I do freelance work on the side and recently moved to a small town from mid-sized city. I've had a lot of opportunties to quote out jobs, but I was getting no response back (which in the past was never really a problem). Someone suggested to me that my hourly rate was way too high for the area, so I reduced it by half, but basically quote twice the hours (so in the end I make the same) and all of sudden I started getting work again. Is this a common thing to do? I feel a little bad about doing that, but the results have proved that the end result is the same. Any other suggestions on how others handle this?
Hm. In spirit, what you're doing seems fine (as you are quoting the same price either way). However, when it actually comes down to giving them an invoice with inflated hours, that is completely unethical. Definitely a tough one. The unfortunate thing about billing for extra hours is that it makes you seem slow. It does sound like you've had enough experience to know how long a job will take so perhaps you could give quotes for the entire project without an hourly rate.
After a string of projects where I worked so fast I made half the money estimated, I switched to fixed bid -- my next contract saw a 300% increase in my effective hourly rate.<p>If the risk of going significantly over is small, it can work out in your favor.
I did it once to a client who agreed to my standard rate and then tried to squeexe me down. It felt vaguely unethical. At the time he was threatening to give the work to someone who was willing to do it for $35/hr. There was no way I could bill 120 hours/week, so I called his bluff. The other guy never materialized.<p>OTOH car dealers do it all the time. They have a standard estimate from the manufacturer, but if they get it done sooner, you dont get a lower price.
Your customers ultimately care about the end result and their costs. Concentrate on meeting their expectations and stop feeling bad because there is nothing to feel bad about.<p>Deliver earlier than scheduled ('cause you know, you managed to squeeze "extra hours" late into the night) and your customers will be even happier.
As an aside, how do you go about finding projects to submit quotes for in your smaller market? I'm in a similar situation and thinking about going back to freelance route (did this in Chicago for a while but I'm now in a smaller market.)