Pricing is a key element of your image.
How you price your services has a significant bearing on what people expect from you - and also what you expect of yourself! As long as you have the skills to walk your talk, there's a high degree of choice in what you charge, and how much you earn for your services. If you're not earning enough, it's likely that you're simply choosing not to earn enough (sorry).
In this post, I'll run through the benefits of pricing yourself right, and show how all these factors work in a spiral, supporting each other and working together to create your internal and external reality.
Your external image (your brand) is a two-way channel through which you communicate with your prospects.
Looking where you pitch yourself in the market, your brand needs to do 2 things at the same time:
- It has to communicate the kind of projects you want to do,
- and it has to show that you already do them.
So if you want to work on great projects, you need to show great work.
If you want to pitch yourself to a certain market sector, you have to look like you already serve that sector, so you can only afford to show work that suits that level. (If you want to work for multinationals, it would be better to show no client work than the site you did for Tina the Florist, no matter how successful.)
I know there's a recession or something weird going on, but I'm going to ask you to think seriously for a minute about putting your prices up!
Here are 8 great reasons why you should consider increasing your rates for the recession:
- You'll make more money, with less work.
- Get better jobs.
- And easier clients.
- And more spare time.
- Minimise your opportunity-cost.
- Builds your brand, and sets high expectations.
- Create stuff you're really proud of.
- The cycle goes on.
I will explain the 8 reason in another post.
