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

10.4. TRANSITION TO THE BRAND PHASE

In this phase, the consultant has achieved successful branding. There are actually two types of branding: (1) branding of approaches, products, methodologies, and other "tools of the trade" and (2) branding of one's own name.

10.4.1. Branding of Approaches, Products, and Methodologies

Examples of brands of this sort are The Telephone Doctor®, The Coach, The Teambuilder, The One Minute Manager®, and The Strategy Quadrant. They attract spontaneously generated publicity from sources outside consulting, which use your branded models with attribution, and from the media, which might use your approaches as widely known and quotable examples.

At this stage, the consultant can be highly selective because a great many potential projects and references are in the pipeline, many originating from the consultant's marketing gravity and branding but many more resulting from the brand names themselves (for example, "Get me the guy who wrote Managing Call Centers for Profit"). In every case, without fail, margins should be maximized, and part of the value is in the consultant's known and accepted approaches. This puts fees far above average in the profession, with the buyer expecting as much.

Nonconsulting fees can be escalated quite aggressively, since products can proliferate under an umbrella brand and others will seek the consultant out to increase product offerings.^[] Speaking fees, for example, can readily go to the low five figures.

^[] In fact, the consultant ...