If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed right now, before you forget, to get the latest posts. Thanks for visiting!

Jeanette sent me a question online for me to answer. So can you.

I am a Virtual Assistant in Australia and was considering the ‘pay me what you think I’m worth‘ approach for my business.

Would you recommend it?

I know you said it didn’t pay in the UK which is a bit embarassing as I’m British!

But I find the first question people ask is ‘how much?’ when they usually have a figure in mind anyway. I’m not in this to become rich, just to pay the bills & be happy.

Cheers

Jeanette,

I truly enjoy the pay me what you think (PMWYTIW) approach. And for your situation I think it is worth a test, especially as a marketing tool for new customers.

On an ongoing relationship that is not on a per transaction basis, like a meal or a one-time consultation, the pay me what you think approach might be a bit risky.

Here’s what I mean. If you have one bad dining experience you might get shafted but if you are providing say a months worth of service and the client perceives a bad interaction throughout the month, you might get artificially discounted on the whole month, instead of just that one issue.

When I do private consultations with clients I am very comfortable with the PMWYT approach because I know I always do a great job and if the client isn’t satisfied, for some reason, it’s beyond my control and I’ll leave the rest up to karma.

Now, if you offered the PMWYTIW approach to a new customer on their first job with you then you could control potential loss to that one job. It would also demonstrate your belief in your product or service and give a potential new customer a painless and easy way to try you out.

The key to this approach is to tell the prospect customer what the value of your time is up front. Then they will know the minimum they should pay, when they do.

If you try this PMWYTIW approach it will let a new prospect try you out and see how good you are. But be sure to limit the service to a defined time limit of say 30 minutes to an hour.

On one hand there is a risk to not getting paid for this approach but one the other hand it is a painless way to attract new customers that you otherwise would not have had and it is cheaper than marketing.

Do a great job and they’ll keep coming back, but when they do, charge an hourly rate.

Make sense?

Steve

P.S. The bad news is that some people will cheat you but most will not. Have faith, most people are good.

-----

If you enjoyed this post be sure to grab the RSS feed or get posts by email so you don't miss a bit of what's to come.

Steve

Related Posts