Value-Based Fees: How to Charge—and Get—What You're Worth: A Guide for Consultants, Second Edition

3.8. CHAPTER ROI

• Value-based fees should reflect client results, not consultant tasks. We tend to focus on the wrong side of that equation.

• "Deliverables" are a consultant-invented shibboleth that is easy to describe and produce but of very little ultimate value.

• Measures of success can be quantitative and qualitative, and the latter—with the subjective assessment of the buyer—can be more valuable than the former.

• Buyer self-interest—either organizational or individual—is the key. Consultant self-interest is merely a function of the buyer's needs.

• What a buyer wants and what a buyer needs are two different things in most cases, and it's up to the consultant to demonstrate the difference and the greater value of that difference.

• We transform our unique past into the client's unique future. When stated (and believed) in that framework, it's difficult to place a high enough fee on that tremendous value.

• Discretionary time for a buyer constitutes tremendous wealth. Don't merely focus on the monetary or on the business.

Consulting is art and science. The danger is that we become excellent technicians and lose our aesthetic sense. We need to paint visions of the future—for our clients and for ourselves.