The Art Of Negotiation for Freelancers
(originally posted on: Hashnode)
I have come to the point that I have dealt with a decent number of unique employers that gave me the confidence to write this article.
With a decent experience in the freelancer world, I have concluded that the negotiation for a price for some service is number 2 in terms of what you need to master. Number one is what you do, of course.
1. Don't rush to name your price
Listen to your clients' requirement. Talk back and forth and get a deeper picture of what he/she wants to achieve. That assures the client that you are getting the **attention **and the **interest **in what you are going to make. And it's not just that, it also gives you a more accurate estimate on either is it possible to achieve what the client wants, what is the time frame for them hence, the price.
Personally, I would not hire a person that don't want to hear my requirements and jumps straight to the part with the money.
2. The price itself
When all requirements are set on the paper, then you make an estimated time for the project, and you usually charge 100USD for this type of work, you should not name that price. Remember, negotiation is a two-way street, the client won't hesitate to do it. And when he does, then you are left with lesser margin to negotiate.
The thing is that you should layout the grounds so it looks like your client won, and not you.
If he sets the price for 90USD, which still is good money, but it's less then you are usually making, then you are on the losing side. It would be nice if you set the initial price to 110, then if he makes a 90USD move, you can increase and say 100.
That way, the client wins the** lowering price battle**, and you make the same amount of money that you usually make, which is good.
3. My services are - unique?
Let's assume that someone hired me to develop him a WordPress template. Now, there are a lot of people that do those kinds of jobs making me not-unique and falling into the domain of replaceable.
Picture 1: There are lots of Wordpress developers and just a couple of Haskel.
Reality check, if you fall into the domain of there are lots of us, then you cannot ask for more money. There are lots of people that possibly can do it cheaper than you are asking for. Now, let's take a Browser extension developer for example and allocate it on the gradient:
Since there are relatively fewer extension developers, puts you higher on the gradient, making your service more unique thus, can ask for more money. In this case, for the sake of example, its 20 USD.
Do you deal with Javascript as well? Here is how infamous Prototype work!
Revisiting point 2
Now that I know that my services are more unique, I can set 110+20 USD as my initial price. This puts your client in a different spot because he knows that its harder to find a person that can do what you do, and even when he starts to negotiate for 100 USD, you know that you can pull off at least 115, which you should aim for.
4. The worst thing you can do
Besides scamming or not doing your job as you have discussed with the client, you should not milk him for the money.
Most of the times, when someone is asking a service from someone, he does not know much about that field. Meaning, you can lie that you will do this and that and whatnot to achieve your goal, asking for additional milestones for the job you actually did not do.
By not doing this, you are investing further in future clients' employment, which will make you more money than a couple of quick bucks.
5. Master the craft
There are lots of little things that can influence the end price for the project and most of them I haven't mentioned here. Most obvious would be the reviews for the previous jobs that you have done, and how long are you doing what you do.
It takes practice and approaching it with a cold rational head. **The more transparent you are, the better you get. **
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