Improve the Web

In business, you may often want to offer a "competitive" price in order to win a client. But what happens when you do get him?

Do you work as hard as you'd be working for a better pay?
Do you enjoy working as cheap labour?

In essence, I'd think that you should charge yourself fairly, because:

1. you'll actually be doing what you can, not what you have to just to match the price
2. you'll enjoy the work (it should be #1, but its second to what the customer gets)
3. you'll keep the industry pricing up, allowing others to quote themselves higher, thus benefiting everyone, including your rivals and prospect customers

Naturally, you'll need to actually do something useful and productive to match the price, but that's the whole point. You should charge high enough to match the value you provide, but not high enough to cheat your customers.

And what's more (bonus reason), if you do all you can for as much as you reasonably cost, your clients should be getting a much more efficient work, which should make them happier and more loyal customers. Who doesn't want to have loyal customers?

More things to read:

• Do you compete on the price or the value?
• The perception of value and the decision to buy
• How to get paid what you want

P.S. No, I am not abandoning the blog nor changing format largely. I've been busy, but should be back to solid posting soon (along with posting more thoughts than I have been). Stay tuned.

Cheers.

P.P.S. I am sure someone has written about this topic before. Could you please mention the links to posts on the same topic in the comments or via yuri at improvetheweb.com? I'll mention them in this post. Thanks.