Last week a recruiter posted an entertaining take-down of retainers on LinkedIn.
Unsurprisingly, recruiters from both ‘sides’ piled on with their opinions:
“Everyone should be working retained!”
“Don’t tie yourself into roles you might not be able to fill!”
“You’d be crazy to work for free!”
All very entertaining, and in my view a great use of social media.
But you're not running your business on social media. Chances are, your business model is a little more nuanced than a snappy LinkedIn comment.
The reality is you have a broad range of clients, from long-term relationships to challenging one-off roles. And those clients expect different things from you, are willing to pay different fees, and would react in different ways if you changed your pricing model.
If you ask me on social media, I’ll tell you that you should definitely stop working for free and start valuing your services more. Because that’s the level of detail that works for LinkedIn.
But if you want a strategy that takes into account what you do now, the resources you have, your sector, your client mix, and everything else that makes up your business reality, then it takes an individual consultation to give you the real-life answers that will transform the way you work.
To set up your pricing consultation with me, simply reply to this email and I will explain more.
Jon
P.S. There is an amazing amount of value shared on LinkedIn. I’m a better business owner for the ideas I’ve picked up over the years, both from big-name gurus and other people in a similar situation to me.
But advice on LinkedIn can never be specific to your business, so I always make sure I take any views with a large pinch of salt before I consider applying them to my business.
And if I’m going to tackle something that needs proper expertise, I pay someone to dive into the specifics of what I do and come up with an answer that works for me.
To set up your pricing consultation with me, simply reply to this email and I will explain more.
Brilliant post Jon