🎯 Pricing Your Work Without Undervaluing It - & Avoid Awkward Negotiations

When I first started out, I thought I was killing it charging $30 an hour to film and edit video. Thirty bucks. Looking back, I basically paid people to let me work.

Like most creatives, I kept doubling my prices. $30 became $60. $60 became $120. And while that looked good on paper, it was also exhausting. I was stuck in a short-sighted game of “how much can I push this number up before someone tells me no?” If you are like me, negotiations are awkward. You have to ask for the sale & around this time, I STRUGGLED with that.

Then one day, everything changed 👀

A client from Pennsylvania reached out by email. I was so green, I didn’t even ask how they found me (ALWAYS ASK!!!!). They needed editing services. At that point, I was charging around $60 an hour. When I quoted them $50 an hour JUST to edit, I braced myself for pushback.

But here’s the crazy part: they didn’t bat an eye. They approved a $500 invoice on the spot.

The project? A nightmare puzzle. They had a commercial where the original pricing was shown on an iPad screen. No green screen, so no easy swap. That meant I had to digitally remove numbers while balancing shades of gray and blue reflections on the glass. It took me 12 hours of tedious editing, frame by frame. At the end they OFFERED ME MORE MONEY for final revisions!! I politely declined because I have a soul....

Was it worth only $500? No. But here’s the truth I learned:

👉 Success is binary. Either you figure it out, or someone else will.

And I did.

That project taught me the most valuable lesson of my early career:

👉 Your location doesn’t determine your potential for ascension. Especially in this digital era.

Just because I lived in Indiana didn’t mean I had to sell in Indiana. Other places have other budgets, and the right customer makes the difference between a business that’s surviving and one that’s thriving.

For example:

Median household income in California: ~$91,000
Median household income in Indiana: ~$67,000
Median home price in California: ~$740,000
Median home price in Indiana: ~$230,000

Translation? What feels like a “high price” where you live might actually be a discount in another market.

Today, I work with larger clients on web, social, and digital campaigns that generally start at 3x that Pennsylvania project. The difference isn’t just experience. It’s that I learned the value of what I offered — and how to present it. I also work on Government contracts & commercial projects but, like I have eluded, targeting the right customers will change your life.

Not everyone considers themselves a salesperson. But learning how to think this way helped me build offers that sold themselves. When the value is clear, the right customers don’t just buy — they buy confidently.

Qualifying a Customer 🫱🏽‍🫲🏼

Now here’s the key: it’s not just about who can pay more — it’s about qualifying the right customer.

Most clients will ask:

“So what’s your pricing? ”Instead of blurting out a number, I use a Question Funnel that does two things at once:

It reveals the actual scope of the project (so I don’t undercharge).
It positions me as the expert (instead of a freelancer waiting for orders).

Here’s what that looks like:

What am I going to be shooting?
Who is the intended audience?
Do you have an example video you like?
Where will this be distributed?
Total length of the video?
How many days of shooting?
How many locations are we shooting at
Is Travel involved?
Will I need to hire extras (crew, props, costumes, makeup)?
Shooting dates?
Final due date?
Any special requests (color grading, style, scripts, actors)?

By the time we’re done, most clients realize there’s way more involved than just “point and shoot.” At that point, many of them stop dodging and just reveal their budget — because they can see the value and complexity in what I do. If they can't see that complexity, I can relist the cost of each of their answers to reinforce,

"You said you wanted A,B, & C but your budget is ______, you can only afford 2 of those."

Be polite about telling someone, their budget disagrees with their visionary appetite. Don't be the person that shows your cards. My logic is, they want a quality result & if I were to give them my "price" we may miss the opportunity to do something amazing that they would have spent the extra buck to achieve. Selling yourself short limits your creative potential when simply asking questions can make you and the customer happy with the value they receive.

From Questions → Pricing 📈

Once you’ve collected all the details, you’re not just throwing out a random number. You’re tailoring a solution.

This is also the perfect time to:

Bundle in benefits they didn’t know they needed.
Upsell options that make the project easier, faster, or higher quality.
Reduce the risk of using you (or highlight the risk of not using you).

Alex Hormozi says: “Make your offer so good, they’d feel stupid saying no.”

Here’s how you apply that thinking:

Add speed → people pay more.
Add certainty (proven process, reliability) → people pay more.
Add status (elevated brand look) → people pay more.
Add security (less risk of failure) → people pay more.

You’re not just selling “video services.” You’re selling peace of mind, speed, and a professional outcome.

Big Takeaway

If you’re charging $30 an hour like I was, congratulations — you OWN a job.

But if you want a business that can get off of its foundation & into the spaces you believe you can achieve, you need to qualify the right customers and build offers that make them think:

👉 “Why wouldn’t I do this?”

Challenge for you:What’s your current hourly rate right now?And what would it look like if you doubled it tomorrow?

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Make sure to like & follow me on Instagram where you can see some of what I preach in practice on my personal & business pages:

@Lifeof.eye: https://www.instagram.com/lifeof.eye/#

@574WARD_LLC: https://www.instagram.com/574ward_llc/#

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