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Well it sounds like you’re much more on it than me. A while back I was doing some on-going work for a small publishing firm. They were lovely to work with and because they were small, I felt like it was fine to be taking a pretty low day-rate. After a while I figured out that yes, they were a small company, but I was smaller so if anyone should be expecting charity in that relationship it was me :-)
AlexD-
There’s an incredibly fine line, but yes if you undervalue yourself from the start you will never be able to up your prices, but overvalue and you’ll fail to get business of any kind.
I’ve had the ‘value’ arguments a number of times back during my photography degrees, and it killed the passion. I’m glad nobody can expect a bag/pouch/whatever in return for ‘exposure’ or for looking good in my ‘portfolio’. That nonsense was right next to mates-rates on the bullshit scale of how to kill an independent.
Recently I’ve been faced with the mates-rates issue more than anything, and certainly there are two schools of thought - you’re a mate so you get a bargain/free, you’re a mate so you should pay greater than the asking price to show your support. Normally the wrong school applies to the person.
pdlouche
@ChasnotRobert Yea there’s the name I’m using on the insta, which is fine, and I have started sewing in name labels. It’s not in every item yet (will explain another time), but some are going out with the name labels now. The labels are actually clothes name labels left over from school 20 years ago, which has been kinda funny for me to use. I’ll likely continue with them.
@AlexD yea for sure. At the moment, especially for all the lfgss crew, I’m really doing everything at cost, because you guys are my test pilots.
We’re now reaching the end of a whole year since I started this project, but 6-8 months of time actually spent on it due to personal life stuff. Within 6 months (my ‘full year’) I aim to have a solid business model if this is an actually sustainable project. I should know by the summer. If it’s working and an online sales platform/VAT/business registration etc happens, the price will certainly reflect that.