No one just pops out of the womb being an amazing designer. You just can’t go around comparing yourself to other designers. Designers are always at a different level of experience and expertise from each other at any given time. “But there are better designers out there.” Plus, another thing to think about is: undervaluing your work and undercharging isn’t attractive to clients who are expecting to pay for an expert. You’ve got to pay for your own health insurance, taxes, retirement contributions, liability insurance and so forth. In fact, now you have more expenses, so you should be charging more-not less! Why should you charge less just because you’re now freelancing instead of working for someone else? “New to freelancing” doesn’t necessarily mean “new in the field.” “But I’m new to freelancing and need to build up my client base.”Īnother one I hear is “But I’m new to freelancing and need to build up my client base.”Īre you in business to just gather clients and projects? Isn’t the goal to make money at what you’re doing? You don’t need tons of clients to be profitable. They will start asking and nit picking about how much time future work will take you too. When you, in your mind, justify lowering your rate or your fee because it won’t take you long, you’re placing the value of your work on time.Īnd when you put the focus on time, clients will too.

You also have to think about the time you’re going to spend on responding to emails, creating and sending proofs, logging in if it’s a website, invoicing and so forth. And when you diminish the value in that manner, that’s what you’re saying to clients: “I’m trading time for money.” The value of the work is not dependent upon the time it takes. On the flip side, if that designer spends more time doing the work, is the work more valuable to the client? Again, heck no! Other designers, who don’t know the software well, would spend 10 times that and maybe even struggle to do things properly. I can format a publication with hundreds of pages in no time. Heck! A client might even say that, that it won’t take you long to do, so therefore you should do it free or cheaper.īut you have to consider how long it took you to be able to do it that quickly.įor example, I’ve been using InDesign for 20 years. Stop wondering about your worth and break away from these “but’s.” You’re creating your own obstacles in your mind.

“But the client could Google how to do it.”.“But my clients don’t have the budget or won’t pay more.”.“But I haven’t been doing this type of work very long.”.“But I don’t have experience in this industry.”.“But there are better designers out there.”.“But I’m new to freelancing and need to build up my client base.”.There are a lot of reasons as a graphic designer you might undervalue your worth-and I did this too years ago, so I get it. Episode 42 Power, Positioning and Pricing.Episode 75 Squash Self-Doubt and Own Your Expertise.

Ego is the enemy or obstacle is the way