“In the end people will pay you because of who you are and what you are to them”
Hey guys! I’m in the middle of a mastering session waiting for all my tracks to be printed and thought I would share something that is always on my mind…VALUE=SKILL!
Running a creative business, or any business for that matter, is plain tough. When you are starting out, it’s difficult to figure out how much to charge because in reality any work is good work at that point. At the beginning you probably have even done a lot of free work just so that you can get your name out and get noticed by others. Believe me, I have done that many times throughout the years and sometimes it really did pay off. Unfortunately, most times it really didn’t and for the life of me, I coulnd’t figure out why. I mean, I literally did the work for free and they never came back.
I have come to the conclusion that unless it is family, and that is a really big “IF” in some cases, you really should charge something and get compensated for your work. Whether its a barter for services, or a free meal it’s still compensation. If you are doing a lot of free work, the problem is you are DEVALUING your skill that you have worked so hard to improve upon with each task and project.
Case in point, for 4 years I charged the same producer fee because I thought that was fair for the market that I was targeting. Unfortunately as overhead costs and project demands increased, I started to realize that I was hemorrhaging money even though I had a lot of projects. It actually took a lot of convincing, but the sticking point for me was that if I wanted to offer more at the studio I had to make significant price adjustments to certain services at the studio; particularly my Producer Fee and my Mix Rate.
I know it can be scary because your goal is to be able to accommodate everyone’s much as possible, but it can’t be to the detriment of your skill and livelihood. Remember, people pay for you and not the service. If you want to a particular producer, photographer, or even restaurant you pay whatever the cost because that is who you want to work with and where you want to go.
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