As most of you know, I am not a fan of hourly billing. In fact, I only recommend you only charge clients based upon a billable hourly rate when you provide services that cannot be completed under a fixed bid agreement. These types of services include, but are not limited…

Getting paid can sometimes be a traumatic experience for a freelancer or a small business. Typically, we email invoices to our clients and they push them through their accounts payable system. If your client is a small business, getting paid on time often has everything to do with whether they…

Those of you who follow my content, have read my pricing book, or taken my course, will be familiar with my pricing methodology. In very brief summary, I recommend pricing your creative work based on three variables: Production Cost (i.e. How much does it cost you to produce the work?) Market Value (i.e.…

Niching is a frequent dilemma for so many business owners. How do you choose a niche? How deep should you go? What if your niche doesn’t work? How do I start saying “no” to clients outside my niche? All of these questions seem to regularly hit my inbox. Niching is…

"I need some help coming up with my price list." I’ve been asked this question several times over the past couple months. Every time I am asked, I cringe just a bit. Rate cards, price lists, and packages are not the path to growing a successful, high profit creative business.…

This set of questions were submitted to me by my friend, Akash Upadhyay for some content he was working on. 1. How do you stay motivated in the design industry when you see so much outstanding work around you? I am motivated and inspired by outstanding work from others. Seeing…

Walking through the aisles of your local supermarket, you will find plenty of products with odd number prices: a gallon of milk for $2.99, a loaf of fresh baked bread for $3.99, or perhaps a small bag of chips for $1.99. For decades, products have been priced this way based…

“We decided to go with another agency,” once again we weren’t selected for the project. “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!! We thought we had the project in the bag. Why were we not chosen?” Every freelance designer or agency owner has been there, and probably more than once. The reality is that, as the…

​Hello Team! Hope you had a great week! This week I'm sending you a few thoughts on a questions I've receive several times. Hourly vs. fixed bid pricing. Hope you get some good nuggets below! (more…)

Hello Team! Hope you all had an amazing week! Mine was great! I've received a lot of great feedback on my past couple newsletters and I plan to keep bringing you unique and valuable content to help your creative business...every...single...week. Thanks for subscribing! This week I am addressing a question…

Hello Team! I loved my week, as always. I had several new coaching students this week and I continue to be amazed at the talent and ambition in the worldwide creative community. There are so many amazing people doing amazing things! This week, I thought I'd answer a recent question…