CFC 2012: Should freelancers price differently than large firms?
Play • 14 min

The 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference, June 21-22 in Boston (early bird deadline is this Friday, March 30!), is rapidly approaching and for today’s podcast interview, we have Cameron Foote, Editor of Creative Business, who will be taking part in the Perspectives on Pricing Panel at this year’s conference.

In this 14-minute interview, I asked Cam how freelancers can compete with bigger firms. 

Q: Should freelancers be pricing any differently than larger firms or entities? 

Cam: Yes and no. I don’t think a person’s talent should be worth any less depending on whether they work for themselves or whether they work for an organization. On one level, your talent is worth what it’s worth, period.However, the realistic part of this is that when you talk about pricing to clients … they’re looking at you and trying to decide whether you’re worth the money or not. Pricing has to do with perception. So if you’re working from the kitchen table, you haven’t been in business very long, you don’t have a good portfolio and so forth, it would be unrealistic to assume that you could charge what a business that’s been around a while could charge. Your talent is worth what it’s worth, but you have to be realistic.

Q: How can freelancers use marketing to build up the perception of their value?

Cam: You are what clients perceive you to be. If you market extensively … particularly using the editorial “we,” and you’re sending out material regularly, they’re going to see a company. A company is worth more, in most cases, than an individual.

Listen to our 14-minute interview to hear more of Cameron’s thoughts on pricing, including his take on hourly rates vs. project pricing.

And if you aren’t yet registered for CFC, sign up here and take advantage of the combo $100 discount: $50 early bird before Mar 30th + $50 Marketing Mentor discount with promo code “CMM12” 

And listen to the rest of the podcast interview series with our speakers, including Dyana Valentine, Mark O’Brien, Shane PearlmanJonathan Cleveland and Ed Gandia.  

 

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