I was reading an article – 5 Ways Graphic Designers Can Win Over Price Objections – at Michael Huggins’ site, For Graphic Designers Only. (His site is worth bookmarking, by the way.)
He addresses how you might respond when someone says, “I’m sorry, I like your proposal, but your price is too high.”
For the record, I think they’re great suggestions. But I’d like to add two more.
1. Walk away without any negotiation.
OK, it takes guts to walk away if you don’t already have a full calendar. I’m not even saying this is a great suggestion. Just pointing out that it is an option you might choose from time to time.
I’ve taken this step myself more than once. When it comes to certain projects that I have a lot of experience with, I know what it’s worth to me. And there are times, albeit rare, that some of Huggins’ excellent suggestions don’t work with the prospect.
In other words, you don’t want to give and they don’t either. Not exactly the Win-Win we read about in the negotiation books, but it can happen for legitimate reasons.
You’re not going to be the best fit for every project that comes your way. And you need to respect that just because you think a project is worth X amount of dollars to you, it may not be worth that much to the prospect. That’s OK.
Don’t always look at it as the prospect being cheap. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. Sometimes, the fit just isn’t there.
When it happens to me, I wish the prospect well, thank them for contacting me, and leave it open that a future project might be something to discuss. Let me quickly point out, though, that when you’re seen as someone who won’t budge, you may be immediately scratched off the “call-back” list. That’s a risk you’d need to be willing to take.
So let’s be clear again… this isn’t the best option. Try to avoid walking away. Instead, try to make it work. But realize that sometimes it just won’t.
2. Maybe your prices really are way off base.
This is actually what prompted me to write this article. Sometimes your quote is way outside what might be considered normal and the prospect is right: Your price is too high.
It’s important you consider this scenario, especially if you’re new to freelancing or bidding on new types of projects. Ideally, you’ve done some research to find out the average prices of projects you want to work on. But beginners stumble over this issue time and time again. Unfortunately, they lose out on a number of projects before they somehow learn how to price projects better.
There are resources to help you price projects, but the one I’m most familiar with is written by Lori Haller: The Ultimate Guide to Building a Highly Profitable Graphic Design Business
Lori is pro through and through, so just learning from her experiences in this book is a great thing. But there’s also a price-range list for common direct market design projects. If you have nothing else, this is a good place to start researching to build your own price list.
So, yes… try to go with Huggins’ advice. But keep my two points tucked away in the back of your mind just in case.