And an important reframe for this overused, emotionally charged (pun intended) statement

“Charge your worth”, “Up your rates”, “Know your value” are all phrases you’re likely to have heard regularly. But what exactly does it mean to “charge your worth”.

Let’s start by switching the phrasing from charging your worth, to charging for your time and expertise instead. The trouble with charging your worth is the emotional attachment that’s added to it, because when someone cites your rates as a reason for not working with you, it feels like a personal rejection.

A potential client’s choice to not work with you based on price is not a personal slight, it’s a decision they make based on their own budget and value system. By disconnecting your worth as a person from the price you charge, you’ll be far more objective about the commissions you don’t get. It’s difficult to be strategic when you feel emotional about your business, so let’s approach this differently.

I often find that many creatives don’t actually know why they’re charging the rates they set, they’ve just taken a guess and run with it. The antidote to this is to get clear on your costs of doing business and set some financial goals on which to base your pricing, then decide on the offering and value you’re going to give to your clients in exchange.

If you need some help with this, please make use of my free pricing guide which you can access here.

You can’t define your worth as a human in monetary terms, but you can put a price on your creative skill, the time you spend with clients and the resulting product or service they get.

Here’s how to charge properly for your creative work:

• Use the Ultimate Pricing Guide to work out your business costs

• Set some financial goals

• Clearly define what you’re offering your clients in terms of time, skills and the end result

• Work out how much time you have available each week for your clients and/or how many jobs or projects you can take on

• Create packages at different price points so you can meet clients with varying budgets

• Leave room for clients to buy more

• Manage your money well

• Work on your money mindset so you feel confident about charging for your time and expertise

• Get clear on who your ideal clients are so you’re pitching to the right people

You get to choose what to charge based on emotion free business decisions. Not every person who makes an enquiry will go on to be a client and your self worth needs to be intact enough to be ok with that.

Pricing is one of the biggest challenges I help my coaching clients deal with, so if you’re struggling with setting your rates and creating packages that sell, please book a free strategy call with me to chat through what’s going on.