New year and my blood pressure already rise...

[tricky]

@rohallorah

In principle I agree that you need to hold your value as best you can, but one thing I don’t hear a lot of is respecting the market demand. Rates are a balance of what we think our time is worth, and what the market is willing to pay - regardless of our opinion of the value. My feeling is that sometimes you actually need to lower your rates if you are priced out of the market, and rates are falling for most of our type of services. It is not a temporary blip IMO - and that illusion or misperception can be lethal to your career.

If you do not keep your rates in check with the market you will soon find yourself without any work.

I’m not saying Luke should have taken that job -there are limits of course! - but to say that one should just ‘advertise’ and find better clients is a bit naive. It can be true in a limited way but it’s no magic bullet. I know people who are literally world class artists that do work for the biggest budget clients (multi-national clients and global campaigns) and it is not unusual for them to be working at lower rates these day, sometimes much lower.

/b

Agreed. I think the key thing is balance. Pricing a job is still the most difficult thing to do in business.