How to Price Yourself

HOW TO PRICE YOURSELF

One of the hardest things about starting a business is knowing how to price yourself. Am I charging too much or too little? This is something I’ve struggled with since day one. Especially in a creative industry where the work is subjective, it can be even harder to figure out if we’re too low or too high.

DETERMINE YOUR HOURLY RATE

If you are solving a problem, how difficult is that problem that you are solving? How many other people could solve that problem? Again, being in a creative industry, it can be really tough to answer these questions because nobody is going to solve that problem the way you would. Maybe a better question, if you are in a creative industry, is: how can you solve the problem better than someone else could? One place to start is just by figuring out how long a project takes you. Coming up with an hourly rate helps you put together packages that you feel pay you for the problems you solve.

WHEN DETERMINING YOUR RATES, TAKE INTO ACCOUNT YOUR EXPERTISE:

While coming up with an hourly rate is helpful when determining how much to charge for future projects, the investment in the time you’ve spent learning to do that should also be taken into account.

COMP SHOPPING

Large retailers will often send their employees out to do comp shopping. It’s where you go to your competitor and see what they are charging for similar items. I hate to compare my work to others but you do need to figure out a baseline eventually. If you are way high (or way low) in your pricing as opposed to your competitor, then you may want to re-evaluate.

ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS

Another thing I will take into account is asking myself how much I would pay for this service/product. If you have started a business, then you obviously love the work enough to value it and prioritize it highly. For example, I would be willing to pay a lot of money for design and photo work because I know how important it is! If we price ourselves too low, we risk working with individuals who don’t value what we do. I would imagine your goal is to work with individuals who do value what you do. You are obviously going to be biased but by asking yourself how much you would be willing to pay if it were someone else providing you the service or product can be a good place to start.

GIVE VALUE, GIVE VALUE, GIVE VALUE

In the words of Gary V, “Give value, give value, give value, then ask for business.” What value are you really providing? Are you charging $500 for 25 photos? Where is the value in that? I know a lot of photographers who believe that they are providing YOU with their art and you just have to pay them what they think they are worth. I’m not devaluing the art by any means but I am saying that building your pricing based only on what you think you deserve and not what you think your clients deserve is probably going leave you with very few clients at the end of the day. One of my favorite quotes goes “if you’re not losing sleep over the work you do for your clients, then you might want to check your heart.” If you aren’t concerned about what your clients are getting from you and instead looking at what you can gain from your clients then I would argue that you aren’t in it for the right reasons and maybe reconsider why you’re doing it in the first place.

People aren’t buying a product or service from you. At the end of the day, they are purchasing an improvement to their identities - whatever the motivation behind that is. The modern day customer also wants transparency & authenticity. Nobody likes the sleazy car salesman for a reason. Most people can see through businesses that are run for profits vs. one’s that are run for people. I truly believe that if your heart is in the right place, people will see it and be lined up around the block to get their hands on it. If you are providing a service or a product that only benefits you at the end of the day, the line will be short.

I think you will be able to tell if you are priced accordingly if you are getting enough of the right people in the door. Are enough people who value what you do reaching out to work with you? Are you staying consistently busy with work you love? I think that’s when you know you’ve hit the sweet spot.