I was born in the morning of 17th November 1989.
Which makes me old enough that I engaged in that 90s right of passage lost to time, which we would now call “child labour” 😅;
This gave me my first taste of personal money,
without being serious enough to matter if you mess it all up.
Kids don’t seem to have jobs anymore at a young age,
I still believe it introduced the kind of light structure that builds that intangible quality I guess they call “grit”;
It taught me how to focus my attention,
and installed a combination of perseverance, responsibility and resilience.
that I still rely on every day in my life and business.
But all that was years away,
back in 2004 my voice was only just starting to drop,
I just was old enough to have some faculties about me,
but still young enough that I didn’t qualify for a 9-5, nevermind run a business.
So I had a small paper round which I would do on foot after school.
An out of town businessman had just “bought the route” from the local newspaper.
He taught me taught was my first hard lesson, that 15 years later would help me reach my first 6 figure year.
So I guess I should thank him.
But at the time, it didn’t seem like a favour…
He was stripping local boys of their routes and combining them into larger routes, driving me out of business by undercutting my prices by a whopping 6p.
It all came to a climax when this grown man eventually turned up at my door one day and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse:
“Quit, and refer my customers for a one off payout.
Hold out and he’d run me out of business.
Imagine that;
This 40 year old guy doorstepping and strongarming a 15 year old over a local paper run
He made a strong impression, I still remember his cigarette stained teeth, and moustachioed face, like some villain from Only Fools and Horses.
I even tried approaching the local newspaper to see if they’d run the story as a human interest peice,
But turns local newspapers don’t like to run stories about local newspapers shafting 15 year olds for an extra 6p.
I thought my customers would be loyal;
I’d delivered their papers everyday for years
It took me a day but I knocked every single door in turn and explained the situation…
But turns out price is important .
I lost about half of my customers on my route overnight,
All for the paltry saving of 6p per week.
Whatever.
I’m not bitter. 😅
About half stuck with me out of loyalty or ethics, bless them!
But he was right in the end.
The route was no longer worth my time anymore with only half the customers,
So I did eventually have to give up.
It took a long time for this lesson to sink in:
If you’re selling something anyone else can do,
then price is the only thing that matters.
The most common problem freelancers have?
They can’t charge their worth.
So stop selling stuff anyone else can do.
Start selling something no-one else is offering.
You need to combine your skills and knowledge into something unique,
because when you’re unique,
you don’t need to compete on price.
If you’re worried about being priced out the market by increased competition, you need to package your services into an offer
You can take the skills you already have as a freelancer,
and turn them into a result that provides more value,
then you can sell it for a higher price than your competition.
Here’s how:
- List your skills and knowledge
- Identify painful problems you can solve and people with those problems
- Write down all the steps you need to do to solve that problem
- If there’s gaps in your skills or process, fill them. Don’t leave it up to the customer
- Solving this problem is what you sell now. Talk about how you solve the problem online.
- Figure out problems happen after you’ve solved that problem, and keep adding them to your offer
- Increase your prices each time you solve more problems.
Here’s my offer workshop and templates to you work it out step by step.
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