[For those of you in the US, happy Veteran’s Day. If you’ve served or are serving – thank you, so dearly. I mean every bit of that.]
I received an email from one of you last week, that I’ll paraphrase (both to protect the innocent and generalize – the story is more applicable when presented as such) –
“Hi Adam,
What would you suggest I do if a potential client lowballs me, and I know they’re lowballing me? I told them my standard rate, and they said they would have to get back to me.
I’m thinking about offering to meet their rate – I can do some things to make it work – but just this one time only. I’m thinking about adding additional contract terms so they can’t lowball me again in the future.
Your thoughts?”
Before I share a few of my thoughts – I have a request of you, my dear reader.
I’m putting some serious thought into writing a book about everything I know regarding how to price your work and position yourself in a competitive market (like audio).
But, before I even commit to a presale, I dearly need your input. I need you to email me (if you’re reading this via email you can reply directly to the email) with all of your questions about what to charge clients, how to raise rates, make more money, how to get started, how to provide value, how to be perceived as an expert or special, etc.
There is no dumb question that you can send me. Send them all, all the ones you’re nervous about and feel stupid for asking – especially those.
If I get enough feedback and interest, I can decide if it’s worth doing a presale and actually writing the thing. If you all don’t care, that’s awesome too – then I can move onto the next thing.
Okay, back to the original email.
Today’s Lesson
You can’t make a bad client into a good client.
Read that again.
If a client sucks – they’re hard to deal with or they put up a considerable fight when you’re telling them you need more money – you can’t fix that.
There is nothing you can do now that will make them see your brilliance and decide they need to pay you more. If you work for less, and you’re amazing, they’re going to be excited that they got a great deal on you and keep you there.
There’s no honor in work like this – zero, none.
If you find some kindhearted super generous soul who decides to pay you more for your brilliance just because of their heart – good god keep them forever!
But I’ve literally never heard of a story like that. No one has ever come to me saying
“You know – I made minimum wage for this client, but I really needed the work. It was so wonderful of them when we made quite a bit of money and they just gave me a raise 5x worth what they were originally paying me!”
Perhaps one of you will come to me now that I’ve said this – but you’re still the outlier if you do.
So what do you do with craptastic clients who aren’t willing to pay you?
Walk away.
That’s literally all you can do. You either accept the terms, or you walk away.
Two, very quick stories.
First – prior to working for a group at Microsoft, I was contacted by a recruiter after sending in a resume. They asked what I was making and I told them (I actually handled this wrong at the time) – that ended the conversation. I was making more than they were willing/budgeted to pay for the position I’d applied for.
We were cordial, but I made it clear I wasn’t taking a considerable pay cut to take the position.
It bummed me out, for sure – but that was the end of it.
Cut to two months later and I get a call from the same recruiting group about the same position, but it was a different person on the phone. I was really confused.
“I thought I was too expensive? That’s where we last left the conversation.”
That’s what I told the new guy on the phone.
“Yeah well… I think some things have changed, and they’re really interested in talking with you. Can we make that happen?”
Literally a handful of weeks later, the position was mine at the rate I had asked for.
Obviously this doesn’t happen in most cases. Microsoft (or any large company with money) you are more easily able to demand what you want and have them come back to you – budgets can change. Smaller companies may not be able to change their budgets.
But the point remains – had Microsoft really wanted someone at their original price point, then they didn’t actually want me. They wanted someone cheaper than me. Had I taken the pay cut, both the team I ended up working with and I would’ve ended up unhappy.
Second story –
You need to know the context and what type of work you’re taking on. You don’t end up charging all clients the same when you’re freelancing or taking side-gigs.
I have a few different “side-hustles”, a few have come up recently. One, surprisingly, we didn’t even talk about money for – I just received the contract with a dollar amount attached to it.
Initially I was a bit confused – but also unclear as to exactly what the work involved would be. I wasn’t upset or offended, but it was a fairly standard rate and I usually charge more than what I was quoted.
Then I got context for the work, later.
The work itself isn’t difficult – it’s time consuming, and the team just needed a pair of hands. Honestly the team could’ve relied on anyone half-competent to do the work, but I was in the right place at the right time to be asked.
The team is a group I’m honored to be working with too – new contacts for me, people I’ve never worked with, lots of industry history on many individual’s resumes.
So sure, I could send an email and complain that we never talked about money and say “my standard rate is XYZ”. But, in this context, that would probably be incredibly rude and stupid to do. I don’t have any belief that they’re trying to “lowball” me – it’s also just not work they need to pay top dollar for. They need someone that they can trust, and I’m happy to serve and build my network. The money, for me, is a bonus.
So be cognizant about who you work with, what you’re doing, and what you need.
For many of you – you simply lack the experience to be able to tell one situation from another like this yet, and that’s okay! As I’ve said previously – I’ve done this for 10 years now, making anywhere from 10k-20k a year to considerably more than that. I’ve seen a number of situations and failed a lot.
That’s part of the process.
But then again, it doesn’t have to be.
So if you’re interested in what I’ve learned about pricing, presenting myself as unique in a crowded market, and simply making more money – email me! Reply to this, if it’s in email format – and tell me what’s bugging you.
If enough of you do, I’ll be overjoyed to put something together that will help you skip all the mistakes I made.
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