How To Negotiate Client Contracts As A Premium Ghostwriter

I'm going to introduce everyone here to one of the golden rules of life. Everything is negotiable. Everything. Okay? Nothing teaches you this more than you ever travel, you spend time in other countries, you go walk around like an open market or something. Everyone has prices on their little things, but you walk up and then you haggle with them, right? Everything in life is negotiable. So you prefer, you prefer pitching 6-month contracts for stability. Okay. Now here, I just want to let everyone in on a little secret. The irony is that even if they sign a contract for 6 months, they can, they can welch on that at any time because you're not going to sue them and they're not going to sue you and you're both just going to walk away. Right. You, but you also prefer, you prefer collecting, we'll say, 6 months of cash upfront and you offer a discount. The client, the reason the client isn't doing that is not because they can't afford it and not because they don't value planning ahead. The reason the client can't afford or the reason the client doesn't want to do it is because they're afraid. They're afraid of committing to something that they don't know they're even gonna like. Right? And a lot of times that decision, it's not even necessarily, like going back to this objection, it's like, it's not even necessarily that the client is afraid, oh, this isn't gonna be 10x ROI positive. They're just even afraid, like, are we even gonna enjoy working with you? You know? And so the reason I say everything is negotiable is because you can start where you start, but then you can work your way down. So for example, if you pitch 6 months and they go, "Eh, that's too big of a risk for us," then what's the next logical thing? You pitch 3 months and you frame it as it's really hard to see success with any marketing vehicle in under 3 months. So this is sort of the minimum commitment, right? Because you don't want them starting for like 30 days. And this, this is really important. I had that exact same conversation with hundreds of clients. And when a client would try to be like, I don't know, I just want to try it. Like, I would be very honest and say, okay, just so you know, like there, there is not a marketing initiative on planet Earth where within the first 30 days of working with someone, you like, everything magically works. So I think being really honest with them and saying, you know, 3 months is sort of the minimum trial, you know, but then if they, if they don't want to do that and they're still too risk-averse, then you can notch down another layer and you go, okay, let's do month to month. With the caveat that at 3 months, because now we've gotten a sense of how we work together. So if we're still working together at the 3-month mark, then we move back up to 6-month prepayment. Right. So you're like, you're meeting them halfway and you're like, all right, I'll take a flyer. You're taking some risk. But if we make it to the 3-month mark, we go back to the top. And then if they say no to that, you can chunk down another level and you go, okay, fine, month to month, but at 3 months we do 3-month prepayment. So do you see how like you're, you're like notching through all these different options and you're— yes, you're, you're meeting them halfway, but you're also presenting things that still work out in your favor to some degree. And I think I would encourage you to reframe that. Like, if a client is really hesitant and they're like, let's just go month to month to start, there's nothing really wrong with that. You know, like, all that means is that just lights a fire for you being like, I'm going to prove that, you know, we can do a really good job. But whether you negotiate this on the front end or this is something that you just bake into your process, for you, for everyone here, like you can always go back to the client and have a different conversation. You could start them a month to month and then 3 months in go, hey, I'm really enjoying working with you. It seems like you're really happy with the work. I would love to, you know, this, this feels like it's going to be a priority for you. Why don't we lock in another 6 months and I'm happy to give you a little discount so that way you're not paying me a premium every month. You can always have that conversation.

Just, just future pacing, because obviously this client's already signed on a rolling basis. Is there a, is there a specific moment of time in the future where if they never, never commit, that's a bit of a red flag, or does it not matter?

No, it really doesn't matter. I mean, because the, the reality is, like, for example, my agency, we would, we would have clients sign 6-month contracts, but they were paying month to month, and I had infinity clients sign 6-month contracts and then churn after 3 months. Like, it is what it is. The, the, the baseline for agencies is month to month is very common, and the average agency client churns around 3 to 4 months. So view it as like a huge positive if you have someone month to month and they're still working with you 9 months later. Like, A, that means things are going really well, and B, that's a client that I would say any client that stays with you beyond 3 months, you should have a conversation with and go, seems like things are going really well. Let's lock in another 6 months. Let's lock in 12 months. I think too, this just like one final thing to end on. When you're dealing with bigger companies, like price point says a lot. A really good metaphor is if I went to you, and I was like, I got a sweet deal. I got a Ferrari that I'm willing to sell you for $800. Like, do you think that that is a really good Ferrari, or do you think I'm about to show up with like a pile of scrap metal that just happens to have a Ferrari logo on it?

Scam, definitely.

It's a scam for sure, right? And so when you're, when you're dealing with companies that Like, you have to remember, like, B2B organization, like mid-tier to upper-tier size businesses, like these people are spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars just on Facebook ads a month. You know what I mean? Like, like the concept of charging like $2,000 for a service relative to all the other things that they spend money on, you have to realize that, like, the price point actually says a lot about you. And there's a perception difference between saying I charge $2,000 a month versus I charge $7,000 a month or $10,000 a month. Right. And a lot of times there's— this is, this is such a hard thing to explain. It's like one of those things that you can only learn when you experience it. But It's almost like when you're pitching larger clients, charging more makes it easier because the price point implies you must be really great. And so they— it's like easier for them to rationalize. Whereas the lower the price point, the more that they're like, "All right, why is this guy only charging me a $1,000 a month. There must be some catch here. You know what I mean? And so I share that to give you permission, to give you license, especially if you have a decent client load and you're not worried about paying rent next month. The next client you talk to, say it costs $7,000 a month and just see what happens.

Yeah, I, um, just a quick note before I cap off. I listened to, I think it was your, uh, your Velocity Mastermind where you were talking about pricing. And then after that, I had a client who was coming up to renewal and, um, it was on the $1K a month and I just said it's $3K a month now. And she didn't even blink. She just said, yeah. And she signed it the next day.

Yeah, that's how, that's literally how it goes. And every time that happens, you, you learn in a different way. A lot of the reasons people make pricing mistakes aren't because of the service, it's because of their own, like, you just, you gotta grow out of what you think is possible. Hey, by the way, if you're brand new to the world of ghostwriting, maybe you've heard the term but aren't really sure what it is or how it's different from copywriting or content writing, check out premiumghostwritingblueprint.com. It's in the description below. Okay, this is a free masterclass that I've put together for writers who want to monetize their skills and love for writing with ghostwriting. This is what I did, and ghostwriting completely changed my life. It's how I quit my job, it's how I quadrupled the amount of money I was making, it's how I've gotten to work with so many smart, amazing people, but also have time for my own writing, like writing this book, The Art and Business of Ghostwriting. Anyways, check it out. If you're at all interested in making money from your writing, I would really encourage you to get into ghostwriting. And this free Premium Ghostwriting Blueprint in the description below is the best place to start.