In this episode,  Mark Mastrandrea—co-founder of company IKONICK—sheds light on a question that’s in so many people’s minds when it comes to the value of their services.

Have you ever asked yourself this question: “How much are my services worth?”
The answer? More than you think.

Are there times when you feel hesitant to name a price for your services? If so, what makes you feel that way? What unseen force could be holding you back from the paychecks that you deserve?

We have a good guess—it’s the feeling of guilt.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone in this.

Many people would also admit that they feel guilty when it comes to charging for their services–let alone actually naming their price.

Here are some reasons why you could be feeling guilty about charging for your services:

• You don’t feel worthy. You have the talent, you’ve developed your skills, and you’ve gained the experience you need. Yet, you would sometimes still feel like what you do is nothing special. Yes, it’s important to be humble, but don’t let your humility make you undersell yourself.
• You don’t feel qualified. You always feel you still have a long way to go. You may feel like you need a couple more years of experience before you can start throwing high prices around. Yes, there’s always room for improvement, but you still deserve to get paid for the value of what your current skills and experience can give.
• You’re afraid of hurting your relationship with people. We’ve all experienced this before: Your family or friends are in need of your services, so how much do you charge them? It would always be along the lines of free-of-charge dollars and call-me-anytime cents. Yes, these are the people who are close to you, and it’s only normal to feel that they deserve special treatment. But a business is a business. If they truly support you, then they would be more than willing to support your business by paying what you deserve.

So how much should you be getting paid? Where do you start when pricing your services?

Consider this: Focus on the value of your services. Not the time you’re giving clients. What do we mean? Well, let’s give you a scenario:

You’re assigned a task to be submitted in 8 hours. Keep in mind, the client agreed to pay the full price for your work. With your expertise in the task, you managed to finish in 4 hours. Now the client notices this, and suddenly they feel entitled to pay you half of the agreed amount.

Now, would you agree with how things turned out? Or will you confront the client to pay you the full price? No matter what anyone says, what happened there is wrong. The client judged your work based on the time you spent, rather than on the value of your work.

What gives value to your work, you ask?

Why, it’s the years that you’ve spent mastering your craft. It’s all the times you’ve struggled and failed. It’s the money you’ve spent on all the training you’ve done, and the knowledge you’ve gained. It’s your sweat and tears.

Clients would seek your services so they won’t have to deal with the struggles you’ve gone through in your craft. That is the value they tend to overlook.

Here are some tips on how you can start pricing your services right:

• Avoid suggesting time-based payments. Price your services based on the value they will add to the client’s business. Don’t let the clients underpay you based on the work you’ve done on that day. Remember, your level of expertise is the culmination of years of experience.
• Don’t undersell yourself based on the market. It’s okay to find a baseline by looking at what other people are pricing themselves for the same service. But if ever you notice the prices are on the low side, don’t feel pressured to follow. You’ll never know, what if they aren’t aware they’re underselling themselves as well?
• Show confidence in your price offer. Finally, be confident in your price. Showing your clients that confidence may help them feel confident in your services. This would then help them feel your price is worth it.

It is the value your work could give you clients that matter. Don’t measure your value solely based on the amount of time it took for you to create or accomplish something. Always remember, it took you decades to learn how to accomplish a specific task within minutes.

“Always and only make new mistakes. You wanna make as many mistakes possible as quickly as possible but only make them once.” – Mark Mastrandrea

So let us know, what else would you consider when pricing your services?