Wouldn’t it be nice to earn a little bit more or maybe even a lot more?
Yes, of course it would be.
Everybody suggests to charge more because this is the best way to earn more for your freelance and consulting services.
It sounds simple, but again when it comes to actually do it you don’t feel confident enough.
Even when you overcome your doubts and try to charge more, your clients push back by asking for a discount and your doubts come with full power again.
Actually, when your clients see your lack of confidence, they push even more to get a better price. They don’t do it because they are mean. They do it without realising it.
Thankfully, all of this is fixable but it takes time.
Many Small Wins
We all know that one way to build confidence is with many small wins. This is an approach that you can apply here, too.
You have your current price, next time a client comes you will charge them more, but it doesn’t need to be much more. You don’t need to double your existing price.
It just needs to be a little bit more, enough that you are still confident and not afraid.
Then when the next project comes, raise your rates again by a little bit more.
Actually, you should always do this. You should never stop raising. It might be by a little bit, but you should always do it, even when you are earning a lot by all standards.
History and Proof
Your small wins are not just for confidence. They will also help you remove any doubts your clients might have.
The more small wins you have in your history, the more proof you will have that you can successfully do your work. It will be easier for your clients to understand that you are worth your money.
Focus Your Work
This build up will take time but there is a way to speed it up. Your proof will be stronger and your confidence bigger if you focus on delivering specific services again and again.
For example, if you help online stores get more visitors, you are already specific. If you help every kind of site to get more visits, it’s too broad.
I know that you can do a much wider range of projects but focusing will make you an expert in the eyes of your customers and also in your own eyes.
As a result you will be more confident to increase your price and your clients will have less doubts.
New and Existing Clients
When working with a new client, it is always easier to ask a higher rate, but as you build your business, you will have more and more recurring clients or long lasting projects.
When you keep the same price for them, this will limit your ability to increase your profits, but you also cannot increase your rates every two weeks.
So how do you present a higher rate to an existing client?
The first approach is the time based approach. Your costs don’t stay the same over the years. You also become better at your work the more you do of it. There also are other time based reasons that you can use to increase your price.
This approach works, but it is hard to apply more than once a year.
The second and better approach is the alternative based. When you get better at your work and your wins grow, you will be able to find more clients.
Those clients will provide you with alternative and better paid projects. In turn you can let your existing clients know that you have alternative projects and in order to be able to continue to work with them you should have to increase your rates.
Focus on Value
We are all human and when we talk we tend to focus on what we are interested it. We do this even when we talk with our clients. However, in most cases this is probably not what they are interested.
Especially when negotiating you don’t want them to focus on the price. If they focus on the price they will always want it to drive it down, no matter how good it is.
Instead you should focus on the value that they will receive out of your work.
Maybe you are a web developer and your work will make the client site load faster which in turn will result in more satisfied customers which means more proffit for your client. This is what he is interested in.
This is what focusing on value is all about. As a result they will want to get those benefits as soon as possible, so you higher price will receive very little attention by them.
Choose The Right Clients
However, even when you do all of the above, sometimes you will not be able to get the rates that you want and that you deserve. Even when the client in front of you is the nicest and best person in the world.
Clients are just not equal. Let’s look at an example.
Imagine that your service can help any of your potential clients increase their profits by 2%. If one of your clients is a mom and pop store and the other Google, %2 of their profits are two very different numbers.
Who do you think will agree to your $1000 per hour rate?
That is why when you want to earn more you should select clients who will pay you more.
Knowing that your clients can pay you more is also something that will help you feel more confident when asking them your higher rate.
Next
As you can see building the confidence for charging more is not difficult. I’ve provided you with the pricese steps that you can start executing with our next projects.
This is what you should do next. Try asking for a little bit more and grow from there.
