BRATTLEBORO — You might be a freelance writer working in Brattleboro. Or build websites. Or - well, pick any sort of profession that serves that sometimes-awkward area where the creative meets the commercial.
Or you might be a graphic designer, as I was for 15 or so years before I got back into the world of newspapers.
At some point, you're going to wrestle with and maybe even agonize over whether you should raise your rates. That's exactly the situation that my sister-in-law is in. She's also a graphic designer - one of several talents that she has, and the conversation I had with her brought back that struggle and raised issues that might be useful food for thought for other creative entrepreneurs out there.
Like many of us who start out in business, my sister-in-law worked with friends and colleagues. She had a marketing and communications job that let her greatly enhance her skills and learn professional-grade software, and along the way, she took on projects for friends, colleagues, and my brother's own business.
When many of us start out, we will be willing to do anything for anybody for the experience. We will let the client's budget drive the value of the work and our compensation. In the best of circumstances, this sort of business arrangement is a win/win.
But, as I told my sister-in-law, there comes a time when a creative professional must evaluate the pricing structure.
This conversation brought me back to my own career. About three or four years into my enterprise, I hit a brick wall with job after job of difficult, dissatisfied customers who, no matter how many ways I pared their bills down, remained sullen and ungrateful for anything I could do. I could barely pay the rent of my tiny office.
I had an epiphany of sorts: I was too good at what I do to be in this situation. And I doubled my rates on the spot.
Ultimately, this extreme response worked. I retained my good clients. The ones who refused to pay the new rates? They found a new generation of new freelancers to exhaust.
As it turned out, I was relying too much on word of mouth for making this business grow, and when you are serving people who devalue your work, you develop a reputation as overpriced - at best. As I began to work for new clients who could afford reasonable rates, they would extoll the good qualities I could bring to a project.
That tactic worked for me, and it might work for you, too.
In my sister-in-law's case, she hadn't raised her rates in years and was feeling used and pressured by some of her clients - that sounded familiar. She was feeling intensely the number of pressures on her busy life as a mom to two active kids, as a proprietor of another professional practice, and as a part-time student. Simply put, the value of her time was out of whack with her income from the graphic design endeavors and far from commensurate from what she should have been charging.
So I gave her this advice. She took it. And only one client complained - the client who has been, on the whole, the most problematic and underappreciative of my sister-in-law's work.
In my experience, you think you are at stake by alienating your customers. From where I stand, if your customers are going to be alienated by the concept of your earning an appropriate living, you should find nicer people to work for - and if you lose anyone, you can use that time to search for them. In my experience, if someone is talented, the demand for that talent is not as much of the problem as the distractions of running a business that keep a freelancer from being able to find the people who appreciate and can afford that talent.
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So where does this leave you, the creative freelancer? Obviously, your own mileage will vary depending on your own circumstances and the specific nature of your field and your clientele. But in general, you need to be aware of the following:
• Are you earning what you're worth? If you're any good at what you do, you know what you should be making. If you're not making it, you should be taking a hard look at what you are charging and what you are spending. If you are selling your creative services, you are selling value in what you bring to a project, and that can certainly be subjective.
• Get together with some real pros and get some honest opinions about what you're doing and how you're charging for it. Socialize with and reach out to other business owners and freelancers. Get some perspective. It is amazing how neurotic you can get when you work alone.
• When you do raise your rates, do so confidently and with good humor. Be open and candid. Don't be apologetic. If you really want to work with a client and that client really wants to work with you, you'll find a way. I've worked over the years for miso, maple syrup, and raspberry jam.
• Are your clients underappreciative when you bend over backwards to give them a good deal? Over time, I found I had terrific luck with this approach: Give them a deal, but bill your client for the full amount, and then deduct a discount to arrive at the agreed-upon bottom line. I found that several of my clients were unappreciative not out of malice but out of ignorance.
And that was a sobering reality check. As a communications professional, I could hardly blame anyone else for failure to communicate the value of my work or the project. So as you look at how you do your business, don't forget to throw in a healthy dose of self-examination and figure out creative ways to improve your services and your skills along the way.