A wonderful, talented client recently got really frustrated with herself. When asked how much she would charge for X, she couldn’t answer.
After a minute, she said, to herself mostly, I should know this.
It seems like it stands to reason: she has a degree, a distinguished career in the field, and even a couple of awards. That should be more than enough to answer this simple question.
So why can’t she?
Because it’s anything but simple.
– Firstly, people who never had to do much pricing expect it’s about math. It’s not. The usual “cost plus profit” method is worse than useless when dealing with much value and so little direct costs.
– Secondly, it feels like having to publicly juggle taboos and the fear of inadequacy in front of an audience that you need to impress to pay your bills.
– Thirdly – relevant, actionable sources on the subject are very scarce. Academia is lost at sea, there’s no profit for an employer to teach you this, and competitors mostly just copy other’s prices. Experience and degrees will help improve your craft, but not pricing.
– Finally, learning to price without real, potentially painful stakes is like trying to learn poker without chips on the table.
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The monsters we fear the most are the ones we created ourselves. You can stop feeding your aversion to pricing by letting yourself off the hook for this. It’s not simple, but you can do it.