{"id":768,"date":"2014-10-08T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T10:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wearemap.wpengine.com\/?p=768"},"modified":"2017-01-26T12:39:57","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T11:39:57","slug":"5-ways-to-avoid-underselling-your-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/blog\/5-ways-to-avoid-underselling-your-services\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Ways to avoid underselling your services"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s really difficult to get paid what you’re worth, especially if what you do is service based (like most Creative\/Digital businesses).<\/p>\n

But there are 5 sure-fire ways to ensure that you keep your average hourly rate where it should be.<\/p>\n

1. Avoid ‘Ball park’ numbers.<\/h2>\n

There’s a saying that goes:<\/p>\n

‘A ballpark always has a fence around it’.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s all very well giving an estimate of a job (the ball-park figure), but if you need to increase it, then you’ll probably find that it already has an upper limit (the fence).<\/p>\n

So, next time you get asked for a ‘ball-park figure’, try saying, ‘I don’t know’.<\/p>\n

By being honest, and taking that extra time to go back and work out a proper quote, you’ll find that not only do you get more respect from the vendor, but if you take on the job, you’ll make more money.<\/p>\n

2. Don’t take on work that you can’t control<\/h2>\n

If you don’t have direct access to the client, then be very wary.<\/p>\n

This means that someone else is determining the amount of work you’re doing and the amount of payment you’ll receive.<\/p>\n

Subcontracting is fine, but the reduction in profit is outweighed by the certainty of payment and the fast that you don’t have to deal with the client.<\/p>\n

Don’t get stuck in the worst of all worlds!<\/p>\n

3. Turn your work into ‘mini-projects’<\/h2>\n

Instead of quoting one price for the whole project, try defining ‘mini-projects’ that cover sections of the work.<\/p>\n

E.g. Rather than saying ‘Project scope – \u00a31000’ you can split this down into actual components.\u00a0This could include:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Meetings,<\/li>\n
  • Background reading,<\/li>\n
  • Phone calls,<\/li>\n
  • Writing specs.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    So your ‘product may look like this:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Project Scope – \u00a31,000<\/strong>\u00a0Includes:<\/li>\n
    • 2 face-to-face meetings<\/li>\n
    • 3 phone calls, up to 30 minutes each<\/li>\n
    • Up to 3 hours of background reading<\/li>\n
    • Create one project scope document (maximum 1000 words)<\/li>\n
    • One revision of the project scope document<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      This means you know what you are getting paid for. With cloud accounting packages (we favour Xero), this is easy – just create products and these are available on every quote you create.<\/p>\n

      4. Don’t negotiate on price – negotiate on deliverables<\/h2>\n

      One of the best things about having set ‘products’, as discussed above, is that you can use them to negotiate without sacrificing profit.<\/p>\n

      For example, imagine a project that has a ‘Project Scope’ product as defined above.<\/p>\n

      If the client wanted to shave a \u00a3200 off the price, then you can easily remove the face-to-face meetings, plus ask them to summarise the background reading for you.<\/p>\n

      You’re now making the same amount of profit, but still fitting in with your client’s budget.<\/p>\n

      5. Don’t charge by the day\/hour<\/h2>\n

      You may have heard this before, but if you tie your salary to a set number of hours, then you’ll always have to work those hours to take home that money.<\/p>\n

      Instead, try to quote based on\u00a0what the project will do for the client<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

      For example, a client may want a new app to track sales staff in the field.<\/p>\n

      By asking smart questions, like ‘How do you do this at the moment?<\/em>‘ and ‘How many people do this?<\/em>‘ you can estimate how much they are spending on this at the moment. (Lets say its \u00a320,000 a year).<\/p>\n

      Lets assume you know this work will take you 7 days to create, plus 2 days to deploy & test, and you charge \u00a3300 per day.<\/p>\n

      You may be tempted to multiply \u00a3300 by 7, and add in some contingency.<\/p>\n

      But, instead, if you price your proposal at \u00a325,000, then, in the clients eyes, it’ll pay for itself by month 14, but in your eyes,\u00a0you’ve just made 10 times what you could have!<\/strong><\/p>\n

      Give it a go!<\/h2>\n

      Try this on your next project. If you follow tip 4, then there is no reason to fear over-quoting.<\/p>\n

      Bonus: Don’t assume the client is looking for the cheapest supplier. And, if they are, then find another client!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      It’s really difficult to get paid what you’re worth, especially if what you do is service based (like most Creative\/Digital businesses). But there are 5…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-becoming-profitable"},"yoast_head":"\n5 Ways to avoid underselling your services - Clients<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"5 Ways to avoid underselling your services - Clients\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s really difficult to get paid what you’re worth, especially if what you do is service based (like most Creative\/Digital businesses). But there are 5...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/blog\/5-ways-to-avoid-underselling-your-services\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Clients\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-10-08T10:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-01-26T11:39:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.wearemap.wpengine.com\/assets\/avoid_underselling_your_services.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/\",\"name\":\"Clients\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/blog\/5-ways-to-avoid-underselling-your-services\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.wearemap.wpengine.com\/assets\/avoid_underselling_your_services.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/blog\/5-ways-to-avoid-underselling-your-services\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/blog\/5-ways-to-avoid-underselling-your-services\/\",\"name\":\"5 Ways to avoid underselling your services - Clients\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/blog\/5-ways-to-avoid-underselling-your-services\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-10-08T10:15:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-01-26T11:39:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/#\/schema\/person\/72233b41d0eed59b98acd7c2b61da6ca\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/blog\/5-ways-to-avoid-underselling-your-services\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/#\/schema\/person\/72233b41d0eed59b98acd7c2b61da6ca\",\"name\":\"Paul Barnes\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f97c8ab26281bad32c63188b558e15c5380a7d7906d1e7f52763bbd7f3487d5a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Paul Barnes\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wearemap.co.uk\/clients\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}