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Pricing & Negotiating Skills
How to Get Paid What You Want
By by Maria Piscopo

How to Get Paid What You Want

Making a profit as a creative services professional is a balance of meeting your client’s needs and your needs to make a profit.  Learning to negotiate is the only answer to avoiding becoming a non-profit business!

Considerations to Negotiate

If you don’t know the client or if you don’t know you have the job, being prepared to negotiate is very important. Prime example: when you quote a price, what do you do when the client wants to pay less? Answer: you walk away - or you negotiate. When the client names a price lower than what is acceptable to you, your answer can be, “Let’s take a look at how it can be done for that price.” 

For the client to pay less than your quoted price the client will get less of some aspect of the project description or you will get more of something valuable to your business. The most business like way to negotiate is to be prepared. You can put together these two lists in advance of your next pricing discussion. First, make a list of the considerations the client can make to lower the price. For example, they can get less usage rights, fewer personal consultations, smaller quantity of sketches, variations or prints. Anything you can think of that will help the client pay less without damaging the project.

List of Client Gets Less of Something

·         Less usage rights

·         Fewer personal consultations

·         Fewer views

·         Fewer variations

·         Less quantity of prints

Second, make a list of considerations where you can get more of something so the client can lower the price. For example, you can get more time, more printed samples or better payment terms.  Your negotiations are simpler and easier when you are prepared and have lots of items to choose from on your two lists.

List of You Get More of Something

·         More time

·         Better payment terms

·         Increased self-promotion rights

·         Better “credit” of your name, print or web site

·         Increased number of printed copies

The bottom line is you do not have to accept less money for the same amount of work. You will damage your chance at a profitable relationship with clients. You will give your work away. Don’t do it. Instead, look for the win-win. Learn successful negotiating techniques to get the best return on your creativity and your business.

Packaging Your Price

When you and your client have a price you both agree on or when you want to gain a marketing edge over your competition, you'll find that a good looking presentation of the price can be the difference between getting the job or not.  Whether you are an artist, designer, photographer – any creative professional - an irresistible presentation of your price will better demonstrates your professionalism, value, expertise and abilities. This will help the client decide to hire you instead of a competitor. In addition, this beautifully prepared proposal demonstrates to the client the extra value they will get for the price they will pay and the attention to detail you will apply to their job.

The final benefit s that the person you call “client” probably has to get this approved and needs something to show around in committee to help you get the job. After all, the estimate confirmation just tells them what it would cost to hire you, but the packaging tells them why it is such a good idea!