Hey Girl, Start Charging What You’re Worth
I come to you with this article after freshly reading Jen Sincero’s You Are A Badass At Making Money.
If you can’t already tell from our socials, Jen has lit a raging fire under my toosh and I’m ready to get shit done. Shit including: sorting out my pricing structure.
Because as business owners, our biggest priority is often money. Beautiful, electronic numbers on a screen that are directly linked to what we eat this week, when we go on our next holiday and whether or not we’re renting for the rest of our lives.
I’ve been doing a lot of work on my money mindset as of late (thanks Jen!) and as a result, I am seriously evaluating how I price my services.
To give you some context, I’m going to share prices from when I started last year, as in June 2018.
I charged $400 for 5 hours (which was really 7+) of social content creation, scheduling and management.
I charged $300 to edit copy for an ENTIRE website.
I charged $250 to develop a custom brand voice.
If you’re reading this and in the early stages of your biz, you might be thinking that those prices are okay. Good, even.
Well, I’m here to tell you that they’re not. I was grossly undervaluing myself for too damn long.
Why?
Because in my previous role (copywriting, social media and admin) copywriting for our websites was “thrown in” as a “freebie” which not only reflected terribly on the business, but made me feel like my work was considered futile by the industry as a whole.
Which is so not true.
So, I priced reasonably. Safely. I wanted to work with small businesses and startups (I still do) and get their brands off the ground (I still do).
But I was doing so in a way that not only cut me short, but was wrongly educating those I quoted and worked with.
I was communicating to them (verbally and energetically) that what I was delivering was only worth a limited amount. That it had a ceiling, and then ceiling was designed for small children and hobbits.
I wasn’t confident in my services, or my worth. Even though I was delivering brilliant, on-brand copy and nailing the briefs, I didn’t see my copywriting work as important as social media or graphic design.
Which is dumb, to put it mildly.
I’m sure that many of you reading this aren’t in fact copywriters. And that’s okay, because this will still apply to you too.
Examine what you do. Think about how many hours, months, years you’ve worked on your skillset. Think about how many clients you’ve helped, and projects you’ve completed, and podcasts/videos/books you’ve devoured in order to become the wonderful biz owner that you are today.
Can you honestly say, after reviewing those numbers, that your pricing is bang on the money?
If yes, I salute you. [Seriously, I probably follow you on the gram and admire how confidently you back yourself.]
If no, that’s A-OK. Pricing isn’t written in stone, it doesn’t have to be forever, and it certainly doesn’t have to remain the same after xyz years.
On a slightly more woo woo note: receiving and giving money is an exchange of energy. So the lower you price yourself, the lower you believe you are worth and the less you are telling the Universe/God/Venus that you deserve.
If you take away one tiny bit from this article, I hope it’s that you reflect on your pricing and raise it. Not to be a dick, or to be greedy, but because you know *deep down* that your services are worth every darn cent.
Until the next brew,
Viv