Thanks to Charge with Confidence, Hannah knows how to quote for her services and no longer wastes time overthinking things

Hannah is a Spanish-to-English marketing translator, copywriter and content writer who is currently based in Ireland. Her company, HQ Translates, provides language services related to websites, email campaigns, blogs, social media and much more. Hannah is specialised in the areas of education, sustainability and travel. She loves to help creative entrepreneurs and businesses craft stories that connect with their clients.

Hannah signed up for Charge with Confidence in March 2022. After setting up her company in December 2020, she felt as though she’d got over the 1-year hump but that things should have been falling into place more than they were. She wanted a push in the right direction and thought that Charge with Confidence would give her that.

The challenge: helping Hannah face her finances and take control when setting her rates with clients

In general, when Hannah joined Charge with Confidence, she admits she had a mental block when it came to facing up to her finances. She didn’t know how to manage them, and that just made dealing with them feel even scarier.

As a result, the first thing I wanted to do was show Hannah how to go about managing her business finances and what she needed to be keeping an eye on. It’s really hard to be good at dealing with your finances if you’ve never been shown how.

The second thing I wanted to focus on was helping Hannah understand how to set her prices and how much she needed to be charging.

When she joined the programme, Hannah had a lot of agency clients who were dictating her rates. However, she realised that even if she could set her rates herself, she wouldn’t know how much to quote clients who asked about her prices. She felt helpless and deflated about being able to get her clients to pay her any more than they were already paying her.

My aim was therefore to show Hannah all the things she needed to be taking into account when setting her prices and establishing her minimum rate. This would include making sure that she was setting money aside to provide for herself in the future.

While Hannah knew she was doing OK on a day-to-day basis, she’d wake up some mornings and worry about not having a pension or other long-term strategy or provision in place. This caused her anxiety, so it was essential for me to help Hannah provide for her future through her pricing.

The solution: showing Hannah how to manage her finances and what to take into account in her pricing calculations

As part of the programme, I took Hannah through all the different things she needed to be keeping an eye on to manage her finances and calculate her prices.

We started by creating a budget for Hannah’s business based on her expenses and unique circumstances. The business budgeting spreadsheet I share during Charge with Confidence is much more detailed than the free version and gets participants thinking about everything, from the necessity of expenses to the percentage of income they account for. This encourages more conscious spending as well as a greater awareness of how much money is leaving your account each month.

We then considered different levels of personal income, ranging from bare essentials to aspirational. This gave Hannah the opportunity to dream while still understanding exactly how much she needed to be earning to make ends meet.

After thinking about all the additional things Hannah needed to take into account in her pricing, such as setting money aside for tax and saving for retirement, I provided her with my rate calculator spreadsheet. This allowed Hannah to insert all her figures based on her individual circumstances and arrive at her prices.

By considering how much she needed to be earning and how many hours she had available to make that amount, Hannah was able to calculate her minimum, mid-range and aspirational rates. The spreadsheet provided her with objective figures that didn’t give her any room to second-guess herself or her prices.

The results: Hannah has a new client who is paying her rates, and she feels more in control and optimistic about the future

Four months after completing Charge with Confidence, Hannah says she feels much more in control of her finances. In terms of her pricing, the spreadsheets I provided her with during the programme removed any fear and emotion to the extent that she now feels confident when quoting for her services.

A short while after we finished, Hannah was approached by a new client. She was really excited about the opportunity and didn’t go into an anxious spiral when they asked about her rates. Rather than overthinking things like she would have done in the past, she provided a quote based on the pricing calculations she’d done during Charge with Confidence. The client accepted it! Hannah was thrilled and didn’t experience the usual stress, “It was just, this is me, take it or leave it. They took it and I’m still working with them. They’re great to work with too!”

Hannah has found that knowing what her rates are makes her feel so much better. She no longer worries about what prices would be fair for her and fair for the client. Instead, she knows exactly how much she needs to be earning and how much the client needs to be paying her to make a project worth her while. Everything now feels as though it’s under control.

What’s more, Hannah also feels much more positive about the future. Identifying an aspirational rate has encouraged her to dream big and think about what she wants to get out of her business in the long term. Hannah says that while she didn’t have the mentality of an aspirational price before, “It’s nice to know I have the potential to earn X amount and the sky’s the limit!”

It’s lovely to hear that Charge with Confidence has made Hannah feel not only more confident in her rates but also more optimistic about the future. It just goes to show what a difference knowing how to manage your finances and how much to charge can make.

If you want to get your finances right and think Charge with Confidence might be able to offer you the support you need, you can sign up for the programme now. Click on the button below to find out more and take that first step towards feeling more in control of your business.