How much is it worth – or how to price your work

26-09-2023

Do you have that flair inside you that ideas pop up in your head like mushrooms? You approach the creative process with enthusiasm, joy and complete spontaneity; after all, this is what drives you and makes you feel butterflies in your stomach. Spontaneity is definitely the domain of creative people, because it accommodates the authentic element and explosion of emotions that push you into action. Action – reaction, and as reaction is usually explosive.

And what works perfectly well in the creative process can be quite an obstacle when you want to make a business out of it.

Do you know the antonyms of the word 'spontaneity'? It's prudence, calculation, preparation

Sounded serious or even threatening? Believe us or not, but your creativity and talents can be recalculated. Why? To be able to price it well and perhaps sell it well, on your terms of course.

Where is the worst trap that most people starting out in business fall into? It is not at all the competition, which as the world goes on has always spoilt the market as its weak players say.

The biggest trap is your beliefs.

We, as humanity, have this trait that belittles everything that comes to us with spontaneous ease and joy. After all, if just doing something makes me happy because it’s easy and enjoyable for me, how can I expect to get paid for it? It’s a different matter if it’s really hard work, such as bookkeeping, tailoring or….. Insert here any occupation that fills you with terror and that appears in your nightmares as the eighth circle of hell. Wouldn’t you agree to do it for any money? We assign a higher value to everything that seems difficult and inaccessible, and a decidedly lower value to what comes easily to us.

Beliefs about the low value of your services or products directly cause you to undervalue yourself. What do we repeatedly hear, especially from women who, in addition to being volcanoes of creativity, are also embracing the corpo, the house, the children and the pets?

Can what I do for pleasure be of any value to anyone?

Others probably do it better, they sell so much of it, and I don’t yet know all the richelieu embroidery stitches, and I don’t have such a portfolio as the Mrs. Smith shown on breakfast television. Really?

Do you know what your potential customers expect? They expect WORK, i.e. something that is individual, unique and authentic.. Not repetitive perfection from Chinese factories. But you must also remember that they always buy your story and your talent. And that’s where we come to the sacramental question of HOW much is it worth.

The simplest answer, which you’ve probably already heard somewhere, is: as much as someone is willing to pay for it.

There are many ways to price your own work, in each of which you need to find a reference point.

The reference point can be:

Inputs - cost-based pricing is the basic, simplest approach. When preparing a quote, you estimate the time you spend on the task, determine the cost of your hourly rate, add in materials and you're done... Simple, but... This quick and popular method, however, has a major drawback: it doesn't take into account the value of your work to the recipient. You only look at your work from the perspective of cost and your time, you don't value your creativity, expertise and the value of the project. That is, all the things that your work can be worth the most.
Market and competition - you start by scouring and comparing the offers available on the market, and just as it's relatively easy to do this with beet prices or paving, it won't quite work in the creative industry. Just because popular sales platforms such as etsy, allegro or pakamera are selling similar works to yours at low prices, doesn't mean there's no room for you there. Or that you need to give a lower price. Setting your price based on your competitors' prices is risky, because that's how all price wars in the market start. Do you think I'll lower my price by 10 dollars and I'll have lots of orders? Nothing could be further from the truth. The competition may react and lower by 11😊 Remember also another important sales mechanism, which is that low price = low quality
Value - understood as the perceived value of your products and services to customers, but also the appeal of your personal brand as a creator. Difficult to measure, especially in a field as subtle as art, but this method has the greatest potential because it offers opportunities for higher margins. When pricing always think about value from the client's point of view focusing on the originality and uniqueness of what you do. And the more you get into it the better, the more customers you convince about the value of your brand the better you will earn.

Title of artistic inspiration:

Remember the film Untouchables and Driss’ stunning artistic career? Driss was an immigrant with a criminal past who wants to become eligible for benefits, so he has to submit rejections to the government in the recruitments he is sent to. However, the plan backfires as Driss gets a job caring for a paralysed millionaire, Philippe, who introduces him to the world of culture and art. Driss decides to become a painter and Philippe helps him sell his first work. It was enough for him to announce the artist and his painting as an absolute revelation worth many thousands of euros for the first client to appear. And then it went from there…

Want to learn more about building your brand value take a look here Look here

What else is worth bearing in mind? More often than not, when valuing our work, we forget how much time we had to spend learning all that we need to do it. Courses, exercises, buying training, materials and a myriad of other things that, no matter how you look at it, add up to the value of what we offer. It’s a bit like going to a law firm for advice – we’re not just paying for the time of the visit, but for the thousands of hours a lawyer spends on codes and acts, for the stress of exams, for the talent to memorise hundreds of regulations.

Don’t negotiate with yourself!

Remember, you can negotiate with clients, but never with yourself. To begin with, imagine the amount of money that would make you so happy that you would be prepared to hand over the work you have put your talent and soul into to a stranger and….. with a clear conscience, add another 20% to this amount. Why?

If the client knows your value and the value of what they are buying from you, their price sensitivity is not high, you can be sure that they are not looking for the cheapest WORK because they know that is not what it is about and originality is worth a lot.
However, if the client feels that he expected a lower price and wants to negotiate - you have something to come down from so that you still get an amount that fully satisfies you. Remember, if you want to be credible you can't throw the price to the ground. Discounts of 80% are unlikely to fool anyone anymore.

The worst thing you can do is to prepare a quote and then boycott yourself and cut all your profit by sending the client a reduced offer before they even see your starting price.

One last message: don’t be afraid to talk directly about money. Even those in your beliefs that are very large.