Fixed-Price Negotiation (Nelson Manning)

Источник: http://www.odeskinsider.com/blog/fixed-price-negotiation/

Recently, I was working with another freelancing service, and I’d just signed up. Therefore, I had no credentials and a rather pathetic profile, so I had to depend on my cover letter to do the talking for me as well as some negotiation skills with the buyer.

Normally, when people think about negotiation, they think about dropping their price to make up for their lack of credentials. That’s just not my style. I see myself as a business providing a valuable, high quality service that customers need, and if they want to purchase that service, they pay the price for it. The reason this system works is because I don’t set insane rates. High, yes. Insane? No.

What happened on this service is that I applied for one job to test it out–writing a half-page sales E-Mail. That comes out to about 30 minutes of work, so I figured up what it would cost at an hourly rate and set the fixed-price rate to $60 USD. The buyer hired me, I spent about 30 minutes writing the E-Mail and sent it to him. After, he gave me a bonus, two 10-star ratings, favorited me, and recommended me to people to the point where I’ve been spammed with job offers since.

I’ll tell you how I got that job when others were willing to do it for a few bucks.

When I applied, I put a lot of effort into my cover letter. I mentioned my previous work through oDesk and my high ratings on here, and I also included links to previous work, but what the buyer really wanted to see for this job was whether I could sell myself to him.

He sent a letter back pretty quickly to say that, effectively, he was interested in hiring me, but as a veteran buyer of that service, he suggests that I see what other people are bidding at the low end and match them to stay competitive. He said someone else bid at an extremely low rate, has experience and reputation on that service, and she was able to do the job as well. He asked for the lowest price I was willing to work for.

To summarize the response I gave: I’m used to working with companies who require high quality services, and my prices match the quality of work. Since my niche is businesses who are willing to pay a healthy sum for good work and he does not need high quality service, then it would make excellent business sense for him to hire the cheaper candidate. I thanked him for his time, wished him luck, and left my bid at $60.

So, I immediately put that job out of mind and continued my applications. A couple minutes later, I get an E-Mail that says something like: Sorry I couldn’t tell you my intentions, but I was just testing the waters. Since you stuck to your guns, I know you’re more than worth the money. If you had budged at all on your price, I would not have hired you. Are you ready to start?

So start I did. That E-Mail went on to make 80 sales in the first five minutes of distribution. Three of those paid for my services.

The main thing I want you to take away from this story is that if you don’t stick to your guns, you’re just another amateur that buyers will take advantage of or not hire. You set a price that is reasonable for your time, and you stick to that price. If you won’t get the job unless you drop your prices, then you’re working for less than you’re worth anyway.

Another important factor is the language of your communication with the buyer while negotiating: be civil and firm. Don’t act as if you’re better than the buyer and that their request is an insult to your abilities. Also, don’t raise your prices when they ask you to lower them because it’s a backhanded insult. Act professionally and remain firm.