To call the ball room owner stressed would be an understatement. His lavish grand ball room had recently developed an annoying squeak whenever someone would walk across it. The owner had called several carpenters to fix the problem, but to no avail. The squeak remained as a poignant reminder that his precious ball room was flawed.

In a final attempt to alleviate the problem, the owner gave another carpenter a call. The gruff man he spoke to said that he would arrive early tomorrow to inspect the situation.

An old carpenter arrived promptly at 8 o’clock the next morning and was directed to the problematic ball room. The owner watched as the carpenter systematically walked across the room, listening to the various creaks that occurred as different hardwood planks were stood upon. After a few minutes of wordless walking, the carpenter casually walked over to a specific spot in the room, pulled out a nail from his tool belt and hammered the nail through a board.

The age-worn carpenter walked back to the owner without a hint of squeaking from the ball room. The owner was ecstatic, until he looked at the bill the carpenter handed him.

“$500 for a single nail?!” proclaimed the owner.

“No” said the carpenter in soft voice.

“It’s only $1 for the nail and $499 for the 32 years it took to learn where to put it”

I’ve heard this story referenced on a few placed but I thought it would be good to post it as a reminder.

DON’T SELL YOURSELF SHORT

Just because it doesn’t take the 20 billable hours it use to take to get a job done doesn’t mean that the job isn’t worth the same. If it takes me a week to learn how to do some new type of job for a client and his friend wants me to do the same thing for him, shouldn’t I charge the same for both jobs? The first job takes much longer because I have to learn something for the first time, but that doesn’t mean that I should give the friend a huge discount just because I know how to do it now. That would actually hurt my business if the friends mention to each other how much I charged each other.

Making $1000 for a project doesn’t make it profitable. The time required to complete the project is what makes it profitable. Finishing a project in 2 hours makes it much more successful than doing it in 200 hours.

There are various opinions whether freelancers should charge on a per project or on a per hour basis. Both camps have their pros and cons but I believe the root determining factor should be the cost for your knowledge.

Make your pay rate reflect more on your knowledge and skill, not necessarily your time.