May 8, 2016

Your Price Isn’t About Effort

Daily Writing Blog, General Thoughts

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Pricing Isn’t About Effort

Today, I’ve been writing for a new client project. It’s something different to what I usually do, and the amount I’m getting paid is significantly higher.

This made me worry. How do I improve upon what I’m providing to match the price?

How do I up my game to make sure my service is worth it?

If I put 100% into my lower-priced service, then how can I possibly do any better for a higher ticket item?

These questions are fundamentally flawed. That’s because when you’re doing freelance work (or any project really) you’re not pricing something based on the quality of it.

I don’t mean that you can’t charge more for a quality service. If you’re the best in town, then by all means you can charge more if you need/want to.

What do I mean then?

Pricing A Service Is NOT About How Hard You Work

I’ve always tried to produce everything to the highest standard. From when I worked on Fiverr writing for a cent a word to the books I publish myself to the higher end copywriting work I provide for people, all of it is always done to the highest standard possible.

It’s a competitive world out there, and a few negative reviews can make or break a person at the beginning. So always give your best.

The problem comes when you work at your best for a $5 article, but you obviously want to write $100 articles at some point.

You can’t give 20% your all, or continually be twenty times better.

If you judge your work based on how hard you work, then this is a conundrum that faces you. It’s not particularly healthy. Also, on the one hand it leads to you constantly trying to think of different value adds to services that are perfectly fine, and on the other hand it’ll make you resent your lower-priced writing or even stop doing it entirely.

The easiest thing to do is assume the highest possible standard for all work. But then how do you get past the pricing dilemma?

So How Do You Price Services?

The first thing to understand is that when I say, “You can’t just magically get better overnight” I’m sort-of lying. What you need to take into account is that overtime you’ll get better at whatever service you provide.

You’ll have more experience. You’ll be a more practised writer. Your grammar will improve, your vocabulary will improve and your ability to connect with an audience will improve.

That in and of itself adds value. Putting in 100% today is not going to be equal to putting in 100% a year from now if you’re constantly getting better. Ergo, charging more in the future will be perfectly reasonable.

With that taken into consideration, here’s how to charge more even though you’re putting in the same effort: Split your services.

It takes much more effort to create a high-performing sales page than it does to create a list article of the best colleges in the US. There’s no shame or credibility issue in charging more for one than the other.

This seems really simple, but it extends to a whole manner of different issues:

  • Research time
  • Revisions included
  • Planning time (not the same as research time)
  • How many levels/items the project includes
  • How much targeting is required

So on and so forth. Remember, at no point is quality coming into this. If you’re paid for ten hours of research, then you do ten hours of high quality research. If you’re paid for two hours of research, then you do two hours of research to the best of your ability.

As you gain in experience and skill, you’ll fundamentally change the service that you offer. For example, when I started freelance writing, I almost never had any knowledge about the subjects I was writing about. Now, if a client asks me to write about certain topics, I know a ton, and I’ve got a library of information, swipe files and previous work to reference.

Essentially, as you gain in experience and skill, your service changes for the better. However, this is usually pretty subtle, and you won’t realise how much your service has changed unless you sit down and consciously think about it.

Final Thoughts

This is a short topic, because I’ve pretty much stated everything that’s required on the topic. Also, you might want to read this article on pricing a new service and this one on what to charge as a beginning copywriter, because those articles are a little more grounded in facts and figures.

Needless to say, to think of your effort and will to do a good job as the defining factor in your price is misguided. Always do your best. However, over time what you’re offering does change, and it’s probably so subtle you don’t realise it.

 

 

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