Hi Reader,

Happy Friday!

Just a heads-up: I'll be migrating this email list to Substack over the next week, so the next Friday Freelance Tips might look a bit different (but will still have the same juicy content!). You don't have to do anything on your end. Over time, I'm going to be building out a community around the newsletter and this is the starting point for that.

Secondly, if you work for yourself from home, you probably know the feeling: there’s plenty to do, but somehow actually sitting down and focusing on it is a whole other story.

My friend Jasmine Williams is opening up The Reach Club for a free Fall Open House from September 29 to October 8.

The Reach Club is a virtual coworking community for creative solopreneurs. During each two-hour session, you’ll set an intention, work through two focused 45-minute sprints, take a proper break and check in with other people working alongside you.

There are four free sessions:

• September 29
• October 1
• October 6
• October 8

All sessions run from 11 a.m.–1 p.m. ET on Zoom.

You can join one or come to all four. Save your spot here.

P.S. This week on Instagram, I shared some realistic ways to grow a freelance business. Check it out here. And don't forget to give me a follow for regular tips and tricks!

Here's what I've been up to this week work-wise:

👉 I refreshed 2 pieces for Shopify

👉 I worked on some social content for a client

👉 I ran a strategy session for a new LinkedIn client

👉 I created a framework and LinkedIn content for a new client

⏱ Approx hours spent on client work this week: ~19

⏱ Approx hours spent on non-client work: ~3

💰 Total revenue from client work this week: £2,225

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A MASSIVE thank you to this month's sponsor, Authory. I know SO many freelancers who use the tool to keep a track of their work and build a portfolio. Honestly, if you want a super easy way to store and showcase your work, get yourself an account.

You don't control what happens to your work after delivery

Once a piece is delivered, the client can edit it, delete it, or hand the byline to someone else.

You find out when a prospect asks for samples and the link you counted on is gone, or shows someone else's name. The work happened but you simply can't prove it anymore.

​Authory automatically saves a copy of every piece you published, based on your byline. When anyone asks, you can show the work is yours.

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Check out my three practical courses that have helped 500+ people get more clients, earn more money, and create better content.

Friday Freelance Tip​​ ✨ ​

For years, sending a proposal meant an absolute panic-induced spiral.

Price too high, and I'd scare the client off. Too low, and I'd be kicking myself for months, doing the same work as everyone else for less. I'd agonise over a single number as if there was one perfect, objectively correct price sitting out there waiting for me to find it (spoiler: there isn't).

Eventually I realised the problem wasn't that I was necessarily bad at pricing (although it certainly felt that way at times!).

The problem was that there isn't one "right price". There's a range, and different clients will value different parts of what you offer differently. So instead of trying to land on a single magic number, I stopped doing that altogether and started sending three.

How the 3-tier structure works

Every proposal I send now includes three price points:

• A basic tier: the lowest I'm willing to go for that piece of work, covering the core scope and nothing more
• A mid tier: a broader scope, usually with an extra deliverable or two, priced a step up
• A top tier: the most comprehensive option, with the fullest scope and the highest price

For example, in one proposal, the basic package might cover a single strategy session, a content bucket blueprint, and a month of drafts, while the next tier up extends that into a second month of content, a mid-point check-in, and a more developed framework handover, for a few hundred pounds more.

In another, I might lay out three tiers of a quarterly content plan, where the scope steps up from a handful of pieces a month to an ambitious volume of playbooks, case studies, and partner collabs, with the investment scaling accordingly at each level.

The basic tier is never a throwaway option, to be clear. It's the least amount of work I'm happy to do for that client, at a price I'm really, totally fine with.

Why I do it this way

There's a well-documented psychological effect behind why this works so well.

When people are given three options at different price points, they overwhelmingly gravitate towards the middle one. It's sometimes called the "decoy effect" or "anchoring", and it's basically when the presence of a clearly cheaper and a clearly more expensive option makes the middle choice feel like the safe, sensible, balanced decision, even if the person had no strong opinion on price going in.

Retailers, subscription services, and menus have used this for decades (think about how often the "medium" popcorn at the cinema is priced suspiciously close to the "large" 😉).

I use the exact same logic in my proposals, except instead of engineering an artificial decoy, all three of my tiers are good options I'd be happy to deliver.

There are a few reasons this works so well:

Removing the pressure to find "the right price." The biggest realisation for me wasn't really about the client's decision-making at all, it was about mine.

As soon as I stopped trying to pin down a Single Perfect Number, sending proposals stopped feeling so fraught. I wasn't gambling on one figure being exactly right. I was offering a range and letting the client tell me, through their choice, where their budget and appetite sat in that range.

Showing clients there's room to negotiate... without negotiating. A single price on a proposal can feel a bit like a closed door... you can take it or leave it, yo.

Three tiers show there's flexibility, there's a range, we can find the shape of this that works for you. Clients feel like they have agency in the decision, which makes them far more comfortable saying yes to something, because it feels like their choice rather than something imposed on them.

And I get to avoid the slightly awkward back-and-forth of a client trying to negotiate me down from a single number!

And, in practice, most clients don't pick the cheapest option. I fully expected most clients to go for the basic tier, given the choice.

In reality, the majority go for the middle tier, and a fair number go for the top one. Once someone can directly compare what they get for a bit more money, the extra value becomes tangible. People tend to want the bigger, better version once they can actually see it laid out next to the alternative, rather than defaulting to the cheapest thing available.

How to structure your own tiers

If you want to try this yourself, here's roughly how I approach building the three tiers out:

• Start with your basic tier first. Work out the absolute minimum scope you're happy to deliver for a price you're comfortable with. This isn't a "loss leader" or a bait price, it needs to be something you'd be perfectly happy to do if that's what the client picks.
• Build the mid tier around the most natural next step rather than just "more of everything." Think about what extends the value of the basic offer. That could be an extra deliverable, a longer timeframe, a check-in point, something that makes sense as a logical upgrade rather than an arbitrary bump in price.
• Make the top tier the full, no-holds-barred version. This is where you can lay out what the work would look like with maximum scope and support. It doesn't need to be the "obvious" choice. Its job is partly to make the middle tier look reasonable by comparison, and partly to capture the clients who do want the full package.
• Keep the differences clear and comparable. Clients should be able to glance at the three tiers and immediately understand what's different between them.
• Let the client's choice tell you something. Over time, you'll start to notice patterns. That, my friend, is v useful pricing data.

I'll be honest, sending three prices instead of one felt strange the first time I did it. It felt like I was somehow admitting I didn't know what to charge. But it's actually the opposite... it's a far more confident way to price, because you're not betting everything on one figure.

You're giving the client a choice, taking the guesswork out of your own side of the conversation, and, more often than not, walking away with a bigger project than you'd have landed with a single quote in the first place.

As always, happy freelancing 🙂

Lizzie ✨

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As always, happy freelancing :)

Lizzie ✨

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