How Much to Charge Clients - Susie Jackson

Teresa offers European Portuguese transcreation, content writing, localisation and SEO translation services through her company, TAGS Language Solutions. She works with a diverse range of customers in different sectors, from international organisations and global ecommerce brands to start-ups who want to unlock the Portuguese market. Teresa also provides SEO training for both freelance translators and translation agencies.

Teresa started taking Charge with Confidence in July 2021. When she signed up, she had recently moved from Portugal to Belgium. She therefore felt it was a good opportunity for her to develop a clear pricing structure based on her new circumstances.

The challenge: changing Teresa’s mindset when it came to deciding how much to charge her customers

When Teresa joined me for Charge with Confidence, she had already been running her business for 6 years. She therefore had a lot of experience, but she was looking for an external perspective. Teresa wanted to understand exactly what was happening with the money in her business so she could get clear on her prices for quoting her services. Up until this point, she had been setting her prices based on gut instinct.

When Teresa contacted me, she had just decided to shift back from a boutique translation agency model to a more traditional freelance set-up. With recently moving from Portugal to Belgium, she also wanted to make sure she was getting her pricing right from the beginning.

However, while Teresa realised that she needed to adapt her prices to reflect her new location, she still wanted to make sure she remained ‘competitive’. Teresa was used to working in Portugal where the cost of living is low and clients are generally accustomed to low prices. So, despite moving to Belgium where the cost of living is far higher, she still wanted to be able to compete with other English-to-Portuguese translators.

My focus was therefore on helping Teresa change her way of thinking to charge what she needed to be charging according to her own circumstances and nobody else’s. My aim was to show her how to calculate her prices based on data rather than gut instinct or a desire to be competitive. And if that meant that she’d have to charge higher than industry averages, I’d also show her how to charge more for her services.

The solution: showing Teresa how to use the numbers in her business to calculate her prices based on data

We started the programme by considering Teresa’s business expenses. We put together a business budget using her spending data from the last 12 months and what she wanted to invest in over the coming year.

We then looked at Teresa’s personal expenditure, including her new expenses resulting from her move and the higher cost of living in Belgium.

By understanding that she needed to be able to cover all these expenses through her business, Teresa was then able to calculate her prices to make sure that she would be earning enough money to make ends meet.

I provided Teresa with my rate calculator spreadsheet so she could insert all the numbers from her data to arrive at her hourly rates. These included a minimum hourly rate and an aspirational hourly rate, considering the number of hours Teresa wanted to work each week. The lowest rate showed Teresa the minimum amount she could earn from a project per hour to cover her expenses and make the job viable. On the other hand, the aspirational rate gave her something to aim at if she felt the client in question might have a higher budget.

Towards the end of Charge with Confidence, we also carried out a client assessment. This way, Teresa was able to see which clients were already allowing her to earn her minimum hourly rate or more and which clients she needed to take action with.

I also advised Teresa to request testimonials from her existing clients before raising her rates with any of them. In the worst-case scenario, if they didn’t accept her price increase, she would at least have a testimonial from the relationship. But by getting a testimonial, Teresa would also be able to understand what her clients valued about her services before building that into her messaging when raising her rates.

The results: Teresa feels empowered and has increased her prices with some customers and stopped working with others

Indeed, asking for testimonials made a huge difference for Teresa when it came to raising her prices. She received lots of kind words and found that she was surprised by what the testimonials told her about which aspects of her services her clients valued. In fact, they served as a great confidence boost when Teresa subsequently raised her prices.

Only 4 months on from Charge with Confidence, Teresa has successfully agreed a higher rate with her main client. Due to the quantity of work involved, she says that this will be enormously impactful as time goes by.

Teresa also found that some of her other clients accepted her rate increase without even questioning it.

On the other hand, Teresa has stopped working with 2 clients who were unable to pay more than they were already paying her. Nevertheless, she still sees the overall outcome as very positive. By no longer working with these lower-paying clients, Teresa has been able to free up some time to market to higher-paying clients instead.

But besides the financial differences and the higher-paying customers, Teresa has also noticed a change in how she deals with her business. During the programme, she realised that she actually enjoyed looking at and tracking her income and expenditure transactions. She found it relaxing, and she now sees keeping an eye on her finances as an opportunity for mindfulness within her business. Teresa views recording her data as a chance to stop, look and think about what’s happening. This also gives her the opportunity to make any adjustments she feels are necessary.

As someone who has dealt with anxiety for a long time, Teresa says she’s found it empowering to take control of the numbers in her business. She’s also managed to take a lot of the emotion out of the pricing and quoting process. This has helped her to be not only more objective but also more intentional in the way she works. Teresa says that she now feels as though she has a lot more structure when it comes to how she’s spending her time and her money.

“I can’t recommend Charge with Confidence enough. It’s great at any stage of your freelance career, even if you’re more experienced and think you don’t need help with your pricing. There’s always room for improvement, and even if it only changes your way of looking at the numbers and your expenses, it’s worth it.”

I’m really glad that Teresa found Charge with Confidence beneficial, both for her business and for herself. One of the things I aim to do through my mentoring is to empower other freelancers and small business owners, so I’m thrilled that Teresa feels more in control as a result of the programme.

Despite running a successful business for 6 years before taking Charge with Confidence, Teresa has learnt to approach her business differently. Her focus is no longer on being competitive but on using her data to earn what she needs to run a business that will support her and her unique needs.

If you’d like to be more intentional in the way you manage your business, you can take Charge with Confidence whenever you’re ready. Click on the button below to find out more.

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