Why does pricing our services provoke such fear? Even when we’re certain that we provide valuable services and should charge what we’re worth, we still worry that clients will see our prices as unreasonable.
Of course, we don’t want to under price our services, either. So, when it comes time to actually give a prospective client a price estimate, we often just take a wild guess, which is a huge mistake.
We should consider the following steps…
1 Perform research and determine your hourly rate: Quoting a project rate, rather than an hourly rate, helps protect you and the client. Your client will appreciate knowing their fixed cost going into a new project.
2 Estimate how many hours the project will take: Break down the project into parts, and then estimate how many hours each part will take to complete. Add up the hours for each part to get the total number of hours for the entire project.
3 Multiply your hourly rate by the number of hours, then add padding: Base rate = (Hourly rate) x (Hours the project will take to complete). In other words, pad your total time just in case you’re underestimating it, which is extremely common.
4 Communicate the price clearly to the client: Actively manage your client’s expectations and avoid miscommunications during this stage of the process.
5 Track your hours and adjust future pricing accordingly: Track your time, and find out how long it really takes you to do a project. Most people underbid when they’re starting out, so careful time tracking makes it all about the data.
So, pricing is an essential part of your business to succeed. Will you need help with your research process? If yes, then please feel free to contact us by clicking right HERE. We have research VAs that can assist. In the meantime, please feel free to like us on FACEBOOK, then go and follow us on TWITTER and INSTAGRAM as well.
