I Lack the Self-Confidence to Charge More
When is your work good enough?
- You have dysmorphia when it comes to your work
- You and your clients value your work on two separate scales
Self-Confidence in Pricing
Two photographers of the same caliper, produce the same shots. One believes; the other doesn’t. Who will make more money? And who will cry that no one takes them seriously?
When we believe we can create tangible results and undergo progress, we gain confidence in our abilities.
Pricing to many creatives is a self-confidence issue. If they only believed that they were good enough, then they would charge higher for their work.
Creatives have to convince themselves that they are worth it, before ever stepping foot into a client meeting.
Here’s where the problem comes from:
Creative Dysmorphia
Let me start by saying that the work you produce is good enough. You are good enough.
Creatives and artists have this self-critical eye when it comes to their work. Through their training at design school or film school, they adopt this critical nature because, at the time, their only client was their professor. That professor was paid to care about their work and was paid to give critical feedback. The voice of this feedback was ingrained in the artist and now they carry their grouchy, old professor on their shoulder every time they flip on their lights and camera.
Creatives need to realize that this is a seriously warped perspective. The perspective they judge their work on was developed by someone who THEY THEMSELVES paid to care about their work.
Now free from design school, the creative has to be their own judge, and oftentimes they are an unyielding negative critic. They have creative dysmorphia. The same way they look in the mirror and squeeze those 1 or 2 extra pounds, they zoom in and pixel-peep their creative work. Stop it.
The Clients Judges On A Different Scale
They judge their work based on the business results they create.
A client is a layman when it comes to creative work. They usually didn’t go to design school and they never met that grouchy, old art professor.
The client is hiring a creative person to help them achieve a business outcome. Aesthetics, color palettes, and a coherent look are secondary benefits. Sales, revenue, market reach, and brand awareness is what they’re after.
Creatives price their work based on how pretty or aesthetically pleasing their work is. If they feel like amateurs then they feel like they should price low.
There are designers, photographers, and filmmakers out there that are less than talented than you earning way more money than they should.
Why?
It’s not Dunning-Kruger.
It’s not ass clowns who lack self-awareness.
They don’t judge their work based on what their old art professor thinks.
They judge their work based on the business results they create.
Cheers,
Jordan P. Anderson
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