Whenever my husband is buying something (other than a retail store,although I’ve seen him try), he tries to negotiate for a better price. Farmers markets, garage sales, service professionals – you name it, he asks. His theory is that if you don’t ask, you won’t get a discount, and the worst that they can say is “No.”

He is, of course, right. But negotiating doesn’t come as easily to me as it does to him. And this has carried over to negotiating for rates in my freelance content marketing writing business. Whether I’m negotiating over a lamp at a yard sale or a gig with a tech company, I worry what they will think about me for asking for a higher rate or a lower price. What if I offend them? What if they don’t like me because I offend them? And then they don’t want to sell to me or work with me?

This argument went on with my husband for years. Then one day he said something that was a light bulb moment. He told me that the yard sale sellers and street market vendors expect people to negotiate, and often price their wares to allow for negotiation. I was basically leaving money on the table each time I didn’t try to negotiate when buying something. I got bold one day and negotiated while buying an air hockey table at a yard sale and saved 50 bucks by simply asking a single question. The woman wasn’t mad. She wasn’t offended. And she didn’t take her air hockey table and go home (well, she was already home, but you get my point).

I would like to say that I immediately saw the parallel to my freelance business, but it took a while. Ok, it took several years, if I am being honest. But I eventually realized that most clients expected me to negotiate and built that expectation into any price they named. When I didn’t negotiate, I was losing money on every single article that I wrote for that client. And I realized that no one was going to think badly of me for negotiating. If anything, the opposite is true: people wonder about the business sense of someone who does not negotiate.

Two Ways I Ask for More Money

After that light bulb moment, I started making myself always ask for more money. My fear of a great client walking away was unfounded. If someone was out of negotiation range, then we weren’t a match anyway so working for them would have cost me money.

With my new mantra, I started doing three things:

1. If a client names a price first, I now always counter with a slightly higher price. I usually go about 10 to 20 percent higher for my counter offer, depending on the rate. For example, if a client offers $300 for a 500-word blog post with no interviews and no ideation, then I will counter at $350. If someone offers me $1,500 for a case study, I might counter at $1,750 or $2,000.
2. If a client asks me to name my price, then I come up with my estimate and then force myself to add 10 to 20 percent to the rate. This either compensates for my tendency to underbid or gives me padding for negotiation.
3. If I start a project and it ends up being more work than I estimated when I negotiated the rate, I go back to the client and ask for a higher rate. Each time I have done this, I am very specific about the tasks that are taking longer and why this justifies a higher rate.

Sometimes they say no. But often times they say yes. And even if they say no, I have lost absolutely nothing. And the additional money I have earned for the same amount of work over the past two years has made it worth a few moments of me feeling uncomfortable.

Why Small Increases Make a Big Difference

I used to be hesitant to negotiate because it was only $50 or $100 or whatever. But last year I negotiated a raise from $350 to $500 with one of my biggest clients. In 2017, I ended up writing over 30 articles for this client so that one email I sent asking for more money ended up earning me more than $4,500 for the exact same amount of work I would have done at $350. I negotiated up from $300 to $400 per post with another client because after doing a few posts, I realized that the blog was more work than expected. The client immediately said yes and that negotiation resulted in $4,800 more in 2017. So two emails ended up earning me $9300 in 2017.

If you are working primarily with clients who have the potential for being a long-term client (which I highly recommend), keep in mind that you you are not just negotiating the project that you are working on today, but future projects as well. Every amount you negotiate up or down should be multiplied over the number of projects that you will do for that client. Once I realized that, I got a heck of a lot more comfortable negotiating over a $50 increase. Yes, you can always negotiate or raise your rates with a current client, but for I think it’s better (and more comfortable) to do that in the beggining.

Find an Approach and Phrasing that You Are Comfortable With

While it sounds easy to a natural negotiator to simply ask for more money, I found the actual asking part to be very hard. But I persisted. I tried several different phrases and approaches for asking. I learned that I am much bolder in email and more likely to ask for a higher rate. With this in mind, I started telling clients that I would think about it and email them regarding rates. That one change was magic for me. And it directly resulted in higher rates.

I also realized that I felt more comfortable by stating my rates as a fact. For example, “I usually earn $500 for similar pieces. Would that work for you?” I’m not sure why this works, but it feels comfortable to me. If this doesn’t work for you, then keep trying and find phrasing that feels natural to you. The more comfortable you are with your negotiation strategy, the more likely you are to use it effectively.

I challenge each of you to start always asking for more money with every single project. I promise you that you will see it make a huge difference in your overall income. And all it costs you is a couple of minutes to compose an email.

Do you always ask for more money? How do you feel most comfortable negotiating?