On saying the number out loud

Marcus said he priced his early chairs “like an apology.” I’ve never heard it put better, because I did exactly the same thing with my first years of freelance audio.

Underpricing feels humble. It is not humble. It’s a way of pre-rejecting yourself so a client doesn’t have to. And it quietly poisons the work, because resentment grows in the gap between what you charged and what it took.

Three lines that helped me

• Name the number, then stop talking. The silence after is the client’s to fill, not yours.
• Price the outcome, not the hours. Nobody’s buying your time; they’re buying the thing your time produces.
• The right client doesn’t flinch. The ones who do were never going to value it anyway.

None of this is about greed. It’s about charging enough to keep doing the work well, for a long time. That’s the whole game.

— Nadia