Setting the Price: How much is that doggie on the window?
As freelancers, we have more control on several aspects of the assignment and our business. Basically, we have a say in the timeframe, the way the work would be done, the resources that would be used, and of course, the price of that assignment. The most important aspect of all these is the price, because of the obvious reasons, and also because the price that you charge for an assignment has more long term effects on your business than any of the other decisions that you would take. Here are some tips that you should keep in mind before setting up a price.
Prices are Not State Secrets:
After all the jargon talk of corporate secrecy, professional behavior, and restricted information sharing between corporate entities, there is one simple rule of that affects all humans: They Talk.
Therefore, you shouldn't be surprised if you find out that that one of assignment you did for one of your bigger clients almost for free has spread like wildfire in the business world, and the more cheesy sales rep or acquisitions manager will not think twice before telling you point blank that they know that they did this particular assignment for this particular amount.
Even if they do not, trust me, a HR who has knowledge that you can do this much for less, will never give you anything about that price. its their attitude that changes, not their handling of you. Therefore, you might just be stuck in that same price bracket for months and years, unless you put in some value add into the product.
Keep Different Types of Job Works:
That said, it would be professional, harakiri if you set about in the world of freelancing with a single flat rate plan. Make sure that sit down and prepare a list of products that you would be offering the client, in different price ranges. For example, if you are a content writer, you could break up your products into website content, articles, eBooks, article submission, forums, blogs, etc. With a little bit of technical knowhow, you would be on your way to run blogs or even entire websites for your clients. That could also be a major value add to small businesses who do not have the budgets to hire a full time webmaster for their 20 page website.
If you are into the graphics designing business, you could break down your work into web work and offline work, and also group your work according to the dimension of graphics that you would provide. For example, you could say that Category One would have three leaderboards and two box boards and one stamp size banner, while Category Two would have five leaderboards, three box boards and two stamp size banners, etc.
If you are a programmer, you could simply close the categories into what language they need the program in, and whether they require web programming as well as flash programming. Flash programming is mainly used to make online games and is quite a lucrative job profile today. If you are a traditional programmer and have abilities to program in ASP as well as PHP, you could anytime set up your price according to the language that you would use.
Do Some Free Work:
Stupid as it may sound, it is good to do some free work now and then. You could do this kind of free work for anyone, whether it is that solid startup that has verve but no money, or the charitable institution that would love to have a graphic, or a storybook or a nifty little website set up, or even the big client of yours who has been dealing with you since a while.
Doing free work is beneficial for your business too, as that startup will soon have clients, or that charity will be giving our newsletters to their benefactors, and of course, the big client of yours will become a bigger and more loyal client. Of course, there's also this small aspect where you can experiment with your work when you are doing something free for someone as a favor.
Of course, you would have to be blunt as nails to answer the acquisition officer or HR department of the client that you are dealing with when they ask you for a bargain taking up these assignments.
