I’m a twit too
As promised here’s the letter that I wanted to share with you. I found it on another website http://www.winwithoutpitching.com/why-i-charge-more when I was doing some research during the week and I sat and pondered for quite a while about what I thought about it.
Anyway, here’s the text:
Why I Charge More
A Designer’s Open Letter to His Future Clients
January 5, 2011 at 12:15 pm by Blair
Sometimes we do it for the money, don’t we? The irony is that the less money we’re paid, the more likely we are to be doing it for the money. When we’re paid well, it’s suddenly about something much bigger. Here’s a letter you might take, modify and use in many forms and many ways.
It’s yours if you’d like it. No need to attribute.
“The more I charge you, the more pressure I put on myself to perform for you.
Freelancing quandaries
“The client who pays me the premium gets my best work. He’s the one I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about, wondering if I’m doing all I can to earn his money. When he calls, I jump. Hell, I call him first. I take pride in moving his business. I try to make myself indispensable to him. I imagine that he winces when he opens my bill (he doesn’t say), but he thanks me for all I do for him. He’s the one I worry about.
“I’m great at what I do, but if someone hires me without giving me the resources (money, time, access) to do a great job, it’s easy for me to rationalize poor performance. When a client gives me everything I ask for, he removes all the obstacles to a high quality outcome. There’s no way for me to rationalize anything less than perfection.
“There is no greater pressure than the pressure I put on myself, and the only way you can add to my own sense of pressure is to pay me well. Yelling won’t do it. Neither will threatening to pull your business. My deep sense of obligation comes from you paying me well enough to dispatch all of the excuses. Then I have to prove to you, and, more importantly, to me that I am as good as I say I am.
“So, I’ve given you my price and it’s the price that I need to charge to bring a deep sense of obligation to the job. Will I work for less? Probably. Can you negotiate with me? Sure. We can have that type of relationship if you really want me to be that type of designer and you want to be that type of client.
“Let’s just understand each other before we get started.”END
It’s interesting isn’t it? I’m kind of in two minds here. I would hope that I never give less than my best work but I have started to alter how I write my £10 articles. They get 30 minutes of research and 30 minutes of writing and a check over. Articles that I’m being paid more for get a lot more research, a lot more synthesis and I spend more time crafting my writing to match the client’s expectations.
Pen For Hire
I’m still new to this freelancing malarkey however, and I don’t know how picky I can afford to be and still pay the bills. Any advice out there?
xxx
Hi there!
I’m in a similar position to yourself in that my old job made me ill, and I’ve changed direction towards writing.
Difficult to get your head around that you can actually do what you love doing, but then also get good money for it too.
Look up Andy Maslen. He has been running a copywriting/training business, and quite successfully.
I read something by him that struck a chord… he had a room full of poor writers in front of him, and the problem, he decided, was that they themselves did not value their own work highly enough to ask enough money for it. And if they don’t value it, then how can they expect their clients to value it?
I urge you to read ‘Pricing your services: The hungry freelancer’s guide to being paid what you’re worth’. A free e-book when you sign up to Andy Maslen’s The Copywriting Academy newsletter. Be prepared to have your jaw drop. Forget £25 for an article someone didn’t like. In fact, don’t even write something fresh for them. Just let them see your blog and let them decide for themselves.
Let me know how you get on. My Twitter handle is @TheContenteer
Thanks 😀
I’ll check it out x