Milk them for all they've got - or make what you want?

There, too, things get thorny. As you get more experience, you start to get a better feel not only for what kind of money there is in this method... but for what kind of person it takes to make that money. And you can tell whether a given client is that kind of person or not. In the same way, you can often tell that a particular marketing approach isn't going to work for the particular client's business.

And when you've got standard prices, that can get difficult because you say "this service is $6,500" and the client goes "What's that one? I want that! It looks expensive!" - so you have to come up with some way to say "localised SEO around the Pacific Rim is not going to bring more people to your Alabama car wash" without using the obvious shorthand "you're an idiot, get out of my office."

Pricing is less of a science and more of a religion, really. Asking whether you believe in charging more for certain clients is sort of like asking whether you believe in the money fairy, who shows up unpredictably and pays you shocking amounts of cash for a half hour of work.

:confused::confused::confused:

Say what?

One more time...

What I tell you three times is true.

Hi,

There are also two other relevant points -

Unless I'm mistaken, the 'other' thread referred to, specifically related to a situation regarding an IMer selling to a bricks and mortar business, yet the original question states -

(Emphasis added.)

Perhaps it would have been more logical to phrase that as 'charging companies for your services.' After all, services provided to profitable companies are tax deductable.

As was mentioned in that other thread, if you're selling to a corporate entity it totally changes the ethical questions/angst regarding pricing. To take it to the extreme, you can't compare selling services (like say article writing or backlinking) in a WSO to individuals (typically) with selling SEO services to someone like GlaxoSmithKline.

They're too far apart.

If someone said 'you should charge as much as the customer is willing to pay', you might find that it complicates things by not being clear about the difference between the two above-mentioned scenarios.

Let's put it into perspective - if we are talking about rip offs, or (perceived) 'over-charging', or generally snake-oil salesman-like behaviour, then in my opinion there is nothing more distasteful and inadvisable than what we see here most of the time -

People who only a few months/years ago were typically fresh, naive and slightly desperate new IMers, coming here and asking for and receiving free advice, then a short while later once they have found their feet turning around and without conscience turning full circle and preying upon the very people who are identical to how they were only a short time ago - selling them the snake-oil that only a short while before they were whingeing and complaining about themselves - as desperate newbies.

There is a culture that exists in the 'IM' scene where (with a nod and a wink) it's acceptable to do this - even though the people doing it cannot possibly turn around and defend themselves by pretending that they aren't fully aware of just how desperate, naive and gullible these brand new newbies are - who are just discovering this 'magical' 'new' world of 'instant' internet money, acronyms, new techie words and amazing technology - because they have most definitely 'been there' themselves - the proof is in the archives of the forum.

So it's a bit rich to see many of the regulars here getting all angst-ridden about others who have learnt the trade, paid their dues, become skilled in an emerging technology and then going out into the big offline world (which is full of established, often cash rich, sometimes corporate entities) and getting the highest price possible for their services.

If you want to criticise someone for their ethics, isn't it more rational to target those who 'graduate' but then immediately turn around and target the most vulnerable new 'students' at the school that they have just graduated from, when in fact they are missing a trick by ignoring those way more wealtheir established entities who are happy and willing to pay a premium for services in an industry that simply baffles them?

In my opinion, we should be wary of those who turn on their own without conscience, whereas we should applaud those who take what they have learned, hit the external market hard and get paid as much as they possibly can. The former are the ones who generally seem to get involved in cutting the throats of their 'brothers' in price-reduction wars (selling services to other IMers for painfully low amounts) whereas those of us who go out and set the bar high for bricks and mortar companies paying a premium for quality IM/marketing (the latter) are doing everyone here a favour. Think about it.

Besides, as I mentioned in the other thread - if the bulk of your earnings are performance-based (IE you take a cut of the profits that you directly create for your clients' businesses with your work) then there is no ethical issue at all because when you cash out, it's only because your client has already cashed out from your work and hands you a cut.

So I can't talk about Carter, but you can talk about (tricky) Dick?