It’s a brand new yr and it’s time for a author’s pep-talk. Job one: it’s time to boost your charges.
I can hear you quaking in your boots from right here. However I would like you to contemplate this. The start of a yr is a naturally nice time to interrupt the information to present shoppers that charges are going up. Ideally, you need to put the information out to them within the waning days of the earlier yr, however at worst the primary month.
Message: it’s a brand new yr, an bettering financial system, and my charges are going up.
Possibly not for each shopper. However when you’re going to maintain elevating your common hourly fee, you’ll want to maintain elevating charges.
So it’s time to check out who you’re writing for, and what they’re paying you. Who pays the least, on an hourly foundation? Make an inventory of your lowest payers.
Now you’ve received a call to make. There are solely two methods to make charges go up: Both present shoppers need to pay extra, or it’s a must to exit and discover better-paying shoppers, after which drop the decrease payers.
So first query: Do you suppose there’s any probability you will get these shoppers to pay extra? In case you write for flat-rate content material websites or bidding websites, that will be a giant no. Their pay will doubtless stay precisely the identical within the coming yr. In case your shoppers aren’t negotiable on charges, it’s time to take a look at your advertising plan for including better-paying shoppers.
Will you write recommendation articles on Biznik? Attend in-person networking occasions? What’s been working for you previously? What do you need to strive that’s new? Determine how you’ll appeal to new shoppers this yr, and create a schedule for once you’ll do your advertising.
Whether it is potential your present shoppers pays extra, it’s time to put in writing them a letter. Allow them to know your enterprise is rising and thriving, and charges are rising.
Elevate your charges: an instance
I really simply did this with a shopper I had on a two-month contract at $1,600 a month. The undertaking suffered from huge scope creep because it went alongside and have become actually $3,000 or extra a month of labor. After they let me know they wished to increase the contract, I knowledgeable them I used to be joyful to maintain working for them, however not at that fee. I proposed a brand new fee—not $3,000 as I used to be positive that will make them bolt, however one which gave me almost a 30% elevate, to the purpose the place I felt the account can be price persevering with and wouldn’t decrease my total common hourly fee.
I documented how the undertaking had modified and what going charges have been for the forms of work I used to be now doing. I confirmed them the huge low cost they’d nonetheless be getting. I discussed that the financial system is popping round and many consumers are competing for my time.
And backside line, charges needed to go up. Or I’m strolling.
Feels scary, doesn’t it? However you’ll want just a little braveness when you’re going to extend what you earn yr to yr.
In the intervening time I despatched this proposal, in mid-December, January was solely about half booked up, and plenty of assignments have been nonetheless hanging and unsure. However it needed to occur, as a result of the purpose of all of it is I must make a residing.
Now’s the time to lock in higher charges. You by no means know when the chance will disappear to speak fee will increase. For instance, I had one hourly-rate shopper that I used to be getting $85 an hour with. I had the sense different freelancers for them have been making extra, so I informed them my fee was going up within the subsequent yr to $95 an hour. They grumbled just a little, however went for it. (I later discovered others have been getting $120, so I used to be nonetheless a deal.)
In fact, my timing was nice. Lower than a yr later, the financial system was collapsing, and I wouldn’t have dared to broach a fee enhance.
The payoff: it turned out to be a really busy time for this shopper, and I earned greater than $5,000 of further revenue over the following two years. That’s proper, 5 giant for doing precisely what I might have executed…simply getting paid extra for it. As a result of I merely requested for it.
So ask for a elevate—you deserve it, and it’s well worth the threat.
This submit initially appeared on the WM Freelance Author’s Connection.
