Raising Your Rates

OK, this is fromamirah Jafar, I think.Emira, how to raise my very lowprices and get more clients,I rewrote this, especially whenthey reject the new prices.OK, so you want toraise your prices,but they're alreadychoking on it, right?I'm struggling and I need help.So emira, are you on the line?The mirror.OK she's not on, so let's justtalk about this for a second.So how do you raise your prices?They're very low, butyour clients are not.They're not playingball with you,they're just already sayingno, even at your low prices.So we have someproblems here already.So somebody whowants to representmirror in thisconversation, I needyou to raise yourhand or somethingor just unmuteyourself on this talk.Who's in a position wherethe prices are pretty low.And they're having a hardtime raising their prices?I'll go and then I'll do it.Oh, there you are.There you are.OK, see you.Hello OK.Yeah, my prices havealways been quite lowbecause of the clientsthat I've dealt with.I've done work forlike buttons, really,whilst I've beenbuilding up my businessover the last few yearsand haven't reallyneat down in any way.So the clients that Ihave got, although I getrepeat business for them.It's a mirror.Come on now.OK, emira, do youwant to talk emira?Yes OK.Talk to me, and thenI'll come back to Abby.OK no, it's fine.Yeah, Yeah.She actually, rightnow, I can't use my Cam,but I think you canhear me, I can hear you.For some reason, you'veshared your screen.Did you see that youmight want to stopsharing your Zoom screen?OK, just keep going.All right.Go and talk to us, Amira.Yeah, I have thisimportant questionthat I have experiencedfor eight, eight years.Yes and I'mstruggling because I'mdealing or working with the samekind of clients who search onlyfor the low pricesbecause they havelow budgets for their work.And I'm stuck there, I can'tget a new rich new clientand I'm starting tohave a financial problembecause what I'm gettingis a little bit of money.And I know that I'm putting goodwork that other agencies chargefor more.OK, so what kind ofwork are you doing?A journalist, but I'm focusingon local creation and branding.OK logo creation and branding.Do you have a headset you canwear because I can hear myselfechoing in the background?OK Well, OK, so generous localcreation branding and youneed to charge more.OK, right?Just do me a favor.I hear you.So let's talk becauseyour audio isn't.It's a littledistracting for me.OK, so Glenn, putyourself on mute.So let's talk about this now.Everybody, that's kindof in this positionwhere you're doingsomething for a client.You just don't knowhow to get more clientsand you're kind of stuck inthis place and she's stuck here.I want to talk about theproblem a little bit moreagain before I jump intosolutions mode here, ok?Anybody else have avery similar storythat they can share with us?Abby, do you want to.Is your story similar?Abby?yeah, it's reallysimilar, it's just,you know, it's I haveraised my prices graduallyover the last coupleof years, but still Iknow that I'm notcharging enoughand it leaves me kind of abit burnt out by the amountthat I give to clients forthe price, I charge them so.Yeah OK, I'm going to goto Ben burns playbook here.When I was talking toBen, the kinds of projectshe was working on, thehours that he was requiredto work on, thismeant that he wasworking for less than minimumwage, which is horribleif you think about that.So I think everybody canrelate to the story, right?And the thing that he needed todo was fire all of his clientsand find new clients.The reason being is OK.So if I were ableto talk to Miraand have a clearconversation with her,I would say effectivelycalculate your rate.You know, what are yougetting for the workthat you're doing in the mirror?I don't know whatcountry you're inand what you'regetting paid to do,logo work andidentity design work.But once you figureout that rate,is there anotherway that you canget paid the same amountof money with less effort?So what we foundout from Ben wasthis is that if youuse getting paid lessthan minimum wage, whichis, let's just say, $7 or $8an hour.I told him he was betteroff working at Starbucks,literally, I toldhim that because Ithink Starbucks pays10 or 12 bucks an hourand 15 bucks an hour.So he would work less, haveless stress, make more money.It's the job that he was doing.He was a stuck inand he couldn't evendo the math for himself.He thought he was gettingahead and he wasn't.He was just fallingfarther behind.How's everybody doingmore of the same,he was going to go deeperand deeper into the hole.So the first orderof business wasfor him to realizefinancially therewere better optionsfor him to make moneybecause at this point you'renot working necessary for love,you're just working to eat.So the very nextday, he made 53 phonecalls and fired 53 clients.Luckily, through alittle bit of coaching,three of them stayed on and paidhim more than the previous 53were worth.And that created time.You can't go dothings, you can'tgo read books you can'tpost on social mediawhen all you're doing istrying to feed yourself.Right so we have to change that.We have to findanother way to do this.So emira, I don'tknow where you getyour job leads from ifyou're working on that at allor if it's totally dictated uponyou from a handful of clients.So this is where you guyshave to take some controlover your own lifeand your own destinywhen you rely on ahandful of clientsif you rely on siteslike Upwork or.A 99 Designs or even five,you're kind of screwed.What they're doing is they'redoing a little bit of workand taking most of your money.Most of my clients are comingfrom people who already work.I can barely hear you.Mira, can youspeak really loudlyor get really closeto your microphone?Yeah, I'm saying mostof my clients comefrom word of mouth.Yes you and everybodyelse from the same boat.Word of mouth, so hasit occurred to youthat if the word ofmouth basically peopletravel with people whoare just like them, right?So when somebody is like, hey,who's doing all your good work,amirah?Oh, she's super affordable.Just pay her this.So the cycle perpetuates itself,right, because they come to youand like, well, I heardyou do it for this amountand I want to do the same thing.Yeah or even more.Or even more orless the same guys.Yeah, they want morework done for less, lessor the same amountof money, right?And what do yousay back to them?And sometimes I try to raisemy rates, but they refuse.OK, and what do you do?Some cases that I lostthe clients and others.The next time I only seeus for the same pricebecause I don't wantto lose more clients.So you like thesekinds of clients.No let's see.You may have read that I putsomewhere that a lot of peopleare wondering if yourclients can afford you.I'm curious if you can affordyour clients when you do this,work over and over againfor the kind of money thatis not sustainable.You're digging yourselfinto deeper and deeper holeevery single time you actuallydidn't lose the client.When people saythey lose a client,it means that theyalready paid you,and then they decidedto cancel the check.A person that you meetisn't your client yet.It's only your client.When I see a check and thecheck clears and the money'sbeen deposited in my account.Otherwise, I'm justmeeting people.When you say, you lose a client.It can start toprogram in your mindlike something is wrong with me.I'm losing clients and it canbe very emotionally drainingfor you.So I want you to kind ofjust rethink that situation.You didn't lose a client becauseyou don't have a client yet.You're just meeting peopleand you're discussing prices.And if it feels like a goodfit for both you and for them,then a transaction occurs.I suspect, I suspectthat because you'regetting referred bywhat I would considerpretty cheap clients, clientswho don't value their own work,then you're getting moreof those kinds of clients.I also suspect thatthe conversationthat you're having around moneycould probably be tweaked.So that you get moreyeses than no's.But the last thingis, you can't bea victim to your own situation.Because when you agree,you volunteered for it.Right does that make sense?Yes so if you cansay it more firmly,if you can develop some tools,even with the current clientsthat you have, I think you cansqueeze a little bit more moneyout from them.But that's not thelong term plan.That's a very short termplan because you like,let's see who else.Maybe Andrew and otherpeople in this groupare just waiting for clientsto knock on your door.You've not done a ton of workto help nurture new leads.Even Philip Wright.So fill up Andrew and yourself.You're in the same boat.And I don't.I don't.Just going to be honest.I don't understand it myself.If you want differentkind of clients,you have to go outthere and look for them.You have to make it easierfor them to find you.Now I'm startingto do something.I don't know if you guys havenoticed within the group here.I'm giving you guys firstdibs on decent paying work.Not great sometimes,but not bad.So when somebody says,I have a to logo,I'm like for some student work.That's not for me, obviously,but for some of youthat is actuallydecent amount of money.And there are otherprojects for styles,capes or there's a brandingproject that they have about 40to 50k.I'm going to referthem all to you.So would you guys need to dois you need to put yourselfin a position when theseopportunities come upinside the groupbecause I'll help youthat when the client andmyself look at your work,we feel that you're a good fit.So let's just workon the basics first.I noticed that when Iasked for certain things,some of you guys were like,I don't have a website ready.Well, what are youwaiting for, man?Amir, do me a favor and unmuteyourself because I can hear.Do you know how to do that?There you go, thank you.You guys understand this, right?This part confuses me,this is the pro group.You guys are supposed to beready at any minute's noticeand you have yourbest foot forward,your best game faceon all the time.So when I put anopportunity to the groupand say, hey, I needsome logos, guysput together the logosheet for me and feelsand I can imagine some ofyou guys are scramblingto put stuff together, like,don't you have this or ready?If this is your expertise,this is your vertical,your lane or I needsome branding work donefor this other personand you're like, well,I don't have the website ready.What are you guys waiting for?You get this one opportunitywhen somebody checks your site,they're going to makea decision, Yes or no.Sometimes you get putin a maybe that's OK.I prefer to be in the Yescategory or the no category,and that's about it.So the question fora lot of you guysis why haven't youbeen working on,the things that we talk about inthis group on a regular basis?Why haven't youwritten snappy copy?Figure out your positioningwho you're for, right?Your case studiesand do great mockupsso that when somebodygoes looking, it's a Yes.It's not going tohappen by itself.And it doesn't takea whole lot of work.You can use aSquarespace templateand just put your workup, so it looks good.You can use whatis that web flowand design your own websiteif you're that ambitious.It doesn't take that much work.So you must love theposition that you're in.You must love gettingreferred to other clients whoare going to lowball you withprice, you don't value design.Who are ultimately going tobe driving the price down,you must love that.Because for me, I would spendevery hour and every minuteof my waking life to inventan alternative to that world.Now, here's the Superinteresting thing,coming back from awards.I met a lot ofreally young people.Obviously, the young peoplecannot afford a $600 ticket.What did they do?They volunteered.And they volunteered so they canget into the after party, whichis a paid ticketed event.And it just so happens,I'm walking aroundand bump into these two guyswho happen to be recruiters,I need to findtheir business card.So I asked the recruiters, youmust be the most popular peopleat the party because Iunderstand people get companiesto pay for them tobe at this eventbecause they're thinkingabout their next job.OK, well, Chris, you know,recruiters have a bad rapsometimes.And so have you met a lotof people that are lookingfor a new job that no, is it?You guys are the Belleof the ball here.Stand here.I'll come back.I walked into the next room.These young peoplewho are volunteerswere smiling andtalking to me and said,are you guys looking for work?Yeah I said, have youmet these recruiters?No where are they?Let me introduce you.I've got 5 of them.We went over the recruiter.I said, recruiter, here you go.Here's five people whoare looking for work.Connect them withsomebody pay me my 10% OK,I'll find you more people.OK why am I tellingyou the story,because if you don't likethe situation that you're in.And if you keep doingthe exact same thing,you're going to getthe exact same results,you need to change something.You could say no more often.You could be more adamantabout raising your pricesand being OK whenthey say no and not,let that be a reflectionon your own self-worth.You can go to eventsand functions.You can work on your website sothat when somebody lands on it.They see what theywant to see, and thenwhen I reach out toyou and say, hey,anybody looking for work inthis range respond to it really,really fast.I suspect some of youdon't respond to it,assuming that you're in theFacebook group in your activeis because you're like, oh, Idon't know if I have it readyand I'll let me fix thisand the opportunity is gone.Somebody is like, hey, Ijust I just upload them like,I already sent theemail off to the client.You have a window, and I'mgoing to give you a secret,not so secret.I usually start fromthe top to the bottom.So whoever responds first,that's the most qualifiedusually is the first onmy list to recommend.It's that simple.So, Amir, you're going tohave to do what Ben burns did,you have to firesome of your clientsbecause you need to make room topursue other kinds of clients.It's worth it becauseyou're probably not gettingpaid a whole lot of money.I feel it in yourquestion like it'sI don't even want to ask youbecause it's probably so low.My head's goingto explode, right?It's not even worth it.Not worth it to do this work.So say no to two of your clientspi over 2 of your clients.Find two new clients andslowly swap them all out.Abby, back to you.Talk to me.Yeah, I'm I thinkI'm a bit of a stepahead on that because I'mactually doing just thatand getting all my stufftogether, getting my finallygetting my case studies sorted.I have started chargingmore and puttingin proposals for higher prices.I fired at some clientsafter Christmas,which felt actually genuinelylike a weight off my shoulders.Yeah, but I'vegot a few projectsthat I'm just tying up forsome of the existing clientsthat I've done somerepeat work for.So they're kind of once thoseare gone, I've got this a bitof a runway to actuallyfocus on the nichethat I'm going to befocusing on, which look,the lovely Diane actuallyhelped me see was completelyin front of me the whole time.So that's good.Yeah, I don't want to bombardDiane's inbox or her phone,but I do want to say this Dan'svery good at connecting people.She's very good atconnecting people,and she's very goodat helping others.Not so good at helpingherself, but she'svery good at helpingother people.So if you ask.And if you're a good person, I'mpretty sure she will help you.If you ever go tocreative south,then it should beyour best friendbecause you introduceit everybodyand give you the mostamazing introductionyou've ever had in your life.I'm not exaggerating, ok?