How to increase your rates as a freelancer?

When a client comes to us, they have a problem to solve. But what do we sell as freelancers? We sell deliverables.

There’s nothing terrible in selling deliverables. Because they are easy to handle, and you get things done quickly. Infect, it’s suitable for someone who’s just starting.

But this is not where the real money is. You need to tell the story of how you will solve a problem and what kind of weight you will lift from your client’s shoulder. And to justify that, you need to show some previous work that you have done for your client.

Now ‘that’ will not be a deliverable-based portfolio anymore. It will be a case study. Put some love into showcasing your work. It makes your work look more extensive and much-needed.

Mental Clarity. That shows the quality of your experience.

Suppose you can bring more clarity to a client’s life. You’re expensive because it’s the highest form of a craft/skill, and it shows and justifies your Experience. Suppose you cannot make things simpler and organized for your client. You will struggle.

So stay organized and disciplined. And this should be shown in your personality when you talk to your client. Now you know how important is your headspace (Mental Clarity). Let’s talk about how you can achieve it.

Here’s how you can achieve mental clarity:

1. When struggling with clarity. Work Less.
2. Avoid Distraction. Do a social media detox and do anything that you can do to protect your mental energy.
3. Do what your body needs. Sleep better. Follow a morning routine for some time. Eat healthily. Meditate.
4. Sustain your clarity by rewarding yourself. Put together a productivity system. Give yourself short goals, and guess what? Instant gratification works. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
5. Fake it until you make it.

You are worth a lot more, how? Knowing the worth of your craft

If you’re selling your services for a reasonably long time. You would have noticed that you were able to increase your rates a little. But you’ve not managed to get to a number that can significantly make a difference? Why is that?

That’s because you lack the knowledge of the business proposition value of your craft. What kind of business value your skill is providing to your client? If you can somehow crack that. You should be able to charge a lot more to your client.

It’s called Value-Based Selling.

You can crack this by talking to your client. Here are some of the questions that can help you diagnose the value of your craft for your client,

1. What do you want to achieve? What’s your goal?
2. Where are we now?
3. What are the deliverables that we need to achieve to reach our goal? Define the tasks. 
4. Do we have the closed requirements written somewhere?
5. Do we need to start from scratch?
6. Do you have any competitors or references which can help in my research?
7. Who are the other stakeholders in the project?
8. Do you have any kind of budget associated with this task/project? 
9. Portfolio & Positioning

Let’s talk about portfolio and positioning a little bit. Most of us don’t pay too much attention to the portfolio, and some never update it. With your growing career, your portfolio should also update. It changes the way you position yourself. The client will perceive a different you when you update your portfolio because now you have set yourself differently.

To be honest, whatever I have learned so far in the freelance industry, “Positioning is everything.”

You can choose whether you’ve now grown to a consultant where people can consult you before even hiring you. That adds value to the clients. Remember, you’re going to bring clarity and ease to your client’s life. In fact, a portfolio is not just about showcasing your work, It should scream what you have become over the years. It will help you increase your rates very effectively.

People love to work with the people they know.

When you’re working with someone online, it’s tough to create a sense of knowing because you’re not sitting in front of the client to develop a personality impact.

So how do you do it? Well, I have good news for you. The anonymity of the internet is going to help you a lot in this regard.

Now you know you need to position yourself so your client can learn about your career journey and personality. The digital world is global. It’s the same culture, globally.

It doesn’t matter where you are but what matters is ‘Where your client is.’

You have to be very keen to know the culture. That will create a sense of familiarity, and people will feel comfortable working with you. It worked for me.

I don’t work with clients. I make friends. 

This freelancing career gave me friends from all over the globe, and I can communicate my heart to them a lot better than my local people. Because when I work with my clients, I adopt their work culture. And that’s a downside of freelancing also as you will start to feel alienated in your society. 

But guess what, I don’t care!

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The article is written by Mohammad Kasim. You can follow him on Facebook or learn from his YouTube channel.