Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this video you're going to learn how to
stop charging like a freelance designer and start charging like a business
because profits lead to successful businesses and you're not a charity
now when i finally quit my day job i went out on my own as a freelancer one of my biggest
challenges in the beginning was around pricing and part of the reason for this i know that a lot of
designers struggle with this as well when they go out on their own for the very first time pricing
is that biggest challenge that they come across and i think part of the reason for this is that
as designers we cut our teeth in the market earning very very little junior design jobs
pay absolute peanuts and it doesn't get much better as you climb the ladder either so we
tend to take that into our businesses we tend to take that into our freelance roles and in the
beginning we just take any job that's available and we tend to accept whatever price that prospect
is willing to pay and that's a spiral that's very very difficult to get out of the reality is that
most freelance designers undersell themselves and there's a couple of reasons for this
firstly the market conditions there's a lot of freelance designers out there selling
their services really really cheaply so price is like this pink elephant in the room when you're
speaking with your client you know that they can go and get this done cheaper online they know they
can go and get this done cheaper online so that price regardless of your quality versus their
their quality price is always this pink elephant in the room and the other reason is that a lot of
freelance designers struggle with the idea of separating themselves from their business they
see themselves as the business they talk about me and i and my and that really paints this idea to
the prospect and to the freelancer themselves that their skills are the business what they're selling
is their labor and it's very difficult to charge much higher fees based on the fact that they are
the business if you can't separate yourself from that business it's going to be very difficult
to charge higher fees now one of the common problems that freelancers face when they go
out into business for themselves is that idea that they are now a business and this is the problem
with selling skills if you have skills to sell and you go out into the marketplace and you sell those
skills you're essentially putting yourself out there as labor for hire and a lot of freelancers
struggle with the idea of separating their labor for higher with building an actual business but
if you don't understand the basic principles of business then you're going to struggle one of the
basic principles of business is that a business is there to generate profits and if you're not
generating a profit as a business then you are a charity so think about creative agencies for a
second they don't sell labor they sell services and for their services they generate a profit
now my first junior design role i was earning 22 australian dollars an hour and i became quite
close with the creative director as well and he brought me through the business and his business
model and how he ran his business and it was a real eye-opener for me when we came across the
invoices as to how he charged his clients because we came to the item on the bill where my services
were being charged now remember he was paying me 22 an hour and he was charging out my hours at a
hundred and eighty dollars per hour so there's a huge difference that's an 800 percent difference
in what he was paying me versus what he was charging and that's when it clicked for me the
difference between the cost of design services and the charge of design services so if you
want to stop charging as a freelancer and start charging as a business there's a few steps that
you can take step number one stop charging at cost remember the agency model they're not charging
for the cost of the design work and a lot of freelancers when they go into freelance for
themselves for the first time their first goal is to make back the salary that they've just lost and
when they get into that mindset that's how they charge and it's very difficult to get
out of that but break free from that idea that you're charging at cost that you're charging
what your agency would have paid for you because they wouldn't have charged those services out at
those rates step number two identify the business roles now as freelance designers we wear many
different hats at times where brand designers were print designers ux ui designers or strategists you
need to identify the roles that you play within your business and then identify what those roles
would cost your business in the marketplace designers and strategists earn completely
different salaries so when you're operating as a designer what is that cost to your business when
you're operating as a strategist what is that cost to your business itemize the roles that you play
within your business and then identify how much they would cost your business step number three
itemize your tasks so your ui designer is going to design the website your brand designer is going to
design the brand identity and your strategist is going to develop the plan don't just lump all of
these items in together as part of the service itemize each one of those and assign a cost to
them step number four adopt a profit mentality now if you've been charging for your services as labor
up to this point well then you're breaking even on every single project if you're identifying what
you want to earn if you're identifying the cost of you as a designer and that's what you're charging
then you're just breaking even your business is not making any profit but remember the
business principle if your business is not making profit then it's a charity and if you want your
business to be successful long term then it has to be making a profit so identify what the cost
of the design is to your business what the cost of those tasks are to your business and then make
sure that your business is generating a profit become focused on that profit not just how much
you're earning for the the work that you're doing but how much your business is earning
as a profit now most freelance designers follow the same path they gain experience in in-house
roles or agency roles they realize they have a skill that's a value in the marketplace and then
they go out on their own as a freelance designer and offer that skill in the marketplace but most
freelance designers didn't go to business school either they don't have those business principles
and it's very difficult for them to separate the skills that that they offer in the marketplace
to charging as an actual business so it's really important to make that distinction and to stand
back and separate yourself from the business and start charging yourself as a business in the
marketplace not just labor for hire if you want more brand strategy tips and techniques like this
well then head on over to brandmasteracademy.com and get yourself sign up for the newsletter it is
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it'll let you know when i've got new videos coming out but i want to hand it over to you now
are you transitioning at the moment or are you thinking of transitioning from an in-house role or
an agency role to a freelance role if so if you've got any questions in relation to that transition
please let me know in the comments below or if you've experienced any of these and if you've come
across some of these challenges before as well let me know in the comments below i'll do my best to
answer all of those comments until next time bran like a master and i will see you in the next video
you