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Ah the interwebs…
They have a way of bringing the know-it-alls out of their mom’s basements and into the light for everyone to see (or point and laugh at). This guy, though… as far as trolls go, he takes the cake. Here’s a snapshot:
Normally, I’d let this twitty-bird fly off without a word from the J-meister… but I see a lot of freelancers who deep down believe this same non-sense.
Be honest, a lot of you reading this right now believe this:
“Cheap SOBs”.
That’s the crux of it, isn’t it?
It’s just way too easy to believe, “It’s not MY fault. It’s that cheap SOB client!” That line of thinking is alluring… seductive. And WAY too many freelancers fall for it hook, line and sinker.
And that’s why they HATE me when I say, “au contraire!”
I got some statistical-ese for you here in a second, but I want you to just think about this on its face. Put your anger and your bias aside and just imagine it was YOU about to spend a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to hire someone.
To build your baby…
The website or application you’ve dreamed of getting up and running… you’ve spent months… maybe even YEARS… planning, tweaking, adjusting, re-configuring… to get just right.
Would you really only be concerned with finding the lowest bidder?
I mean yes… budgets matter. You have the money you have. You can spend what you can spend. But, I’m telling you right now… most clients don’t lowball because of their budget. Some do… but not most.
They lowball because it’s less money they’re risking. Period.
Now, as far as I know nobody has done a comprehensive study and statistical analysis of freelance clients to determine WHY they lowball. So, to Stevey-poo’s point about not having “quantifiable evidence”…
No s!@# Sherlock!
But, let’s see if we can not be nit-picking twits and take a look at some related data that might help us figure this out.
For example…
According to research done by Defaqto, 55% of customers would pay extra to guarantee better service.
Those cheapskates!
89% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company after experiencing poor customer service. (RightNow Customer Experience Impact Report)
Ugh with them only caring about cost!
A customer is 4 times more likely to buy from a competitor if the problem is service related vs. price or product related. (Bain & Co.)
Wait… I’m starting to sense a pattern here.
In 2011, 7 in 10 Americans said they were willing to spend more with companies they believe provide excellent customer service (American Express Survey).
Hmmm… I’m starting to think Stevey-boy might be confused.
Look, I could do this all day.
Fact is… clients WILL PAY if they believe it’s worth it.
YOU have to make them believe it’s worth it. That’s all there is to it. If you don’t, then yeah… you’ll be stuck competing on price. And, when you get kicked off Upwork like poor little Stephanopolous you’ll find someone on Twitter to harass to try and make yourself feel better.
Of course, you could avoid all the heartache. You could take the J-meister’s advice. You could join the inner circle of web developers fast-forwarding their careers. You could start actually living the life you dreamed of when you first got into coding. You could get my step-by-step freelancing blueprint, The Upwork Checklist, as a supporting listener on Patreon… right cheer:
https://johnmorrisonline.com/patreon
Or… you could go hang with Stevey-boy.
Up to you! 🙂
P.S. If you liked the show, give it a like and share with the communities and people you think will benefit. And, you can always find all my tutorials, podcast episodes and more on johnmorrisonline.com, @jpmorris on Twitter and youtube.com/johnmorrisvideo.
