Raise your hand if you want more money to go shopping, go on vacation or invest in your business (very sensible). We all want to earn more as a freelancer, but it's not that simple. Competition is cutthroat and you have so many more balls to keep in the air. Here are five tips to boost your income substantially as a freelancer.
1. Increase your hourly wage (duh).
You probably saw this one coming. If you increase your hourly wage, you can earn more. Think carefully: how long have you been working for client X for Y amount of money? Have you developed yourself over that time? Have you become faster at what you do? And better? Unless you threw up your hourly wage last week, the answer to all questions is YES. So you may also ask for more. After all, you are doing more or better work in less time.
2. Put together packages
Classifying my services into packages is the best thing I've ever done (apart from getting my bachelor's degree and things like that). I wrote an article about packages before: why it's better to divide your services into packages. For example, it motivates you to work harder and it allows you to hide your hourly rate.
3. Sell your value, not your product or service
My client and I are looking for a branding agency for our new product. We came across a very professional company, but they were asking €1,000 for the logo. We were a little shocked; a logo costs about €150 at my place. The reason: it's not about those few hours of work you put into it, it's about the years of work experience and everything you did to become as good as you are now. It's also about what your customer can do with your product or service. That logo is so important and maybe your training program is life changing for someone. You may well charge something for that.
4. Outsource and be outsourced to you.
I can hear you thinking: how can you possibly earn more by outsourcing? It's all about efficiency and growth. Do what you do best and do that as much as possible. Then you can grow. Can't do that because you have to do your accounting or spend hours fiddling with Photoshop to edit your website images? So then it's time to outsource. Your accountant or web designer can do all this much better. Try to make deals with these people: if they come across someone who needs you and your product or service, make sure your accountant or web designer or whatever refers them to you. Spend and get outsourced.
5. Don't be afraid to invest
Yes, €795,- for a website hurts your wallet. So does €100 for your monthly tax return and so does €1,000 for that logo. So does €1,500 for a MacBook or €400 for a conference. It hurts, because it's a lot of money. But sometimes investments really are necessary to grow, both professionally and financially. Use your common sense and get help from people who understand the business. Maybe it will be the very best investment you've ever made. At least my MacBook is. My old MacBook was SO slow. The time and stress I save now are well worth the investment.
