Why is it bad for our minds?
I genuinely believe that pricing based purely on our time is bad for our mental health.
It leads us to think that our value is to be found in the hours we put in.
It naturally leads us to overwork.
It says our earning potential is capped to the number of hours or days we want to work.
It’s also hard-wired to mean that the better we are at our jobs, the less we get paid?! If we price based on time and in a years time we can do something quicker than we can now, then we get paid for an hour’s less work.
IT’S ALL BOLLOCKS PAL.
A few thoughts on how to price what you do
So if we’re not gonna base our prices on how long it takes us to do a thing, what we going to base them on?
When all you can see around you is one model, it’s hard to imagine there are others out there.
Well someone like Steph from Innovate and Thrive Co is your expert here, but I tend to consider three factors when setting my prices:
1. The value the thing has to the person who needs it – this takes into account one of my other fundamental beliefs, that just because work is easy (or quick!) for you, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have potentially enormous value for the person who needs it
2. How much of me goes into it and the impact it will have on me to deliver it – this is all about protecting my mental health. If something is going to really take it out of me, I’ll need time to rest and recuperate – time that I won’t be working
3. An idea of how long it will take me – the last thing I think about is time investment on my part. It makes sense for my Fresh Air package of 6 sessions is more expensive than my Inhale one-off session because it’s more time investment from me AND it’s more valuable to the person who needs it AND I’ll need more time to recuperate
Fundamentally, I believe that our pricing should be based on value and our value is not just based on the time we put in.