Entrepreneurship

Three Reasons To Increase Your Rates and Charge What You’re Worth

Setting rates as a solopreneur is always a challenge. Whether you’re a freelancer, a coach, an indie author or a consultant, you have to decide what to charge for your products and services, and too many of us base that decision on shaky logic.

There are three really good reasons to charge a decent rate for whatever it is you do.

Increase Your Rates As A Freelancer

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1. Other people’s finances are not your problem

Often as solopreneurs we’re tempted to charge what we think people can afford, not what we think our services are worth. But here’s the thing. There will always be people who can afford you and people who can’t. Your potential clients’ finances are NOT your responsibility.

Know whose finances are your responsibility? Yours. So price yourself according to what you’re worth and start caring about your own financial future, instead of worrying about your potential client’s current budget.

Charge what you’re worth, not what you think others can afford. Their finances are not your problem. Click To Tweet

2. Working with quality is easier than working with quantity

A funny thing happens when you raise your rates. Your work gets easier. No kidding. Working with professionals who can afford to pay a decent rate makes everything run more smoothly.

The more professional and successful your clients are, the more likely they are to brief you clearly, reply promptly to your communications, give constructive and timely feedback and pay you in full and on time.

It’s actually much easier to work with a few high-end clients than it is to work with a lot of I-can-barely-afford-to-pay-you clients. In fact, it’s generally easier to work with a lot of high-end clients than it is to work with a few I-can-barely-afford-to-pay-you clients.

Working with people who don’t know what they’re doing, and don’t even have a system in place to pay you on time, is frustrating.  You’ll end up resenting your clients and not serving them as well as you should.

Working with quality is usually MUCH easier than working with quantity. Click To Tweet

3. Burnout’s a bitch

We’ve all been there.  It’s early in your career and you’re hustling like hell. You take on a ton of work, because you’ve set your rates low to attract new business, so you need a lot of clients to make ends meet.

You can operate like this for a while, but it’s not sustainable. Burnout sets in. The quality of your work suffers, and those important first testimonials you were shooting for don’t even emerge, because you weren’t able to provide the awesome results you thought you could. (You weren’t wrong. You are awesome, just not on three hours sleep.)

It’s vital that your rates are high enough to let you over deliver and provide incredible value. Click To Tweet

Want to know how to set your rates high, stop resenting your clients and build a business that’s profitable AND sustainable? Grab this great FREE resource from CoachGlue.com.  It’s aimed at coaches, as that’s predominantly who they serve, but the principles apply to most solopreneurs. Grab your free copy here.

Raise Your Rates and Charge What Youre Worth

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3 thoughts on “Three Reasons To Increase Your Rates and Charge What You’re Worth

  1. I agree with all your points. The ‘other people’s finances are not your problem’ is something I need to remember as I by nature, want to help everyone and in the end, I myself lose out.

  2. I can relate to that, Hannah. I always used to price my freelance services according to what I thought others would want to pay, but now I’m charging more I’m still getting work, and I’m working with awesome people who think I’m worth paying well! Nothing wrong with helping people out, of course. I help people out every day (I hope!) here on the blog, for free. But when I’m working with clients I charge them a fair fee, and if they can’t afford it right now, I hope they’ll come back when they can.
    Karen recently posted…Offering Your Own Coaching, Training or Mentoring ProgramMy Profile

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