Though I love it when the checks roll in, I detest invoicing. Always have.
Turns out I’m not alone.
Over the last couple weeks, I made a point of asking my freelance friends how they felt about sending invoices, and surprise — nobody loves the experience.
Most of them hated it.
Which means there’s probably more at work here than a simple aversion to bookkeeping; several of the freelancers I asked copped to actually feeling uncomfortable “asking” for money, even though they’d already earned it.
To delve deeper is to get wrapped up in concepts like self-worth and value in a chaotic marketplace, but I will admit I regularly underpriced myself when I started freelancing — even in the booming tech market.
Fortunately, the same salesman who taught me the basics of negotiation immediately put his finger on my problem.
“When you’re crafting a proposal, do you imagine your client reacting negatively to your estimate?”
Which, naturally enough, I had been doing.
“Well, stop that.”
Good advice (and simple too).
A common negotiating tactic is the Wince, where one negotiator actually flinches when they first see the proposal, hoping to goad the other side into making an uncompensated concession.
It works a surprising amount of the time; I was essentially self-administering it before the client even saw the proposal.
Thankfully, that nasty little habit is almost two decades behind me, but over the years, I’ve had to eradicate a handful of other money-related bad habits, including:
- Failing to raise prices on long-term (years), recurring projects (your clients are probably getting cost-of-living raises, and you’re getting better at what you do)
- Comparing myself to less-experienced, less-able competitors when setting pricing
- Not making strong value statements about my work or expertise
Any of these look familiar? Any others popping into your mind?
Pricing yourself in a fast-changing, oversupplied market is already hard; why complicate it by practicing self-destructive behaviors around money?
I’m behind in my reading, so I only just now had a chance to read this post. I was surprised to learn that so many freelancers don’t like invoicing. I love doing it! It’s one of my favorite tasks. And I’m not a numbers person either (as my wife can attest).
When my clients e-mail me back to actually *thank me* for sending them an invoice (as many of them do), I really like that too.
One thing I am definitely guilty of is not raising my rates in a while. Thanks for the nudge.
Paul Lagasse recently posted..the week in tweets: 2011-09-12
Paul Lagasse(Quote) (Reply)
While I’ve overhauled almost every other piece of my workflow, I haven’t changed my invoicing process in a bazillion years.
I’m pretty much past the self-worth issues of a couple decades ago (I’m pretty much all about “show me the money” these days), but it’s enough of a pain that I don’t do it as often as I should.
TC(Quote) (Reply)
I am a chronic “wincer”! But I am working on it. It’s a total self-confidence problem for me, but when I think about it logically, I trust my clients to know that I’m worth paying for a job well done. Good to know I’m not alone though…
Joyce Dierschke(Quote) (Reply)
The problem has never been worse than it is now; there are more “professional” copywriters than in the entire history of the human race (note: I made that up), and in the face of that kind of competition — where another dozen of the same are only a Google search away — the wince isn’t that hard to understand.
TC(Quote) (Reply)