Business
I remember being nervous 10 years ago when someone asked me to help them with their SEO and I charged them $250 per month. I got them number 1 rankings and I still felt guilty charging that much money - I mean - this was so easy for me to do, why was my time worth so much money? Keep in mind that a single client was worth 10 times that for them... I know - sounds pretty ridiculous now, right? But so many of you are still way undercharging for what your work is worth to your client. And if you keep undercharging, you'll never climb out of that pit of guilt and frustration. I now charge $10,000 to get started on nearly every project that comes my way. Was it easy? Hell no! The first time I finally managed to tell someone 10K, over the phone, I felt every single muscle in my body tense up. I had to put the phone on mute because I would have probably blurted out something like:"But I can give you a discount and ALL these extras if you sign up today!" if they would have stayed quiet for more than a second. Then, after they said:"Ok, that sounds fair. When can we get started?" - I remember doing a "Yessss elbow" in the air and said something like:"I'll email you the next steps today so we can get started asap." And that was that. All over sudden I realized that me lowballing myself consistently had nothing to do with my prospects. It was all me fighting myself. I still get a little uneasy when asked how much it is to get started with me, and I still have the urge to add more value than I already do, but I understand where it is coming from, and I understand that it's not real. So here's a challenge for you... If you are severely undercutting yourself, I want you to double your prices when people are asking you how much it'll cost them. And then when a few have signed up on the new price, I want you to double your fees again. All the way up to where all over sudden - you are actually making enough to live a good life and you only need a handful of really good clients to sustain it. I dare you.