28 go-to hacks for increasing your consulting rates
Jun 01, 2025
Becoming an independent Change Management consultant can be extremely lucrative as you can often charge considerably more than a day rate contractor (or even not charge rates at all and choose packages instead!). Here’s 28 go-to hacks for increasing your consulting rates when you move from contracting or permanent to consulting:
- Set yourself up for success in your consultancy: Rather than leap into the unknown and cross your fingers for luck, be strategic and learn from people who have done it before successfully and can give ideas on the types of rates you can be charging.
- Attract a consistent flow of clients: The more clients you have, the more confident you’ll be to increase your rates over time. This flow doesn’t need to be high volume, but it does need to be consistent.
- Onboarding your clients with care and confidence: The client experience is everything and when you treat your clients well through the onboarding process, you can charge more premium prices.
- Package your unique gifts: No one has your unique background, skills and experiences. When you package this up into value-focused offerings that your clients need and want, you can charge premium rates.
- Charge premium prices you deserve: It’s important to actually get clear on what your premium prices are, how you’ll message them, and then actually do it!
- Market and advertise your services authentically and joyfully: When you feel aligned and truthful in your marketing and advertising of your consulting services, you’ll feel aligned and deserving of your consulting rates.
- Build your personal brand and position your expertise: Clients are buying you as a personal brand when you’re an independent consultant. By building that brand with intention and positioning your expertise properly, you can increase your rates from your current day rate contract or permanent salary.
- Work primarily with Boards, C-Suites and Executive Teams: The more senior the leaders you work with and advise, the more you can charge.
- Build strong trusting relationships: As important as onboarding is, it’s essential to keep a strong trusting relationship as an advisor and confidante throughout the change and beyond.
- Keep healthy boundaries: Consulting can be intense if you let it. But if you burn out, you can’t charge out! Setting and maintaining healthy boundaries with clients is essential.
- Use advanced-level Change Management tools, techniques and templates: Most Change Management tools are designed for change delivery and implementation. When consulting, you’ll often be working on a change much earlier with less clarity and certainty so you need a different suite of advanced-level tools to provide value to your clients at any stage of the change.
- Supercharge your confidence: Everything in career and business, including consulting, comes down to confidence and building your internal sense of self-worth and certainty that you are worth your rates.
- Lead change on your terms: You have to get clear on what clients get for your rates before you can actually charge for them. And more doesn’t always mean better…
- Ensure your time and advice is valued and respected: To feel comfortable and confident increasing your rates, you may need to start making sure your time and advice is valued and respected today.
- Build your transformation skills: Often, an independent consultant isn’t brought in to work on minor upgrades and changes. Usually, they’ll be working at a transformation level on ways of working, culture, and operating model. Building your knowledge and skills in transformation can help you feel confident charging premium rates.
- Build a strong consulting mindset: The urge to lower your rates or discount along the way will inevitably crop up. But a strong consulting mindset can help you stay strong when you a pricing wobble.
- Choose your own clients: Being super clear on the clients you want to work with and can best help is so important - these clients will be happy to pay your rates!
- Choose your own schedule: Understand how you want to set up your life and lifestyle to know how many clients you need at what rates to best serve it.
- Choose your own rates: At some point, you have to put pen to paper and actually decide what your packages and rates will be!
- Have a clear business vision: Clarity on what you want your business to be and become is essential. A business vision that inspires and excites and motivates you can help you build the confidence to increase your rates.
- Have an actionable business blueprint: A vision without action is a dream without a plan. Your business blueprint will also build your confidence to increase your rates.
- Get a seat at the decision-making table: Making sure you’re in front of the right people at the right time is critical to adding the value you need to run a profitable consultancy.
- Work in your zone of genius: Flogging yourself on tasks you hate will burn you out and stop you having sustainability in your consulting business. Get clear on what you do best and focus on pricing that.
- Maintain growth and variety: By constantly growing your skills and experience as a consultant, you can confidently keep increasing your rate.
- Own your own expertise: Clients won’t be hiring you because you’re a generalist, they’ll be paying you premium prices because you clearly position and believe in your key areas of expertise.
- Unlock real value and success for your clients: Pretty PowerPoints and cryptic corporate jargon will not get your engagements extended or renewed and allow you to keep increasing your rates. Be sure you’re delivering real value not just lip service waffle.
- Build flexibility and flow into your day, week, month and year: When you have built flexibility and flow into your life, you’ll feel more comfortable charging appropriately for when clients require your time and advice.
- Increase your rates regularly: When you’re employed, your salary usually goes up by CPI (Consumer Price Index) or a little more each year. As an independent consultant, it’s up to you to increase your rates regularly according to your planned schedule and what feels good.
I’ll be teaching step-by-step how you can set yourself up as an independent Change Consultant in my advanced-level in-person retreat coming up this November in Sydney. I’ll be sharing how to attract clients, package and price your services, build and manage strong client relationships, market and advertise your expertise, build your personal professional brand and most of all: develop a consulting mindset to have the clarity and confidence to own your boundaries and work on your terms.
It's your last chance to join this exclusive, powerful and luxurious retreat in the Introductory Offer period with a complimentary VIP Upgrade. The Introductory Offer period ends tonight Tuesday 3 June at 8.00pm AEST (Sydney time):
Lata xx
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