RSS
Home
Charge appropriately to make 2009 your best year
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
How long has it been since you raised your rates?
You may think I'm crazy for asking that question in an economic downturn, but stay with me for a minute.
People and businesses are still spending money. Smart people - the kind of customers you want - are using this time to build their skills, improve their processes, and provide more value to their customers. Can you help them with any of those things?
Mikelann Valterra, founder of The Women's Earning Institute in Seattle, addresses what she calls "underearning" in her book Why Women Earn Less. This easy-to-read book will change the way you think about money and pricing.
- Do you think your competitors charge too much?
- Does your spouse provide a cushion that makes it easy for you to earn less than you should?
- Do you underearn to stay in a comfort zone?
Mikelann's book has a variety of questions to help you get at the root of your underearning problem and steps to bring you to a healthy appreciation of the solution you provide to your customers. If you set your rates appropriately, you will get better customers because they are buying on Value, not Price.
Would you trust someone selling you a brand-new BMW for the price of a Subaru? Of course not. You would immediately suspect something was wrong with the car.
I have to confess to being a former underearner, and my rates were so ridiculously low that I'm embarassed to share them. But reading MIkelann's book opened my eyes and transformed the way I think about money. I don't even blink when I state my rates now, and I'm no longer surprised when people say "when can we start?"
Related Articles:
Comments
