Lucky #13! Thank you to everyone who has been on board since #001. Hard to believe we are 13 weeks into this new tradition. I’m really enjoying it, and I hope you are, too. Let me know in the comments what your favorite one has been so far.
This one might be a bit shorter than normal, but it’s also exceedingly useful. It’s one of the best pieces of advice I have ever heard, and one of my favorites to give.
Pricing services is a conundrum that every person who has ever done a task for someone else in exchange for money has struggled with.
You don’t want to be so exorbitant that you get rejected or feel like you are being iniquitous, but you don’t want to cheat yourself, either. Setting your price percolates myriad emotions and prompts introspective explorations whilst attempting to determine your self-worth, your confidence, your competence, and how you are perceived by others. It’s a difficult process that some never fully come to grips with, resulting in an unrelenting cyclone of anxiety.
That’s why this exceptionally straightforward, clear-cut method for choosing what to charge is so important.
And this is it: charge the amount that makes you THRILLED to be doing the work. Not acceptable, not fair, not “enough” – thrilled.
At first glance, this seems possibly a bit TOO obvious, and maybe TOO simple, but choosing the amount where you are thrilled to be there has a bit more to it than it seems.
If it is your dream to oil up Playboy models or sing a duet with Celine Dion, the amount you would need to be THRILLED is likely… zero dollars.
On the other hand, if the work is, perhaps, testing highly experimental and possibly perilous eyedrops, you might need something in the upper seven figures in order to be “thrilled.”
Usually, though, the undertaking is somewhere between dream and permanent disability, but going by “thrilled” rather than “fair” lets you charge less to spend your time on tasks that bring you more joy, and allow you to still be happy doing something you’d otherwise detest.
Also, when you’re thrilled to be doing the work, you do a superior job. The results are better. Whoever hired you will be more likely to recommend you. And by giving someone the option of paying your “thrilled” price for work you would otherwise turn down, you let the customer decide if she wants to pay that much to retain you. If yes, she gets what she wants, and you’re thrilled to do it. If not, everyone is still happy.
And if you are doing work where no one is willing to pay the amount you need in order to be truly thrilled, then you’re not doing something you love, and it’s time to make a change.
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