01/10/2015
Pricing Advices for Designers from Invision
Yesterday evening Melon attended a webinar “How to price your freelance design work” by Invision team. And there are some valuable business tips they’ve shared with us, and we are willing to share with you. But before we get started, we’d like to point out that further recommendations are applicable not only in the freelance design field, but in any other product/service business for any entrepreneur, small/medium business, large corporation or a graduating student, who wants to produce something and sell it. So let’s start.
Be flexible. You are a freelance designer or run whatever business and quite often your clients bargain with you. Sometimes they ask to reduce your hourly rate. Sometimes they ask for a discount or some kind of free service. And usually we agree with all these conditions because of the fear to lose the client. And so we think that we have conducted a ‘win-win’ negotiation because we have a job and our client will have this job done under the desired budget. But this is not the way a real ‘win-win’ works. Here we usually see aggressive negotiation technique on their side and passive position on ours. Instead of thinking about taking the job no matter what, think about how both of you can really win. If the client’s budget is limited, offer a range of services, you can provide him with within his budget. Advise him what you can get rid of without losing the value of the project and your own time, and consequently your money. In the end, you can give him a tiny discount or do smth for free. This way he’ll think that he has negotiated well and will be happy with the results, as well as you’ll be paid well and truly.
Below your breakeven level. Never ever take projects with a budget below your breakeven level. Again, if the price is too low, don’t agree to perform the work just to get the project, even if it’s interesting. Save your time for other opportunities. If the project’s budget doesn’t cover your expenses, offer other services that fit client’s spending expectations or decline the offer. Sometimes clients say that they know some other guy, who’ll do the same job for half of your cost. And here your passive aggression very often works well. Simply say ‘no’ and in most cases, the clients will stay with you.
Change requests over and over again. When you get the project and you’re paid well for it, clients try to squeeze you like a lemon to take everything from you for what they pay. Even if they like your job, they may ask for a bunch of changes to make. So what should you do? When you meet a client, you should decide what position you want to take. Do you want to be on the same level, be partners? If yes, you need to show your authority. Show that you are the expert in your field and you know better because of experience, skills, knowledge etc. When you create a product, give advices to your client, write explanations why it looks the way it looks e.g. why you apply exactly this color scheme, font and so on. When you share your knowledge with the client, your authority increases in his eyes and he’ll see that you know better how the project should look and won’t dare to request many changes, if any at all.
Ask questions. Be interested in the client’s business. Ask as much as you can about his service: how his business works, his target audience, expectations, problems. The more you know, the more you can help him to solve his problems. And if you do so, the client will appreciate it.
The faster you do your job, the higher price you should sell yourself at. A great example was given at the webinar about Picasso. He painted a woman within 1 minute and asked for the portrait several thousands c.u. Then she objected that the price was too high because it took him only 1 minute to do the job. To what he answered, that it took him all his life to do that job. He meant that he had been improving his skills all his life and that is why he became an expert and performed work really fast. So, if you are a pro and sell only time that you really need to do the job, you do the wrong thing. The more experienced and proficient you become, the more money you should take for your work. And to become that experienced and proficient, never ignore opportunities to improve your skills.
These are the basic points from the webinar by Invision designers (many thanks to them for it) and some adds-on by Melon team. Please, have a look at the key points and let us know if we’ve missed something.
