You Are Worth More Than You Think You Are
Few days ago, I stumbled upon a nice TED Talk video by Casey Brown. She said something that made me want to publish this medium story I drafted few weeks ago. Yes, few weeks ago. That’s how notorious I am with procrastination. (This is another topic I would like to expound about in another story.)
Going back to what Casey said, “No one will ever pay you what you’re worth. They will only pay you what they think you’re worth. And you control their thinking.” This statement alone makes really good sense. But what struck me is the last part, where she detailed in her talk that we should clearly define the value of our work to the client, in order for them to see how much we are really worth, which translates to how much $$$ we are going to get.
Before seeing Casey’s TED Talk video, I was already drafting this story in a different perspective — more of a go-to-a-better-company/client kind of advise, though it may still be applicable in reality. But afterwards, I realize it was my fault all along why my pay rate didn’t go high enough to beat inflation after almost a decade of creative technical work. So decided to revise this story’s content to shed a positive light instead.
It wasn’t that long ago before I realize the value of my unique set of expertise. With some bigger projects I have worked during the past 2 years, I have gained confidence with my skills in design & front-end coding. I can’t explain my happiness every time I convert a UI design into a working web app that is mobile-responsive as well, and finally see the tiny design details fully implemented. Knowing my innate passion for design and development, I sought another company/client to offer my services at a higher rate, and luckily I got that client before last year ended, which is a good reason to welcome 2020 with good new blessings. I can’t say that this will be my final client, but what I know is I’m enjoying what I’m currently doing in this new client’s project, as it really fits to my core-passion in life — to make things better and beautiful.
With regards to making things of beauty and quality, I also like how Chris Do put it bluntly in his Design Work Pricing seminar. He said something about charging a design work based on the client’s net worth. The bigger their net worth is, the bigger the risk of doing bad design, and so the price of doing good design is higher as well. But what he’s pointing out is quite identical to what Casey said. It’s about the value of what we are doing (may it be design / development / other services) to the client’s business that matters. And its our responsibility to communicate to our clients that business value they are getting from the services that we provide them.
We can basically earn more once we set that higher standard to ourselves. If you are working / doing your business for a few years already, you are already experienced, and can be called a professional in your chosen path of expertise. You get better at what you are doing every single day, how much more if you do it everyday after a few weeks, months or years ,right?
Everything is a result of months — years of doing something, and that something is what you’ve been doing in your work / business all these years. So never undervalue the years of experience you had coding / designing these digital products OR crafting real products for those in the real non-digital world. When we are confident with our skills and the services we are ready to offer to the world, our worth and rates eventually go higher as a result. Confidence is also a result of doing the things you love over the years.
So step up in your game, and wear that confidence on when you communicate your value to your client. Never let any client/company undervalue you. And I hope you’ll realize as soon as you can, how much you are really worth. Time is money, too. Though, if you are younger, you won’t realize its value that much. So, I hope that after reading this story, you would realize that, you are really worth more than you think you are.
