Mr. Lu Xun wrote an article "My View of the Festival", and I would like to take the liberty of applying the title of the article and name this article "My View of Charges".
I wrote an article about lawyers' fees. Now that I think about it, I would like to add that lawyer fees are a complex issue that requires a lot of factors to consider and require lawyers to be adaptable, but if you have a new idea of fees, or you don't pay much attention to the amount of fees. Then the charge may be less complicated.
For example: For example, some lawyers say that when they talk about fees, they have to judge the financial level of the person who comes. Once a client from another place came to the law firm to discuss something, he saw a BMW car with the customer's local license plate downstairs in the firm, so he judged that the client who came to talk to him was relatively wealthy, so he formulated a charging strategy.
Therefore, my feeling is that lawyers' fees have become a specialized knowledge, and lawyers' scheming in fees almost exceeds the case handling itself. Because the issue of charging is not only considered when signing a contract, but also needs to be considered by you throughout the whole process, because it is related to when you successfully develop a charging strategy, meet people to cook, After you have developed a strategy that combines various factors but focuses on high fees (because you don't have to put so much effort into high fees if you don't pursue high fees) and thus achieves your goals, then after the customer pays the fee, in the process of your work, can you make the customer feel that your payment is in a reasonable proportion to the fee, and will the customer be dissatisfied with your high charge?
If there is dissatisfaction, it will naturally cause estrangement, in the shadow of the estrangement, how to work together with customers in the future, how to make you work without distraction, this kind of dissatisfaction will show at any time and how to make you feel comfortable to work?
Therefore, if the fee issue is not handled well, it will inevitably lead to estrangement and contradictions between the client and the lawyer. And in the case of such estrangement and contradiction, it will inevitably affect the work and the effect.
Of course, maybe you think the charge is high, the customer does not think it is high, but your heart will be worried, will be suspicious, this anxiety and doubt will inevitably distort your psychology of getting along with customers, will inevitably cause obstacles to you and customers, and will inevitably affect your work. It is difficult for you to guess what other people think, and people who seem to be very rich are very concerned about the cost;People who don't seem to be very rich, but they are very generous about fees. There are a lot of such things. Moreover, rich people just won't bargain with you, but they do mind if you ask for a sky-high price. Everyone is like this, people who are not rich can be generous enough to accept you to see people asking for a price to treat others as wronged. Therefore, some lawyers emphasize that they do not ** when they do not find out the psychological price that the client can accept. I don't approve of that, because you can't guess what other people are thinking. Some professionals may be able to guess with a high probability, but there is really no need for a lawyer to put so much effort into this.
On the other hand, if a lawyer (in any profession, in fact) is too money-conscious, he spends a lot of effort on fees. That will inevitably make the whole work dizzy, and it will affect the work because of the relationship of interests. A lawyer who attaches too much importance to interests will be endlessly pursuing interests, and he will feel that he should charge more than he can do with a little effort, or he will be bent on saving expenses and saving investment to maximize profits. In this case, the interests of the parties must be harmed.
In this interest-led model, if your contribution does not meet his requirements, but because he is not willing to let go of this income, he will be reluctant to follow, but the next service will be greatly reduced.
In addition to avoiding the fact that lawyers are preoccupied with profits, they often charge too much. Another thing to consider is how to avoid charging too low, how to avoid making customers feel that the fee is too low, and then doubt your ability and knowledge.
To avoid this, don't rush to tell the price as soon as you meet the client, but show the client your defense, ** plan, or preliminary plan before talking about the price. Because in this way, the customer will have a certain understanding of your ability, if he recognizes your ability, even if your ** is low, the customer will not doubt your ability, will only think that he has picked up a bargain, and will only think that he has encountered a good quality and cheap thing. So, remember to create the conditions for customers to have an idea of what you are capable of.
After that, the bidding question is very personal. Everyone may have a different understanding of this ** and how much it costs. All I can say is that when you make a bid, you get rid of the idea that you're going to make a lot of money, you just think about how much work it takes, and then you can accept as much as you think. In fact, the truth is that when people abandon their greed, they can avoid being dizzy, they can give a rational offer, and they can make it easier for the other party to accept.
Although the value of any business, product, or service in the society is usually measured by money, it is obvious that its value is not exactly money, and other values should be pursued in addition to money. That is to say, when you price a product or service, you should not only consider how much money you get, but also how you can have the opportunity to provide services to customers and society, which is also a kind of value realization.
Taking the product as an example, the pricing of Apple's mobile phone is not high, and it even follows a low-price strategy. When Jobs said ** at the press conference, there were always surprises and admiration from the audience. Similarly, Lei Jun, the boss of Xiaomi mobile phones, also said that what they are pursuing is a minimum profit.
Why do they have this pricing strategy?I think the main reason is that they want their products to serve more people. The more people use their mobile phones, the more praise they can reap, and the more convenience they can provide to their lives, which is naturally a way to realize the value of Apple and Xiaomi's shareholders and employees.
In this case, why would they be so rich?One might ask why they are the richest companies when they adopt a low-price strategyIn fact, they are not rich because of the high fees of a single product, they are rich because modern technology allows them to produce a large number of mobile phones, they are rich by "quantity", not by single machine**.
People envy Jack Ma's wealth and don't know why he is so rich. It can be said that he relied on the Internet technology to make money. The Internet has made it easy for the services they provide to reach thousands of households, and even if they only charge one dollar per person, their wealth is enormous. Therefore, Ma Yun and Ma Huateng are not rich by increasing the unit price of their services, they are because they have caught up with the free ride of Internet technology, and with the help of the Internet, they have the opportunity to easily provide services for thousands of households at the same time, so in essence, they also rely on quantity to get rich.
This is also the reason why lawyers cannot be very rich, the reason is that lawyers earn money on labor, and labor is limited, and you can't have more than 24 hours a day. Therefore, the characteristics of the profession of lawyers make it impossible for lawyers to be very rich.
In general, it is impossible for any business, service, or product to make money by raising the unit price. So, this also determines that you have to go the people-friendly pricing route. This also determines that you should not only consider the maximization of profits when pricing for quick success, but also consider that your services and products can have the opportunity to be recognized and accepted - this is also a great value.
So, my pricing approach is that I rarely think about these so-called pricing factors intuitively and in detail. There are many of these pricing factors, and it is not possible to have a precise quantitative analysis of the results. So, I usually come based on my own feelings, which I think are real, so real that I don't want to be upset by the high fees, and I rarely regret the low fees.
In short, in this way, I can come up with a price that I can feel comfortable with, even if this price feels like a loss, but it is I who suffers, and for those who are not willing to take advantage of others, it is a blessing to suffer a little. So, it allows me to go to work with peace of mind. Another benefit of this peace of mind is that the client will not be at odds with me because of the price, and if the case works well, the client will be more grateful and will even introduce the client to me.
I think this should be the only fee concept for any business that provides market products and services, and it should also be the lawyer's fee view: that is, do not consider the maximization of profits first, but the first consideration is that your products and services have the opportunity to serve more people, and have the opportunity to be recognized and accepted by more people. The recognition and acceptance of your products and services by others is already a reward for you, not to mention that you have to give you money, so why bother with money?
So, when bidding, put the consideration of profit at the back, put the customer's needs in the first place, and put how to make the customer's needs be met in the first place, then you can give a reasonable bid.
That's my view of the charges.