While posting your prices may seem like a good idea, I'd recommend not doing it in most cases. I say most cases, because I think it depends on the type of client you're going after.<p>In my experience, most clients that actually pay a fair amount of money are those that understand what their getting into. These clients understand that they'll be forking out $20k - $40k for a project. So, in these cases, posting prices is irrelevant. They just want the best person for the job. Your sales challenge will be elsewhere.<p>Now, if you're targeting the mom and pops in town and their average budget is $2k, then posting your price MIGHT help. BUT, this is simply a race to the bottom. If your rate for a project is $2k, but a competitor will do it for $1.5k, who will the budget minded client choose? Based off of the price alone, you've just scared away the client. You probably won't even get the opportunity of an in-person meeting.<p>Bottom line, choose your clients carefully. If they pick you because you're the cheapest, you might have bigger problems ahead of you...
This is a fascinating article, thank you.<p>When I was a freelancer the goal was always to set up small recurring tasks with a number of clients to smooth the peaks and troughs of work and bring in a regular income. These examples are a great way of showing how this idea can be marketed and scaled without having to rely so heavily on word of mouth or existing relationships - though I'm sure they do still play a part.<p>The change in approach from 'See what I've done for others', to 'Here's specifically what I can achieve for you' is key.
This is an interesting trend. You've got great insight into this, Rob. I think ultimately, we have a sales and positioning problem in our industry, not a productization problem. Products assume our work has a set value to every client. But they don't and we artificially limit our income potential by assigning prices before understanding value.
I've evaluated a lot of design portfolios in my life and it always amazes me how self-titled "User Experience" designers fail to apply the most basic UX process to their portfolios.<p>Stuff like defining who is the user, what are their needs, performing basic user research, establishing an information hierarchy and testing their designs against potential candidates.<p>It's been my experience that too many designers these days are more into the "fun stuff" of picking a color palette, creating awesome background textures, geeking out on CSS3 animations and other things that help enhance your dribbble profile at the detriment to applying themselves to the craft of design.
I've been considering setting up my website to be nothing but a work calendar, with empty blocks the visitor can buy. I'd have control to shut down unbought blocks if I want free time. I'd have some copy on what I do best, but essentially the customer could buy my time for anything they want, and could buy it right away.
The question I recently have asked myself was this: on these structured or productized pages, should we push the customer to a low friction gradual engagement lead generation action, or close the sale with a payment? I'm now trying out the former. Thoughts?