Charge What You Deserve: The Lifestyle Fee-Setting Formula Revealed: What Every Service Professional Should Know Before Charging Their Next Client by Tom Buford has some great ideas on setting fees that will help service professionals set comfortable fees.

The author talks about why it doesn’t work to just “copy what others are charging” in your industry and also dives into the idea that low fees can actually jeopardize your results by giving clients a low perceived value of your services and undercutting your own quality of work, among other reasons.

In another chapter, Buford talks about how your insecurities could be holding you back from realizing your true potential. He gives a few examples of how you might be subconsciously sabotaging your own success and then tells you how to get past it. Then he gets into positioning yourself as an expert, regardless of how long you’ve been working in your field. He points out that qualifying as an expert simply means that you have a special skill or knowledge set that others don’t have. He covers tapping into that specialized knowledge to become the go-to professional in your chosen niche and gives pointed steps you can take to become known as an expert.

Other sections cover how to virtually eliminate your competition by tapping into your own uniqueness, how to provide multiple solutions to fit different customer’s needs and budgets, and how to communicate your fees without cowering in fear of rejection.

Then he gets to the section where you’ll learn the basic fee-setting formula that you can use to set your ideal rates, based on how much you want to work each week/year. While this formula is similar to the ones found in other books that cover fee-setting methods, there are many other tips and techniques that can be helpful for business owners who are struggling to find success in their businesses.

The book also lists various free resources that can be downloaded directly off the author’s website, along with seven bonus articles about topics ranging from using information products to help you charge what you deserve and finding clients in a down economy.

While I did find useless information within this book, one thing that was a bit distracting was the many typos that were peppered throughout the pages.

This paperback book contains 118 pages and can be purchased on Amazon.com for $12.99.

Click here to buy the book now!

Do you have any thoughts, queries, or feedback on The Lifestyle Fee-Setting Formula? Share your comments or questions by replying directly to this thread!

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Tammi Metzler ~ The Write Associate
Free call: "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Grab Attention!"

Thanks for this resource, Tammi. I haven't read this book yet, but I do follow Tom Buford on Twitter and FB. He has some great ideas/suggestions for helping VAs, coaches, etc. charge what they deserve.

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Blessings,
Carol

This is one I'm very interested in reading! People are always telling that I eaither charge far too little or far too much. I know what I need to charge... but this will be interesting to see another viewpoint on how to figure this out.

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Marian Harmon, Certified Virtual Assistant
www.crossmydesk.com

It appears that if you look up the book on Amazon, Amazon doesn't really sell it. It's sold through LuLu, an on-demand printer. (But, buy it via Amazon to support VAF). That immediately made me hesitate. LuLu is good if YOU are good... but they will print whatever you give them, and that includes poorly formatted documents full of bad grammar and useless white space.

I actually managed to get a e-copy of this book today, and... well, I would say don't waste your money. As Tammi noted, there are many typos. I feel really bad for saying this because I think there is some valuable advice to be found in there, but i was so distracted by the things I'v detailed below that i couldn't even finish reading it.

The author is an "Internet Marketer" - so you know what that means -- lots of squeeze pages from pre-formatted affiliate templates sold by other Internet marketers, self-promoting copy and little actual substance. I don't mean to offend those VAs here who support individuals like this, it's just a major pet peeve of mine. A lot of these "marketers" follow the same formula and you can't actually figure out what they're selling besides themselves. They all have these fabulous "special reports" available that really don't contain more than a serious of Internet links, poor screen captures and more self-promotion. It really turns me off, so as I started reading this book today I was already rolling my eyes.

Chapter 1 starts by assuming you've read the introduction. Big mistake. The author starts with, "So, what exactly am I talking about?"

Yeah... I mumbled something similar when I read it.

These are small pages... 8" x 5" with triple spaced paragraphs that consist of one or two sentences at a time... yet, still, on the first page the author doesn't answer his question but manages to self-promote two previous books.

Ironically, later in the book he states he feels he never has to sell himself.

In 21 pages he uses the same well known Eleanor Roosevelt quote twice, and he mentions his previous books at least 4 times. It drove me batty. In one spot he mentions an exercise and indicates leaving "space below" to write down words and terms. And yet... there is no such space for two more pages.

One of the links he gives in the book for downloading a "Value Inventory" no longer exists or doesn't function for some reason.

The thing is just a mess, frankly, and it seems to me that the product defeats the purpose of his overly self-promoted message.

He does make some good points about value perception. I bring this up because he talks about how his previous books are sold for $49 or more, and are so fabulous that people are crazy not to pay so little for thousands of dollars of information. Great... so, then, why is he selling such important information for $12.99?

The good advice in this book can be pared down to a small booklet of 4-5 pages, possibly less. But really, it's all common sense and nothing one couldn't learn in a Business 101 course at a community college.

The final kicker that made me click the X on the e-book? The author, who talks about making all this money and maintaining such a good perception of the value of one's services actually - in the middle of a chapter about testimonials - tells readers to "check out" his AudioAcrobat testimonial line, and gives the number and extension.

I called for the fun of it, and it's just a voice mail message prompt of the author asking you to leave a testimonial or comment for HIM. Why is such a successful guy, in a book stressing value perception and worth, promoting the fact that he's using a freebie voice mail service?

I'm going to now. I think I've been too mean... but I wanted to be honest. I would say you all should save your money on this one else you spend more for Tylenol to get rid of the headache it will create trying to decipher the real message through all the hype.

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Marian Harmon, Certified Virtual Assistant
www.crossmydesk.com

...and I sincerely apologize for all of the typos in the above post. Oh, dear.

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Marian Harmon, Certified Virtual Assistant
www.crossmydesk.com

Thanks for the thorough review Tammi. It does sound like a good book, but what is with the typos!

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Jen Scoggins
www.virtual-jen.com

Thanks for both review of this book!

I have really mixed feelings about this book - for one thing, it's not necessarily lengthy or meaty in content but it does give some good inspiration and info on setting an appropriate rate. But here the author talks about how he pays his VA $50 per hour and I'm wondering why she wasn't in on the editorial process of his book - or if she was, how she missed all of these typos.

Yes, it is a huge annoyance and makes you feel like you want to write your own book sans typos.

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I agree, Tess. If he's paying his VA $50 an hour (which is a common rate for an excellent, experienced VA) ... and said VA was involved in the editorial process for that book, he's getting ripped off. I know VAs who charge half that rate who would produce a better quality product.

It's a shame, too, because there really *IS* some good information to be found in this book. I was just really put off by the typos and the self-promotion. (And I fully deserve any and all pokes for the horrific typos in my post from the other day. I guess I had a case of premature post-itis or something.)

More than anything, though, I was confused by the author's message. Why brag about how much he pays his VA, the price point of his books and discuss the value of one's services while creating a product that reflects none of that?

Even though I know it wasn't, I almost felt like I was reading a galley proof of the book rather than the final product.

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Marian Harmon, Certified Virtual Assistant
www.crossmydesk.com

Originally Posted by divineva

Thanks for this resource, Tammi. I haven't read this book yet, but I do follow Tom Buford on Twitter and FB. He has some great ideas/suggestions for helping VAs, coaches, etc. charge what they deserve.

I also follow him on Twitter. He has some good ideas!!

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Stephanie S.