9 Magic Words to Help You Raise Prices by 222%

To win at this freelancing game, you need to rethink what you sell and what clients buy. Time is never what freelance clients buy.

Of course, that doesn’t stop them from asking. Most freelancers get emails like this one I received from an agency owner:

His request was innocent enough: “I'd love to pay you for a little bit of your time to talk through some stuff on this topic.”

However, time isn’t what he wants to buy.

Imagine having a clotted artery and making a similar request of a heart surgeon: “Can I buy some of your time?”

Whether an operation takes the surgeon 10 minutes or 10 hours is beside the point. The surgeon had to go through 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 5 years of general surgery residency, and another 2 to 3 years of specialized cardiac fellowship.

As you lay on the operating table, you’re paying for fifteen years’ worth of education and training. You’re also paying for the expertise, judgment, and decision-making accumulated over the course of the many (hopefully) successful operations that preceded yours.

You don’t give two licks of a Tootsie Roll pop about the surgeon’s time; you’re just hoping that she can save your life.

Or, consider pilots and air travel. A musician doesn't pay for the pilot’s time or the duration of the flight. He pays for safe passage from Nashville to Los Angeles so that he can play his shows. He wants to get there in four hours, not four days.

In order to deliver that outcome, a pilot needs at least 1500 hours of flying experience and a commercial license.

If he so desires, Mr. Singer-Songwriter can upgrade to Business or First Class and pay for extra comfort, convenience, and booze. (“Sir, would you like some single-use socks and a miniature tube of toothpaste to go with your Glenlivet?”)

Both the cardiac patient and musician pay for an outcome, not another person’s time.

Freelance clients are no different.

Freelancing isn’t hauling rocks.

Of course, you can pay someone for manual labor. One Saturday morning, a couple of high school football players can come over to your house and carry a pile of rocks to a dumpster.

You’re still paying for an outcome, but in this case carrying rocks requires no special talent, training, or tools. Thousands of people in your city could perform the task and deliver an identical result.

There was a pile. Now there’s not. Fantastic.

On one end of the spectrum, you find surgeons, and on the other, unskilled laborers. Where do we freelancers fall?

Freelancing isn’t hauling rocks, far from it.

Freelancers are much closer to surgeons because we often solve painful, expensive problems, and the value of the outcome often far exceeds what our clients pay.

Our clients gain access to our specialized knowledge, soft skills like empathy or humor, character and personality traits, and other aptitudes and competences. If you’re ex-military, you likely have discipline. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, you’re long accustomed to managing a thousand details. If you were a barista, you had to develop people skills.

All of that has value. All of that contributes to the client’s desired outcome.

Clients are really saying, “I need help.”

Take my client Kate, for example. A client can’t separate her time from who she is. He has to buy the whole package:

• Kate earned her B.A. in Public Relations and graduated Summa Cum Laude. Translate: She’s a smart cookie.
• At her first job with a tech company, she wrote tons of copy: eBooks, campaign mailers, blog posts, social media updates, and press releases.
• She also got her feet wet in sales, specifically top-funnel lead generation through cold calls and cold emails.
• She coordinated communications for a tourism board, served as a staff writer, and planned and executed group press tours, media visits, and trips to meet with travel editors and freelancers
• She worked at a PR agency where she oversaw client accounts, created their campaigns, and implemented those campaigns.

When a client asks Kate, “What’s your hourly rate?”, the client is signaling, “I need help.” What I recommend to Kate and to my other coaching clients is ignoring the question and reframing the conversation.

How to redirect the conversation

Here’s the way I did that with the prospect I mentioned earlier:

An even simpler response consists of these 9 words:

“That depends. What would you like to see happen?”

Once you shift the focus from your time to the client’s desired outcome, you can begin to quantify the value of that outcome. The shift of focus to outcomes matters because it helps you figure out what clients wants to buy and what you can charge.

Kate’s

Kate took this approach with a new content marketing client. I had been encouraging her to raise her prices, and when the prospect asked what she charged, Kate didn’t just quote them what she had in the past, $900 a month.

Instead, she redirected the conversation and pinpointed the outcomes they wanted.

Later, when she proposed $2,000 a month retainer—a 222% increase—the client accepted.

Kate made an extra $1,100 per month for a similar scope of work because she decided what she was going to say before she needed to say it and had the courage to name a higher price, one that was more in line with the value she creates.

That’s what can happen when we stop selling hours and start selling outcomes. Kate is attracting better clients and earning more. You can too.

Key Takeaways

• Know what you will say when clients ask what you charge or ask to buy some of your time. Better yet, memorize the nine magic words: “That depends. What would you like to see happen?”
• Be ready to redirect the conversation and keep prospects focused not on your prices but on their painful, expensive problems and the outcomes they want.
• How long the outcome takes you is irrelevant. You’re closer to a surgeon than a rock hauler.
• Anchor your price against the value of those outcomes.

When you’re ready, here are ways I can help you:

1. Free Money. A pricing and money mindset guide for freelance creatives. If you’re unsure about your freelance pricing, this is the book for you.
2. Morning Marketing Habit. This course will help you build an “always be marketing” practice, become less dependent on referrals, and proactively build the business you want with the clients you want. My own morning marketing habit has enabled me to consistently make 6 figures as a freelancer.
3. 1:1 Coaching. Gain clarity, confidence, and momentum in your freelance or consulting business.
4. Freelance Cake Community. Build the business you really want with people who really get it.
5. Clarity Session. It’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the bottle. I've done well over 100 of these 1:1 sessions with founders, solopreneurs, and freelancers who wanted guidance, a second opinion, or help creating a plan.