How to set your consulting rate?
There can be something complex about pricing yourself. On the one hand, you don’t want to undersell your services and struggle to make ends meet. On the other hand, make an overpriced quote to a client and you could risk losing the business, or worse, create a bad name for yourself in the market. In order to shed some light on this topic, we have interviewed aviation consultants. and they have shared with us the 4 very valuable advices to keep in mind when pricing yourself.
Let’s start with obvious – set a minimum and ideal budget.
Start by calculating how many days you will work per year. Once you have estimated your minimum and ideal budgets scenarios, divide them by the number of your days you plan working yearly. Then, subtract the number of days you expect to spend on administrative, accounting activities and client acquisition activities.
Once, you’ve done the that, it’s also very important to benchmark your rates with others.
Discuss with fellow freelancers and find out how much they charge. They will give you very valuable insights on your relative position in the market. You will then be able to use these and support you in discussion with clients.
This one may not seem the most evident, but it’s nonetheless crucial – don’t forget to account for overhead!
Calculating and including overhead in your fees is fundamental. You cannot afford not to dedicate some of your time to activities that you cannot bill directly to clients. They bookkeeping, email, phone chats among others. And unlike employees, the responsibility for your sick days, vacations day and equipment is yours. Therefore, you have to make sure that these costs are reflected in your rate.
And last, but not least, regularly reevaluate and renegotiate your rates.
As the years pass and you successfully deliver projects for clients, you will gain expertise and improve your performance. This justifies a reevaluation of what you charge. Furthermore, the cost of living is likely to increase over the years, and you will have to account for that in your reassessment.
These are a few however important tips that you will now be able to apply when formulating your prices. And how about you? Share with us in the comments what your freelancer experience as thought you?