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pA big issue for many a href=http://www.bestaccountswellington.co.nz/ target=_blankaccountants/anbsp;business owners I talk to is that they are busy but they are not making any money, or not making as much money astheyrsquo;d like to be making. That comes down to two things, one, not charging enough, or not being selective about the quality of clients you want to work with. And often doing a bit of analysis helps – Inbsp;Remember doing this in my previous business to understand where the business was coming from and I was shocked to discover that47% of my clients only brought in 4% of the revenue.What was going on there was because Irsquo;d built a big ship and I thought, ldquo;Well, thatrsquo;s money in to cover overheadrdquo; big mistake.Big mistake. So you are doing work just to pay the wages, as it were.So the solution was we said, ldquo;Right, minimum spent is going to be$2,000rdquo; and then we started turning down business, if people didnrsquo;t fit hose minimum requirements. Hard at first, but it meant that we were doing consistently profitable work and were spending more time without good clients.So that was a big eye opener, doing some of that analysis there.So we put the price up and got clear on who our ideal client was as well.Because often companies just take whoever comes along, because they havenrsquo;t focused on who they actually want, on the characteristics of it.But the law of attraction states you focus on the type of client you want and you actually do attract it. But yoursquo;ve got to get clear on that.The sort of things such as theyrsquo;re fun to deal with, theyrsquo;ve got the ability to pay, theyrsquo;ll pay on time and they value what you do – your,product or service – so all those criteria there.They wonrsquo;t quibble on price and theyrsquo;ll spend X amount per year,keep on coming back. So you might classify them A, B, C, and so you know what you are dealing with.But it is also good to qualify clients, because the first time you actually say no to a a href=http://www.bestaccountswellington.co.nz/ target=_blankaccounting/a client, your confidence about what you do, the value of what you do, soars. So donrsquo;t be afraid to say no, and that can be A very important thing.It gives you clarity on what you are doing and who your clients are. I remember getting D class clients and dealing with them,providing them A class services. And the worst thing is, guess what happens? They refer their friends to you.Itrsquo;s like, ldquo;Oh no, cut this outrdquo;. Oh I know, itrsquo;s funny, and with that whole pricing thing, sometimes its really the business owner who has got the biggest issue with price.They might have had three people say complain about price, 50 donrsquo;t,but because of those three they go, ldquo;Oh maybe we want to put our price downrdquo;. But the cost of discounting is disturbing. Listen to this here: letrsquo;s say you had an average gross profit percentage of 30%gross profit. Okay?Many businesses might be double that, some could be a little bit less,but say 30%. So a $100 sale $30 of that is gross profit to go towards overhead and profit. Now, if you decide to discount your price by just10%, to stay the same in gross profit terms you need to increase your revenue, your sales by 50%.Well go from, say, $100,000 to $150,000 to stay the same. But the thing is that yoursquo;re going to be damn busy, not making any more money.This is 47% of clients giving you 4% of your revenue.Exactly, yes, and your costs will go up because yoursquo;ve got more stuff delivered. On the flip side though, if you increase your price by 10%you could afford to lose 25% of your revenue and still be exactly the same in gross profit terms. Discounting-style businesses ultimatelyarenrsquo;t sustainable. There are some exceptions, Walmart, The Warehouse, but generally a discount strategy will see companies in not too long go broke and theyrsquo;ll be tired because theyrsquo;ve been busy but not making any money.But no one notices when you put the price up a little bit, people expect it to go up, you know.Itrsquo;s not being afraid. I remember when I started out, the first conference we did. We werenrsquo;t in that business so we didnrsquo;t know what to do. In Methven, a lady walks in the door and says, ldquo;Oh I hear you guys are the ones to talk to about team buildingrdquo; and we kind of looked at each other and wersquo;d go, ldquo;Yeah, thatrsquo;s right, thatrsquo;s usrdquo;.You know exactly who you are.Invite her in and then just said, ldquo;Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can do thatrdquo; and then we had two weeks to put together this programme, but we had to do the proposal and we didnrsquo;t know what to charge. So, I go, ldquo;Wersquo;ll, charge $29 per headrdquo; for 70 people. And we thought that was about right, and we sent it away and God bless her she phones back and says, ldquo;Look, are you sure yoursquo;ve charged enough there?Have you got enough money in it?rdquo; so we sent back, ldquo;Oh yes, we might have left something outrdquo; and sent it back at $42 a head. And she goes, ldquo;Okay, wersquo;ll do thatrdquo;. But now that same programme would be charged out at $120. I think that was something I really got. Iwasnrsquo;t afraid to charge a lot, I mean from $70,000 for a four-hour team building programme. But that was the value to them, or $2,500for a 30 minute speech. And itrsquo;s not being afraid to charge high prices, because there is always people out there that will pay them.Itrsquo;s knowing your value.So thatrsquo;s getting the right customers and charging appropriately and not being afraid of that./p