We all struggle with pricing our work, but if we don't get this right, we will soon be out of business or remain as amateurs forever.
If you want to make a living from your craft you must charge what it really costs you. This means calculating the costs of all the materials you use, your overheads and most of all, your labour! You MUST pay yourself for doing the work. If you don't then you are not a professional, you're a volunteer!
I want to share an email I got from a furniture painter I have been helping.
"I wanted to drop you a wee message. I sold my last set of drawers for more than three times my usual asking price. Thanks largely to your comments which gave me the courage to finally ask for decent money:). Thank you!!!
I have never felt my stuff is anything other than average and I have hesitated to ask for decent prices. Thanks to your encouragement I just went for it. I had half a dozen buyers Lesley!!!! None of whom blinked at the price"
A lot of the problems we have, when pricing out goods and services, are totally in our heads. When you buy something in a store, we don't tend to look at it and say to the shop assistant, "this is very simple/small/easy to make, I think it's overpriced."
What we sell or do, is unique and the result of many years of practise and training. We need to value that or no one else will.
In Paris, there was a woman strolling along a street, when she spotted Picasso sketching near a sidewalk cafe. Not so thrilled that she could not be slightly presumptuous, the woman asked Picasso if he might sketch her, and charge accordingly. Picasso obliged. In just minutes, there she was: an original Picasso.‘And what do I owe you?’ she asked. ‘Five thousand francs,’ he answered.‘But it only took you three minutes,’ she politely reminded him. ‘No,’ Picasso said, ‘It took me all my life.’
Because we can do this work, we tend to think it's easy, but it isn't to most people. What problems do you have when pricing your work?
