Had this guy ask me:
“What should I do to raise my freelance prices?”
So, look this isn’t as simple as “just doing it” or some trick or gimmick that’ll magically make clients go “oh okay”. There’s a lot more going on here. And, a lot of the advice you see out there just plain ignores that.
Take my first time for example.
I was terrified to raise my fees.
It might seem stupid, but I started out charging 25/hour. And, that was the most I’d ever made in my life up to that point. So, the idea of charging more? That was insane to me.
I couldn’t imagine anyone willing to pay more.
I figured I’d stop getting clients if I did.
And, my existing clients would get pissed and leave.
And, I’d be back to nothing.
In my mind, I’d built it up as this huge risk.
And, having just climbed my way out of being dirt poor, there was no way in hell I was going to risk that. Problem was, I’d gotten a lot better tech-wise. And, I was delivering on projects way faster.
So, even though, I was getting better…
And, doing a better job for my clients…
I was making less.
It’s pretty f!@#$d up when you think about it.
I felt like I was stuck, though. And to my shame, I’ll be honest and say I considered some of the “shady solutions”. Like purposefully going slower so I went back to clocking the same amount of hours.
Or, just padding my hours.
Anything but charging more.
Man… I can still feel that.
Was one of the more effed up points in my career.
Then, you see these guys charging 75, 100… even 125/hour. And, not just charging more, but getting 1000s of hours of work. There’s freelancers on Upwork who have over 500k in total earnings.
What did they know that I didn’t?
It’s really frustrating.
Well, here’s what I figured out.
What you charge isn’t about “less” or “more”.
That’s not how clients look at it.
It’s about two different words:
Value.
Accuracy.
Value is about YOU. Are you worth it? And, here’s the thing… if you’re at the point where you’re starting to lose muney because you’re delivering so efficiently it’s costing you… THAT is the definition of being worth “more”.
And, clients will know.
They’ll be expecting you to raise rates.
Sooo… you should raise your hourly fee.
Accuracy is about the individual project.
Can you accurately quote it?
Whether flat fee or number of hours to complete.
And after 14 years of doing this, I’ve developed a process for that. The big thing with this process is being accurate, but also presenting it in a way that alleviates all the client’s natural fears about being overcharged.
You can’t underestimate this.
This is what terrifies clients.
And, keeps them up at night.
And, THIS is why they would stop hiring you when you raise rates. Because they’re scared. So, if you can keep them from freaking out and worrying about being overcharged… you can easily raise rates and keep all your clients.
And, there’s a simple way to do that.
And, once I figured this out.
I raised my rates multiple times on existing clients…
And, never got any backlash.
In any case, Lesson 9 in Module 3 of my Upwork 101 course will teach you this process along with everything else I know about pricing projects. So, you can start off charging accurately and getting paid what you deserve…
AND, easily raise rates when that time comes.
And, your clients will trust you so much…
That they won’t raise a big stink about it.
Link to get started learning all this for nothing is here: https://skl.sh/2hfGS0s. Just start that 2-month, no-cost trial. Take the full Upwork 101 course (plus all my others). Cancel any time before the 2 month is up… and never pay a penny.
Really nothing to lose on this…
But, to each their own.
Link is here: https://skl.sh/2hfGS0s
Later,
John
