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A guy at a Nob Hill coffee shop told me to raise my rate by $25 and I lost a client over it
I do bookkeeping for a few small businesses around town and last fall I was charging $50 an hour. A guy I met at a coffee shop on Central told me I was crazy and that I should bump it to $75 immediately because anyone who complains is not worth keeping. I did it. Two of my longest clients stayed, but one guy who runs a food truck off Central said he would find someone cheaper and he did. Now I make more from the two clients than I did from all three, so his advice sort of worked, but I still feel bad about losing that food truck guy. Part of me thinks the advice was right for my wallet and wrong for how I want to run things. Has anyone else gotten a pricing tip from a random local freelancer and had it blow up in a way you did not expect? How do you decide when to take that advice and when to just nod and forget it?
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juliaa659m ago
When you said "part of me thinks the advice was right for my wallet and wrong for how I want to run things" that hit me because I used to roll my eyes at people who said raise your rates, like who are you to tell me what my work is worth. Then a few years back I watched a friend basically burn out doing cheap work for people who never stopped asking for more, and she finally dropped her lowest paying clients and was way happier. It changed my mind on the whole thing honestly. The way I see it now, the food truck guy was not a bad person, he just had a budget, and you had a number that did not fit it anymore, and that is allowed. It stings to lose someone you liked working with but you did not do anything wrong and he did not either. So I would take the advice that grows your pay and ignore the part that tells you who is worth keeping, because that part is not really up to some guy at a coffee shop.
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