Posts Tagged ‘pricing’
This past weekend I went to a concert downtown with a couple of my friends. It was a large, albeit inexpensive show (tickets were $10 at the door), so we had to show up several hours before the first act to secure our places in the general admission line. We had a great time playing cards and chatting before the doors opened, and I also got to see one of the strangest things ever.
Every now and then, I come across a client who wants me to build them a fancy website or do something online at a reduced price. In a shrinking world, it’s easy for them to pit my bids against development firms in other parts of the world with lower costs of living. Once I was told my rate was too high and referred to a firm in India that billed $4/hr for similar services. Yes. You read that right. Four dollars per hour.
As a consultant, I’m realizing more and more the value of “productizing” a service. At the moment, everything I do is bid for piecemeal and is thus negotiable. I set a target for my hourly salary and bid on projects such that I can meet that while still paying other necessary business expenses (software licenses, sub-contractors, etc). Such an ambiguous pricing model eventually finds me charging one fee for one client, and a different fee for another.