Charging more for your freelancing

29. Dec, 2009 0 Comments

As freelancers, we take on substantial risk. We’re entitled to receive extra reward, be it freedom, or money, or both.

In my experience, the hard part in raising prices isn’t asking for the higher amount, it’s convincing yourself you’re worth it.

Once you’ve sold yourself on the idea, it’s pretty easy to continually increase your prices. All you have to do is ask new clients for larger amounts. I started out freelancing about a few years ago, and when I started out, like most freelancers, I was charging below market rates.

Since then, I’ve continually been increasing my prices to the point where now I’m one of the most expensive in town.

I have found what works for me is:

Don’t bill based on your time, bill based on the value you provide

Billing based on the time you spend is a conflict of interest.

The client doesn’t care if you take 20 minutes or 5 hours, they just want their problem solved.

However you get paid more for taking more time.

Your incentive is to take longer, whereas the client’s best interests are served when you work quickly.

Billing based on time is also limiting.

There are only so many hours in a day, so many hours you can work a week. Billing based on time means you’re never going to make more money than that fixed amount.

Don’t sell design work, or writing work, or development work. Sell a solution to your clients problems

This is as much in your own mind as in the clients mind. If you go into a meeting with a potential client with the idea that you are performing x hours of labour of design work, you’re losing money.

Solutions differ based on who you’re selling to. For small business, as a website builder you’re selling a marketing solution. If you freelance to agencies, they are looking for fast turnaround, and work that is to spec.

When you do the above, you realise that every client has different needs, and showing the client you understand those unique needs is 99% of the sale

Once you start identifying needs and providing solutions, you’re a lot more valuable to your client.

Providing more value to your client means that you can raise your prices to justify the increased value.

Don’t sell to prospects who can’t afford you

If you’re like me and you like helping other people, this point is a stickler. If someone wants some work done, and they can’t afford you, don’t take work for the sake of taking work.

You’re much better off keeping that time free and then using that time to follow up leads or call some referrals than doing low paying work.

Low paying work holds back your skills, and doesn’t progress you. Don’t do it! Instead, refer the work to one of your freelance colleagues.