Pack it up, pack it in, let me begin. I came to win & nobody knows any more words than this, here's another volume of my pricing guide.
As you may have seen, I recently shared my thoughts on how you should price yourself or at least how you should think about pricing if you are new to this game—the game of pain. I honestly I thought I did quite well with that post and it seems that there is a general consensus that it wasn't all that bad too, but I find that without comment, without critique there is no way I can be happy with it. I guess I'm a bit of a masochist.
As always, good ol' Robbie Scott comes through for me, he drives right into my Facebook living room and lets me know exactly what he thinks and it should be obvious that this is something I respect—I can't be arsed to read between lines or figure out what someone really meant, I just want to know what they think.
He shared a few extra items that I should have considered and to me, they made a lot of sense. I didn't feel like these items should be merely added onto that said post, I thought that they were so well considered and planned that it deserved some recognition. It's not only Robbie that made comment on things that should be added, but his always seem to float from a a height of trail, pain and experience; despite only being a wee lad.
These things worth noting as contributed by Robbie Scott:
Set Your Rate
Even if you are not working by the hour, it helps for you set a price for certain items and processes.
"You need to have a base price which is the minimum value of your time which is non negotiable."
This helps you set your standing with any client, if they know their lowest – as do you – it's a easier process for pricing but also, it's a good indicator to how you regard yourself and your work. The client may never see your lowest rate but you'll know it and that will help your keep a strong chin when they want to try and slash £200 off the final price.
You are essentially paying your own wages
"A common mistake is taking a job which doesn't pay enough to cover your time and often post grads will end up paying themselves less than minimum wage and end up working 15 hour days."
A lot of times you'll think less of yourself when pricing and more of the client. You'll think—I can't charge that much! But realistically you are providing them with a service, they are hiring you because they cannot do it themselves; so as far as pricing is concerned, this is the time to be selfish.
Specialist Skills
When entering into any project, or pricing for anything you need to assess whether they are hiring you for anything that would require specialist skills; skills outside of your job title and outside of the standard brief. "for example photography, video, After Effects, retouching etc—you can also set a different rate for those skills."
Say you are designing a leaflet, but they also ask for you to sort the photography for them; that's another skill and process that you'll need to provide; this adds to the cost. You are basically removing the need for them to hire a photographer, so why should you do the job of two professionals at the cost of one.
Don't be taken for a mug and you'll keep Captain Scott happy. For which he clearly is.
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| Totally stolen from Facebook |
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