The “Prostitute Principle” (not to be confused with the prostitute principal — har har har) is a phenomenon that many consultants are probably familiar with.

It refers to the difficulty of charging services after they have already been rendered.

Call girls, of course, have found a way to deal with this problem — and that is to always get paid up front.

Think about this for a minute: if you tell me that you desperately want to double the size of your business, and i tell you that I can help you — for a cost — as long as that cost is ‘reasonably’ less than they perceived benefit you receive by doubling your business you are probably interested.

Now, if the grand sum of my work is 15 minutes of tweaking your site, many people will begrudge the consultant his fair share of the proceeds.

Even funnier, is that almost no one will admit that they would feel this way. However, it’s part of human nature that they don’t see the 10 years of experience that gave someone the knowledge to know WHAT to tweak. They only see the 10 minutes of work and think: “gosh, someone else could have done that just as easily and charged a LOT less”. Nevermind, that 9 out of 10 professionals wouldn’t have known what to do and would have worked for months with less to show in results.

The mark of the true professional is someone who can cut through the clutter, simplify, and not be focused on trying to make simple concepts complicated. Unfortunately, these are also the same behaviours that will make you susceptible to the prostitute principle.

Oh, but wait, I know….all my readers are more evolved and would never do that, right?

Sound off. Leave a comment. It’s a follow link for your site after all.

Enhancing the Cool is a phrase I attribute to the marketing genius of Frank Kern.

I’m creating a post on my own online marketing site because I’m adopting it as my new corporate mantra for 2010.

As a way of filtering the number of projects I get involved with in 2010, and beyond, the projects will have to fulfill the following criteria:

• Is there a group of existing people who are (or could be with very little work) really exited about this product or service?
• Am I legitimately excited about this product or service or just the prospects for financial gain
• Does the product or service really ‘enhance the cool’ of this niche?  Is it buzzworthy?

Instead of looking to sell 10 dollars worth of ’stuff’ to 1 million people….Is there something I can create for $10,000 dollars, that I can give away to 1 million people, and make them grateful for life?

I’ve got some ideas, but I’d like to hear yours.  Leave your comments below.  They’re DoFollow after all!

Btw, if you’re not familiar with him, Kern has a great “State of the Internet Address” video up on his blog.

Check it out here.

State of  Internet Address