 How are you today? Are you ready for the last part of the work camp? Usually the second day in the morning is a little slower because there were parties last night. So how many of you went to parties last night? Woo! We can take it easy. I'm kidding, because my presentation's title is supercharged, so we're going to be supercharged. I'm going to teach you how to charge more, charge better, and not be stressed about it. How many of you are freelancers? How many of you have a business that they run? How many of you feel well when they negotiate money? Not many. OK, so my promise is that at the end of this presentation, you will be a little better in negotiating your rates and you will feel enormously better when you do so. Because we all know that raising your rates is one of the most popular headlines you can find now if you're freelance and you follow blogs. Everybody tells you you need to raise your rates. This is particularly true in the WordPress ecosystem where they tell you that you don't charge enough, that you should charge more, that that's how we build value in our community. But then they don't tell you actually how to do that because that is part of that thing that we call marketing that we don't like that much, not even say marketing, not even talk about it. So, but we need to. We all feel better when we land a better job with a better rate, right? So last year at WorkCamp Netherlands, I had a presentation and the title was How the Plumber Always Wins and was about comparing the digital industry and our jobs with traditional trades and the way they do things, the fact that they have more solid rates and they tend to make more money than us. And then in the following months after that presentation, I got so many questions via email and via Twitter and in person of people asking, yeah, but how can I actually negotiate better prices? So today we're gonna see that a little bit. But the first thing that I want you to know, and I'm sure you know that already, is that asking for money is difficult. It's extremely difficult because we are so passionate about our job that when we get into that part in that conversation, that it feels a little uncomfortable. It's a little bit like doing public speaking. You have those feelings that they come up and you start sweating a little bit and you are a little nervous and you're like, you know, I've been speaking about this super awesome project with you for two hours and then I'm gonna tell you how much I want and maybe you say just no and I don't know what to do and then everything is in a crumble and maybe this is gonna fail and the only certain thing in life is death. You know, this kind of, you know, right? And all starts with money, which is the ultimate goal of our business because yeah, we are super fulfilled by our job but at the end of the day, we have to pay bills. So what starts as a little negotiation where we show the project we want to do with our client then ends in a bitter disaster at the end because we are blabbing and we're not sure about how to ask for money and we really feel bad about it. So today I'm gonna show you three things that you can start immediately to apply to your negotiation when you get to that little uncomfortable talk and you can start today using them. It's gonna take a while to refine them though. So don't expect that tomorrow you're super good at but I'm gonna give you a few advice and with that you can start tomorrow in a matter of a few weeks or months rehearsing that techniques, you're gonna get better. The first one is a principle. Price is not a number, remember that. Price is not a number, price is a conversation. It's a conversation that happens between you and the counterpart. It doesn't matter if you're the client or the provider but imagine you're the provider and you have a client. The price is a conversation between the two of you and it's a conversation not about money. It's a conversation about value. You're having a conversation about the amount of value that you're gonna provide to your client and the compensation you require for that value. When someone shows up and says, I'm so good at things and I'm gonna take this job for $1 as a salary. You can think, well, $1, it's a good deal but what that person is actually telling you is that they're not gonna provide you anything more than a dollar of value in the entire relationship. So what it looks like a good deal, it's not. And this is a principle that took me many years to understand because I was always questioning my own rates. I was like, am I asking too much? Am I asking too low? Every time you get the client to accept your rates then you immediately imagine that maybe there was room for a little more. And every time the client says, it's too much, then you immediately go back and you try to get another deal but maybe then you shoot too low. So you need to embrace the second principle which is the power of no. We tend to seek yes in our negotiation. So we sit with our client and we're super happy if the client goes like this the entire time. Yes, yes, I really like it, yes, yes. And then you say, and this is the amount of money I want. Yes, yes, take the money. So yes is a problematic answer, very problematic. There is a book by Chris Voss, he's an expert negotiator. The book is amazing, you should check it out. And he says that there are three types of yes that you can get. The one you want is called commitment. Someone says yes, they're gonna stick to it, they're gonna deliver, they're gonna pay. Then there is another one which is intention. They say yes because they really believe in that. But then maybe they don't have enough money or maybe the situation changes or maybe they simply cannot pay at the end. And then you have the third one which is a way to dismiss the counterpart. They say yes because they actually want to get out of that meeting. And saying yes is a good way to make it end, right? So we are all looking for a commitment but most of the time we get an intention or we get dismissed by a yes. So the advice is try and seek for a no. Chase the no all the time. And it's a good way to start a conversation. So if price is a conversation, no is the best pickup line you can start with or you can get immediately. So instead of asking questions like, should we do this? Ask questions like, do you think it's a bad idea to do this? So the first answer is no. It sounds a little odd at the very beginning but when people start with no, they give you room for negotiation. If they say yes, then you don't have anything else to say. But if they say no, then you can just stick to your guns and say, well, how can we arrange this? And then the third principle, this is actually a technique. It's a very strong technique, it's called the anchoring. Who is familiar with marketing knows about the power of anchoring. So let's see how we can apply that to freelance negotiation. I'm gonna go with a way to do it. You can take this way and apply it or you can adapt to yourself. But let's start with this. Let's say you want to get a hundred. I'm not gonna say the currency, I just say a hundred. A hundred is your price point. This is what you wanna get at the end. Add 20% and then you get 120. Add another 20% and you get 140, okay? So we have 100 is the money you want. 120 is the first point, 140 is the second point. When you show up, you never ask for 100 and you never ask for 120. You just say something like, to accommodate this project, we can work something out that goes from 140 to 120. You provide a range. Providing that range, you do two things. First of all, you show your flexibility. You show that that project is not set on stone but can adapt to the client. And starting with the ridiculous 140, you place a strong anchor at the very top. That way, the negotiation will only happen between 100 and 120. And in the worst case, you get to the 100 that you want. If you get more, are you gonna celebrate? A little bit, but you need to deliver more. So you need to leave a little room for extra delivery if it happens to be super happy, if it happens to be a super happy ending in the negotiation. So what starts as a yes or no in our head? I'm gonna sit, I'm gonna go with the project, I'm gonna ask for money. I can only get yes or no. Truth is, that is not that simple. It's not just a yes or no. It's a more refined process. Because at the end of the day, negotiation, it's a dance. And you can show up at a club and just do this. But if you take classes, next time you go to the club, even if you're not gonna be the best one, you're gonna be a little better than average. And when everybody gets a little better than average, the entire ecosystem grows. And remember, we're all here to make this ecosystem to grow. If you wanna know more about this, you can follow me at Luca.blog and I'm super happy to take questions.