What Are They Paying You For?

From Jason Leiester – Our Guest Blogger

Mountains of Arizona
Sunny 79 Degrees
2:32 p.m.

It’s a good idea to get very clear on exactly for WHAT you think your clients are paying you.

• Are they paying you for you doing a service?
• Are they paying you for their perceived value of you doing a service?
• Are they paying you for the value of the result of having a service done?
• Are they paying you for the privilege of having YOU be the human that performs the service?

All of these are valid options. And I’m sure there are more I didn’t put on the list. The challenge comes when you don’t choose an item from that list on purpose and organize the rest of your systems around that choice.

It also gets a bit bumpy if you choose an item from that list and then have selling and marketing systems incongruent with that choice.

It just confuses everyone and you (usually) end up annoyed and under compensated for your work.

A few months ago, I worked with copywriter Peter Michaels on getting clarity about this very thing. Peter was getting paid for doing copywriting and, in our work together, we created a way to change that.

I worked with Jason on his ‘Do What You Love And Prosper’ program. Having read his daily emails for a few years, I knew I would be working with someone who has a clarity of vision I could learn from.

Importantly, I also knew Jason’s ability to communicate his vision would help me understand how I could make the most of our time together, and that I would enjoy working with someone whose insights I’d respected for some time.

Our initial call was everything I’d hoped it would be – thoughtful, challenging, productive and with a clear outcome that guided me towards creating a new service for my clients and a new way of working in my business.

As a freelance consultant I face many of the challenges Jason has faced himself and his understanding of my situation definitely helped – though had my biz been in another area altogether I’d still feel confident Jason would have been able to understand and provide guidance.

His follow-up advice was clear, structured, and actionable, with a deep understanding not just of what I do, but also of the problems I faced and ways to move past them. I honestly couldn’t wait to implement, and felt confident about what I was doing. That’s a great feeling that the best consultants are able to uncover!

Now, a few months later, I feel clearer and happier about the work I do, and surer about how I communicate that and my reasons for doing so. My media platform of weekly messaging demonstrating the importance of what I do is both fun and satisfying to work on, as well as being a more focused way of helping people understand my process.

I’m enjoying my work more and just completed my first full project based on the ideas we discussed, as well as booking regular paid consulting sessions that came as a result of the same process.

I’d highly recommend anyone who’s looking for clarity about understanding or expressing the value they give the world through their work, or who is looking to rediscover their love for their work, to work with Jason at some point. His approach is unique, his belief in it is formed of demonstrable experience, not ‘hype’ and I can’t think of anyone else who could have helped me in quite the same way.

Thanks Jason, for your time and effort, and for helping me get clarity on my gift, the problems I solve, and how to best communicate all that. It’s going great! I’ll update you again soon.

Pete Michaels
Selling Unique

Here’s the important part to remember:

How you get compensated depends on what your clients are buying from you. And that’s something you’re in complete control of.

Unless you want to struggle, “what they’re buying” has to be something more than the service you provide.

It’s worth the work to figure this out.