A Paradigm Shift ★ You are no longer a Ruby developer ★ No one cares about Ruby or Rails or whatever you take pride in ★ Clients want to know: "What's in it for me?"
And Start Understanding Your Clients ★ Are they losing money? Are they missing out on untapped revenue? ★ How can you increase core KPIs? ★ How can you help them fix their pains?
Focus On The Future ★ Most of us bill. We look to the past. ★ ...What can this project do for my client? ★ How will this improve what matters? ★ How can I further improve their KPIs?
Be An Investment, Not An Expense ★ Most don’t recognize the value we produce ★ We focus on the deliverables. The code. The features. The workflows. ★ None of this matters.
Level Up Your Business Skills ★ ROI, TCO, KPIs, utilization, profitability, overhead ★ Make sure every meeting, every proposal, every LoC aims to benefit a particular KPI that matters to your clients.
“Brennan, You’re Throwing Out A Lot Of Jargon!” ★ Yes I am. ★ The $10 coder overseas doesn’t use this jargon. ★ And this is how you’re going to get ahead.
Clients want to hire someone who knows their business, its needs, and has the technical knowhow to get from today to tomorrow OVER the person who is merely adept at coding.
If a client think there's a 50% chance that a project will fail (e.g. a website redesign won't result in more customers) and is quoted $50k, the true cost is $75k after self-insuring for failure.
Reduce perceived risk by aiming for the right target and helping your client get to that target faster and more efficiently, and you'll be able to charge more.
Value-based pricing means focusing on the client, not yourself, and pricing based on the expected outcome of a successful project completion via establishing a low risk profile.