If you haven’t seen it yet, I encourage you to read the article over at Newsweek called “It Pays to be Nice“.
Now that is out of the way, let’s talk about what it means for setting rates. I’ve long thought that being transparent and open about rates is the way to go, at least for me. There is a lot of debate on this in the industry, the main argument being that you will cheat yourself if a company has set a budget for a lot more for your writing services. My significant other and more besides have called me naive and “too nice” when it comes to this aspect of my business.
If you look at my rates, I don’t think I am that generous. I charge just enough to make a living when you factor in items like benefits, pensions, and ancillary expenses that companies usually pay for a staff member, and that I do pay for myself. I am up front about publishing them, which is the important thing.
This all fits in with the “being nice” philosophy. I have been in the corporate world where I have been encouraged to “play chicken” with what the clients are willing to pay and then set the price at that level. Whether or not it is an accepted part of doing business, I never felt honest participating in those practices and I won’t do it in my business. I have my own business simply because I didn’t like a lot of the less human aspects of the corporate world, and want to bring that humanity back to my dealings with even larger companies.
I’m not going to brag, but so far it has been paying off to be nice. I haven’t been without business except maybe a few days in the summer when I wanted to be. I think the world can work together transparently and I think that most companies, since they employ humans, prefer to work this way as well. If that is naive, so be it; right now I’m being nice, and I’m getting paid.
