How to do fixed pricing as a Salesforce consultant (5 of 5)

Method #5: Value-based projects

The following process must be quite familiar to you:

1. A client asks for your help
2. You give an estimate for a discovery phase, for an amount that’s based on your past experience
3. Once discovery is completed, you know most details of what you need to do and how you plan to do it
4. You submit a proposal with an estimate, based on time & materials (T&M) to implement everything above
5. Midway through the project, you determine your estimates were too low, so you submit a change order, then another, then another
6. The client gets frustrated with the constant extra charges, but because of the sunk cost, they begrudgingly proceed
7. At one point, you stop charging the client and “eat” hours out of guilt, and both parties are frustrated

Now instead of all that, what if we flipped it around and use value-based pricing (VBP).

The new process would look like this:

1. A client asks for your help
2. You have a sales call and determine the business goals and the value of the project to the client
3. Based on the value, you decide on three options that
   1. Escalates on the previous option, in terms of scope and budget
   2. Gets the client closer to the business goals or even even surpasses them
4. You submit the proposal as a fixed price, with no change orders
5. The client selects and option, knowing exactly what they are receiving and how much it will cost
6. You always finish the project on budget while provided the business value the client wanted

The takeaway
This is just an overview of the VBP model. Don’t worry, there will be further details with examples in the next email 🙂