>>>Hey Michel, how is it going, yeah I know is what I think I deserve, but the thing is after you work with a client for so many years, say 4 or 5, back then you charged say $30/hr but then how much would you jump your rate after 4 years, $60/hr? 70? and then how do you tell him/her?. Their first reaction is to think that you're nuts when you do that, just how do you tell them about the change and what do you do if they reject it, specially when these type of clients have became somewhat friends.
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>>The problem with that is that you have to establish your law at first. Then, you can increase it little by little. I know a few people who faced that situation. In some cases, in order to restart on the right foot, at least on that aspect, they have started on new contracts so it was all new again. When it's for the same client, it is perfectly normal they will react if you come up with a 100% increase.
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>True. When you're talking about started on new contracts, that's exactly the approach that I'm having to do with these people, informing them of my new rate.

I guess the main hook is that if you already learned and helped improved their business they'd be fools to let you go when they would have to hire someone else for about the same price or more, teach them the business all over again, and go thru all the trials and errors they had to go through with the analysis in the first place.
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>Thanks again.

Hi Gil:

PMFJI: I have had your situation a few times in my independent consulting. One client has worked with me for 10 years now, and I had kept the same low rate for several years for them, but higher for new clients. I finally bit the bullet and advised them that I had to bring their rate in line with what I was charging my other clients, and offered to do it in two steps. They were not happy, but were understanding. I also took the precaution of adding a little line on my invoices about 6 months previous to this that showed all hours spent, and all hours billed, and total of all hours on the invoice. I put this next to my rate, and since they have been client so long I often throw in some work for free. Well, when they started looking at the 'effective' billing rate, it didn't look so bad to them either... A little PR/Marketing...

HTH

Rob