BIO: Flavilla Fongang is a Top 5 most influential tech woman. She is the author of 99 Strategies to get customers, International Keynote Speaker, BBC Brand Strategist, Brand Growth Coach, Branding & Marketing Agency MD, TLA Black Women in Tech Founder, and Tech Brains Talk Podcast.

STORY: When Flavilla started a personal branding consultancy, she made the mistake of charging by the hour. This made her lose money, and people perceived her low rates as a reflection of her services.

LEARNING: Don’t align yourself with followers who pay less. Align yourself with leaders who will pay premium rates.

“Align yourself with the leaders, not the followers.”

Flavilla Fongang

Flavilla Fongang is a Top 5 most influential tech woman. She is the author of 99 Strategies to get customers, International Keynote Speaker, BBC Brand Strategist, Brand Growth Coach, Branding & Marketing Agency MD, TLA Black Women in Tech Founder, and Tech Brains Talk Podcast.

Flavilla worked in oil and gas and then later decided to become a fashion stylist who self-taught herself. She read a lot of books and learned about becoming a fashion stylist.

Flavilla then quickly realized that people were very interested in personal branding, so she became a brand consultant.

Flavilla would often advise her clients to pick a niche, but she couldn’t bring herself to pick one out of fear of losing opportunities. She was working with clients in all sorts of niches. So she became a jack of all trade.

Another huge mistake Flavilla made with her business model was charging by the hour. People would comment about how cheap she was, and cheap is not good as it’s often viewed as a reflection of your value. Now the problem with the hourly rate is that if you are very efficient and good at what you do, you lose a lot of money. This is what happened to Flavilla. She realized that she was doing it wrong and started using value-based pricing.

If you align yourself with followers, you’ll be going for the lowest bracket instead of the higher bracket. When you charge people more, they tend to trust you more and see you as the best in what you do. So leave the time-wasters who are always looking for a bargain; go for the top-notch clients who will value what you do.

People are always willing to pay a lot for transformation, but they pay a small amount for knowledge. So sell an outcome.

Double your price to lockout time-wasters, and you will only have people that really enjoy working with you and value what you have to offer.

Flavilla’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to get herself out of the equation. She believes she’s become her own burden as much as her own strength. People love who she is and want to work with her. But she needs to get herself less involved in the management of her business.

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