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O P I N I O N
You lament the commoditization of your services, but are you doing anything to differentiate your firm, and in turn, earn better fees? Pricing your firm out of business
W e have all had the experience of standing with a group of our peers at an industry function bemoaning as a group the low fees being paid by our clients for our services. We keep asking: How can our clients think so little of our expertise and quality? Then we all go home, get up the next morning, go to the office and continue to send out fee proposals based on what we think the market will bear and not based on what our services are worth nor even what it costs us to provide those services. So the reality is that it is not our clients who think so little of our firms, it is we who think so little of ourselves.
Stephen Lucy
You also need to realize that you may be too close to this conversation to have the candid evaluation that is needed. After all, aren’t you the one who thinks your graying hair makes you look distinguished “If your product and level of service are no different than the other firms in your market, emerging from the pit of commodity pricing can be extremely difficult, if not impossible.”
But if your product and level of service are no different than the other firms in your market, emerging from the pit of commodity pricing can be extremely difficult, if not impossible. So what should you do to avoid being the next “widget” of the A/E community? 1)Take a hard look in the mirror. Before you can for- mulate a change strategy, you have to make a critical assessment of your firm and your markets. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are your areas of expertise? Are your markets saturated with other firms? Who are the best peer firms and why are they considered the best?
See STEPHEN LUCY, page 10
THE ZWEIG LETTER January 29, 2018, ISSUE 1233
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