Put aside notions of what clients will and will not pay for. It is an exercise in mental masturbation anyway.
Now ask yourself what YOU would pay for each part of your creative business. Do it with percentages. What is your reputation/experience worth? Your ideas? Your production? The end product? Once you have assigned percentages, then ask how your creative business is doing in getting paid specifically, first for the category and second at the percentage you assigned. My guess is there is a Grand Canyon between your answers and how you actually get paid.
If you are not telling your clients what they are paying for, then they will be telling you. When the two do not match (as they will not), your business will be to compromise to meet the desires of your clients. Of course, this makes your creative business beholden to how your clients want their project completed, not how you want it done. Good luck with that.
An example: a designer (you pick – fashion, event, graphic, interior) believes his reputation/experience is worth 15%, his ideas 40%, his ability to execute 25% and to deliver the final product 20%. However, the price is a fee plus the cost of production due a third, a third and a third with cost of production due up front. Oh, and there is a laundry list of items the designer will provide for the money.
Maybe pricing is industry standard or sounds ok. His clients do not know that though. They think it actually means something; that you have thought about it. So lets look closer. You are overpaid by more than double for your reputation/experience, underpaid by 7% for your ideas, overpaid by 8% for your production and not paid at all for your final installation/reveal.
What does it mean? Without belaboring the point, you value your reveal/final product at 20% but get paid nothing. You send the message to your clients, even your employees, vendors and colleagues alike that the end does not matter, when it really does. Is it a wonder when problems arise with final delivery? You can blame your clients, your employees, your dog, but you did it to yourself. You overvalued your reputation and undervalued your final product.
Yes, you have to get paid what you are worth. More important is getting paid when you are worth what you say you are. Alignment of value is everything. There can be no interpretation or acceptance of a client’s determination of value. Is it hard? Sure. If someone wants to pay your price, what does it matter what they think they are paying for? Except creative businesses get paid for the journey, not the destination. The destination is interesting, the journey iconic.
Undertaking the journey requires that your clients, employees and colleagues alike acknowledge that it is your and your creative business’ journey first and foremost. To go along with you, value belongs only where you say it is. And irony of ironies, the more narrowly you define your value, the more you create.
