Editor's Note: This article is one of twelve belonging to the free, 39-page special report, The One Piece of Advice You Need to Get the Fees You Deserve. Click here to download your copy.

One piece of advice I often offer to professional services providers (in my case mostly architects, engineers, and planners) to help them get the fees they deserve is simply to take courage. Specifically, I mean to translate their technical (sometimes towering) competency into confidence, their confidence into conviction, and their conviction into courage. To paraphrase the well worn concept—we have seen the enemy, and it is (quite often) us.

Many external factors influence fee levels and pricing of projects. The competitive landscape and its intensity, power and sophistication of buyers, cost of labor, and state of the economy come to mind. Internal factors, such as the firm's brand power, focus and expertise of the project team, and depth and quality of client relationships also affect prices. And indeed the combination of these factors, inside and outside the firm, certainly can constrain what is possible for the firm. True enough.

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