Posted by BrendaTx on 11/17/07 6:11am
Msg #221786

Must have been an NSA

I was just watching an early (yeah, real early) program on MSNBC called "Your Business". I love that show...and watch it nearly every weekend.

An email was read asking how to set a fee for a competitive market in transactions and how to price your services. It sounded like a good NSA question to me.

The email asked how to set rates to be competitive short of calling all your competition to see how they were doing it and what their rates were. (Funny, neither of the experts suggested that method as a good one.) Or, should they try to set by the hour, oor shoud they use a flat rate.

The "experts" answered that you'd just have to test your market. Quote and see what happened until you learned how to price yourself.

Sounds like the experts on this board...test, test, test until you find your place...whatever works for you.

I know I repeat myself a lot about this, but an NSA business owner will benefit from getting expert advice...and it's free or really cheap at the local SBDC.

Don't price yourself too short. Get expert advice to learn how to know if you are killing your business or not. At the SBDC they'll help you with a business plan and tell you how to price yourself so that you don't go under in a given market. Or, they'll tell you to find another business because it's just not doable right now. The SBDC is free and they offer classes on business for around $15 a class. Well worth it to get expert advice...during reasonable hours, too...I doubt that most of you are up at 4:00 am washing clothes and writing while watching MSNBC's experts on "Your Business".