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Don’t sell yourself short
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Hi Indie Biz Chicks readers! My name is Heather and I’m a new contributor here. It’s so nice to be able to write for a site that supports the independent woman and all she stands for. I also blog at Maternal Spark, a site dedicated to creative moms. I’m a mom too so you may often get a mother’s take from my posts.
Recently I bid on a small tiny freelance writing job. I was eager to get it as it would have been a fun clip for my portfolio. The potential client was a small biz owner with basically no budget, that was apparent. It was also apparent that she had never commissioned promotional writing work before. When I put my quote in, I low balled it. I only requested about half of what I should have. Why did I do that? There were several reasons.
1) I didn’t have much past experience to pull from as I mostly write for myself and for free.
2) I just wanted to get the job and I knew she didn’t have much of a budget.
3) I didn’t take the time to research what I should be quoting for such a job.
After my low ball quote was sent in to her I didn’t get a reply for a couple days. This surprised me because she had always been quick to reply to my emails beforehand. I started to think the job was gone but felt somewhat puzzled because she raved over the writing sample I’d sent in prior to the quote. I sent a follow up email asking if she was willing to go ahead and the response came back right away. She said she wasn’t prepared to spend any money on the project now and she would contact me if the time came when she was ok to move ahead.
So I low balled my quote and still didn’t get the job. What does that tell me?
I should charge what my work is worth. Writing takes time, patience and research. All those things need to be compensated for in the final bill. Just because I might have a little one crawling around my computer desk doesn’t make my work worth any less and I should value the final product. Because if I don’t, who will? This experience also tells me to take my time in researching what a job should pay. If a client doesn’t have a budget for writing services at the going rate then, would they have a budget at half the going rate? No.
Whatever your biz, whatever your work entails; charge what it’s worth, don’t sell yourself short.
Comments
4 Responses to “Don’t sell yourself short”
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Great advice, Heather! Thanks for sharing!
Crissy
Really good post, Heather. I’ve found, too, in freelancing writing, that if a potential client is inexperienced at contracting out work, they might also not realize the boundaries - of how many re-writes they get for the price, what kind of “guarantee” they get if any. Even people who contract out writing jobs regularly will sometimes not understand when your work is finished, and when they need to be charged more for further work or revisions.
So that’s another reason not to low ball. Negotiating with a client can be a job in and of itself!
Thanks for the inspiration and the great ideas!
Best,
Suzann
Good advice. I’m terrible at this myself.
This is great advice. I am actually getting better at this.