#077: How to Grow Your Income by 20% Almost Overnight

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey everyone. Thank you for joining me for episode 77 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. You can find detailed show notes of this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 77 so today I want to talk about how you can grow your income by 20% almost overnight. And this is a very simple approach that I've personally used multiple times. Many times I didn't even know I was doing it. And I've taught this to other people who've used it successfully. But just like with anything that simple, one of the first questions I often get is, man, Ed, is that all there's to it? And because that's the kind of question I always get when I suggest this idea, I'm not going to share the idea yet. I'm not going to share the approach yet. And I know this claim sounds almost unbelievable. Wow, 20% almost overnight. This sounds a little shady. And if this is your first time listening to this show, I urge you to give me a shot here and listen to the entire show. This is going to be a short episode because what I have to share with you is just really, really powerful. This is not a get rich quick thing. This is an idea that if you truly understand it, can really change your business. So rather than, again, rather than explaining or sharing the idea first, I'm going to frame the issue instead. And I'm going to do that, spend some time framing it. I'm going to give you some good context and hopefully that will change your thinking about how you might be currently viewing these things that I'll be talking about. And then once, once we have that context, then I'll introduce the idea and I'll explain how you can implement it. I mean, as, as early as today, I think the best place to start this discussion is to talk about what is realistic and what is reality in the first place. And I know it sounds a bit existential, but just bear with me, I think many of you can probably relate with this idea. You know, the older I get, the more I realize that my perception of reality has very little to do with what's really going on or what's truly possible in my life and in my business. And I was thinking about this over the weekend because we're having graduation ceremonies here in the Atlanta area. We kind of get out of school early. So everything is early. Graduations are early and mid May typically. And at church on Sunday they had the recent graduates, high school graduates come come up front so everyone can congratulate them really as a congregation. And I was looking at these kids and you could tell they were nervous, they were very insecure. And I remember back when it was my turn to do that when I graduated from high school, in looking back, I just want to tell my 18 year old self, dude, I wish I could shake you up. You have so much more ability, you know, there's so much I want to tell you. There's so many things I want to show you and I want to show you how, what you're capable of and you just have no idea. And you're just so completely underselling yourself. And that's what I wish I could tend to look at high school graduates or college graduates and we think of that as the only point where this would happen, but it doesn't. It keeps happening. Like I look back 10 years in my life and I wish I could tell that guy in his early 30s some things that I've learned since then because it would have been useful for the Ed Gandhi in his early 30s to have that information. So my point here is, look, this is going to keep repeating itself, right? In 10 years I know I'm going to look back and go, wow, I really sold myself short. I really wasn't looking at the full picture. My perception of reality was warped. That wasn't reality. So this will always happen. And I think it's important to keep that in mind that this is not one thing that you think of once and that's it. Ten years from now I will feel this way about myself. And so that's very liberating to me because it shows me, you know what? I'm probably not looking at the full picture right now. And in 10 years I'm going to realize that I'm probably not considering all the factors. I'm probably not doing as much as I could. I'm probably worrying too much, fearing too much. And I'll look back in 10 years and see how much of that I was doing and how much time I wasted doing those things and how many things I could have done or things I could have avoided that I didn't do it out of, out of fear, out of doubt, out of uncertainty. Now, another thing that came to mind when I was kind of jotting Down. Some ideas for this episode is, and this is kind of a weird one, but just bear with me. Cults, you know, cults are further proof that people will believe whatever they want to believe. So much so that they're willing to take their own lives if asked and don't need to get into that. You've all heard the stories, you've seen the news. I mean, it's shocking that somebody's perception of reality could get to a point where they're willing to take their own lives for something that they thought was the right thing to do. They're willing to, in some cases, sadly sacrifice their children's lives for the same thing. And, you know, looking in from an outsider looking in, it's crazy, but I think this is all relative. I'm sure there are people right now looking at my life and at your life and going, man, wake up. There's so much more to this, or there's so many other things you're not considering and, you know, you're worrying too much about this thing or that thing. So that thought just kind of stays with me. And it's something that I try to keep in mind because again, it just goes back to this whole idea that, look, what we perceive right now, what we think is reality, is not necessarily necessarily real. It's what we tell ourselves is real. And you know, an important implication of this is that the opportunities we pursue, just to kind of bring it back to business and to freelancing, the opportunities we pursue, the growth we experience, the income we earn, all these are a direct function of how we perceive reality and what we believe is absolutely true. This idea is very powerful and it's something that I go deeper into in my group coaching and training programs. But today I want to talk about just one aspect of that idea and that's the issue of pricing, specifically as it relates to boosting your income. Because I believe that raising your prices or your fees is one of the quickest and easiest ways you can boost your income as a freelancer. Now, before you roll your eyes, let me give you some context so you can see why I'm making this claim. I have a theory that our perceptions of pricing are shaped by what we see in our everyday lives and what we've experienced in the past, especially before we became self employed. And let me explain. I used to work in a commodity business. I sold underground utility pipe valves and fittings to the contractors that installed those pipe valves and fittings. I remember 8 inch sewer pipe. I actually sold sewer pipe. Can you guys Believe that. I mean talk about, talk about a conversation starter at a cocktail party. Yeah, I used to sell sewer pipe anyway. 8 inch sewer pipe I remember would sell for. It varied because it was a commodity and it was driven by oil prices and so forth. But 235 a foot, I remember that, 235 a foot for 8 inch SDR 35 sewer pipe. A fire hydrant would sell forward depending on the fire hydrant, but about 750 bucks. And there were others. I mean, I still remember the prices. They were kind of fixed. They were pretty much set. There was very little variability, very little room for negotiation. It was almost like this is the price. Later I moved out of that world and I started selling servers and PCs and computer equipment, networking equipment and so forth to Fortune 1000 companies. I was working for a reseller of software and computer equipment. And when you're quoting a price for let's say 500 laptops to a pharmaceutical company, that's a commodity, right? They're giving you the spec. We want, you know, this Toshiba model in all this and you just providing a price, you don't have a lot of wiggle room. I mean it's, you mark it up, you have very little room. And many times it really boils down to, to a price decision. Now as consumers, we see this too. We, we know what a gallon of milk costs, right? We know it's going to be depending on what you buy, what brand and what type, and organic versus conventional or whatever. But you know, four, five, six dollars a gallon. We know what a movie for two will run on a Saturday evening, right? We, for instance, I mean, we're moving for two, right? So let's like, you know, you're probably spending like, you know, without popcorn or anything, you're probably spending like 20, 25 bucks, right? You know, it's not worth a hundred, nobody's going to pay 100, but you know, it's worth 20, 25, maybe $30 depending on what you see. We know what patio furniture should go for. We know what the cost for painting the exterior of our house should go for. I mean, you know, within reason, right? We know it's somewhere between 1500 and 3000. If somebody were to quote us $20,000 to paint the outside of our house, assuming you live in kind middle class house, that's way off. That just doesn't sound right right now this capability serves us as consumers, but when we start selling our own stuff, our own services, that kind of mindset really gets in the way. We Assume that prices for services are set, if you will, in the same way as those other products and services that I just mentioned. But I would assert that they're actually not set in many cases. These are not published prices. Like they're not commodities. Right. Unless you're working in the wrong markets in the bargain basement end of things. These are not set prices. People don't really know, especially the more specialized you get in your field. People don't really know what this writing copy for this website should, should go for. They kind of have a general idea. They know it's not going to be 200,000 and they know it's not going to be $500. But they, they kind of have a feel for it. But really it's somewhere in there, somewhere inside that range. And that range could vary dramatically. And there's a lot of variables at play here. Now, I don't think this is often a conscious thought or feeling, but are pricing actions and decisions often come from this paradigm that we've developed in our personal lives and maybe even on in our career before we went out on our own. In other words, that service X cost between X and Y or between Y and Z or whatever. So anyway, let me kind of take this back. That's actually my first suggestion. Beware of the pricing paradigm. You're basing your decisions from that. Don't assume that there is serious price sensitivity for your services and they have to get it just right because, you know, just a slight swing in either direction could be trouble for you. You could either leave a lot of money on the table or you could price yourself out of the market. That's simply not true. I went to a sales seminar years ago and gosh, I don't remember a lot. But you know, there's always like the one or two things you always remember from whatever experience you, you had. The one thing I remember is this guy had a quote. He said, don't price with your wallet. So when you're quoting work or products to a client or a prospect, don't price with your wallet. Don't price with what you think the price should be. Right? Because your perception of what that should be could be very, very different from the perception that prospector client has. I'll give you an example just to kind of bring it back to like everyday stuff. When I started out as a freelance writer, it wasn't in my early, it wasn't in my first couple of years, so this is much later. This, I've been at it for maybe three years and I Started writing white papers. And I remember my first white paper project was somewhere around the $2,500 range. Now, to give you some context, these days I charge 6,000 and up. I say an op, 6 to 7,000. I wouldn't do a white paper for under 6,000 today. No. So I started at 2500. And you know, it's funny, I just picked a number. I have no idea. I used some other parameters. I had no one I could run that pricing by. I didn't know. It just sounded about right to me. And you know what? I landed the work. And it's funny, I met with some colleagues afterwards and they were shocked. My first white paper, I got, you know, $2,500. This is must have been 2004, 2005. And I just didn't know any better. So that right there was a lesson. You know what, Sometimes knowing too much, and I use the word knowing loosely is not a good thing. So anyway, so that's, that's one kind of sub lesson there is, you know, sometimes you can know, if you will, too much. So 2500. And I quickly worked my way up to, I remember three, $3,800. And I started doing all these white papers for this particular client. They had a lot of that kind of work for me. And it was the same couple of guys and gals giving me these assignments. And I didn't even question it. I just started. I kept quoting 3,800. It was almost like, okay, the usual. Yes, the usual 3800 bucks. The scope of work was pretty much the same every time. And I kind of got stuck there. And I was kind of afraid to tell them, listen, guys, I'm going to have to move this up. This is because I just felt, well, gosh, you're giving me all this work, right? We've all been there. Now, interestingly, not only could I have gotten much more for this work, and it wouldn't have had to be an overnight thing, but I could have gotten much more than $3,800 gradually over the course of a year or even two years. But I found myself, and this is what's dangerous. I found myself believing that that was kind of the market rate, the going rate for this specific scope of white paper, which I was getting prospects for. I had inquiries coming in for this very specific type of problem solution business white paper between five and 10 pages long. So I found myself quoting the same figure to new prospects. It's five to ten page white papers, problem solution, 3,800 bucks. And I would land them. And, you know, looking back. Here we go, right? Looking back, if I knew then what I know now, man, I was leaving money on the table. The only reason I was quoting 3800 is I thought my perception of reality is that that was the going price. That was the market rate. There's no such thing. There's no such thing as a market rate for that kind of way. I mean, it could be all over the place. Especially back then. There was no real information as to what this stuff could go for. And I just. I just made a lot of assumptions. And looking back, you know, I could have. I had enough experience. I could have easily gotten $1,000 more or maybe even better. So 4800, 5000. $5,500 for that same work with other clients. I want to emphasize that it would have been very difficult to go to make that big jump with this client that was giving me all that work, but new prospects, new clients, I could have easily gotten $1,000 more easily, maybe more. So just one example of how kind of your perception and just kind of buying your own BS can just ruin your psyche. It can really make you change your perception of reality. When, again, that wasn't reality. Looking back, it's clear to me now, but at the time, I just thought that was reality. Okay, my next point about pricing is that unless you're starting out as a freelancer or you have few or no skills, low fees are simply unnecessary. I think that too many of us use our current results as the litmus test for reality. So, in other words, we look at what's happening, right? We price something, we lose it, we get that feedback. We don't get it. We get. We land this other opportunity, whatever. We get this feedback, and we use that to kind of make future decisions. That is our litmus test for reality. And the truth is that our current results simply point to what's happening with a very specific set of variables. So, in other words, it's not really giving us a picture of reality. If we're quoting something and we land it and we quote this other project and we lose it. All that's telling us is based on all these variables, based on where I am today, based on the way I'm presenting these fees, based on the clients I'm going after, the people who contact me based on all these variables, the way I'm positioning myself, this is what's happening. Okay, but. But that doesn't mean that if you change those variables, you could get very different results. So in other Words, if you're losing opportunities because of your prices, okay, it doesn't mean that you should lower them. It just means that you're just getting no's from a certain group of prospects for a specific type of service or services at a particular time and, and pitch in a specific way. And just because the outcome was negative doesn't mean that you would get a positive outcome if you lowered your rates, if you lowered your fees. In fact, the outcome could be the same, it could actually be worse. And I've found that sometimes in these situations, if you do the opposite, if you raise your fees, your win ratio doesn't change yet. You're getting more money for the project, and in some cases your win ratio actually even improves. But you know, this is not just about raising your fees and keeping everything the same. You could change some of the other variables. You could change how you position your services. You could change the value your clients get. You could change how you explain your difference and your advantage, the advantage of the client going with you versus somebody else. You could also change whom you go after with these services. You could change the services you offer, or change the way you frame your services or your value. And here's the thing, and this is so important, everyone loses opportunities, even higher earning freelancers. So don't think for a minute that six figure freelancers are immune from this. Everyone gets turned on occasionally. It's just part of business. So don't think that there's something magical you could do to land every client and every project you quote. That's just not going to happen. You can absolutely improve your win ratio, but you're not going to get a 100% win ratio forever. Most experienced freelancers will tell you that in hindsight they underpriced their services for a long time or they have for most of their career. And chances are, again, if I knew then what I know now, chances are you'll say the same thing in a few years. So if you know, you'll probably feel that way at some point, why not make those changes now and just save yourself all that future regret? Okay, now, so that's kind of the philosophical part of this discussion. And I know it's kind of odd, but I mean, I hope you give this some thought because there's a lot of truth to that and I think we're just, again, a lot of it has to do with our perception of reality. But let's kind of switch gears and talk about the practical side of this. I want you to conduct an experiment starting today And I want you to commit to raising your fees by 20% on the next project you quote. And that was the basic idea that I wanted to share with you, but I wanted to give you this other context first so you can understand why I'm asking you to do this. I. I really want you to commit to raising your fees by 20% on the next project you quote. Now, I want you to do this only on, with a new prospect or with an existing or dormant client on a project you've never quoted for them before. So if you've done like this type of design work for this client in the past, but now they're asking for something else, this would be a good opportunity. They're asking for kind of the same thing, a different flavor of it or different project, but. But the same type of work, then it probably wouldn't work. So pick a new project, somebody you've just talked to for the first time, a new prospect or an existing adorman client on a project you've never quoted for them before. Now, I really want you to try it, and I want you to see what happens. And I'm very serious about this. This isn't some cute little experiment. This is real. And I'm telling you, it's remarkable how. I'm not going to say how well it works, because it does well, but it's remarkable what you'll learn from this experience. I mean, when you think about it, everyone automatically thinks the worst. Oh, my gosh, this is. This is a terrible idea. What's it doing? He's going to ruin my business. Think about what could happen here. I mean, there's only a few possibilities, right? First, you could lose a deal. But as I mentioned earlier, that could happen anyway. I mean, there's no guarantees that lower prices lead to, you know, more opportunities. No, not necessarily. That could happen anyway. So you could lose a deal. The other thing that could happen is you could win the deal at a lower negotiated fee. So maybe you don't get quite the 20%, but, you know, they're willing to kind of work with you and you come to an agreement and let's just say it's 10% higher. That's still 10% more than you would have gotten. Okay, That's a huge lesson learned. The other thing that could happen is you could win the deal at your new 20% higher fee. And there's a good possibility that that could happen. It's been my experience that that will, that will happen. And here's why this, this could be so important. Once you start quoting and landing, and let's just take a dollar figure, let's say this is a thousand dollar project, you were quoting a thousand dollars before, now you're trying this, you're quoting 1200. Once you start quoting 1200 and you start landing it at 1200, this new figure, $1200 will be your new paradigm. That's going to be your new reality, that's going to be your new normal. Once that happens, once, you don't even think twice about it and it's 1200 bucks. I urge you to try this again. Raise your fee on that service, on the next client by another 20%. So your assignment, if you wish to accept it, is to commit to doing this experiment. And I don't just want you to do it. I want to give you a little bit of accountability and I want to give you something to shoot for. I urge you to report your findings here on the show notes page b2b launcher.com episode 77 and I urge you to report both the good, the bad and the ugly. Again, I'm not suggesting that this is going to lead to 100% success, but I would love to hear from you. I'd love to hear how you're going about this, what you're going to try. I'd love for you to report on how you're going about it and then what kind of results you got, you know, what you've learned from this experience. If you're willing to kind of walk us through every step of this experiment, that'd be awesome. If you're not, if you're just willing to, if you'd rather wait and see what happens and then you want to kind of report back on how you did this and what came out of it, that would be fantastic as well. So either way, I encourage you to do that. I think it's important that you share this with others. I think you'll learn a lot. I think others can learn a lot from you. And let's see if we can get some, some really good conversation and dialogue started on this very simple but very powerful idea. So I hope you enjoyed this, this episode. I hope you enjoyed this idea. And again, you can grab the detail show notes for this episode@b2 Launcher.com forward slash episode 77. There is. That's the same page where you can report back to us. So that's it for today. Again, I am your host, Ed Gandia. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you have an awesome day.

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