This isn’t mine.
Credit to Jason Martin on Quora, but this story perfectly explains freelancing pricing and the “am I worth it” dilemma:
A company is building a product, with a lot of money invested in it, but it just isn’t working. So they hire an outside engineer to look over the design. The consultant comes to the office, looks at the schematics for about 20 minutes, and then asks the director of the project for a pencil.
The director taps his pockets, and realizes he doesn’t have one.
“No problem”, says the consultant, and he opens his briefcase, opens a new box of pencils, and sharpens one. He then takes the pencil and circles a small part of the design. “There is your problem”, he says, “the material you’ve chosen is too weak for a part this size. Use something sturdier.”
The advice works, and the product ships.
A month later, the consultant sends his bill, $50,000.The director of the project is very surprised by the cost, so he sends a request to the consultant for an itemized list of expenses.
The consultant obliges:
1. Pencil – $0.99
2. Knowing where to put the mark: $49,999.01
The most costly thing in the world is ignorance. The most valuable is knowledge and the expertise to apply it.
Jason Martin, Quora.com
That’s it, my young Jedi.
If you’ve got the the chops to deliver, it don’t matter where you’re from, how experienced or inexperienced you are, how you grew up, what college you went to… do you “know where to put the mark” or not.
I was only a few years into my freelance career when I got tapped to build Platform University for Michael Hyatt. Same with Inc. Magazine and the stuff I did for Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Body.
That’s how it is in the freelance game.
And, if you CAN then you’re “worth” it.
And, you should charge what you’re worth.
And, don’t let anyone tell you different.
As for the figuring “what you’re worth” part… there’s a whole range of things that affect the perceived value of what you offer: perceived quality, supply and demand, competition, differentiation… on and on.
Also, it depends on your strategy.
How you plan to beat out your competition.
Position yourself in the market.
Etc.
Anyway, I just released a new course on figuring out what services to offer as a freelancer and Lesson 6 is all-in on pricing. Factors you’ll want to consider, the three primary pricing strategies to consider, how to research it…
If you wanna get pricing “handled”…
So, you know exactly what services to offer and what to charge…
Give it a watch here: https://skl.sh/2RDQXZl
Just don’t do what most freelancers do and “wing it”. It makes everything else so much harder when you’re putting the wrong offer in front of the wrong people. Take just a bit of time and think this through and you’ll be glad you did.
Later,
John
