The Design Professional’s Guide to

Design Fee Psychology

Although many of us believe that we make financial decisions based on rational financial criteria, this is seldom the case. How much we charge for design services may not be as important as how we present those charges.

This publication introduces 5 key concepts from the field of Behavioral Finance to demonstrate the crucial role that human emotions play in the design fee proposal and negotiation process.

Through the use of both ‘real world’ examples and academic studies, readers will discover hidden patterns in human behavior and the strategies required to maximize the success of their business by building better, healthier client relationships.

Readers will learn how; presentation, anchoring and adjustment, mental accounting, reward and punishment and losses and gains are all influencing the clients’ perception of the fee proposal and the services offered.

If you’re currently responsible for (or will be responsible for) writing proposals and/or negotiating fees, or if you’d like to know what’s influencing your client’s decisions, or if you’d like to develop your understanding of human behavior in the financial arena, then this publication is for you.

It’s not what you charge but how you charge that’s going to influence your success. Let our 20 plus years of fees and appointments experience show you how.

The Design Professional’s Guide to

Fees & Contracts

If you’re thinking about; becoming a freelance Design Professional, running your own design practice, or improving your project management skills then ‘The Design Professional’s eGuide to Fees Contracts’ is a resource you won’t want to be without.

This step-by-step guide provides the tools, resources and check-lists to; interview potential clients, track client information, calculate resource-based fees, structure fees, write effective fee proposals, calculate charge-out rates, understand common contractual terms and conditions and provide commercial contract reviews.

Whether you are new to the industry, or have many years of experience, why not arm yourself with a guide that utilizes 20 years of project management experience from around the globe.

This guide is for all Design Professionals who want to streamline their fees and appointments process, increase their contract management knowledge and develop a winning system for themselves, their co-workers and their team members to acquire and implement.

The Design Professional’s Guide to

Writing Effective Fee Proposals

Many Design Professionals are unclear how to present fees for design services – Is the fee proposal simply a legal instrument? marketing brochure? or a combination of the two? Should we include; photos, bios, experience, project history, scope, terms and conditions or just fees?

As the Design & Construction industry becomes more competitive we need to reconsider the way we view our fee proposal documents; not simply as a legal instrument, but also as a document that sells design services. Getting this wrong can make the difference between a profitable, successful practice and no practice at all.

In this publication we take a look at the science of selling design services by exploring the field of human behavior and its application to the fee proposal process. We’ll show you the 7 fundamental principles behind an effective fee proposal document and the factors that cause clients to say ‘yes’ at your request.

Whether you win that next design project may have less to do with your abilities as a Design Professional than you may want to believe. Let us use our 20 years of experience to show you how a few changes to your proposal can have a dramatic and positive impact on your; design fees, conversion rates and client relationships.

By presenting fees in the most effective manner we can all get more clients to say ‘yes’. We can also improve our fee levels, avoid scope creep, and provide a more ethical approach to the fee proposal process.

If you’re suffering from; a low conversion rate, unsatisfactory fees, scope creep, job insecurity or clients that simply don’t value the services that you offer then this publication is for you.

The Design Professional’s Guide to

Design Fee Negotiations

When negotiating design fees many of us believe that reducing our fee is the only way to win new work and resolve conflict. Most of us rely on little more than our gut instincts and peer advice to help us through the negotiation process.

In this publication the Author takes a look at a better way to manage the negotiation process. Readers will learn how to recognize and respond to the 12 most common ‘tactics and tricks’ used to force fee reductions during the fee proposal and negotiation process. Readers will also develop their understanding of the negotiation process and build confidence by adopting a negotiation strategy, known by experts in the field as ‘Principled Negotiation’.

The publication includes examples from the author’s own real-life negotiations, taken from 20 years of contract management and fee negotiation experience. Don’t wait until it’s too late, learn how to negotiate ethically and effectively so that you can become the negotiation expert within your office.

If you’re not a confident negotiator, if you don’t currently have a negotiation strategy, if you’re relying on the good nature of your clients, if you’d like to improve your negotiation skills, if you’d like more job security, or if you simply want to confirm that your current approach is the best approach, then this publication is for you.

The Design Professional’s Guide to

Pricing Design Services

Most Architects and Design Professionals are trained to price design services by; estimating their cost to complete the work, balancing it with local market conditions and then negotiating with the Client. A cost-based approach to proposing design fees frequently leaves Design Professionals; competing on fee, alone, to win new work; bartering for position at the negotiation table; and writing proposals that fail to communicate the value inherent in the services offered.

In this publication we take a look at a better way to price design services. By following an interest-based approach Architects and Design Professionals can write proposals that; separate their services from their competition, cater to the needs of a larger client base and offer solutions that clients want to pay for.

By adopting a pricing strategy known (by economists) as Price Discrimination we’ll learn a different approach to pricing design services, an approach that avoids tough negotiations, reduces scope creep and increases our conversion rates.

This publication also details how companies and service providers in other industries have overcome the problem of fee erosion with the implementation of Price Discrimination. We’ll discuss the commercial and ethical considerations of different pricing models and how to implement a best-practice approach to proposing fees for design services.

If you suffer from heavy fee negotiations, low conversion rates, scope creep, low fees or if your clients simply don’t value the service you offer, then this guide is for you.