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Message: Hi, I thought you might be interested in this article I found. Fee Discounts and Your Income If you have been reading my articles for any length of time, you have heard me rail against fee discounts. Why? Because, by discounting your fee, you are essentially cutting your income. For those of you who may be new readers, and for those who need a refresher, let me provide you with the economics of fee setting. Here are three primary factors to consider when setting fees for your legal services: Factor One: The Value You Are Providing to the Client If you are a transactional attorney and you negotiate a deal for your client that saves him one million dollars, is your $20,000 fee a good deal? If you are a criminal attorney and your client, a corporate executive, is facing a public indecency charge that will most certainly get him fired; is your $30,000 fee for negotiating pretrial diversion and expungement worth it? You can probably see where I’m going with this. You must present your fees in the context of the value you provide. The resistance I get when I introduce this concept to new clients is the: “everyone else charges…” argument. That is to say: People always fall back on what their peers/competitors are charging as a justification for charging low fees. The argument assumes that you are exactly the same as everyone who does what you do. You are a commodity. If you ARE the same as everyone else, if you ARE a commodity, shame on you. The first rule of marketing is to differentiate your business from every other business that provides similar services. Differentiation is the key to value demonstration. Factor Two: The Demand for Your Services If you have enough clients to cover your fixed costs, and pay yourself a reasonable salary, why would you ever discount your fee? Think about it. You don’t NEED the business. You are already close to capacity. Yet you take the new client who requires a fee discount in order to do business with you. Put another way: Others recognize your value and are willing to pay full fee to work with you. Why not just find someone else who will pay full value and take a pass on the discount shopper? Supply and demand. It’s basic economics. When demand is high and supply is limited, fees are high. There is only one of you. Supply certainly is limited. Factor Three: Your Personal Desire You are not an indentured servant. You set your own fees. These fees should include your personal desire for: 1). Income, 2). Confidence, 3). Lifestyle If you have specific income goals, you should adjust your fees to help facilitate achieving those goals. If you don’t have income goals I can guarantee you will almost always be unhappy with your income. There is nothing that provides a lawyer with confidence like clients investing their cash in him. The two go hand in hand. People are emotional about money. If you want someone to be confident in you, convince them to invest in you. Once they put their money on the line they will be a big, big fan. How do you want to live your life? Do you want to control your own destiny? Do you want to provide your family with the best life has to offer? Do you want to eliminate financial worries forever? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions you need to charge significant fees. You cannot nickel and dime your way to wealth…not as a solo practitioner or owner of a small law firm. But don’t believe my words. Use me as a case study. I only select twelve private clients to work with me each year. I charge $30,000 per year for this privilege. I have a waiting list. Now there are other ways to get involved with me (my $97 per month Rainmaker Society Membership for example). But there are only twelve new private clients selected every year. Only twelve people who get unlimited access to me. Only twelve people with my private telephone number. What makes me different? What is my secret? Re-read this article. It gives you all the information you need to take control of your financial future. Link: http://www.rainmakerlawyer.com/site/permalink/fee_discounts_and_your_income/