Welcome to the Boss Responses podcast. If this is your first episode with us, I hope it's helpful. If you're back for more, welcome back. Today we're going to talk about one of those issues that pop up all the time, especially when you run a business that deals with clients. We're talking about your rates and those potential clients who don't want to pay them. Ed has some amazing advice on this and I hope that you will get as much out of the conversation as I did. If you liked today's episode, let me know. If you have a specific topic that you'd like to hear about, send me a message. I would love to include your questions on the podcast.

Let's go ahead and jump into today's episode. If you're a freelancer, business owner or anyone who deals with clients, you're in the right place. I'm your host, teresa Edmond. I've been dealing with clients and running my business for nearly two decades and in that time I've dealt with my share of doubt, imposter syndrome and not knowing what to say when a client asks a question. I wasn't ready for. I created this podcast to empower you with the boss responses you need to grow your business. Each week, my guest co-host and I will bring you five episodes packed with practical insights. Monday through Thursday, we answer your questions, and Fridays we dive deep to explore how our co-host embraced their role as the boss of their business. Welcome to Boss Responses.

We are back for day two with Ed Gandia. I have a question for you today. Two clients I've worked with for several years have told me they are lowering the rates they are willing to pay. It seems the mass layoffs have led to more freelancers in my niche there's that niche word again and they are offering lower rates. I'm struggling with how I can price my services so they reflect the value I offer and still remain competitive in the market. Any advice?

Yeah, start looking for new clients. I'm constantly surprised by the reactive mode of most people Listen, myself included. I get it. The great thing about sitting where I am right now is I'm not emotionally involved, right, so it's very easy for me to give you, I think, better advice because I have a different perspective. I have to deal with my own stuff with the help of other people because I'm too close to it. But, in all seriousness, you need to start looking for new clients. A big mistake that I see out there is that I have to react and I have to deal with the hot potato that I've been given. Hey, nobody said you have to hold on to a hot potato, just throw it out, toss it back to that person and go look for something else that's not hot and going to burn your hands. There are always other clients who are willing to pay your fees. Okay, there always will be. It takes work. You have to go find them and if you haven't been doing a good job with your marketing, guess what? This should be the motivator to do it Now. You can and should try to salvage this. I wouldn't give up immediately.

I learned a long time ago to not take what a client was saying about fees at face value, and instead what I started doing was thinking of it as a suggestion or something they would like to do. We would like to lower what we pay you, and instead of just thinking of that the way it's going to be, I would say, all right, well, let's talk about that, tell me more, and I would let them open up. And many times I found that their reasoning was not great and that they were looking to go with other people who maybe were cheaper but less experienced or didn't give them the comfort level that I would. Or, for instance, like they know that I would deliver great work on time every time. I'm the person who they never have to worry about, so I would bring that back to them, remind them of that. So I try to salvage it, but in the end, if it doesn't work, you're much better off looking for other clients. You're better off playing offense than defense. It's better for you, it's better for your pocketbooks, better for your mindset.

I'm big on the unique value proposition that you bring familiarity with the brand. You bring first-class research. It's right every time it's pre-edited. They're not spending five hours every time getting it ready for the review process. I think that a lot of content managers undervalue that until they realize exactly what you're providing for them and I bring it up what do you not have to do for me that you have to do for your other writers? Is that worth a little bit of extra money? I'm with you, though I will not try to argue them into keeping me If they do not respect my work and my value enough and I think everything hinges on value. At least that's what I've experienced. If they don't value my work and my experience, then dollars don't matter and in the long run they don't, because they're going to question everything. You're right. They're going to question how fast you can get it to me. This person can write it in two days. Sure, it takes a bit more editing, but I have it in two days. You cannot argue someone into agreeing with your value.

Find the other client, like Ed said, every single time, some of the things that I have found that have turned clients around and, like I said, this was an offer I said. This is what we might look at doing, if you want to, is offering a retainer where they guarantee my availability. They don't pay any less for that. They still pay my rates. People like knowing that you're theirs for a specific amount of projects, because I don't sell my time. I also offer cheered pricing on some things. So if it's a higher value project and they're wanting to cut a couple hundred bucks, I might say, sure, I can do that. We're removing some of these things from the project, so reduce that scope, but still do the thing.

I educate my clients from the get. Go that discovery, call for me. I set the tone. I tell them these are the things I bring to the table. I'm not going to be humble about them or modest. I know I'm good at this. I'm willing to bring that to play for you, every single project. In return, I ask for your respect for your cooperation and that we just move forward with our relationship. If that doesn't work, I'm happy to look for other clients.

Absolutely. I think we forget, don't we, that our job is not to keep every client, our job is to keep the ones that are working out for us. So people ask me all the time well then, you're going to lose the client. So be it. The goal is not to keep the client. The goal is to ensure that the clients I do have are working out, because otherwise, what's the point? I mean, otherwise, you have the worst job on earth with a lunatic for a boss.

Yeah, sub, yes, don't be a lunatic boss people. A kind of subtopic I see on this is I see a lot of people say they're interviewing or applying for freelance jobs, and I think that is a really negative way of looking at it, because you're not. You are interviewing prospective clients to see if you are a good fit for each other. It's never one person has more power than the other in this type of business. You bring things to the table, the client brings things to the table, and if that power balance isn't equal, you are never going to be happy with that client. It doesn't matter which one of you has more power. If you're not partnering together to complete the process, then you're going to be miserable.

Which is why I tell my clients I don't think we're a good fit or this just doesn't fit with my business goals right now. If I don't think they are, because it's truly not worth it. I would rather spend that extra time really looking for a client that is a good fit, who does respect me, because the first time you get a client where that respect just flies across the board and they get the project and they're like this is amazing, and then they immediately sign you up for a next one. That's the client you want. And if you just find those people, not only find them, get testimonials from them right away and ask them for referrals because they know other people like them.

Oh man, that right there, that right there. It's huge, the whole peer-to-peer power approach so important. And unfortunately, many of us come from, like we talked before, an employee mindset. We've been employees, so it's not a peer-to-peer thing, it's I'm lucky to have this job, and you can't look at it that way. I think we sometimes forget that, yes, we're getting money, but guess what? They're getting Something that they find very valuable, and it's not just for the company, it's for your contact and his or her job. I mean, think about what that means for them to look good to their boss right, and to their peers that they're producing great work, partly as a result from working with you. So it's an equal exchange of value and I think many of us forget that because we've come from a world where maybe we forgot that. But it's important to keep that in mind here.

Yeah, mindset matters and the language that you use matters. So if your client isn't willing to pay your rates, it's not about what rates they want to pay, it's about your rates. What rates are you charging for the services that you're offering? And when you switch that around, you are working on projects. You're not taking a freelance job, you are working with your clients. You are not working for your clients and you change your wording just a little bit. It sets a really clear tone in the conversation with them. It develops that peer-to-peer relationship and then it also empowers you to truly step up as the boss of your business, which I think is what so many people struggle with.

Oh, there you go, Amen sister.

All right, that's it. That was day two with Ed. Come back tomorrow for day three.