“Who will ever hire me after this?”
When I started working as a copywriter, I was charging a mighty $15 an hour.
“No matter,” I told myself. “It’s shit money. But I won’t stay here for long.” Because I had a plan. After I completed the first five jobs, I would raise my rate to $20/hr. Then I’d be living large!
So the first five jobs came and went. I raised my rate. Nobody noticed. I still found work, even while charging more for the same.
After five more jobs, I raised my rate again, to $25/hr. This time, I felt a little uneasy. Still, nobody noticed. I found work at the new rate.
Things were going ok for a while…
But then, I did something that felt borderline illegal. 10 new copywriting jobs came and went. And that meant, according to the price increase schedule I’d set for myself, I should go from $25/hr… all the way to $40/hr.
“That’s like an $80k a year salary! For the same work I was doing only two months earlier! At less than 1/3 the rate!”
I was nervous. Almost sick in my stomach. “Who will ever hire me after this?” I thought. I imagined all the copywriting clients of the world folding up their arms… banding together in a picket line, and saying… “Enough is enough! $40 an hour! For clacking on a keyboard! Who do you think you are — Stephen King?”
But no picket line ever formed.
Instead, within the space of about two and a half years, I went from $15/hr to $150/hr.
After every price bump, I still got work. I ended up making more money. And I found better clients than I had been working with until then.
Today, I no longer have an hourly rate. But the point stands:
You have to raise your prices regularly.
And if you’re anything like me… and you’d rather work on developing your skills than on growing your business… then set an unavoidable price increase schedule for yourself. And then stick to it, without thinking, delaying, or wavering.
Because odds are there will never be a good moment, a moment where you feel worthy of getting paid more.
Of course, maybe this is not relevant to you.
Maybe you’re ready to get paid as much as you can, as soon as you can, and you have no mental blockages about that.
But if you are a little skill squirrel, the way that I am, then set a schedule for yourself. It worked great for me. And it continues to work great.
And on that note, I would like to bring the conversation gently to my Copy Riddles program… which is open for enrollment, at the current price, until this Sunday.
This is the third time I’m running this program.
Each time I’ve relaunched it so far, the price has gone up.
That’s because I have a simple strategy. “Did I make more money than last time?” Then up goes the price.
And since I made more money this time than last time, the price of Copy Riddles will go up again, the next time I run it, some time in early 2022.
I’ve got a feeling it will be worth it at that higher price also, and people will still buy.
In part, because other copywriting courses are still way more expensive, and people are buying those.
In part, based on the feedback I’ve gotten from people who have gone through Copy Riddles, who say it’s full of copywriting aha moments.
In part, because I know first hand the effort and thought I put into creating this program… and because I know I would have gotten value out of Copy Riddles earlier in my copywriting career, or even now, had somebody else thought to create it instead of me.
But none of that is really a proper pitch for Copy Riddles.
For that, check out the link below.
All I really want to say is that, if you’ve ever wanted to buy something, but the price shot up before you got it… leaving you feeling uneasy, or maybe even a little sick in your stomach… well, here’s a chance to save yourself from that feeling in the future.
Assuming that is, that you have interest in joining Copy Riddles. Enrollment closes this Sunday at 12 midnight PST. To grab it at the current price, or for more info: