Pricing can be tough for freelancers and consultants for various reasons:
- You feel conflicted about earning more.
- You don’t know your Survival and Dream Rates.
- You don’t have a process for calculating strategic prices.
- You feel insecure about your current rates, so charging even more? Ha.
- You’re not sure how to break the news about the rate increase to clients.
- You worry that your clients won’t agree to pay more and will leave you to find a cheaper alternative, which would put you in an even worse position than before.
And let’s not even get started on the mental hangups freelance folks have with money in general.
Just mentioning money is enough to make some solo service providers start sweating and looking for exits.
Even if you have a sneaking suspicion that you’re leaving money on the table and should revisit your prices, discomfort with pricing and money makes you drag your feet.
When it comes time to put numbers on a more complex project, your mind freezes like a bad television.
Later, when the client pushes back on those numbers, you fumble your response.
And what happens when we don’t proactively raise our prices?
- We continue to undercharge.
- We must work longer hours to make the money we need.
- Worst of all, we keep attracting price-conscious clients more concerned with saving money than achieving valuable outcomes.
Ah, the many delights of freelance pricing!
The craziest thing about all this is that no one can underpay you without your consent.
It’s time to break the cycle and start charging what you’re worth.
