How to Charge More If You Need to Be Earning Above Industry Averages
I sometimes see freelancers and small business owners worrying when they need to charge more than what’s considered ‘standard’ in their industry. If their prices are higher than average industry rates, who will be willing to pay for their services?
With the method I teach in Charge with Confidence, it is perfectly possible for you to find that you need to be charging more than industry averages to make a decent living. This is because my programme’s pricing calculations take into account both your business and personal expenses as well as the number of hours you want to work. This means that if your expenses are higher than those of your peers or you have fewer hours available to spend on paid client work, you’ll naturally need to charge more than other people to make ends meet.
The good news is that there are clients at every budget level. In the same way that some people are willing and able to pay for a Ferrari, there are clients out there who will be happy to pay more for your services. It's just a question of finding them!
With this in mind, in this blog post, I want to show you what to do and how to find these clients if you’re in a situation where you need to charge more than average industry rates.
How to charge more for your services
1) Don't let self-doubt creep in
If you’ve done your calculations and need to charge more than industry averages, you’ve arrived at that conclusion for a reason. You have a numerical basis for charging higher rates, so if you want to make sure you’re earning a decent living, you don’t really have a choice.
You can’t charge any lower than the minimum you need to cover your expenses and avoid working all hours, otherwise your business isn’t a financially viable option for you. If it won’t allow you to earn the amount you need to be making to cover your personal outgoings, you might as well look for the kind of employment that will.
Charging anything lower than what you need to be earning isn’t an option, so don’t doubt your prices. Instead, know that there are clients out there who are willing to pay higher rates. You just have to be prepared to put the work in to understand who they are and why they’re willing to pay more than average.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done.” This applies to earning more in exchange for providing your services. You must be willing to try to seek out different types of clients if you want to charge a higher rate than your existing clients can pay.
2) Identify higher-paying clients
Once you’ve put any doubts relating to your prices to one side, it’s time to find those clients who can afford to pay you more.
The easiest way to do this is to start by looking at your current clients to see if there are any who are already paying, or who you think would be willing to accept, your higher rates. If there are, ask yourself what they have in common. Perhaps they’re all agencies that take up less of your time, meaning that you’re able to make a higher rate per hour. Or maybe they’re direct clients who seem to have a bigger overall budget.
In the same way, you might notice that clients in a specific geographical location or in a certain industry tend to be happy to pay more. In this blog post, I look at a couple of examples that might help you identify the type of customer you need to be working with in order to achieve higher rates.
If, on the other hand, you don’t have any customers who are already paying you above industry averages, ask yourself what type of clients might be willing to pay more. Is there anything you can do to increase your value to these potential customers? For example, perhaps you could offer them a customised service, an after-sales care package, or access to your unique creative streak. Always ask yourself what you could offer clients that others in your industry don’t.
3) Target the clients you’ve identified through your marketing and messaging
After identifying which clients you need to be working with in order to achieve higher rates, you can address them directly through your marketing.
If you think those customers that would be willing to pay more are located in a specific geographical area, focus your efforts on that region.
It’s also a good idea to update your online presence, from your website to your social media accounts. Make sure your content and branding are speaking directly to those clients who can afford to pay you more, whether that’s by homing in on a specific industry or certain customer profile, or by emphasising the extra value that only you can provide.
Once you start seeing results and manage to onboard some of these better-paying clients, you can look for common threads and narrow down your messaging even further. Consider editing your copy to address the kind of higher-paying clients you’re already working with in an even more targeted way.
Whatever strategy you use to attract these clients, before you start thinking that a market for your services at a higher price doesn’t exist, be really honest with yourself. Are you doing everything you can to find the right clients?
Always remember that if your existing clients aren't able to pay above-average rates, the answer lies in looking for different types of customers.
If you aren’t sure whether or not you should be charging higher than industry averages, I’ll help you calculate your rates in Charge with Confidence. During the programme, we’ll look at both your expenses and the amount of time you want to spend working to understand how much you need to earn per hour to make a decent living.
By the end of the programme, you’ll be able to put a precise figure on your minimum hourly rate, which will help you identify the kind of clients you need to be targeting.
Hi, I’m Susie
I mentor freelancers on pricing and business finances so you can earn a decent living doing what you love.
I’m a translator, editor, chocoholic, crochet addict, animal lover, and budding gardener (get it?) who loves empowering others to achieve their goals.
