find this matrix, I think that will help. And then check out this video on the, the ultimate guide to pricing models.

51:28I go over all the models, pros and cons and when one is more optimal than another. Okay, next question is that we're going to go a bit here. Okay, can you raise hourly rates later? Of course, you can raise hourly rates at will whenever you want. The business owner, you're the CEO, that's why you started this business because you can make those decisions. Now, don't feel bad about it. If you, let's say you completed three projects for at $150 an hour and you felt good about it. The clients are happy, you solved the problems, you got the testimonials. The clients are singing your praises, my friend, up at 175 on your next proposal. Because now the lead can call your customers and they'll sing your praises, right? Now, if you stumbled and you failed and we all stumbled and failed and it's just part of the process and you're still not sure how to deliver a good solution,

52:31yeah, I wouldn't compete on price at that point. I wouldn't compete on the quality of the work and the premium level of service because I'm still learning. So you can start with whatever rate that you can sell at initially and then later, six months down a quarter down the road or six months down the road, you can definitely up your price. You can change, you can have different prices for different services. You can have different prices for different clients. So all of that pricing is fluid. It's up to you. You don't have to stick with one price forever. You don't have to stick with one price for the same service or for the same price for different clients. So that is just as sort of a general statement. Some nuances I think we'll get to here before the end of this stream but in general the answer is yes. Should I list my hourly rate on my website? Okay, I've done it in some companies and we didn't do it in other companies.

53:31I don't think I'm neutral on this. It's really up to you. If a lot of your competition is listing their hourly pricing on their website then of course go ahead and do it. I would say be competitive or if you're higher, you're pricing higher. Show why, why you stand out? You've got the credentials, the certifications, the experience, the logos, your responsive, you've been backward, bent over backward for clients. Stand out. If you're charging higher than the rest, you have to stand out. You have to differentiate. This is the psychology of selling and buying buyers want to know why buyers, a lot of times is not about the amount they pay you. They want to make sure they're it's fair. They want to make sure, okay, it's 10% higher, 20% higher. It's okay, they don't want to, they want to make sure they're not being double for something that they can get from someone else or have the price. So in general, so keep that in mind. So no issue in putting that on your website. I think look also what others are doing. If you are promoting your services on platforms like Upwork or Fire,

54:34the hourly rate is open. So I go in there and we use, we use Upwork all the time. I see things at 10,000 hours and I see the same service from someone who's top rated. I see from another person, I see for 150 an hour. I'm not getting you. But they're different credentials. They're different, maybe language fluency, they're different knowledge of the specific market, the number of user experience. So look, if you are going to list your services on something like Upwork, then make sure your rate is defensible. Make sure you can defend that rate because people do compare buyers a lot of times, especially in BTP, 60, 70% of buyers do a whole lot of research before they even reach out to LA, their data on this. So you wanna be able to present yourself in the best light. You want to show everything that support,

55:34everything that supports why you are such an amazing consultant that clients want to work with you. All right, next one. Let's see. How do I handle clients who demand a fixed price? A very good question. Some clients refuse to buy hourly. Say, I don't want to deal with it. I don't want you to come back and say, I need more hours. I underestimated, I overestimated. Just give me one amount and tell me what is involved. You can walk away from that, but that's not what I'm saying. I am emphasizing and recommending for new consultants and those who are struggling with pricing is to use hourly. But if you have a client who's ready to buy and he wants to have a fixed price quote, my friend, sell, initially I want you to sell. Now, a couple of quick notes on project-based

56:35or fixed fee pricing. And we can spend another entire episode on that maybe later. But for now, make sure the scope is very well defined. So I recommend you have two sections in your proposal. And we're about to launch the ultimate guide on writing winning proposals. So check out the channel and it should be coming out in the next little bit. So basically, the scope section, like here's what's included with some level of details and then add this section that most people don't include. Have this section, this is what's not included. And then another section, what is it that the client is supposed to be doing? I think if you do a good job in defining the scope with a lot of specificity and then you say, here's what's not included. And then what you want the client to do, then you'll be in a safer position. So let me give you an example.

57:35If you're building websites, designing websites. So you can tell them, I will design a four page website. I'll give you three design concepts. I will have one for the home page, one for the supporting pages. And then I'll give you everything in WordPress and we'll have one form on it. And that's it, one simple form. What's not included, e-commerce, what's not included, online payment, what's not included, you can have a long list of things not included. Any custom development, customers might not know what custom in development. So put in parentheses, that means I will not create any calendars or any product listing based in a database, whatever, whatever, I'm not a web developer. But list what's included, very clearly, list what's not included. And then, and I expect the client to provide picture images, videos, also the content for the website, the text. I want the client to do it. And if you want me to do it, I can sell it, but here's how much it will cost.

58:37So I think if you are forced, I wanna say forced, but if you're going that path of fixed fee or project based, I would say do this a new, that will solve probably 80, 90% of the problems with project based. Good, good. All right, next question. Can I use different, hold on, what's the question? Yeah, right here. Nope, sorry, my bad. Can I use different hourly rates for different clients? Yes, you can, you may, you should. Initially, maybe not, not initially, but if you have, let me give you an example. You have a client who is across town, you have to drive an hour and a half to get to them. And they demand, they want you to do the work on site. And then you have a client, client next door, and they wanna do things virtually. So it's okay to charge more for that client who,

59:38you know, every week you have to do this one trip. That's three hours of downtime. So if you up the price, the hourly rates for that person, and he's gonna tell you, I don't want you to do that for the time you spend coming back and forth from, you know, from my meetings, right? So, so it is, okay, a client is expecting 24, 7 support. If a client is expecting a response time within two hours, and another client, he could get back them in two days, and they'll be super happy. So there are always ways to differentiate and to defend why, not that somebody will ask you or somebody will find out. But in your mind, I think have a system where if it's a client of this type, we will sell at this rate, if clients of this other type, we will sell at a higher rate. So you can definitely use different hourly rates for different clients. It gets difficult if you put stuff on the website, if you put your hourly rate on the website, it'll be hard to have different rates. But maybe he can have different packages,

1:00:38standard and premium, and then you show the difference. But there's no issue, and hardly ever clients will compare proposals and notes. If you work in a niche and everybody talks about pricing and contractors and vendors, yeah, you have to be more careful. But in general, totally okay to differentiate and keep track of it so that you don't quote different prices for different people. And then when it comes time for renewal, you give them a price that is lower than the previous contract. So keep track of what you're pricing. All right, how do I track without micromanaging myself? That is a good question. How do I track without micromanaging myself? I think it comes down to discipline. It's building that habit. So after I'm done with this project, this client work, so after I'm done with the client work, I'll go in and document it. You can do it midday. I think don't wait till the end of the week.

1:01:39I made that same mistake when we implemented time sheets in one of our companies, okay, I'll just do it on Friday night. Well, Friday night, you forgot and why you've done Friday morning, let alone what happened earlier in the week. So I would say make it a habit, even if you're just by yourself. So if it's spreadsheet, we will sheet, you don't have to buy a tool initially. And then just list, especially billable work, like here's what I've done. Now it comes, okay, some clients, some consultants charge in 15 minutes increments, like accountants, lawyers, sometimes they charge by six minute increments. So come up with something reasonable. Again, initially the goal is not to make a fortune from these first few clients. Initially you want to sell, you want to deliver, you want to get happy clients, delighted clients. That is the number one goal in the first few weeks, few months is to sell and to make the clients happy, even if you have to spend more time or effort. But as you are growing the business,

1:02:41these questions become very, very important. So build that DNA, build that habit, build that muscle to track your hours, and then at the end of the week, even if it's just you, your own business, where did I spend time this week? There are a lot of other benefits. I have another session, an entire video on how founders, it was on delegation and how you can identify where you should be spending your time as a founder, depending on the face of your business. So I have this tool called the Founder Focus Worksheet. And if you do it for a couple of weeks and you'll see where you're wasting a lot of time and not selling, not marketing, not delivering, and then you end up, and then you might be complaining how come my business is not growing? So it's important to track, you don't have to track at the six minute increments unless maybe again you're in a field like lawyers who do that, it's common, not that I like it, but that's just how they work, some of them, a lot of them,

1:03:43but I would say maybe do it like in 15 minute increments. If you could, maybe you could reply to an email, it's fine, but if you're spending more time on a specific question or you're on the phone or you're meeting, obviously those are all trackable and all trackable. Okay, what tool should I use? And for those of you who are with us, I'm probably have another 10 or 15 minute to finish all the questions, but if you have questions that I haven't answered yet or something else, if it's not pricing related, go ahead and put it in the comments. I'll be more than happy to answer those at the end of the session, but for now let me go through the rest of the batch here. So how do I track time? We'll talk about that. Okay, what tools should I use for time tracking? So there are a lot of tools out there. If you are just starting out, use a Google sheet. Scrappy, don't spend money on things, but tools software helps. So if you're using Asana or Notion or Basecamp,

1:04:43see if there are plugins that connect to a system that you are already familiar with. So I wouldn't recommend you go and get another system for time tracking, but if you are, you don't have any tools yet, I mean, there are a bunch of them. I think we used ever hour, we used, I can, I don't have any affiliations with any of these tools, but they're click up, ever hour, toggle, there are a few of them out there, toggle track, I believe. Check them out, most of them have free trials or like $10,000 a month per user. So get one, see if you like it. Use it, but I would say from an efficiency perspective, see if the tool that you're already using or maybe it's a tool you're about to select for your task management. If it has a time tracking element, a component or plugs in another software that does time tracking, use that, it's very helpful. I know also a lot of the accounting systems, they also have time tracking and they make it easy for a contractor to build their hours from within the accounting system.

1:05:43How do, okay, we're, let's see, we have seven more questions, eight more questions. All right, how do retainers compare to hourly pricing? So retainers basically, it's like I want to retain you to provide services on an ongoing basis. Typically it could be a three month retainer, it could be a six month retainer, it could be a 12 month retainer depending. So it could be month to month forever, it's all the client decides to stop the service or you tell them, thank you. So retainers, retainer, I've seen retainers where it let's say $1,000 a month or do these things or it could be hourly. So there's not, I wouldn't say there's no contrast between retainer retainers and hourly retainers could be based on number of hours. The client says, you know, you tell the client on a monthly basis, I'll put five to 10 hours to support your business. Let's say you are an email marketer and you help clients send out emails and set up that entire marketing automation for them. So if you charge them $5,000 for that initial setup

1:06:47in HubSpot or Kit or one of these tools or constant contact and now on a monthly basis you send their monthly newsletter and you say anywhere from five to 10 hours at 150, clients is okay, you're good at the end of the month you send your invoice. So that is a retainer that's based on an hourly or it could be, you know exactly what needs to be done and you say, you know what, I'll do this for seven, 50 a month. So there's no really, there's no contrast between the two. It just retainers could be hourly or it could be fixed depending on the relationship. So, but I love the idea of having retainers of building a recurring revenue stream. That is the best thing you can do for your business after selling a course, but from a revenue stream perspective, anything that is recurring is gold because it helps you build that recurring revenue. It helps you focus on, you know, every month you have this amount of revenue coming in and now if this is your target,

1:07:48this is the baseline, this is your target and if I have 30% of the recurring revenue covered and you know, I only have to burst this gap of new business. So, recurring retainers, all that is good. Good to have. Question here is how do agencies use hourly pricing internally? So, in the last company that when we sold to Densu, we there were 45 of us and we used, we used at the time, I believe we used base camp and we started to, I think we added plugged in ever hour or one of those tools and we basically as a business owner, as a founder, as a CEO, you have to lead by example. So, you have to track your time and you have to make this process, this new process of tracking hours, you have to make it just part of how you do work and you have to lead by example and you have to dedicate time to it for everyone around you to implement. So, if you have people, it's just like any change,

1:08:48change management, right? You have to define the benefits of the change, you have to implement it, train people on it and then lead by example. Initially, if it's just you and maybe it's just maybe your first hire and maybe a couple contractors, you can just use one of those systems that I mentioned earlier or you can use a Google sheet, it's really fine. But I would say, I've seen it like I said in small agencies who are very strict on time tracking and I've seen it with companies with 63,000 employees and they have the entire backend system and they have a team called resource management that supports the entire company to track hours, those work on client projects of course and also for internal projects, tracking where the time is spent is really, really important. So, I believe it was Peter Drucker who talked about what time is the most important asset. If you can't control it, you can't measure it,

1:09:48you can't manage it, you can't manage anything else, so keep that in mind. All right, what tools, let's see. Should I discount my rate to get my first client? Yes, yes and yes, get that first client. Whatever it takes to get that first client, you don't want to send that spread but get that first client. If you need to discount by 50% go for it. If you need to discount by more, go for it because I want you, I need you to close that first deal. It's really, really important. Now of course, if you're doing a service that takes six months to implement and it's $50,000 worth of work, be more careful with this recommendation, right? Because you don't want to do $200,000 worth of work for $50,000 that could bankrupt your business but I'm talking about smaller projects. So if you're planning on charging $5,000

1:10:49and the customer wants to buy it for $4,500, negotiate, that's fine. Do it, don't worry about it. Close that deal, close that deal, money will come later. But do all the best practices that I've shared so far, properly scope, define the requirements, make sure everything is clear. Tell them when, how you'll track, where you spend the hours, where you'll be, what is billable, what is not? So do all of that and then, if they're looking for a discount to get you that first signed contract, go for it, right? Next one is, how do I handle scope creep with hourly work? Well, if you define, like the client says, we can use the HR consulting example. If you told them that you'll go in and audit their system, their performance review system and maybe interview fee employees and interview fee managers, I mean, define all of that.

1:11:53And you say, it'll be hourly. And again, as I said earlier, recommend, I recommend a set of a range. I recommend a range of hours to complete the work within. But now you and the client, you both know that if they need more work from you, then they know your hourly rate. So, so there's really no issue whatsoever in terms of, in terms of, sorry, where's that question here? I want to make sure. Yeah, in terms of scope creep, because it's hourly, if they want more work, you still, okay, I think it'll be five hours, okay? Or a lot of times, you're not sure how long it will take. And this is a good, you're a good, not sure it's got a tip. If you're not sure how many hours it's going to take. But, but you know, if you spend two more hours or three more hours, you can determine with a high set, with a high degree of probability and you'll be almost certain, a high degree of certainty.

1:12:55Sorry, then you can say, you know, I'll bill you for three hours to go and dig in and understand what's going on. And then I'll give you how many hours it's likely to take. But always hourly, the base of hourly is that, you'll spend two hours, they'll pay you for two hours. You'll spend three hours, you'll pay you for three hours. So the concept of scope creep is more typically associated with a project based or a fixed fee pricing model. Again, tell them what to do with the number of hours and if they need more than, then they know your hourly rate. So you should be good. Let's see, three more, four more questions. So what is the difference between junior and senior hourly rate, another good question? Well, let's say you have 10 years of experience in your domain and you hire someone with two years of experience. So your rate will be 200,000 hour or 250 or whatever you like to charge. And then the junior consultant will be at 125.

1:13:58So I've seen it in different ways, but I've seen it where it's a bundled rate. It doesn't matter who's working on the account. Of course, the senior consultant will be there to support and the junior consultant might do more work. But I've seen it where clients ask, show me your rate for junior consultants and then for senior consultants. So especially if you have a team initially, you are the senior consultant. So this is not applicable, but if you have start to have a team or we have some contractor supporting you behind the scene, so you can have different billing rates for different people. Again, transparency is important. Showing the credentials of the senior people, you and others and then also the credentials of the junior people. All that is important and the client knows and if something that the junior person can do, then why would you wanna have the senior person do? So be transparent, be clear with a client on how you bill and show that rates separately

1:14:59if that's what they're asking for. If not, I wouldn't bring that up. And just use a bundled, bundled rate. All right. How do I transition client from hourly to retainer? Typically, typically, a retainer is after you've done that initial implementation work or the audit or you've completed a project and now they need this ongoing maintenance, ongoing support, ongoing improvements. So you've done your work hourly in the project, they like you, they like your approach, they like, there's chemistry, they love the outcome and then you can do more for them and that will be the retainer. So if the client doesn't wanna commit, sometimes the client, you know, I don't wanna commit, again, give them a range. Say, and tell them, be up front of them, say, you know, I can dedicate, I'm a professional growing my business if I know that you have needs and if we commit to a three month or a six month retainer,

1:16:01you will have priority response time from me. So show them what they're getting for their commitment. They are making the client is making a commitment by signing a three month or a six month retainer agreement with you. So show them that you will take care of them a bit more because they've done that commitment. So that is where I think, again, transparency, most people are reasonable. Most people will appreciate that, say, okay, you will give me faster response time. You will be there for me. Tom, I'll keep an eye, I'll read about your business, about your competitors, about your market. It's a strategic relationship. A lot of people, a lot of people, most reasonable people, they would appreciate that. So that's how I would address it. Okay, the question, the one before last, what hourly rate mistakes do most consultants make? I think if you followed what I've covered in the video on hourly pricing and then also if you followed this session,

1:17:04you probably avoid 99% of all the mistakes because that's what I've covered after all the research. But I would say a few things. One is what I emphasized during this session is that initially as you are building the sales muscle, like don't worry too much about the hourly rate or the pricey model in general, just sell. So hourly rate in a way, again, within context, is irrelevant initially. Two, don't feel nervous presenting, especially if it's a higher hourly rate or you're up in your pricing, like don't feel nervous. You gotta stay it with confidence. You are a skilled knowledge, knowledgeable person. The client has a problem, you are solving that problem. And you, as a consultant, you are, you're going to be, hopefully they're the client's trusted advisor. So say that with, say it and mean it. Like it's not, it's not, it shouldn't be just transactional.

1:18:05Yes, it's not family, yes, it's not relationship, but business people buy from people. So say it with confidence that you care about them, about their bottom line, you wanna help them, when they service them, and that, and that you, you know, say it with authority and credibility. Authority, I don't mean it in a way that you show off or you teach them how to do things and they're not worth, for whatever. No, just your knowledge, your track record, your experience, your passion to help, you know, for helping others. That is, that chose when we talk to people. So, believe in it inside, I think it's, believing it is important that I really want to take care of this client. It shows up in the way we talk, in the way we smile, in the way we write. So, have that, I think that's important. And the other things I see mistakes, you don't differentiate. You wanna up your pricing, but you're not differentiating. You're, everyone else in your competition,

1:19:05they have bunch of credentials, and you don't have any. My friend, you gotta keep up with what's going on in the industry, you gotta get the AI certification, you gotta get the CRM certification, you gotta get the marketing certification. Whatever it is, that is important for you. Get that, okay? And then, and then, you know, and differentiate. And then the last mistake here, don't nickel and dime. Be generous initially. Every once in a while, you'll run into someone who could be used at a relationship, someone who is a jerk, someone who wants to get more squeeze more out of you. That's not the norm. And over time, you'll learn how to avoid these types of leads. And I have a video that five leads to avoid. So, check it out. I'll put the link in the description later. But in general, don't nickel and dime. People appreciate generosity. People, most people reciprocate, and you'll learn from that.

1:20:06And once that project is done, I'll remember you and I'll come back to you for more work, or the refer you to others. And then the last question for today is on, what pricing changes matter most this year? I'm not the prediction guy, but I think anything to do with AI automation efficiency, if there are ways for you to incorporate that into your delivery, into the way you deliver services to client, do learn it, do adopt it, do adopt it, and adapt your processes to automation. Clients will start asking if you show a proposal with a list of things that can be easily automated by AI, and you charge five hours for that, they'll question that. And then you lose your credibility, and you lose, you know, there's, again, the whole integrity thing. So I think keep an eye on learning automation and AI

1:21:10and how to be efficient in your domain, and whatever it is that you're doing, and apply that within your business, and apply that in your delivery. And then be also be aware of outsourcing. So there are a lot of great talent in other geographies that is typically less expensive than maybe where you are. Let's say I'm in the US here in US and Canada. So there are a lot of talent, global talent today is available and flexible and very, very inexpensive. So how do you differentiate is going to be really important. Potentially you're in the time, in the client time zone, you fluency in language and culture, in terms of potentially if you have clients where you can visit in person, a lot of clients wants to have that in-person connection with their consultant. So find ways to differentiate from what can be outsourced, not just in terms of the type of work,

1:22:12but also in terms of the quality of the work and also the human aspect of it. I think that always will have an edge. Consultants will always have an edge in that. So that is it for today. We covered 26 questions and we had one comment. And then if you have any other questions on pricing or on entrepreneurship in general, don't hesitate to reach out. And if you, again, if you haven't, if you like this contact, content you can follow me on LinkedIn, LinkedIn, slash IN slash Ferris Alhulu. And of course, I would love for you to go to YouTube and go to the channel, at Startup with Ferris and click subscribe if you're not a subscriber already and like this video and other videos. If you're liking the content and if you're benefiting, I hope you are. If you're not, let me know. I'm happy to answer your questions, things I've learned from my own mistakes and then things I've learned from working with 250 plus founders over the years. Thank you so much and we will see you. And of course, you can join our newsletter

1:23:14on my website, Startup with Ferris.com. And you'll get it every Saturday with tips and strategies on how to grow and scale your business. That's it for now, see you next time.