How to Double Your prices With No Extra Effort
Ok today’s blog post is going to be all about doubling your prices. It doesn’t matter what field you are in, you can double your prices RIGHT NOW. Don’t worry I’ll tell you how to…but first lets tackle the biggest myths…
Myth : You need Experience to Charge High Prices
When I started with my freelance business about 9 years ago as a programmer… Something my first client that struck with me…
“You can’t charge high prices, nobody will pay you. Heck you have to work for free few months”.
It pissed me to no end when I heard it, moreover I can’t forget the most villainous look in his eye. Everything told me that I shouldn’t work with this guy… YET, I did it… Guess what, he robbed me on my efforts. He got the software without paying any single penny. Do you believe I was robbed off from 3 months of my effort?
Charging high prices is all about confidence. It isn’t about experience. Its just that with experience you feel like “You’ve arrived” that’s why you are start charging high.
Trust me it doesn’t matter much with experience. A 15 year old computer geek will write the same code as any 40 yr old computer geek. Heck there have been more than few occasions when 15 yrs kicked old guys arse.
Remember : Job Rules Doesn’t Apply to Freelancers
When I started with website designing… I adopted to new policy. 75% of payment first and then I’ll write a single line of code, 25% payment the moment you’ll clear the design. If they are worrying about prices, I’d told them how to get low price websites from college kids but you’ll get what you pay for.
Here’s your option, Get paid like a celebrity in 10 years from now or Get paid like celeb right now, what do you chose? There might be some unseen “getting paid” rule book for companies or getting JOB. but there is None for free lancers.
Ok here’s my secret of charging High…
Rule 1 : Stop Selling Yourself short : Throw all the negativity out the window. When you are talking to client, look directly into his eye and give your doubled price. Have confidence, heck don’t mind letting the confidence crossover to arrogance.
Rule 2 : Stop being an Expert in One thing. One of the biggest drawbacks of being the expert in one thing is that you can’t add-on the value. Let me explain… When I was a web designing, I knew about SEO(search engine optimization)… but never gave it a thought… I was an expert designer.
One day one of my client I was working with talked about SEO and grumbled how expensive they are… Well just for the heck I told him, I know how to do basic SEO and I could help him with SEO… Well to end the story short… I ended up being paid for basic SEO too. It literally doubled my income from that client.
Today If somebody ask me to design a website, I’ll end up selling him SEO service, Internet marketing consultant, copywriting services, blog consulting services and whole enchilada.
Rule 3 : Provide Value instead of service : Ok this might be bit of confusing to you. But read it carefully. Listen, anyone can provide service, but only very few can provide value.
let me explain this by a story : Last summer, I had to meet someone at one of the fast food chain(FFC for short). Now if you know about Indian Summer, its freaking hot. I sweat a lot and when I entered I was dripping wet. The person behind the counter greeted me and said “Its freaking hot today isn’t it?” and gave me paper napkin.
Now this is not something about courtesy. It had more about adding value. This guy noticed did few things right.
1. Sympathized with my situation
2. Noticed that I wasn’t carrying the handkerchief
3. Gave me napkins and talked to me…
That’s it… If you learn any lesson from this blog post, then learn this… Provide Value instead of service.
Action Plan :
1. Double your price and be confident.
2. Add more expertise under your belt (even if its borrowed expertise or hired)
3. Provide more value.
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